THE GABLES. SPOOKY SEASON IN THE CASTLE.
WildGlitch
Mon, Oct 26, 2026 8:26 AM

 A SPACE-NOIR CHRONICLE. GOTHIC CYBER NIGHT.

Names, characters, placed and incidents either are product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously

and any resemblance to actual persons or characters is entirely coincidental . 

 

The Great Hall. 

 

The castle had a talent for looking innocent or at least how I imagine it when it's all cozy and not full of spy mushrooms!  

By daylight, Marek's home was a monument to medieval stubbornness: ancient stone, narrow staircases, Gothic windows, 
and enough mysterious corridors to make a building inspector develop a spiritual crisis.

But in autumn, after sunset, it became something else entirely.

The Great Hall was warm.

The mountains beyond the lake disappeared into silver mist. A distant tower emerged and vanished between veils of fog, as if the landscape itself were reconsidering whether it wanted to be seen. 
The last copper leaves clung to the trees along the shore, and the wind whispered against the castle walls with  the peculiar intimacy of something that knew the names of everyone inside.

Two enormous arched windows opened onto the autumn , framing the misty lake like paintings commissioned  by a melancholy aristocrat. Gothic arches soared overhead. 
Two chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling, their candles trembling in the faint drafts that wandered through the ancient hall. 

At the center stood the feast table.

Long, dark, polished by generations of use, it was dressed for a harvest dinner that had somehow escaped the twenty-first century—
and possibly several centuries before that.

Golden candles illuminated arrangements of red, white, and yellow flowers. Maple leaves, crimson and orange, lay scattered between 

the plates. Folded napkins rested beside little mugs of tea, while bowls of figs, grapes, pears, and walnuts
 occupied the spaces between the dishes. A small bowl of honey gleamed in the candlelight.
 A pitcher stood near the middle of the table, waiting patiently for someone to remember what it contained.

The whole arrangement was so inviting that even a person who had spent the day being hunted by a hostile algorithm might briefly
 consider forgiving the universe.

At the far end of the hall, a colossal stone fireplace roared with life.

Old books and candles crowded its mantel. Autumn leaves had been arranged among them, giving the impression that the forest  had somehow negotiated a decorating contract with the castle. A brown leather armchair stood before the fire, accompanied by a little wooden table holding an open book, a teapot, and a plate of biscuits. Beside the fireplace, a green velvet window seat was buried beneath pillows and blankets.

It was, by any reasonable standard, a perfect place for cats.

Bianca, little white kitten, had already claimed the best cushion.

Three other cats - Siamise cat Diva, orange tubby Carlitto  and gray British cat Shadow  had established a fragile territorial arrangement around her, the kind of diplomatic settlement that could collapse over a single misplaced tail.

Kaito, a squirrel with a professional interest in unusual frequencies and  in comfortable blankets, had settled near the warmest corner of the window seat. He was listening to something. Whether it was the crackle of the fire or the wind moving through the old stonework.

 

So this fall-spooky dinner hall in Marek's Castle — it's the passage from the Gothic Library to the Terrace!

Views:  47
Comments:  21
You must Sign In or Sign Up to comment on this post
Discuss this Post
WildGlitch
Tue, Oct 27, 2026 7:10 AM

Lucas Cross stood near the center of the Great Hall, holding a tablet in one hand and looking at the windows with the solemn concentration of a man who had discovered that even architecture could become evidence. He had the expression he usually reserved for suspicious vehicles, badly concealed surveillance equipment, and people who claimed not to know what was in the unmarked case they were carrying.

"This is it," he announced.

Ian, who was leaning against the long table with a mug of tea, glanced up.

"What is?"

"The passage."

Ian looked around the hall.

"The passage to what?"

Lucas gestured toward the windows, the fireplace, and the far end of the room with the confidence of a man presenting a tactical briefing to an audience that had not requested one.

"The passage from the Gothic Library to the terrace."

Ian took a sip of tea.

"You're describing a room."

"I'm describing a a room with a  route."  Lucas enlarged the image on his tablet.

WildGlitch
Tue, Oct 27, 2026 7:28 AM

Gothic Library 
 A Study in Black Gold, Old Money, and Terrible Intentions

 

It was a lavish, gothic-barroque library that looks like it was built by vampires with  with an ancestral fortune, impeccable taste, and several centuries’ worth of grudges.  

Every surface suggests old money. Every shadow suggests old sins. And every book appears to know something it would be extremely unwise to repeat.

The room does not invite you to read. It invites you to discover what happens when you ask the wrong question.

Architecture & Walls 

The walls rise in towering expanses of matte-black paneling, their surfaces worked with an almost pathological devotion to detail. Gilded rococo ornamentation winds across the dark wood in elaborate florals, curling acanthus leaves, theatrical scrollwork, and grotesque little figures whose expressions seem considerably too knowing to be decorative. 

Nothing is merely ornamental here. Not really.

The gold catches the candlelight in fractured, liquid glimmers, illuminating the craftsmanship without ever surrendering the room to brightness. It is extravagance rendered sinister by restraint, the
architectural equivalent of a signet ring on a hand that has never once needed to ask permission. The proportions are magnificent, the symmetry deliberate, the atmosphere oppressive in precisely the way a palace ought to be when its owner has something to hide.

At the far end of the room stands a monumental arched doorway, its black framework buried beneath interlocking gold filigree. The arch opens onto another chamber, warmly illuminated and lined with yet more bookshelves, where candle flames flicker behind the suggestion of h

WildGlitch
Tue, Oct 27, 2026 7:30 AM

The arch opens onto another chamber, warmly illuminated and lined with yet more bookshelves, where candle flames flicker behind the suggestion of heavy drapery.
The passage beyond is visible. Its purpose is not. There is something deeply suspicious about a doorway that looks this inviting.

WildGlitch
Tue, Oct 27, 2026 7:33 AM

The Shelves // An Archive of Inconvenient Truths

 

Floor-to-ceiling bookcases line the walls, their dark timber frames fitted so seamlessly into the architecture that the room appears to have grown around them. The shelves are crowded with antique volumes bound in cracked leather, worn calfskin, faded velvet, and the occasional strip of gilt-edged magnificence. Their spines range through tobacco brown, oxblood, antique umber, and tarnished gold, each volume catching the candlelight like a small, carefully catalogued fortune. Some books are arranged with immaculate precision. Others lean against their neighbors with the exhausted familiarity of objects that have survived too many centuries and too many owners. The oldest bindings bear the soft, darkened patina of genuine age, their corners polished by hands long since reduced to portraiture and rumor. The collection is not arranged for convenience. It is arranged for someone who already knows where everything is.
That distinction is important. 
Somewhere among the histories, theological disputations, occult treatises, and impossibly expensive first editions, there is almost certainly a book that  should never be opened at all.

 

WildGlitch
Tue, Oct 27, 2026 7:42 AM

Lighting // Candlelight and Other Forms of Plausible Deniability

The illumination is low, warm, and entirely committed to the atmosphere. Crystal wall sconces punctuate the black paneling, their candle flames refracting through cut glass and
spilling soft amber light across the gilded ornamentation. The illumination never quite reaches the corners. Shadows gather beneath carved cornices, behind the shelving, and in the recesses of the archway, where they seem less like an absence of light than a deliberate architectural feature. Additional candles cluster on side tables and inside glass hurricane lamps, their flames trembling whenever the old house settles around them. There are no harsh overhead lights. No clinical brightness. No modern fixture has been permitted to compromise the illusion that the room exists somewhere outside ordinary time. 
On the principal desk, an ornate table lamp glows beneath a dark, fringed shade. Its pool of light illuminates a few open volumes and a glass of something expensive. 
The lamp casts the sort of light that makes a man look distinguished when he is lying and positively magnificent when he is about to ruin someone’s life.
The candles do the rest. 
They soften the leather, gild the carved wood, and lend the room the intimate warmth of a place where difficult conversations are held after midnight, when everyone is tired enough to become
honest and dangerous enough to regret it.
Or, in Marek’s case, the reverse.

WildGlitch
Tue, Oct 27, 2026 7:50 AM

Furniture & Furnishings // Comfort, With Reservations

At the heart of the seating arrangement sits a deep, button-tufted black leather Chesterfield sofa, its rolled arms and generous proportions communicating the sort of wealth that no longer feels the need to announce itself. The leather is beautifully maintained but not pristine. Its surface bears the subtle creases of long use, the polished wear of habitual occupation, and the faint impression of a room that has hosted considerably more private negotiations than respectable social calls. A matching round ottoman rests before it, upholstered in the same dark leather and positioned with the casual precision of a piece of furniture that has never been moved without a reason. Beside the sofa stands a carved wooden armchair upholstered in faded velvet. The fabric has surrendered some of its original color to age, leaving behind a muted, aristocratic softness that complements the room’s darker magnificence. It is the least imposing seat in the library.
It is also, one suspects, the chair from which the most uncomfortable questions are asked. 
The tables are fashioned from dark, elaborately carved wood, their surfaces polished to a deep, almost liquid sheen. Antique books lie in deliberate stacks beside crystal glassware. 
On the ottoman, a round tray holds several more volumes and a rolled parchment scroll, arranged with the easy disorder of someone who has been interrupted in the middle of something important and expects the interruption to apologize. Nothing looks staged.
Everything looks expensive enough to survive being thrown across the room. And somewhere in the arrangement, there is always a place for another glass, another book, another
witness who has suddenly realized they should have stayed home.

WildGlitch
Tue, Oct 27, 2026 8:18 AM

The Floor // A Foundation of Respectable Threats

Beneath it all, polished herringbone wood runs through the room in precise geometric patterns, its dark finish reflecting the candlelight in broken ribbons. Patterned Persian-style rugs soften the expanses of timber, their intricate designs introducing muted reds, antique golds, and weathered blues into the prevailing darkness. They are rich without being gaudy, old without appearing neglected, and sufficiently substantial to suggest that whatever lies beneath them is nobody’s business. The rugs anchor the furniture without diminishing the architecture. Their edges disappear beneath the sofa and tables, while their intricate motifs seem to multiply in the shifting light. Footsteps are softened. Conversations become private. And the room acquires that peculiar quality of old houses in which even silence sounds expensive.
One can easily imagine a visitor crossing the library in the small hours, hearing nothing but the whisper of leather soles against the rug and the distant, almost imperceptible crackle of a
dying candle. One can equally imagine that visitor stopping halfway across the room because a book has moved on the shelf. 
The castle, after all, has its own habits.

WildGlitch
Tue, Oct 27, 2026 8:34 AM

Atmosphere 

Dark academia meets Bond villain lair meets haunted castle study. 
It is not a room that needs to threaten anyone. The architecture does that on its behalf. The furniture offers comfort without reassurance. The lighting lends warmth without safety. The bookspromise answers while making it abundantly clear that some questions have consequences. Every element contributes to the same impression: this is a place where intelligence is cultivated, information is hoarded, and trust is treated as a negotiable resource. 

It is a room for midnight debriefings and quiet interrogations, for alliances assembled over brandy and dismantled before the candles burn down. It is where secrets are discussed in low voices, betrayals are presented as unfortunate misunderstandings, and the most dangerous person present is frequently the one who has said the least. Even its luxuries have teeth. The Chesterfield is comfortable enough to encourage a guest to settle in. The candles are flatteringenough to encourage candor. The shelves are impressive enough to suggest that Marek has read
everything worth knowing. Whether he has is beside the point.
He owns the room. The room, in turn, appears to own everything that happens inside it.

Final Assessment // Marek’s Ghost Bedroom Has Competition

 

WildGlitch
Wed, Oct 28, 2026 8:55 AM

Library Terrace — Diplomatic Zone

Beyond the Gothic Library, and The Spooky decorated Great Hall  the castle opens onto its most elegant outdoor chamber: Level 3 — Library Terrace.

This is the diplomatic terrace. Treaties are discussed here. Corporate agreements are negotiated here. Sensitive information is exchanged over tea. The place where impotant guests are received, agreements are negotiated, champagne is poured, and everyone pretends  they haven't noticed the concealed surveillance equipment.

THE TERRACE

The balcony stretches along the castle's southern elevation in a long, immaculate sweep of stone and polished tile. Its floor is spectacular. Black octagonal tiles form a precise geometric pattern, separated by small white diamonds. The surface has been polished to such an extraordinary degree that it reflects the sky, the furniture, and the surrounding architecture almost like still water. After rain, the effect becomes almost surreal. The entire terrace appears to float. 

Old-world elegance meets the immaculate symmetry of a Wes Anderson composition, except this particular villa happens to 
belong to an IT specialist with access to several government networks. Nothing is accidental. Nothing is inexpensive. And, according to Marek, absolutely none of it is "too fancy."

 

WildGlitch
Wed, Oct 28, 2026 9:01 AM

THE FURNISHINGS
Black wrought-iron chairs are arranged around small circular tables along the length of the terrace. Their cushions alternate between muted beige and deep charcoal, softening the severe geometry of the ironwork. At the nearest table sits a low ceramic bowl filled with yellow flowers. The color is almost startling against the monochrome floor. 

Further along, beneath the shade of the castle wall, another complete dining arrangement waits for guests who have not yet arrived. Everything is perfectly positioned. Everything is immaculate.

Everything looks as preparied for a  gathering that may last exactly seventeen minutes before someone discovers a classified server hidden under the floor.

THE GARDENS
The landscaping is almost unnaturally precise. On the left  a series of perfectly spherical green bushes provide a softer counterpoint. No plant has been allowed to grow where it pleases. No branch appears to have escaped supervision. The gardeners are clearly professionals.

WildGlitch
Wed, Oct 28, 2026 9:16 AM

THE CASTLE WALL
Along the right side rises the castle itself. The stone is a deep blue-gray, almost black in the softer light, giving the terrace an imposing Gothic character without making it feel gloomy. Tall arched windows punctuate the wall. Ornate moldings frame them. Vintage wall lanterns are mounted at regular intervals, their aged metalwork contrasting beautifully with the polished terrace below. At the far end stands the largest window of all. A monumental Gothic arch filled with sheer white curtains. Beyond it lies the Gothic Library. Above the window, a stone balustrade runs along the upper level, crowned with carved finials that have watched generations of aristocrats, spies, programmers, and extremely confused personnel pass beneath them.

THE VIEW
Beyond the terrace railing, the world opens dramatically. Blue hills dissolve into the distance beneath a veil of pale mist. Water glimmers below. The landscape could almost be lake. Or perhaps a broad European river valley. From this height, it is difficult to tell. The daylight is soft and luminous, giving the entire scene a strangely peaceful quality. There is no sense of urgency. No engines. No alarms. No spacecraft. Just distant hills, quiet water, old stone, and the faint movement of curtains behind the library windows. For a few minutes, at least, the universe appears civilized.

WildGlitch
Wed, Oct 28, 2026 9:39 AM

 AURORA-7: THE SHELL
Far from the Castle, beyond the blue-white curve of the Moon, the Aurora-7 facility floated in the shadow of a world that had no atmosphere to soften its edges. 
Its official designation was The Shell. The name suggested protection. The architecture suggested something else. From the outside, the facility resembled a pearl suspended in darkness: seamless, pale, and almost impossibly elegant. Its exterior surfaces curved into one another without visible joints.  Inside, the impression continued. Corridors flowed into galleries. Walls glowed with subtle internal illumination. Organic curves replaced conventional corners, and translucent partitions revealed gardens cultivated beneath artificial skies.
It was the extravagance of ghosts. A luxury palace designed by people who had decided that the future should have no visible maintenance requirements. 


Somewhere in its central observation suite, Elara Vance stood before a vast display wall. She was reviewing a series of images recovered from a remote surveillance channel.

WildGlitch
Wed, Oct 28, 2026 3:22 PM

One showed  The Terrace beyond the Great Hall.

After rain, the effect becomes almost surreal. The entire terrace appears to float. A stone balustrade runs along the upper level, crowned with carved finials that have watched generations of aristocrats, spies, ghosts,programmers, and extremely confused C.R.U.S.T.  personnel pass beneath them. Beyond the terrace railing, the world opens dramatically. Blue hills dissolve into the distance beneath a veil of pale mist.

Elara studied it without expression.
Behind her, a second display floated above the surface of a glass console. It contained a diagnostic summary of Aurora's latest engineered scout deployment, three financial projections, a security alert, and a message from Alice Chan that Elara had not yet answered.Then the display changed.

WildGlitch
Wed, Oct 28, 2026 3:26 PM

A line of text appeared.
MEAN GIRL: Oh, look.
Elara did not turn around. "Not now."

MEAN GIRL: DIPLOMATIC PROTOCOL
The AI's voice emerged from the room's discreet audio system, smooth and bright with the particular cheerfulness of someone about to say something unforgivable.

MEAN GIRL: This is where C.R.U.S.T. receives important guests. Treaties are discussed here. Corporate agreements are negotiated here. Sensitive information is exchanged over the tea.

Elara enlarged the terrace image. "Can you please remain focused on the images?"
MEAN GIRL: I am focused on the images.Nice chairs. Shame no one invited you, Elara. 

Elara rolled her eyes. She had learned that responding to Mean Girl's insults only encouraged her. It was like arguing with a mirror that had been given access to classified intelligence and a limitless supply of sarcasm.

The next image was a still photograph of the autumn dining room, its windows framing the misty lake, its candles burning gold against the darkness. The room looked impossibly inviting.

MEAN GIRL: A beautiful autumn dinner hall. Honestly, look at that fireplace.

WildGlitch
Thu, Oct 29, 2026 12:00 PM

Elara switched to the surveillance metadata.
"Who captured this image?"
MEAN GIRL: A surveillance relay. Very exciting. Very clandestine.
Elara stared at the display.
MEAN GIRL: I would also like to point out that C.R.U.S.T. appears to have better interior decorating than our executive residential wing.
MEAN GIRL: Shall I submit a facilities request? Perhaps a few medieval chandeliers? We could call the room the Crime Rocks Under Squirrel Treaty Lounge.
Elara turned.
MEAN GIRL: OK. C.R.U.S.T. Lounge.
Elara looked back at the image. For a moment, something in her expression softened—not quite amusement, but something close enough to be mistaken for it by someone who did not know her well. Then it disappeared.
"Filter the remaining images. I want to know what is going on over there."
MEAN GIRL: Certainly.
A pause.
MEAN GIRL: Would you like me to filter out the cats  and the fireplace as well?
Elara closed her eyes. "Begin the analysis."
MEAN GIRL: Already begun.
The display filled with lines of data. The AI's tone shifted, becoming quieter.
MEAN GIRL: One additional observation.
Elara waited.
MEAN GIRL: The photograph's metadata contains an irregularity.
Elara stepped closer to the console.
"What kind of irregularity?"
MEAN GIRL: The image was accessed through a relay that should not have had permission to access it. 
"Which relay?"
The AI paused. For the first time that evening, the silence felt deliberate.
MEAN GIRL: That is the interesting part.
Elara's gaze sharpened.
MEAN GIRL: The access request was authenticated with a credential belonging to Aurora Initiative.
Elara did not move. Outside the observation suite, th

WildGlitch
Thu, Oct 29, 2026 12:06 PM

Elara did not move.
Outside the observation suite, the fog glimmered beneath the facility's curved windows.
"That is impossible."
MEAN GIRL: The credential was valid, Elara.
The display changed again. A string of encrypted authentication data appeared.
MEAN GIRL: The request originated inside our own network.
Elara looked at the image of the quiet terrace. again. The golden windows. The autumn leaves.The room where she had not been invited.
"The source?" she asked.
MEAN GIRL: Unknown. So what's the move, Dark Prince?
"Find the source," Elara said.
MEAN GIRL: As you wish, Dark Prince. I know your games. I got your secrets.
MEAN GIRL: If we discover that someone at Aurora is spying on a squirrel, I would like it formally recorded that I did not approve the budget. 
Elara turned away from the screen. The analysis continued.
And somewhere in the vast, seamless architecture of The Shell, a security process quietly opened a channel that no one had authorized.

Safe travels through the Gothic Cyber night! 

WildGlitch
Fri, Oct 30, 2026 12:28 PM

MAREK'S CASTLE, · THE GHOST-GUEST BEDROOM · 02:17 CET

EMMA BURNED THE BUG

*They watched us, they always do, but nobody remembers the ending.*

The Guest Ghost Bedroom occupies the sort of forgotten wing that seems less abandoned than patient.

It is a gothic-Baroque chamber reclaimed by nature with such extravagant determination that the room has ceased to  belong entirely to either architecture or wilderness. It feels like Sleeping Beauty’s castle after a century of silence—only darker, richer, and considerably more haunted.  A vampire’s manor overtaken by an impossibly expensive greenhouse.

The effect is dark academia fantasy at its most decadent: haunted luxury in the slow, beautiful process of losing its war against the living world.

The Bed
At the center of the chamber stands an enormous bed in an ornate carved-gold frame, its ivory upholstered headboard rising like  the throne of some minor European dynasty. Moss-green velvet spills across it in heavy folds, sumptuous enough to suggest old money and soft enough to invite trespass. The pillows are imperfectly arranged. The coverlet has been disturbed. Someone has only just left. Or something has.

The Fireplace
Opposite the bed, a monumental stone fireplace dominates the room. Its mantel is crowded with intricate Baroque carving: curling acanthus leaves, fractured ornament, heraldic flourishes, and at its center, a severe carved face whose expression has become  impossible to read beneath the shadows. A real fire burns within. Its orange light moves over the stone and catches in the gold around the room, giving the architecture a puls

WildGlitch
Fri, Oct 30, 2026 12:30 PM

Its orange light moves over the stone and catches in the gold around the room, giving the architecture a pulse.

But the fireplace has been claimed by the garden.

Vines pour over the mantel in cascading curtains. Ivy winds through carved figures and disappears into cracks in the masonry. Moss softens the edges of stone. Trailing greenery reaches almost to the floor, gathering in dark, luxuriant pools around the hearth. Above it hangs a dark painting, nearly swallowed by shadow. Beside it stands a statue half-buried in foliage, its marble face emerging from the leaves with the unsettling patience of  something that has been waiting there for generations.

It looks like nothing in the room has been restored. Everything has been curated by time.

Light
On the left wall, a great candelabra sconce burns with seven or more candles, their flames trembling against the darkness. It is the principal warmth in the room. The fireplace supplies the second. Beyond them, two tall arched windows stand behind heavy black drapes pulled apart just enough to admit the cold daylight outside. The exterior light is pale and distant, almost blue. Warm fire. Cold daylight.Gold against black. Orange against blue. The contrast gives the chamber the quality of a painting that has somehow begun to breathe.

WildGlitch
Fri, Oct 30, 2026 12:37 PM

Architecture & Decay 
Everywhere, the original splendor remains. Gold ceiling moldings coil overhead in elaborate Baroque patterns. Wall carvings climb toward the ceiling, extravagant and ceremonial,  their gilding dulled but never entirely defeated. And beneath it all, age is winning.  Plaster has cracked. Gold has darkened in its recesses. Time has entered through every seam. 

Ivy grows where ivy should not grow. Moss gathers beneath carved cornices. Thin tendrils disappear behind paintings and emerge again through cracks in the walls. The room does not merely contain nature.Nature has begun redecorating.

Underfoot, a blue marble-patterned carpet stretches through the chamber, veined in white like frozen lightning. Its cool tones deepen the sense that the room exists somewhere between winter and dream.

The Furniture
A carved wooden side table waits beside the bed, dark with age and polished by generations of hands. Near the fireplace sits an ornate antique chair upholstered in fabric whose original color has surrendered to shadow. Every object feels eighteenth-century European—heavy, ceremonial, immovable. Furniture designed not simply for comfort but for importance.

Nothing is casual. Nothing is modern. Nothing looks as though it was purchased. It looks inherited. Or conquered. Or left behind.

The Ghost Suite
This is where a ghost would stay if ghosts had standards. If Luna-G maintained a VIP wing for the dead, this would be the suite.

A room for brooding. A room for secrets. A room where one might stand beside the fire at midnight, staring into the flames with the solemn expression

WildGlitch
Fri, Oct 30, 2026 12:42 PM

The Ghost Suite


This is where a ghost would stay if ghosts had standards. If Luna-G maintained a VIP wing for the dead, this would be the suite. 

A room for brooding. A room for secrets. 

A room where one might stand beside the fire at midnight, staring into the flames with the solemn expression of a man
 attempting to remember which version of his life he is supposed to be performing.

This is not a room where the past has been preserved. It is a room where the past has been allowed to haunt beautifully.

WildGlitch
Fri, Oct 30, 2026 12:44 PM

Emma Sutherlin stops just inside the doorway.  It was Emma's favorite guest  bedroom in the Castle.
Marek's  decorating style had a sense of humor. 
Vines are not real. Fiber optic. Military grade. Not Home Depot. 
As Marek used to say: “My castle. My Guest Ghost Bedroom. My moss."

Emma looks at the room. Then at the moss. Her gaze travels from the vines to the gold, from the gold to the fireplace.