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be an old subterranean barracks section, housing for hundreds of soldiers that made up the Capital Guard.  The barracks were dug deeply into the solid mountain rock providing protection against attack.  He counted room by room as he passed soldier's quarters on both sides of a long hallway.  Though they all looked the same, he counted them not by number, but by the names of soldiers long dead. 

At the end of the hall an arched double door entrance led to quarters larger than the rest.  A casual observer could see that this room was probably for a commander of some sort.  The room, now empty of anything of value, would be completely dark if it weren't for the light cylinder he held.  Entering this room, he looked around for a long time, recounting its contents with his finger from left to right: a decorative stone door frame around the entrance, a broken sofa in the corner, a beautifully carved stone relief so large it covered three walls, a rear exit into a narrow hall, a broken cistern long since dry, the chipped supports for a marble bookshelf (the marble slabs of the shelf must have been carried off), and scattered debris across the floor.

Then shining this light on the decorative stone door frame the cloaked man found a statuette of a Jarmil, a large marsupial swamp creature found in the Southern regions of Epi, a creature of such ugliness, no one would steal it even in desperation, a creature only a mother could love: large, bulbous eyes, loose hanging jowls with a protruding, fat lower lip ... and completely hairless.  Proof that God has a sense of humor.  He applied the flat portion of his signet ring to the Jarmil's protruding eye.  A light shone in a circular sweeping 

Scroll 1: History's Mirror                                                                                    Chapter 1: Treasures from the Past