Floor 2, The Great White Hall

 The Great White Hall

Spanning the entire length of the front the right side of the palace, this well lit hall has eight narrow slit windows and a bar over each to cover with a white curtain. There are many cannons resting here, a massive fake fireplace set in gold, taxidermy animal heads such as elk, tiger, deer and polar bear, and many coat of arms from various regions of Titan. The floors, walls, and softly vaulted ceiling are all white. The ceiling is adorned with carved leaves and vines and carrying the brunt weight of three golden and brass chandeliers each holding up to thirty candles. There are many fancy tapestries, flags, and a life-size portrait above the fireplace of Lord Azzur seated upon a black horse and not in his blue well-known armory but in all his regal black robes. The picture is in a dark forest, the steed has glowing red eyes and fiery hooves. The frame of this painting is set in gold trimmings and carefully painted by some unfortunate unknown artist. The fireplace is all marble and carved with red coral and has real large wood logs in it, obviously never fired up.

The view at the start of the hall is a bone staircase behind a porcelain lattice wall going up to the third floor, the area lit by sky windows and glass.

Going further down the great hall and away from the bone staircase, the hall ends at an Arabian door which opens to a mini balcony. The balcony does not seem to serve much of an important venue except the empty view of the grounds below and a big tall stone wall where the guards frequent. On the immediate left, is going into a dining room, it has a big arched doorway having that of two oriental dragons carved right through the wall and made to appear like windows.

The Great White Hall's lights can be seen from outside as the sun sets, the hall is mainly used by those using the dining room, music room (which has a secret door by the fireplace) and can be completely avoided by utilizing the second floor walkway of the foyer to just go up the bone staircase. The bone stairs are hidden from view by the lattice wall however and cannot be seen  from the foyer stairwell and the Great Hall also cannot be seen from the foyer areas.

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To you, seeing this, the first thing that comes to mind are the animal heads along the wall... did Azzur hunt these creatures or were they gifts? For someone so apt not to eat meat, it must mean then he does go hunting just won't eat them. You do not know what any of the flags mean, being a tourist of Allansia you're not familiar like he is of other nations. So him displaying these means perhaps he is a fan of those places? Or were they conquered by him? The banners are of royal people who you also have no idea of. The hall is as white as a snowflake. Above hang these ominous chandeliers almost too large for the hall but stunning nonetheless. You assume the cannons, like in the Water Citadel, fit into the windows? The cannons have not a drop of dust, rust, or old oil on them. It's so pristine in here you feel like you should remove your shoes in here.

The painting back at the foyer area of Baron Sukumvit's palace was painstakingly brushed by some madman with a lot of unnatural patience. His house is not built upwards like Azzur's home but outwards with lots of land to cover and mountains in the background. It must be an amazing palace to be in, but no one has ever seen its interior. Why Azzur had decided to even have a portrait like that done up is a mystery but so are other things you've seen so far. It's obviously a homage as they are indeed friends. You can tell that much craftmanship was created here, you can slightly imagine workers and artists busy at work: chiseling, painting, hammering, and decorating as if their lives were in peril if they didn't get it right the first time. How many artists died in the making of the palace?

As for the staircase made of bones, you will come back this way later after you've seen all of the second floor. The sky windows are all squares set with shady glass for windows, there are twelve windows in total starting from the bottom and all the way up to the ceiling! but it surely brightens up everything, it makes the area chirpy, merry, and happy unlike the gloom of other rooms. The lattice wall is smooth and off white, you deduce that it's there for privacy so no one in the foyer areas can see someone using the third floor staircase. The stairs are behind it, you couldn't see that at the foyer steps, but now you know. Looking out one of the windows you can see the front yard and the wall that surrounds the fortress. Guards meagerly walk by along the top of the wall, bored out of their tree, unaware they are being observed by you. If you poke your face against the glass you can even see the exterior of the lobby below. It has a vaulted roof and sticks out like a sore thumb, the windows from up here just look like color stained glass, you cant really make out the details of them as you did when you were in there earlier today.

When you go back to the Fang painting and look up at the ceiling there is this disgusting creature with its back embedded into the ceiling. Who in their right mind would use such a beast, an ugly thing, in their house like this? To what serves such a purpose? It may be some sort of prisoner here, but you also do not want to know what it is meant for, something unpleasant no doubt, and if you stand around long enough gawking at it you just might find out. You quickly head down the Great White Hall towards that dining room you've seen earlier.

Dining Room, turn to .