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Joining forces, the group manages to open the doors to the palas. As they all walk on the floor of the vestibule, it makes a kind of hollow sound, especially when Christopher in his full armor walks over, but nothing else happens.

Once the group's eyes adjust to the dimmer light inside, they see that this must have been the main hall of the castle, with stone walls and a wooden ceiling supported by pillars. Straight ahead of them is a staircase with broad stairs leading up a landing, at about half the storey' sheight, and narrower steps leading on from there to the right and left.

To the right of the staircase is a huge chimney, and a stove made of brickwork. It would be easy to make meals for a few dozen people there.

To the left of the staicase, on the back wall, there is panelling and benches built into it. This probably went along the adjoining wall, but has been torn away. Frech wood chips suggest this was done rather recently.

The vestibule they passed through has been set into the main hall. Oddly, the walls inside the vestibule were made of stone, while those in the hall are of wood. They reach all the way up to the ceiling, not just to half-height as the panelling on the left side.

"Did you hear that?" She asks Thelma, nudging her towards the loose slab, "Listen." Shifting her weight she tries to make it move.

Dale shifts to the side and nudges Thelma over to listen.

"What?", Thelma says and listens to the slab for a second after Eloise stops trying to move it. She is trying to hear anything that might be audible.

Saul slowly makes his way to the staircase. He looks around to see if there is a set of stairs leading both up AND down...

It is not just a slab of the vestibule floor that sounds hollow, but the whole wooden floor. Closer investigation shows that there is a small but continous gap between the floor and the walls all around. If someone light stays in a corner close to the hall entrance and someone heavy marches towards them, the floor seems to move down fractions of an inch under the weight.

Looking at the staircase, Saul finds no stairs leading down. the landing is large. In fact, the lower parat of the staircase is also a podium so that by placing an ornate seat there, the hall makes a perfect audience room. On the kitchen side, there is an iron bar sticking out of the podium's side. It's the only sign that there micht be a hatch there, the woodworkers of the Valckenburg must have been masters of their craft.

"Look the floor moves." she comments, "Its all wood, but.." Drawing her dagger she presses it into the gap, and drags it around looking for a hinge or similar.

In most places, Eloise can push in the dagger's blade fully. Not at the entrance door, but all around except for two half a foot long places at the sides near the inner vestibule doors.

Sliding the blade under the entrance door she tries to prise it up, "There is a door here I think, what a funny place to put a door.."

OOC: I guess there is a misunderstanding here, I'll try to explain better.

The vestibule is a medium sized room. One of its wall is essentially made up by the front doors (leading into the courtyard), the oppisite wall by the doors leading into the main hall. The other two walls are made of stone. The floor is made of wood. Between the floor and the walls is a small gap, just a little larger than needed to slide a dagger blade in vertically. Almost everywhere, Eloise meets no resistance, she can push in the blade in all its length (well, until her hand gets squeezed to the wall). but under the main doors, it only goes as deep as the presumed thickness of the floorboards. The same happens at two places of the side walls, not far from the inner doors.

Of course, Eloise can slide her blade under the entrance door, but they already know that these doors open...

"If I were a suspicious man, I might guess that this room could be another layer of defense. The floor might not be fixed in place. Perhaps we should not all be in here at the same time." Christopher heads back out the door through which they entered, and moving everyone willing out with him.

Saul continues to gaze at the stairwell. In his musings he starts to reason out loud to himself. "No stairs down, yet we're on the second story. What is up? Would a prisoner be up or down? An escapee would have to climb up and then out if they were below, while one above would not....."

(OOC: Once again, I seem to be unable to make myself clear. It was the garden that was raised a few feet (after all, you have to bring fertile ground onto the rocky plateau). The entrance hall is at ground level, there is just a lintel leading to the double doors.)

So Saul is in the great hall, Christopher went back outside, and where are the others and what are you planning to do?

(Right, so a small gap under the walls, almost big enough for say gas to stream in...)

Eloise looks at Saul with a shake of her head. "There is something... oh I wish I were clever enough to figure it out." cursing she walks further inside the room, her eyes going back to the gap in the floor. "Any ideas?" She asks Thelma as she walks past.

(Not a gap under the walls, but around the floor. And certainly big enough for gas to stream in.)

When Eloise comes into the room and searches around for clues, she notices that while the walls of the vestibule were made of stone, the corresponding ones of the hall are made of wood. Also, they are about two feet thick!
At about 5 feet, a frieze is set into the wood, consisting of a row of symbols carved into a band of wood of a different kind:
The circle is a deep groove, and the shades areas are depressions cut out of the wood.