July 1, 1892 — Bartonburg North

Victor didn't get invited to parties in Bartonburg often, but when he did he liked them. Even though he wasn't actually much farther from his family home in Wellingtonshire, having crossed from one neighborhood to the next and walking amongst houses that looked very little like his own gave him the feeling of distance from the rest of his life. It was as though this was a self-contained bubble, and nothing that happened here would have any impact on his day to day life back home. It was freeing, in the same way spending the day at Excalibur had been, before he'd aged out of the club last summer. This particular party was a lovely one, too; the owner of the house was married but the wife was out all weekend, which meant the man who lived here really didn't care what happened to the place. Victor had been for an hour already and had gone through several rounds of cards before he tried to refresh his glass of wine and found the bottle empty. That was a trap, apparently — the host declared that since he'd picked it up, he was now responsible for fetching more bottles from the wine cellar.

Armed with rather vague directions, Victor set out into the rest of the house. Before he could find a door to a wine cellar he instead found Fisk — coming back from the lavatory, if Victor had to guess. In any case, he seized on the chance for company immediately.

"There's supposed to be a wine cellar down this hallway somewhere. Be a friend and help me find it, won't you?" he called. It was phrased like a question but it wasn't, really; he expected Fisk to come with him.

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