…you decide to go around the roof and search the other side.

If it’s a choice between going through a problem, waiting for it to go away, or going around, you’ll go around every time. You start to back up, going slowly at first, but soon turning and crossing the length of the roof at a quick pace. The view either side doesn’t hold your gaze this time and by looking closely at where you put your feet your able to cross the path faster than ever, if not exactly silently. You still have to slow when you reach the middle to keep the front door guard below unawares, but otherwise you reach the far end quite quickly.

You round the corner and continue down the short end of the building, passing the rickety drainpipe that brought you here, and soon taking another left to look down the roofs other side. This half is far less open; the buildings front is a relatively flat length, save for the alcove that the front door sits in, while the back is more staggered, thinner on your end, but quickly bulging out at right angles as the rooms expand away from the front. The result is that you can only see a short way before a sharp right turn brings the roof around to block your view. That means that if the guard at the other end of the roof has set off already then there is no way for you to know. On the plus side, he can’t see you either, at least until he turns a corner and bumps into you.

As you set off down the path, you look over the side of the roofs shallow wall, down to the empty grounds below and the path ahead, the other wall that stretches down off the next right turn. It extends out only a small way -the length of a single wide room- yet the vantage lets you see a small ornate balcony protruding from the second floor. It’s currently unoccupied, but large enough for several people to use at once quite comfortably. You mentally scratch your head. Why it’s placed there? Surely the point of a balcony is the view, yet half of this balconies view must be the side of the building that you stand on. Perhaps the architect was a drunk; a theory that would explain the roof as well, which you note is just as bad on this side. One quality of it that does catch your eye is the set of open doors in its centre, leading from the welcoming night into an unlit second floor room. They stretch like open arms, beckoning you with invitation and promise of ingress, and as you get close, you see that the ornate engravings arching over the open double doors extend partly up to the roof as well. It would be tricky, but you’re sure you could climb down it, or far enough that you could drop safely. Climbing back up, on the other hand, could be very difficult.

The guard certainly didn’t climb up that way. His roof top entrance must be further on, hopefully as open and inviting as the doors below. You chew your lip a little before dismissing the possibility, at least for now, continuing on around the right hand corner and walking directly over the tempting stonework and the balcony beneath. You slow as you reach the next, blinder corner, wary of the frustratingly haphazard guard. A quick peek shows a clear path up to the next right angle, a path that you follow when you realise the cost is clear.

As before, you look over the roof at the ground below and the upcoming wall. A small tiled roof runs along the side of the building where the bottom floor extends further out than the top. That must be the tiled roof you saw from the garden. You can see the window it leads to and are able to look down through it, seeing a well lit room from which no sound or movement emanates. Dropping down here is not an option as there is no means to climb some of the distance. Even if there was, the short roof below is slanted; landing on it from all but the shortest distance would likely be only temporary before you go tumbling down to the grass and the hard ground surrounding the building.

You round the next safe right-angled corner, walking above the glowing window, and after another nervous check of the next unknown bend, you pass that one as well. It takes you to what you see is the furthest point of the mansions back bulge: a protruding room sitting roughly in the middle of the grand estate, upon which you now look out from. You quietly move forward, huddled next to the short wall and the small line of moon shade it provides, to look down the newly revealed length of the buildings backside. Nothing. There’s no one down this side of the building, which falls away in staggered steps in the same way it expanded on the way here. Either the guard is walking around one of those corners, unable to see you or be seen, or he hasn’t set off yet. The buildings far end is much wider that the side you climbed up, and that’s not the only difference. Before the final corner that would lead to the guard’s idling rest, there is a large box like structure, with a wonky sloped roof and, on its front, the rough shape of a door.

You had hoped the way inside would be a little closer. To access the little shed like ingress, you would have to go as close to the guard as you went before, with the added risk that when he restarts his rout, he’ll likely come straight for you. That’s if he hasn’t already, and isn’t about to come around the far corner, or any of the nearer corners, while you’re standing out in the open like the world’s worst assassin. You look back, staring through the building and imagining the place where the balcony would be. Climbing down doesn’t seem so dismissible now. There would be no way back, but it’s likely far less risky. The only downside would be if the room it leads to was perhaps locked on the inside, or full of sleeping guards, or something equally unlucky.

As you turn back to face the missing guard, you see the roof in this area is particularly bad. Bare wood is visible in some areas and the disrepair seems to extend across half the building on the far side. It makes you grip the nearby wall just to look at it. Falling onto the roof here looks enough to access the rooms below directly, with the toll of a thunderous crash and however many broken bones the old beams could give you.

You shake your head. Times wasting; distant door or previous balcony, the sooner you leave here the better. After a moments deliberation, you...