Lantern Light

Blake pushed through the dusty recesses of her manor home. There were a lot of abandoned wings here in the house… The family had been much larger at one point, but with her parents, they’d only had five children, and several of those kids had moved away. Her younger siblings still lived with them, of course, too young to strike out on their own. Usually, the Belladonna family stuck close to home and found work within Elodria. However, her older siblings had preferred the idea of going out on their own. So the wings of the house that would normally be for the elder children to raise their own families in lay dormant and empty. Blake would have to have her own children one day…but not soon. She opened a door and found what appeared to be an old storeroom. Dust swirled about her feet, the illuminator casting dancing shadows on the walls. She had never been this deep in the house before and she was pretty certain this old corridor hadn’t seen any light for over a century. There were a lot of things in here that she had no idea what they were. However, a large stack of rectangular objects lay in one corner. She went over to the haphazard pile and sat her illuminator down on a decrepit old bookcase. She examined the strange objects in the light of her illuminator. Whatwerethese things? They had glass on all sides, though they were caked thoroughly with decades of dust. One side of the object opened and it looked like a tall, thin candle could be put inside. Huh… She wondered what these were. She picked up the illuminator and went back to the dining hall. Weiss sat at the table and looked up. “What’s up, Blake?” “Would you have any idea what this is?” Blake asked, holding out the object. “Oh, it looks like an old lantern… Where did you find this? They haven’t been used in over two hundred years, not since we figured out how to make illuminators.” “What were lanterns for?” Blake sat down, completely intrigued. They were the precursors to illuminators? How fascinating. “Well, before illuminators, people put candles in them and hung them up. Though some of the more well-off families used whale oil. These are old candle lanterns, though. Could you get me a big bowl of water and some towels?” Blake nodded at Weiss’ words and did just that. Weiss set about putting some elbow grease into cleaning it and, after quite a while, the glass glittered as if brand new. “Wow… Intriguing. It’s pretty.” “The glass couldn’t have been cheap back when these were made… I can only imagine how much this cost to make.” Blake nodded. “Yeah, seriously… There was a huge pile of them back in the room. There were dozens.” “Must’ve been put in a storeroom when illuminators became widely available.” “Yeah, makes sense.” Blake shrugged. Honestly, she was an Echo Keeper… Her Murmurean would probably be able to pull some information out of the object. She was definitely excited. She had never seen anything like this before and learning about things always excited her. But itwasgetting late, so she ought to head to bed. “Thanks, Weiss.” Weiss smiled. “No problem, Blake.” Blake waved to Weiss and picked up the lantern, heading to her bedroom. Interesting. How very interesting.