Empty hallways, just a small child and her pounding heart.
No one stopped her or called out or was even present to notice. It was late enough that no one would be freely wandering about. The baths were some distance; however, she could slow her breathing as a maid working late wasn't out of place. Most of her direct contact was with the younger servants who would be asleep at this time, so no one would be aware it was the noble runaway.
"Well, these are the baths." Heavy oak burdened the noble, worrying about the noise she immitted as she struggled for access. This locker room set up had several blinds and walls to block line of sight for privacy reasons. It made her initial search nerve wracking afraid that several people could be on just the other side.
The noble hadn't entered this rear room since her first round of dunking. Tiled floors with solid stonewalls common to the castle. Pleasant checker pattern in the stone, in soft colors and grays. Pleasant soft feel to the whole space, that was the noble's inkling. Beyond the three single person dunk tank tubs there were two large pool baths that came up several feet, along the corresponding wall was a row of curtains where one could take a privet shower if they wished.
No obvious escapes routes manifested before her, but she wouldn't give up. There had to be access somewhere in here. With no obvious doors, she started searching the walls where the faucets were. Gleaming brass, tarnished from time spent in such a moist environment, yielded no results to her endeavors. Running her hand along the walls didn't do anything either.
"If this fails my only choice would be to escape through the front hall." In retrospect, it may have been better to wait a day and see if she could locate a better path out. Another detail that would be left out in the retelling. Sitting on the edge of the pool bath her eyes looked restlessly about trying to come up with some magical solution.
Things were falling apart and maybe she should see if the pipes ran in a surrounding room. Her thought spilled wildly to somehow make this ill launched attempt work. Her teeth chattered her lips, as she nervously gnawed lightly desperately thinking of what to do next. When she stood to act however, she noticed something odd about the room.
"If there was a place to go, it would be somewhere where people don't go." Thinking about how there was a revolving passage triggered by a brick in the entry hall, Tiffany revisited the conners of the room, and rechecked the walls.
Patting various tiles didn't do anything, but as she ran her hand over the wall, one section was slightly raised with a gentle almost invisible curve. Her attempts to find a secret lever in the wall was also a vain attempt as she was too short to feel her way all around the perceived curve. Looking up there was a single light fixture on this wall, despite that the other walls had several. Taking her bag off, she stood on the baths edge before tossing the loop in the strap through the fixture.
Heavy clunks sounded as the latch tripped, the wall hinged open. Nervously, Tiffaney took a moment to struggle with her bag straps, trapped by the fixture. Creeping slowly around the wall, the noble gulped softly with what was on the other side. Passage big enough for an average man, the girl could only stare down the dark tunnel nervously.
Dark spaces were a bit of an issue for the noble. She had very few, read none, good experiences in darkness. A lamp or light was not something a child would think they would need when fleeing from a large deathtrap disguised as a castle. Unfortunately, she didn't have a choice or a way to get light, with this open other will notice. Her time was limited.
"It's ok, if its lethal you won't see it coming…" Perhaps even three days here was enough to warp someone. In the passage itself there were long pipes running along the wall and it appeared that there was a mechanism of some kind to close the door.
"Here goes nothing." Whacking the metal pieces, nothing immediately happened, so a few more strikes started something moving and the groaning death keel of the door as it closed, sealing the girl into complete darkness.
Or almost darkness, something triggered when she shut the door. After the eternity of panic formed from the instant of darkness, there was enough light to at lest make a very faint shadow of herself. Turning slowly enough to be almost imperceptible, the girl located the dim light source. Interspaced along the corridor, languid lamps with wire cages and blinding filaments, were unlike anything the noble knew existed. Loops and coils of humming metal somehow generated enough light to cast spooky shadows on the adjacent pipes.
"Unreal…" There wasn't anything like this before that the noble could experience, light without stones or fire. Moving closer, the brilliance was to great leaving spots in her eyes, so she couldn't examine anything closer.
"I think this means I'm on the right track." Her reservations were huge, but light meant people used it and it beat wandering around in the dark. Her hope was high, then low, then high, and now mellow as the noble tried not to worry about things. Her progress was slow but steady, yet she quickly faced a new obstacle.
"Fork…" She reached a point where the path split, one the pipes and lights, one a foreboding staircase. There were signs that the staircase was not lit further down, and this troubled her even further. She didn't know how high she was relative to the castle. If she went down, it wouldn't be impossible to end up in the sea that surrounded the cliffside.
"Stairs are hard, let's pass them by." Rather than pragmatically deciding, the effort to move along and not be in the dark was more pressing. It was the first intersection, but the small child felt this was a good direction to proceeded in.
Within that, this corridor seemed incredibly long, enough that the noble should have intersected or hit the outer wall. She knew from her arrival that this was a castle built for giants, or perhaps a vast army from the past. Looking left and right, she noticed small vents in the ceiling, perhaps why despite the tight quarters the air was not stuffy.
As she had this thought, she noticed there was an opening in the wall, it was lower not fit to be a door. At her small size she still had to bend her head down to fit. Placing a foot inside grabbing the rim, Tiffaney bent to inspect.
Uneven ground met her footing, lightly treaded shoes slipped and she tumbled inside. Unlike the path the surface beneath her was slick sheet metal, and she had an epiphany about her odds off encounter the ocean. More acute included her acceleration downward along what amounted to a slide. Shortly after which the noble was deposited into a round circular drum of room, darker than the blind.