Eiv14&16 - Castles Made of Sand

"As you wish," Eivor replies, "though if I'm going to spend any time here I'll need to do more than just clean the rings. If you can find food so easily, perhaps you can find us some ale while you're at it?"

She's only half-joking, having worked up something of a thirst.
"I'll also need to check on that horse. Anything here I shouldn't be cleaning, moving or polishing? Any rooms you want left?"

"Meantime, if you need me just call. I won't be far away," Eivor replies.

She works her way down to the stable and renews her acquaintance with the horse, who she assumes is Edmund's mount, Pinewer. A faithful fellow, she always found him easier to get on with than Edmund. She brushes him down, fusses over him a bit and sees to his tack before moving out to a point where she has a good view of the whole of the observatory. Over the following days she will begin work on a trump of the place, gradually building up layers of detail and testing its progress and power. She also sketches what she saw of the Horns of Anubis with as much detail as she can remember before stowing it away for future use.

In between, she will find herself a comfortable corner to spread her bedroll for resting and test her ability to gather supplies using the Pattern without straying from the building. In between checking on the Caretaker she does her best to record his observations, listing the places of interest and what he thinks is important about them, or what has changed. The man seemed to tire or lose patience easily so didn't press him too much, busying herself cleaning the place, repairing the roof, packaging up the portraits and clearing the rubbish.

It looked like she might be here a while, but she didn't mind a bit of honest work.

"Catalogue everything, have proper storage containers for the rings so they can be ranked," Eivor suggests. "That way you won't have to go hunting for things. The other place you're looking for, does it have a particular symbol? Or are there other places we need to find first?"

Irrespective of his answer, she is attempting to catalogue the rings anyway; it seems the larger ones are more important so she attempts to stack them by size. Once given a basic clean to display the symbols on each ring, she returns to the ones the Caretaker indicated were the more significant and burnishes them further with beeswax. How highly polished the ring is would substitute for cataloguing in the short term.

"Don't worry, we can fix this," Eivor reassures him. She hunts around for something resembling a tower and presents the options to see if the caretaker recognises any of them.

"Yes, it is. But who would make such a thing? It doesn't make sense," Eivor replies. "That this construction has survived at all is impressive, though. Perhaps the architect is still looking after it, even after all this time."

"Then the fact it hasn't gone boom is significant," Eivor notes. "Any clue as to which of the kids might be in charge, or will it be too dangerous to keep looking? I must say, there's so much going on here I could watch it for some time."

"Do you have a name for this place?"

"This might be the keep Julia was referring to," Eivor replies, "though there's no way of telling. I don't know what their flags look like, though there must be someone in the family who does." Her thoughts immediately fly to the little nun Dio. Funny she should turn up now.

"Perhaps we should move on, before our scrutiny is observed. We can always come back to it."