(No goblin. Sorry if I wasn't clear on that
)
Time passes quickly enough in the waiting room. The music is finely played, and carefully measured so as to not interfere with conversation. Servants drop in occasionally with light dishes -- first a breaded and stuffed salmon, then a thick spicy bean and lentil stew, then seasoned ground lamb on flatbread, then a vegetable-laden rice dish topped by a tangy golden sauce... They alternate between meat and meatless, and while each dish seems to follow smartly the previous there is no sense that one is more an entree than another. Rather, it seems to be a meal of endless courses, designed to be stepped into and out of freely, with no beginning or end of its own. Niccolo told of a similar-minded traveling gnomish street theater, once...
After some hours of this, Sir Piersen returns, escorts you deeper into the castle. The men who kept the door follow as well.
You are lead with some haste into a smaller, much more ornately decorated room. Twelve heavily-stuffed red chairs rise up a slight incline, two by two, pointed forward (and at an angle inward, such that they do not obstruct the view of the seats behind them) at a large, heavy curtain, which spans across what would be otherwise called a stage. At the front of the room, stationed to either side of the curtain, are two tall broad-shouldered and well-armored men, faces masked in steel, sashed in finest wine velvet. They hold halberds at a disciplined ready which seems more than ceremonial. On the innermost waist of each are four sheathed, narrow blades of varying length. Once your group has stepped into the room, the two servant-guards who came with you take their places as before, at either side of the doorway. Sir Piersen ushers you forward, encouraging you to fill the frontmost seats first, then work your way back.