This Place

You are in the front bar of the Rutland Arms, Botolph Lane, Cambridge on a warm August night in 1837. The air is thick with pipe smoke and conversation, the oak-beamed ceiling seemingly lower under the weight of centuries of stories. 

In the corner by the hearth, Job "Dark Water" Yarrow gesticulates wildly, his weathered hands dancing in the flickering light as he recounts his latest impossible tale of what lurks beneath the fen waters. The red gleam in his eyes intensifies with each dramatic pause, his audience leaning in despite themselves. "The beast's teeth were like daggers," he insists, "and it came at me faster than any Christian thing ought to move."

At your table, an unlikely pair debates with increasing volume - Reverend Doctor Jonathan Blackwood, his academic robes slightly askew and cheeks flushed with ale, points an accusatory finger at Tom "Three Tides" Aspland. The lighterman's red cap sits crookedly on his head as he slaps the table, "I bought the last round, and the one before that!" The scholar's protests are drowned by Tom's booming laughter.

Nearby, Rose Gold's bangles jingle softly as she traces the lifeline of a pallid undergraduate. Her wild copper-streaked hair catches the candlelight as she whispers something that drains what little colour remains from the young man's face. Her knowing eyes flick briefly to meet yours before returning to her task.

All the stories revealed within these stained and worn walls are overheard by Edmund "The Scribe" Grossey, gathering these morsels while nursing a single ale for hours in the tavern's corner, his keen ears catching the whispered conversations.

And there, standing alone at the bar, is a woman unlike any other. Raven-haired and alabaster- skinned, she watches the room with predatory intensity, a glass of red wine untouched before her. Something ancient and hungry moves behind her rose-gold eyes as they scan the crowd, lingering a moment too long on the exit and the darkness beyond.

This is no mere gathering place - it is a nexus of souls whose stories will echo through these walls long after their physical forms are dust. This is the Rutland Arms, and these are the spirits whose tales we keep.