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The unofficial heart of the Stonehaven Fortress is the kitchen. Every grand manor, mansion, Keep, castle, wherever the might may dwell, has one of these humble places. Here at the Fortress, the Kitchen has over the years become a place were family gathers late at night for that midnight snack. It is the place where you are assured to run into someone eventually for in such a large place, sometimes it's hard to keep tabs on everyone who comes and goes.
Those creatures that require substance to fuel their organic bodies, are not the only ones who come here. Here you will find the occasional vampire snacking off a sweet pastry good or brewing a long forgotten recipe for tea. Food is not only substance for the body but for the soul. It serves as an emotional aphrodisiac. Just ask any female creature of the Fortress, they will tell you that chocolate is better than making love or those famous multiple petit morts!
Those loving little demonic entities called Impa'wi'xaie or Impa' for short also run the Kitchen. The Kitchen is over seen by kind hearted plump Impa' called Clo'xis. This Master Chef runs a clean kitchen but will look the other way when family members gather to start food fights. She might later lecture and nag his kitchen is cleaned. In the Imaji, the duty of cooking and the culinary arts are the domain of males. Any decent household has a male chef or cook.
Right outside the Kitchen, in the corridor is the House's large message board where notices, notes, announcements, advertisement, and messages are left. If you continue down the right passage way from the kitchen, here you will find the Children's Sweet and ToyShop. It is run and maintained by the Nursery staff with the assistance of the Nursery's Head Master, Max, and the Nursery's Head Mistress, Peace. Here all manner of sweet treats, hand made dolls, game boards, and other things that will fill a young mind's imagination with endless possibilities of learning, adventure, and wonderment.
This place filled with inviting aromas, warmth, is also the back entrance of the Fortress for those who return in disheveled conditions after a night of romping in the nearest town. A well known gathering place for the exchange of gossip, news, is the back kitchen door that leads to a small private herbal garden and citrus fruit orchard the center of which has six radiating red cobble stone paths leading to an old black iron wrought gazebo. The iron pillars holding up the conical slate gray dome have been molded into open lattice scrollwork of acorns, grape veins, plump peaches, and thyme leaves. It is open on all sides. Where the paths end near the gazebo, are six wide steps leading up to it. Here some meet to exchange gossip, read, or exchange love tokens.
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