Dan Chapman hoshisabi

The Shaping House

The Shaping House

A Netherese structure near the Standing Stones, visible from the research camp. The top floors are gone — not collapsed, not destroyed by weather or violence. Sheared, as if something took a perfectly level cut and removed everything above it. The cut edge is clean. Whatever took the upper floors did not damage what remained below.

The upper approach retains the shell of what was once a reception area: the room where parents came to visit before children were brought up from below. The roof is open to the sky. It is cold, exposed, and was home to six ice mephits until Session 5.

Below the threshold, the cold stops.

Purpose

The Empire called it the Shaping House. The families who sent their children here probably called it the crèche.

Noble cadets of Irenthal — the spares, those with magical potential but not the ones their families were betting on — were sent here young, before they were old enough to study magic. Old enough to be shaped. The Shaping House was where the Empire’s expectations were built into them before they had the vocabulary to question those expectations. The propaganda doll spoke to them in the voice of a patient adult: you are a citizen of Irenthal, your right hand is a gift you give so others may be safe. By the time they were old enough for the academy, the choice had already been made for them.

The caretaker, Igenio, tended the children. Whether he believed in what the House was doing, the record doesn’t say.

The Lower Floors

The air is warm — not fire-warm, but the absence of cold that has been everywhere for days. The floor is swept. Furniture sized for young children. Cots with linens that have decayed with time but were still made. Small books. A cup on a table, set down mid-use. No bodies, no skeletons, no signs of struggle. The children simply stopped being here.

Caretaker’s quarters — Small, functional. A medicine cabinet, a writing desk, Igenio’s spellbook and journal. Igenio spent his remaining years doing Divinations to find the children and never did.

Common room — Toy chests, decaying rugs, well-preserved Netherese books on the shelves. The hearth is cold but the magical warmth lingers.

The hidey hole — A small door in the corner of one of the children’s rooms, hidden and sealed. It opens when the word mother is spoken in Netherese. Inside: a child’s bedroll, stale rations, small clothing, toys, a picture book. Someone prepared a safe place for a child and put one more message in the doll that the Empire didn’t know about.

Notes