Into The Tower

"Jane-chan, I am unsure which way to go from here, none of our options look like good ones." I state looking about me. The whole area gives me the creeps and puts me in mind of a phrase who's source I do not know: 'Discretion is the better part of Valor...'

My companion seems to consider for a minute and then turns to the left and strides towards the gaping maw of the mostly intact tower.

I hasten to catch up.

"Jane-chan, are you sure this is the best way to go?" I ask.

"Oh, very much so, yes," she says.

"Why?" I ask.

In answer she merely points at the sky off over the top of the factory, where, as I look, a massive white and gray cloud begins to flatten off at the top into the classic anvil shape of a thunderhead.

"Your point is well made Jane-chan, we will do as you say." I declare as I run to catch up with her, and gently guide her out of the way so that I proceed her into the gloomy* interior of the building.

*(and growing more so by the second...)

We find ourselves in what was doubtless once a well appointed foyer. To the right there is a long low wall, behind which is a scroll rack built into the wall with doors on some of the niches and shelves further back. To the left is an assortment of chairs and tables, such as might be in the receiving room of any lord from the Gaijin of 'U-rope' but in a sorry state of disrepair and neglect, their cushioned seats rotten and torn apart by animals to make their nests. Further back in the room is a bank of strange machines with a sign above them that proclaims them a 'Vending Area' but which are smashed and broken, some hauled over onto the floor by whatever hooligans wrought the damage on the others. The left hand wall also houses a few rooms, their doors still shut but the windows in them broken out, one bears the legend "Leasing Office", another "Lobby Security Station" and the third "Chaplain's Vestry" though I know the meaning of most of the words their sense is lost to me in these combinations.

At the back of the room are two huge staircases between which are a set of 5 large doors, only two of which are open. One of the open ones falls away into a darkened pit, while the other enters a tiny room, not more than ten feet by ten feet. Behind us the front of the building was once mostly windows but those were all smashed long ago, now being gaping holes with nothing between them but thin struts and the massive support columns which bear the weight of the building above.

The ceiling here vaults to 20 feet above and was once adorned with painted murals, but the paint is faded, pealing, and cracked leaving me with the sense that I am standing in the ruined shell of what once was a marvel. There also are planters which once contained living greenery scattered throughout what long ago would have been this grand reception hall, their blooms and trees long rotted away to nothing save a few trunks of potted trees, now reduced to bare wood and that insect ravaged.

"Where too now?" I ask as I survey the damage wrought on what once upon a time must have been a glorious, nigh paradisaical, colonnaded garden entry hall.