This morning we all woke up from a knock at the door. A few moments later the door was unlocked and opened. Miss Tessa stuck her head inside. ``Rise and shine! I want breakfast ready soon!'' she called and closed the door again.

Yawning we peeled ourselves out of our sheets. Looking out the window it was still dark outside. We dressed up as quickly as we could. Then we were on our way to the kitchen.

In the kitchen was a small table which was supposed to be used by the staff. We set the table in a trance. Miss Tessa had prepared something to eat and of course we were chided because setting the table half asleep was prone to causing mistakes. After we had finished Miss Tessa gave us directions for the day.

``I'll be busy most of the day, restocking the carriage for the journey ahead.'' she explained.

``Milly. You will be in charge of the maids while I'm gone!'' she announced. Milly blushed but seemed to be thrilled.

``James is going to want something to eat over the day. See to his needs. He deserves a bit leisure time after sitting all the time on the carriage box. Obviously you have to keep clean the house.'' she concluded.

Then she got up and showed us a small room where lines with different bells at the end came down from pipes in the ceiling.

``These bells ring when someone pulls a cord in the respective room. There has always to be someone monitoring them, at least when there is someone in the house. This is Erlaucht's room. This is the sitting room. And this is the hall. That one is my room by the way. All others shouldn't go off. Inform James or Erlaucht if that happens.'' she explained. ``Yes, Miss Tessa!'' we said nodding.

``The next is the door. You should be able hear the door in the basement. At any time someone must to be able to answer the door!'' she explained next.

``One of you should be the appointed chambermaid for Erlaucht for the day. You may take turns every day.'' she told us next.

``Knock at the door, wait for him to call you in, curtsy and kindly ask what he wants. You know the drill!'' she repeated. She already told us about this a few days ago.

``Should I hear complaints later `` she didn't finish the sentence frowning.

``From time to time there may be people delivering goods. Send them to James and help him packing!'' she added.

We looked at each other. ``I take care of it, Miss Tessa!'' Milly piped up.

Miss Tessa the got up and walked out the door. ``Lilly, you have chamber service. Tilly, watch the door.'' Milly commanded. Tilly and I looked at each other. ``Yes, Miss Milly!'' we piped out in unison. Milly was blushing while Miss Tessa looked back, clearly amused, as she left the room.

I settled down in the kitchen, after clearing the table. Tilly went to to the hall. Milly checked the corridors and the sitting room and found a slightly dusty dining room! She left with Tilly for an hour or two while I was waiting for the bells. I set the table for James in the time. There also a kettle with boiling water on the stove. I added a log from the stack beside the stove once in while. Then someone knocked at the door! A minute later Tilly came in with James and I served him breakfast.

He left after he had finished lunch. ``I'll be at the stables.'' he informed me as he left.

Soon after that Milly came back to the kitchen. I had just cleared the table and was cleaning the dishes.

``Finished the dining room!'' she exclaimed. I nodded.

``We hear the door clearly from the kitchen.'' I said. ``We can sit here together as well.'' I continued.

``I don't know how loud the bells are though. Maybe chattering is not the best idea'' Milly objected.

``Let's wait for the first ring'' I proposed.

After a while I heard a bell ringing from the small room. I went over and saw the bell of Erlaucht swinging.

``I'll be on my way!'' I informed Milly.

``Go ahead. I take over here.'' she replied.

I climbed the stairs and went to the masters bedroom. After taking a deep breath I knocked at the door, being only a bit nervous. I blushed.

``Come In!'' I heard a muted deep male voice from within. I opened the door. Erlaucht sat at the desk. I curtsied.

``What can I do for you, Erlaucht?'' I asked politely.

``Make me some breakfast and serve it here. I don't mind what it is, just don't dawdle.'' he said, turning his head in my direction. Then he nodded. I knew this was a sign to leave. ``Of course, Erlaucht!'' I replied. With another curtsy I left the room closing the door quietly behind me. Quickly I ran down to the kitchen.

``We need a breakfast for Erlaucht!'' I explained while entering the kitchen. ``He said he don't mind what it is.'' I added.

After a quick discussion and looking up our options we made some scrambled eggs with bacon. We added some bread and ham to the mix and a pot of tea and an appropriate selection of cutlery. We called in Tilly for checking. After putting it all on a tray, I carefully returned to the masters bedroom. How to knock the door while carrying a tray? I decided to knock with the tip of my shoe. I was called in. I pushed down the handle with my elbow while carefully monitoring the tray. It took some time, but finally I was in the room. After a moment I remembered to curtsy. ``Your breakfast, Erlaucht!'' I announced.

He scooped away some papers laying in front of him putting them in a neat stack on the side. I set the tray down, set his table and picked up my tray again. ``Do you have further wishes, Erlaucht?'' I asked with a curtsy. He waved me to leave and thus I quietly left the room again for the kitchen.

An hour later I was called again. Armed with a tray I collected the remains of the breakfast, painstakingly minding the proper etiquette.

``I'm going to eat out of house. Probably I will be back late'' he informed while was leaving his room. ``Very well, Erlaucht. I'm going to inform Miss Tessa later.'' I closed the door and went back to the kitchen.

Later we heard Erlaucht coming down the stairs. Tilly ran quickly to the door to let him out.

About an hour later we had lunch with James. Milly sent me to get James. I found him resting on a bank beside the stables. We had lunch together. James left for the stables again. After finishing the lunch chores we decided to sit in the kitchen. Spread over the afternoon people with carts arrived to deliver various goods. We helped James to stow them in the carriage, discovering a few new flaps.

We helped James feeding the horses, too. As long as we could keep an eye on arrivals, all was well. The mansion had a small backyard with a decorative garden, too.

Later in the afternoon James told us that he would keep an eye on the suppliers. ``All the larger deliveries were done.'' he declared. ``Enjoy yourselves!'' he added.

We swept the mansion first. The cellar was dark and mostly empty. A few boards were lined up at the walls. We had to clean our shoes after the excursion.

We knew the two main floors of the mansion already. Milly insisted on checking all accessible rooms for spots to clean. I didn't mind. Miss Tessa would make us clean the spots we found later on nonetheless.

Behind a small door on the first floor we found a ladder up to the attic. We decided to have a short look and climbed up. ``Mind your outfit!'' Milly piped up.

The attic was mostly empty save for a few chests at one of the garble walls. They were all empty. But one of them seemed to have a suspiciously thick bottom. It was somewhat hidden by embellishments that suggested the chest had small stumps, but as I lifted the chest, the center reached nearly the ground.

``Look, maybe it has a secret compartment!'' I exclaimed.

As we squatted around the chest we cleaned the bottom inside the chest a bit and found thin gaps just over the thicker part of the bottom.

``But how can it be opened?'' Tilly mused.

``Let's turn the chest on the side. Maybe it just falls out!'' I proposed. We tried, but in vain.

Milly was closely examining the bottom of the chest thereafter.

``I got it!'' she whispered excitedly as the suspicious bottom part popped up a bit.

Carefully we opened pulled up the wooden plank while tilting the chest back to normal.

There was a framed picture in it, totally covered in dust. Since we were well equipped we made short work of the dust. The picture showed a gigantic purple dragon beside a city. He far was taller as the largest building. A blazing violet flaming blaze covered half to the city. All oft the covered houses were burning.

``It's a high quality oil painting!'' Tilly exclaimed.

``Look. The frame has some inlaid gems!'' Milly pointed out.

Suddenly the gems started glowing in an intense violet light! I was dazzled for a few moments, then a high pitched squeal escaped my mouth while my body was tingling all over. I heard the others squealing, too. As my vision returned the gems had crumbled to dust.

We looked at each other for a long moment, covering our mouths with the hands.

``We should put it back!'' Milly proposed. ``It's not ours anyway and I doubt someone will notice.'' she added.

``Yeah! And we found a really nasty looking spider in a corner!'' I added while putting back the picture in the chest.

Tilly reinserted the false bottom properly before we closed the chest again.

After that we left the attic quickly. We went outside while removing the dust from our clothes.

On the first floor we run in James. ``A large icky spider!'' Milly exclaimed. I rolled my eyes.

``Really large!'' I added holding my thumb and my index finger a finger wide apart.

James just laughed and left for the stables again.

``Let's check out the backyard.'' I proposed.

The other two nodded. We found a small gazebo with a bench to hang out.

``That was strange!'' Milly groaned.

``Whatever happened happened.'' I said. ``Let's shelve this for later. Maybe.''

``We should talk about the things Miss Tessa told us about the marks.'' Milly proposed.

``Yeah. Those things are creepy. We have to get rid of them before we try anything.'' I stated.

``It's even more creepy that the summoners may be able to track us anyway. That could be a problem later.'' Tilly added.

``Settling down seems to be a bad decision in the long run.'' I agreed. ``We may even have to flee with the marks in place.''

``Only when it's clear we're found out.'' Milly objected

``It may be too late.'' I argued. ``But people with the ring may find us with ease anyway, we would to get rid of it somehow.''

``It's a mess!'' Tilly groaned.

``At the moment we're moving anyway. And I think that Miss Tessa and Erlaucht will have an eye on that, too. While not knowing why, they seem to have a reason to keep us away from them.'' I explained

``We should at least wait until we speak the Imperial fluently.'' Milly argued.

``And melee training wouldn't hurt as well. Discussing with bandits like the last one seems to be futile.'' I added.

``And maybe able to use a bit magic is a perk, too. Even if it's supposed to be pathetic.'' Tilly added.

``At least it would help to understand magic a bit, regardless if we could use it or not. Our enemies have it, thus we should at least know their capabilities.'' I requested.

``Then we go ahead as planned for now? I seems the new information isn't that important for the near future.'' Milly concluded.

Tilly and I nodded. We chattered a bit about the things we saw in the backyard, deciding to ask Miss Tessa about the various plants.

As dinner time came closer we relocated to the kitchen. Milly went out to ask James for anything unusual happened and to inform him on the approaching dinner.

We had dinner without Miss Tessa and after we were done with the chores we cleaned up the kitchen and removed some stains in the hall.

After that we sat around the kitchen table, chatting until Miss Tessa came home.

We informed her about all noteworthy that happened, excluding our incident in the attic, of course.

``Tomorrow is Happy Harvest. After breakfast you're free to do as you please. We have lunch and dinner at the festival. Since I can easily track you by your marks I'm willing to give you a enough money for the meals and some more and let you set out on your own. I want you to be home when it's dark!'' she announced.

We chattered with Miss Tessa for a while thereafter. She promised us a walk through the garden tomorrow morning. Eventually she sent us to our room.

After we got ready for the night we chattered a bit laying in bed for while and finally fell asleep.