The Black Tower

“A better question may be, ‘Why are you not?’ Are you waiting for a written invitation?”

There is the brief pause as some cloth-like friction noises from beyond the curtain implies the removal of another article of clothing.

“It’s a sauna, Tristian. The idea is that one goes in, has a seat, and enjoys a short while in the steamy room. Between the steam and one’s perspiration, things tend to get rather wet. I wouldn’t much care to wear around a damp uniform for the rest of the day, and I’m willing to bet that the sauna would absolutely ruin that nice coat of yours. As such, the concept is such that one leaves their clothing here, and proceeds into the sauna without it.”

With that said, Naoki evidently finishes changing, as she appears around the edge of the divider, a towel wrapped about her torso, and another smaller towel held in her left hand. She pauses for a moment to exhale sharply at the sight of Tristian, sitting there, staring directly ahead, before pushing on the the door with her right hand. The door is evidently somewhat more difficult to open than she anticipated, not budging with her casual application of pressure. In response, she leans into the motion, bare feet struggling to gain traction on the smooth floor, and the towel nearly becoming dislodged as a result. However, she manages it, and the door slowly opens on creaking hinges.

The room beyond- the sauna itself, is somewhat larger than the preparation room. A square room, perhaps five meters to a side, with two concentric levels of polished wooden benches ringing the three walls not holding the door. The walls themselves are made of well fit stone bricks, a design decision that helps to allow the room retain heat. In the center of the otherwise empty floor space, a small pile of somewhat greenish rocks sit in a circular depression, covered by a metal grate at floor level. A small grayish square shape sits on the floor directly before the grating, with a few runic symbols inlaid upon it.

It is before this box that Naoki crouches, reaching down with one hand to touch, while the other hand holds the towel steady. After a moment of this fiddling, a chute in the ceiling directly above the grate begins to discharge water at an alarming rate, which crashes down through the grate onto the stones below.

Evidently, the stones are quite hot, and cause the water to evaporate essentially instantaneously. Not only is Naoki blasted by the sudden burst of steam, and not only is the sauna room filled with steam, but it also manages to roll across the floor and out the door into the preparation room.

A short yelp of surprise also makes its way back out into the preparation room. Again, Naoki’s lack of expertise when it comes to operating rune panels comes to bite her, in a more surprising and decidedly more disrobing manner than previously. She had raised her hand to shield her face, and the towel had indeed been dropped.

However, after a few moments of irritated grumbling and incessant fumbling through closed eyes, she manages to get the flow of water under control, down to a moderate, yet steady stream. Clouds of steam still billow up to fill the room, and still may be described as excessive, but at the very least, they’re not quite so explosive as previously. This seems to be enough to satisfy Naoki for the time being, as she picks her towel up from the floor, makes her way over to the right side of the room, spreads the towel out on the upper bench, and proceeds to lie down upon it. The smaller cloth is placed across her face, obscuring her vision even more so than the thick clouds of steam, and having the effect of shielding one’s face from the steam, consequently leading to a more preferable distribution of heat over the body.