The townhouse

Table of Contents

I'm finally back to Sérannie!!! But I thought I'd continue the habit of writing those journal entries. They help me order my thoughts and ask the right kind of questions. So here is the place where I'm going to be living in the future, I guess. The house of my new ally, Senator Naline. I could certainly have done worse.

— Isabelle

Isabelle

Isabelle is a young French woman who was brought through a magical portal to Sérannie, hit with translation magic, and told to help the Séranniens beat their Dark Lord. Only, once the questing party triumphed, she was forced back to the normal world. She is rather bitter about that.

While looking for a way to go back, she writes journal entries about her time in Sérannie to not forget what happened and to prepare for her return, illustrating her notebook by sticking postits with emojis scribbles, drawing, or printing photos.

The house

This house is the property of House of Naline, a very prominent noble family. It is the main residence of Senator Naline, the current leader of the senate, and is located in the capital city of Sérannie, in the patriarchate district.
Like all rich Sérannian houses, it is made of white, blue, and green marbles on the exposed bits and probably some limestones and travestines below that. The house is enormous, spread over five floors, and it even has a garden despite the extremely high price of land inside the city walls. It was built to be big enough to house the main branch of the Naline family, their dependants, and their servants.
However, right now Senator Naline is the only main resident from the family. The other inhabitants are his secretary, Armantine, a dozen guards, and triple that number of servants—with the chief of staff, Glaric. This is not a lot, for someone who pretends to rival the king...

There are a lot of rumours surrounding Senator Naline, since it's really unusual for such a powerful family to be so limited in numbers. For sure, he has to marry soon to repopulate his House.

Now that I've been given a tour of the house, I can describe it in more details—or at least the rooms that I've been shown.

City of Sérannie

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Underground

The right wing is where the servants carry out their jobs—the kitchen, the laundry room, etc. The left wing is where the two rituals rooms are located, as well as a few workshops where magical artefacts are made, and of course as all manors worthy of the name are required to have, prison cells and torture chambers.

Contrary to what I unconsciously expected, the torture chambers are wide and well lit, with the floor and walls made of a clear white stone that should not be able to hide blood and dirt and yet that looks particularly clean. A runic diagram is painted on the ground. Once a prisoner is placed inside, light emanates upwards from it, forming a cylinder encapsulating the prisoner and isolating them physically and sensorially from the outside.

Torture instruments by Parker_West

The ritual rooms are both top-of-the-art. One of them has a floor made with one enormous slab of stone perfectly smooth, while the other has some geometric diagram carved into it to form grooves that can be filled with some liquid. Now that I finally had the occasion to see more sophisticated rituals and what they entail, I don't want to get back in any of those rooms...

The worshops are pretty simple, all with shelves, cupboards, and working benches, ready to be used. However, I've glimpsed a few unusual tools that look like they would be fun to test. I've never had my own workshop before, but I look forward to being able to create more sophisticated artefacts thanks to it!

Ground floor

The main entrance to the manor opens in a big hall, with a massive staircase at the back, and on the left and right corridors leading to each wing. The left wing is filled with offices—belonging to the lord, the lady, the secretary, and the chief of staff—storage rooms, and a duelling room. The right wing is the public section of the manor, with the main drawing room, the dining room, and the ballroom.

The entrance hall and the corridors are brightly light, with mage lights fixed at each corner of the ceiling and in different position in the middle of it, forming colourful patterns of lights. The walls are painted a light cream colour, and hanged around the rooms are paintings in the latest Sérannian style—ultra realistic, favouring two or three colours per painting, here blues and greens, and whose subject have the disconcerting quality of appearing to perceive their observers and to peer back at them. In addition, there are magical statues everywhere, both serving as impressive decoration and a ready defence against any attack.
I'm reluctant to admit it, but the manor is really awe-inspiring, both because of its beauty and elegance and because of the richness and power it exudes.

The drawing room is filled with several sofas and chairs, all embroidered with pretty scenes with birds and flowers. All nice enough but pretty classic.
The dining room is an enormous room with a long table spreading at the back of the room, the lord of the house sitting right in the middle, facing the entrance. This leaves ample space for all the clients to come pay homage to their patron every day during breakfast in a big, endless procession.

Naline townhouse by AmélieIS, with a painting from Edward Poynter

First floor

The right wing is filled with guest bedrooms. Most of the rooms there are rather small and have to share a bathroom, but I can't say a lot more. I barely had any look around there since this place is apparently barely used nowadays, with the exception of Armantine permanently living there, reinforcing my belief that he is the offspring of a noble family and not a mere servant.

The left wing is occupied by a massive library. You might think it's a bit surprising that noble families would bother collecting books when they already have their own semi-public library, but their private one is very different.
While they do indeed keep some of the same books contained histories, philosophical discourses, and stories, most of the books filling their shelves are in fact private notes and journals from their family containing magical secrets and their own advancement in the arts. And probably quite a few forbidden fields of magic as well. And now all of that is within my grasp...

The Naline library by Muhammed Abiodun on Unsplash

Second floor

The left wing is filled with the lord and lady's suites, while the right wing contains suites for their children and dependants—all of it is, of course, currently empty.
The doors to the lord and lady's suites are located side by side. Each pair of double doors open to drawing rooms that have a communicating door between them. The drawing rooms also open onto the bedrooms, which both lead to a shared bathroom. Being able to have such privacy is really extremely nice in a country that doesn't value it as much as we do in the normal world.

The lady's drawing room is elegant, painted with a lavender theme and furnished in a similar style to the public drawing room. It has a sofa and a small round dining table on one side of the room. While breakfast is a big public show, some lunch and almost all dinners are taken in private in the drawing rooms, which is great for relaxing at the end of the day.

The lady's bedroom is occupied by a big double bed, a wardrobe, dressers, a vanity table, and a screen behind which to hide while getting dressed in the presence of servants or—magic forbid—visitors paying their court. That screen is beautiful, with a stylised trim full of painted blue flower.

The bathroom is tiled, contrary to the rest of the house which has parquet. There is a vanity table set against the wall that has runes painted on it, with a diagram designed to call the servant linked to its magic. However, the room is mainly occupied by a big, squared bath 4-metre wide and with walls 2-metre high. It is made in a nice blue stone with gold veins that is at odd with the local serpentine preferred by the Séranniens—it must be imported, and so it is a show of wealth.
A master rune carved on the outside wall of the bath allows for the control of the water level and temperature through the plumbing system. Inner and outer staircases along the sides of the bath lead to the top. There are also seats inside the bath, which is perfect to have a nice, long soak.

Big bath for super long soak and highly sophisticated hygiene routine by AmélieIS

Third floor

This is the servant's quarters, which, of course, I wasn't even shown at all. I think the servants also have their own hidden corridors and staircases in the manor, since I barely see any of them around. And magic is probably used to both muffle any noise they make and keep the conversations of the main residents hidden from them.

Conclusion

While vast and extremely rich, especially considering the premium price of land in the city, this house obviously cannot compete with the royal palace. But then, the palace is the main residence of the king, while this townhouse is a mere secondary residence, with the Naline family theoretically mainly living in their manor in the countryside. Really a huge difference in money with the rest of the Séranniens, but the Nalines are the second most powerful family in the kingdom. It is hard to keep complaining about that when I am now directly benefiting from their powers and luxuries and would not have access to modern amenities and privacy otherwise.