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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 1876128" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chapter Forty-nine, “Manuel’s Magnificent Mansion”, January 7th, 1882:At the sound of the knock Manuel smiles and says, "Ah, my golden eagle has returned from her search" prior to going to the door and opening it to let Ruby back into the room. Ruby steps in and immediately notices the stone archway over the oak door that wasn't there before. "Thanks..." Her voice trails off, as her eyes grow wide at the sight of the huge doorway. "Oh my..." Ruby smiles at Kate. "I guess you found your books!" It was a moment before Kate answered. "What? Oh, no, I didn't. But that is where they are." Gonzales replies "We were just waiting for your return before entering." He approaches the door and makes a quick hand gesture while saying the words "Aloha Ahiahi". He then places his hand on the orb and turns it. The door opens out into another chamber. "Please follow me" he states. It only took a moment for Kate's natural curiosity to overcome her melancholy. "Of course," she smiled toward Ruby and headed into the room.Oh Kate how exciting!" Ruby takes her hand and they follow the old man. She leans over to Sonoma and whispers, "Have you been in here before? Oh and I think Nanuet is waiting for you downstairs. He would like to talk to you I think." She gives Sonoma a knowing smile. Sonoma nods yes to Ruby's question and does not show any response to the second part of her comment. Ruby and Katherine are amazed with what they see before them. They enter a great hall, forty feet wide and sixty feet long with an arched ceiling nearly fifty feet high in the center. The room is lit by magical light. The walls and floor are all made of the finest marble stone while the beams and ceiling are made of the same sturdy oak as the door. Each side wall has a pair of stone archways with wooden doors similar to the one that they entered from. At the far end of the room is an elaborate fountain made of the same marble. The center of the fountain has a statue of a naked female wood elf holding a pitcher, from which the water flows out and down. The simple furnishings of the room do not match the splendor of the building, consisting of a rickety old wooden table and a half dozen unmatched cheaply made chairs.They stepped into a place that Kate would not have imagined in her wildest dreams. She had seen fine homes, huge buildings, but they didn't compare to this. Kate turned as she walked, trying to take it all in at once. Finally she looked at the old man. "You show a great deal of trust in us to show us this," she said sincerely. "Thank you."  And soon after, because her curiosity often came over her, "Where is this place? Or is that even the right question?"He replies "You are indeed intelligent to have deduced this. The location of this castle is actually on another plane of existence. As for a level of trust, what is there not to trust? Most of what you see is a permanent part of the structure. Nothing in this place can be taken from it except for things brought into it from the outside. And while I have showed you how to enter this place there is far more that I have not shown to you, so the secrets of this castle are still safe with me. I will tell you this though, the magic is in the orb itself, which is how I was able to transport the doorway from Texas to here. The orb has cast upon it a powerful spell, Merlin's Magnificent Mansion, which is the building you see before you."Kate says it is indeed magnificent. And fascinating." She walked over to Manuel Gonzales and took his hand. "I wish to learn whatever you will teach me, and probably more. It's as if there is a whole other world I never suspected." Ruby is speechless as she looks around. The old man was right when he said he was a powerful wizard. Finally, with a gulp, "Did you say another plane of existence?"  She smiled over to Ruby. "And yes, I'd like to understand what you mean by another plane of existence as well."He says "It's too early in all of your training for you to fully comprehend, but essentially this castle exists somewhere other than earth itself, which is why it could be reached just as easily from Arizona as Texas. No matter where the orb is the door can be created to access the building. There are four other rooms off from this one. Each of them is also large, approximately half the size of this room, but with a lower ceiling. One is my personal bedchamber, another is my study, the third is my magic room and the last is the library. The library was rather sparse up until today with but a few dozen volumes. Now almost half of the bookcases are filled." "And the books we found? Were they anything special? I couldn't really tell..." Ruby gets embarrassed and flushed.  Kate notices her discomfort and says “I couldn't either, Ruby dear. The volumes in English were histories. I didn't get to look at many of the French volumes. The other languages I can't read."Manuel replies "A bit early to tell, I've barely had a chance to check them out. I should be able to read all of them though, each is in a language I am proficient in. I found at least one with magical script, there may be more." "That's a great many languages to know," Kate said surprised. "Perhaps you could teach me some of them. And speaking of teaching, I believe we still have some of our hour left...."Manuel takes them into his magic room. It is thirty by forty feet with a twenty foot high ceiling. Like the main room, the furnishings are sparse and consist of old wooden tables and chairs that are close to falling apart.  Three tables are filled with glass vials and beakers with various colored liquids. Two more tables are covered with books and scrolls. The far wall has built-in marble bookcases, most of which have various plants and jars stacked upon them. He brings them over to a corner of the room where he has set three chairs and asks them to sit. He then spends the next half-hour teaching them the spell "Prestidigitation". He explains that this is traditionally one of the first spells taught to novice spellcasters. It essentially enables the person to perform simple magical effects for an hour. The spell cannot cause physical harm to an individual and that any effects of the spell will only last for an hour.  He then has Katherine practice the spell.Katherine nodded and focused her mind. The gestures were not complicated, and she thought she had the pronunciations of the words correct. 'Be confident," she thought to herself, 'it will work.'   The words rolled off her tongue as if they were the most natural things to say. She didn't shout, but each word was carefully enunciated and her gestures flowed from one to the next. After she completed the required words and movements she focused her will on creating a glowing ball of blue light above her hand.Ruby watches as the old elf shows them the spell. She is quite astonished to realize that she can already do the same things the spell can do.   She says, "How can I do these things, Mr. Gonzales? I've never studied a spell before?" "Oh, you've studied", he replies, "You are a living study of human nature. An imaginative and open mindset is the secret to learning magic, and you already have that."  With this he concludes the lesson and suggests that they return to their friends, adding "And I believe I heard mention that somebody is waiting to talk to you Sonoma." Ruby giggles at mention of this. "Sonoma, you must be nice to him, he is trying very hard!"  At approximately 7:15 PM the three women exit the inter-dimensional castle and then the old wood elf's hotel room.While Jake and Nanuet are sitting there a pair of men enter the building, namely Little Joe and Hoss Cartwright. They spot the two and head over to the table. "I'm glad we found you here," Joe says. "Greetings Little Joe, Hoss. Join us in a drink?"  "Glad too." Joe says. Pleasantries are exchanged and Hoss makes a short joke at Nanuet's expense about his 'clean and fresh' appearance. Jake says "So, we didn't expect to see you two back in town so soon. Why were you looking for us?" Joe replies, "We didn't expect to be back here now either. We managed to get the cattle to the Lazy S Ranch around three hours ago. That's where we're temporarily staying. We weren't there but ten minutes when this annoying halfling newspaperman shows up at the ranch and wants to ask us questions. Seems he was sharing a stagecoach ride from Promise City to Tombstone along with the Sheriff's Deputy that our brother Adam had talked to. The deputy mentioned where we were staying and the halfling had the stage drop him off there as it was riding bye. It only took a few minutes of listening to the halfling for us to realize that the deputy assumed it was just us who were involved with shutting down the rustling operation. So before we went and mentioned your involvement we thought it best to check first with you. We're from out of the Territory, but you guys live around here, so we wouldn't want you to get in trouble for helping us out. The ranch owner, Emery Shaw, kept the little man occupied while Hoss and I rode off to come here." "Well, thanks for asking" Jake chimes in before Nanuet can say anything, "actually I would rather have my name left out. And of course it would be safer for the ladies that way."  Nanuet listens to Jake then says "I have to agree, it is safer for all of us that way. And on that other note, I get your gist about not letting the whole cat out of the bag."Little Joe then asks "So, what is there to do in this town? Looks like we'll be staying here for a couple of nights. Adam got us rooms over at the Promise City Hotel and Cafe. I'd have preferred the Palace Saloon, but he's an old married man now so I guess he needs somewhere quieter."   Nanuet says, "Well the ladies and Jake work over at the Lone Star saloon. Ruby puts on quite a show I hear and Jake plays cards. I have to take care of something right after dinner so I won't be there tonight. Maybe you want to head over there with them?"The girls head downstairs where they find Nanuet, Jake, Hoss and Little Joe sitting around the table drinking and playing cards.  Ruby exclaims, "My, my, what are you two doing here? Well, never mind you are here and we are due for dinner at the Lone Star. You are more than welcome to join us. I'm sure you'll enjoy yourselves there." Ruby turns to Jake. "It has been a while since I played in a serious card game. I'm afraid I might be getting rusty. If you have an empty spot when I'm on break do you mind if I join in?""Well it is a serious card game, at least to the patrons who join. You are welcome as far as I am concerned, but if you prove to be too much of a distraction for the other gamblers I may have to ask you to excuse yourself. Give me 5 minutes to change and we can go over." Good to his word Jake is back with a nicely pressed tailored shirt and goes with them all to the Lone Star.Kate excused herself from downstairs and ran back up to her room to change her dress. She had decided on yellow this evening. After her bath and the lesson she felt very clean and light, and the darkly colored dress she had worn that afternoon just wouldn't do.   The yellow had a low, square neckline that gave the illusion of being revealing without actually being so. The bustle was of puffed, layered folds, but did not have a train to drag behind and get caught. The front was very flat, with just a drape of fabric under the waist for decoration. Most importantly, she fastened the magical pillow around her waist and turned the gem. Finally, Kate brushed her hair and tied a yellow ribbon around her head to hold it back from her face. It was still a bit damp, and she didn't like to put it up wet. If she was lucky, she had imagined all the business with Tom Whipple. Even if she had not, she would not let fear of him dictate her dress. She dreaded telling Maggie they would not be taking the rooms more. Kate suspected that Maggie was rather lonely, and the only family she had were those in her employ. Kate sighed and went back downstairs to the others.   "I'm sorry for the delay. Are you all ready to go?"Hoss says that he'll head back to the Promise City Hotel and Cafe to get Adam and meet up with the others. Little Joe comments about how beautiful both Ruby and Katherine look. At approximately 7:30 PM. The four head off to the Lone Star leaving Sonoma and Nanuet back at the El Parador. Nanuet waits until the others head off to the Lone Star before getting out of his seat. He slowly approaches Sonoma as she is busy straightening chairs and tables. "Hello Sonoma, you... well... uh you look very nice today, er I mean tonight. I saw these and I wanted to bring them here for you."  Nanuet holds a large bouquet of flowers in outstretched hands that are slightly shaking.  "I thought you might like them, these ones here are especially rare." he says pointing to one of the types of flowers.  She replies, “Why thank you. It's not often that someone I've known for a little over a day gives me flowers.”  Sonoma smiles sweetly at Nanuet and places the flowers in a brown ceramic pitcher behind the bar.  “I think your friends all went out to have some supper before Ruby performs tonight.”  Nanuet relaxed a little, but he still couldn't figure what to do with his hands. First on his hips, then his sides and finally clasped behind him. "Yes, I know they went out. I will not be joining them. I will just take my evening meal here tonight and then retire back to the loft if you don't mind. Maybe sometime when you have a chance I can show you were I found those rare flowers?"Sonoma looks like she is about to reply to Nanuet's invitation when she gets called away. "Have to get back to work." she says with a polite smile.  Nanuet nods and says "OK, then you can get me some supper when you have a chance. I'll just be sitting over here.  Nanuet watched Sonoma scuttle away and tried to turn his mind to what was in store for him after his evening meal. He tried to clear his mind and heart to prepare himself for the nights events.</blockquote>

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