"Perhaps, or perhaps the builder was thinking of attackers more dangerous than Turks or Russians. Something that could get past defenses that would stop a normal man, a being of the night to which such things are nothing. I have heard tell that vampyres roam these lands."

Thomas adopts his most dramatic tone, though it's laced with humor. He's always been fond of opera. There's an almost weight to the darkness, a feeling as if the stairs could stretch down forever to a world he cannot imagine. A whisper that if his childhood belief in ghosts was real, this is surely where they'd dwell.

So he strides forward confidently, ignoring any chill. It is just the type of foolishness he enjoys in stories, and the type of adventure he enjoys for himself. He imagines hidden dungeons - unsure of exactly how fanciful that might be in this strange part of the world.

"We may run into the skeletons of long dead prisoners locked away forever in this dark passage, I would hate not to offer a first greeting."