Wild Magic

I couldn’t make the torch turn off, no matter how much I willed it, or just yelled at it to turn off.  Obviously it either was only meant to turn on, or I had broke it somehow.  But, i disregarded it’s burning nature as I gathered up as many of these torches as I could, making sure to hold the burning one away from the others, which I held close to my chest.  Making my way back to the large connecting room, I placed the torches in a pile several feet away from my other belongings, couldn’t be too careful with self lighting torches, and I didn’t want them to burn my things.  So, setting these down and still holding the lit one, I examined the other hallways.  The one towards the other end of the room would just go back to that entry way, so I tried to choose between the remaining two hallways on the same wall as the stairway, one on it’s left, the other on it’s right.  Well, thinking to myself, I remembered a little proverb, good adventurers always go left.  So I wandered down the left hall.  And it seemed to go on for quite a ways, then it split in a perfect T intersection.  Down each of these adjacent halls was a rather large ornate looking doors.  Both of them seemed to have been painted, though it had long since faded and I couldn’t make out what would have been on them.  But one seemed like it had been painted blue, while the other had been painted a more pale color, white or gray it seemed, the paint that was still on there told me that much at least.  So, I headed towards the blue doors.  I thought it might be hard to open, but it wasn’t really, a simple push upon them caused it to open inward slowly.  What I found inside, surprised me a bit actually.  It was a bedroom, emphasis on the was.  It seemed like it hadn’t been occupied for quite some time.  And most of everything that would make up a bedroom, such as cabinets, dressers, a vanity even, were all there.  It was all empty though, dresser drawers were strewn open, the cabinet doors stood open revealing the nothing inside.  The vanity was missing all of it’s little drawers and even the large mirror that had once been with it was gone.  As I went into the room to search, the one thing I fixated on was the large bed.  It was bare, and looked dusty and decrepit.  But it was still a bed.  Going over to it, setting my torch on the floor as I did, I looked at it.  Wondering if there was any bugs or anything in it.  Cause I would dearly love to sleep on it, instead of the floor.  So, I squatted down a bit, getting my hands right below the mattress, and after a few seconds of mental preparation, I lifted the bed and flipped it up and off of the little thing it was on.  Oh yeah, did I forget to mention, the bed is round, like a circle.  But, as the thing flipped over and hit the floor, there was nothing underneath it, no scurry of insect or animal fleeing the area.

"Well, looks like I found somewhere new to sleep."

I said to myself as I smiled.  It was nice to have a room.  Maybe coma land would get better after a while?  Who knew.  So I took the mattress and put it back onto the bed frame whatever it’s called.  This room was pretty nice, and I bet I could warm it up with a torch if I kept it closed off.  So that’s what I did.  Putting the other torches into the top drawer of the dresser, then I left the room and shut the door.  I thought about checking out the other room for a moment, but I had priorities, which was basically turning this room into my room.  So, I headed back to fetch my things.  Didn’t take long, hauled all of my stuff to my newly claimed room.  Putting most of my things into the cabinet, except for my solar charger, I put that on the ledge of the only window in the room, it was a fairly standard window, medium size, nice to look out, great view of the darkening sky.  Man was it getting late.  But no matter, I left the charger there for now.  Looking over at the torch I had left on the floor.  It looked to be burning less intensely, it had also done a fairly decent job heating up the room.  Which led me to open the door slightly incase I was getting rid of all the oxygen in the room.  If this place was real, I didn’t want to suffocate here.  Anyways, the torch hadn’t scorched the floor at all, which was cool, but it’s diminishing flame worried me, it would run out soon enough I bet.  So much for magic torch.  Though I did come up with a brilliant idea.  Leaving the room again, I went and collected a lot of pieces of rubble, large stone brick pieces I saw lying around.  I was decently strong, not like super though.  And I brought back enough to form a medium circle, i’d say about, three feet in diameter, maybe two and a half?  I wasn’t good at judging size, or height or length, or anything related to amount really, but it was good enough for what I needed.  Then I went right outside of the front door, collecting as many sticks and branches that were lying about as possible, there were a few dead tree’s that helped contribute too.  But, I brought all the wood I collected and put it into the makeshift fire pit in my room.  Then I put the slowly dying magic torch in the middle, and slowly it began to burn the other pieces of wood.  And soon I had a fire going nicely, sweet.  But as nice as the fire was, I was bone dead tired.  Getting here to begin with had been a nightmare of a trip, and digging around and making this room into my own was also a pain.  Looking back towards the cabinet, I went to it and pulled my coat out of it.  Taking my shoes, and my socks off, oh it felt so good to get those things off.  Letting out an involuntary.

"Ahh."

Sighing as I examined my feet real quick, they looked sore and a bit wrinkled and sweaty from being wrapped up for so long.  But, I didn’t see any blisters or cuts, so that was nice at least.  Anyway, I went and flopped onto the bed, putting my coat over as much of me as I possibly could.  Laying my head against the mattress wasn’t the comfiest thing ever, but it sure as hell beat out sleeping on the ground.  And it wasn’t too long until I had drifted off into a deep slumber.  My eyes fluttered awake as I woke up.  Man, this was way better than sleeping on the ground, this bed was surprisingly comfy.  And it wasn’t that cold either, still fairly warm.  Though the fire was now little more than a pile of embers, and a few bits of branches that hadn’t quite been caught in the flames.  As much as I would have liked to just lay in bed.  I had to get up and go to the bathroom.  So rolling out of bed and getting my feet all gussied up to be walking around.  I made my way outside to take care of that ever present need, heading away from the main entrance of this old place.  Didn’t want to spoil what I was now considering my castle.  So taking a brisk walk around I found a nice tree to soil and went about my business.  And afterwards I noticed something on my way back, berry bushes.  They seemed to be some type of razzberry?  It looked like razzberries, little black things just hanging out.  Though the thought of having something to eat that wasn’t stale-ish Doritos, was awfully tempting, my own paranoid thoughts of disease and parasites kept me from just picking them and sticking them straight into my mouth.  Maybe I could cook them somehow?  Or at least mash em into some kind of paste that I can then boil.  As long as it's cooked I was willing to bet it wouldn’t kill me, at least with fruits.  Also, another concerning, well not that concerning, was the dry rasp in my throat, which usually meant I needed to drink some water instead of the soda I was so used to guzzling.  But the only water was back at that river, and there was no way I would drink that without boiling it first.  With these new thoughts in my head, I went back inside the castle.  Maybe there was more here that I could utilize?