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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1767789" data-attributes="member: 2292">Hop squints at the narrow passage, then looks at his own ample frame.  Exploration will require a lot of tight squeezes and held breath.  “Best you be lookin’ first,” he suggests, ushering Tavoritch forward.  “Let us know if there be much point in goin’ in.  I ain’t crawling through that kind of dust if it’s just a wine-cellar.”Grroulth voices his agreement with the plan, no doubt comparing his own height with the passages low ceiling, and Tavoritch disappears into the gloom with a shrug.  He returns within a matter of seconds.“Ladders,” he announces.“You might want to be givin’ us a little more to go on than that,” Hop says.“Ladders up and down.”“Right.”There is a pause while Hop looks at the dust coating Tavoritch’s broad shoulders.“At least you’ll have cleared out all the cobwebs at chest height,” the brewer sights.  “Anyone object to going up first?”“As long as you’re last on the ladder,” Tavoritch says.  He offers a smile as wide as Hop’s belly.  “We are not wanting you to fall on us, yes?”***The ladder leading up deposits them in the Inn’s attic, a place filled to the brim with boxes, chests and the musty smell of long-forgotten belongings.  Everyone is searching through the contents of the closest box when Hop eventually emerges, lungs working like a bellows.  He narrowly ducks a pair of curved horns, carelessly tossed over Evanna’s shoulder.“Watch where you be throwin’ that,” he says.  He mops his face with a kerchief, then picks up the accidental projectiles.“Minataur horns,” he says after a few moments.  “How would you know?” Evanna asks.  She turns away from the box she’s searching, suddenly interested in what was previously discarded.  “Couldn’t they just be bull horns?”“My da told me how to tell the difference,” Hop says.  “The curve of the horn is different – something to do with the way minataurs walk around and charge.”“He’s right,” Grroulth says.  “I’ve seen them back home, in the lands of the bull-heads.”Evanna turns back to the box, then pulls free another pair of horns.  These also curve, but their points are sharper and their appearance is strangely stunted despite their three-foot  length.“What about these?” she asks.“Might be a boar,” Hop says.  He scratches at one ear with a thick finger.  “Bigger than most I’ve seen though.”“Razor-boar,” Tavoritch says sagely.  “Twice the height of a man, tusks long enough to gut a horse and kill a man.”Everyone looks at him.“We used to hunt them,” he says.  “Back home.”“Cheerful hobby,” Grroulth mutters. ”There’s a lot of this stuff here – trophies and such.  Do we want to keep checking them or…”“Down,” Hop says.  “If we’re ownin’ everythin’, we’ll be havin’ more than enough time to searching this place.”This time, the hulking brewer is the first to go down the ladder.  “What I don’t understand,” he says, his balding pate lowering itself into the darkness, “is why anyone would be buildin’ a secret passage into an attic…”</blockquote>

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