Ornea pulled at the small door under the balcony, and then she pushed.
At first it seemed locked. But as the small Inarta in the feminine Lhavitian three piece dress was a smith, she was fitter and stronger than she might look to a group of ususpecting bypassers who showed up right then. Ornea just stood, suddenly realizing that what she was doing could look a bit weird. In order to conceal her embarrassment she pretended to stumble against the narrow door.
But as she moved, her foot slipped on a stone and with the narrow skirt impeding her she lost her foothold for real and crashed into the door with considerable force. A small metallic sound was heard when something fell to the floor inside and to her surprise she felt the door move slightly inwards.
Luckily, the Inarta had managed to stop there and not continue in through the now open door. The bypassers headed to the party crowd without caring. They were laughing loudly and seemed more than a little bit inebriated.
Ornea watched them as they moved on and disappeared among the party guests; she could only see their backs now. They were an elderly while haired man with a neat ponytail, a dark haired woman much younger than him, and third man with a nondescript style that didn't stand out in the least. Right when they had appeared she's had a brief impression of the old man wearing spectacles and woman being beautiful, the third one ... never mind. As she stumbled she'd had other things to think of.
What to do, what to do ... she had struck in the door, and although it was only a small side door it was still a door of Elysium Hall. This had so not been her intention. She had only wanted to see if it was possible to enter. But now it was done, she had destroyed the metal hook on the inside and now she couldn’t just sneak away and leave the door open. She glanced to the left and to the right and looked behind her back to see if there was anybody she could ask for help. But nobody was there. Fine, she was alone, but she could fix this; it was about that metal hook and as a smith she ought to be able to fix a metal hook...somehow.
Carefully, and feeling quite uneasy, she pushed the door open and stepped in and put the backpack on the floor. She was now in a small room that was empty bar for a few neatly organized wooden barrels. There was no light in this little room, and only a dim light found it’s way there through the frosted glass of a small window on the inner door leading farther into the house. So Ornea left the door to the garden ajar while she searched the floor for the metal hook. She found it nearly at once; it was bent and she only needed one look at it to understand that it wasn’t worth the while try to put it back.
After thinking a bit about this sad fact she came up with an idea and checked the inner door. It was open. Ornea swiftly closed the small door out from the room and with some effort she pulled one of the barrels in front of it. The sounds from the party in the garden could still be heard, but dampened now. It was like she had stepped from one world to another, leaving the crowd, the loud laughs and the happy music behind. She was now inside a silent place that felt enigmatic and exiting, the way it can feel when people find themselves somewhere they not really are entitled to be. Ornea felt guilty, but told herself she was innocent. She was in fact mostly curious. And also, what else could she do, there was no other way to fix the door to the garden, so she had to go in.
The barrel should stop the door from opening, unless somebody pushed hard enough to make the barrel move. Ornea hardly thought anybody would repeat her stumbling though. She felt sure the door was safe for now. Picking up the backpack she opened the inner door and continued into the room beyond it. It was a room beyond her wildest imaginations. She had certainly not expected this. The beautiful garden and the majestic façade of the mansion had prepared her for an impressive and elegant interior. Yes. But she hadn’t been prepared for this.
It looked like a laboratory. The only light there came from a couple of small lanterns on a heavy desk piled high with papers, quills and ink. Above, a relatively smaller domed roof was gleaming faintly with a bluegreen glow that gave an impression of being under water. It was likely skyglass, the Inarta told herself in a try to keep her wits about her. Outside the circles of light from the lanterns, the room was obscure, the corners dark. Shadows played over the walls when the Inarta slowly moved forward. The supporting pillars that held up the roof had a living, organic look to them that made her thing of vines and ivy, rife with leafs. As her gaze followed them upwards she could see odd surreal beings come alive, unreal figures cavorting around the upper reaches of the room ...
The conversation about bringing beings from other worlds into Mizahar came to her mind with full force !
She froze and stared in disbelief. But now all the odd figures were totally still.
Carvings. She drew her breath unsteadily. Surely it was only carvings. It must be.
From where she stood, still without moving, she could see the centrepiece of it all. It looked like a small mountain of metal and glass and twisted metal wire, glittering faintly where it sat on a pedestal This too seemed to move with unknown inner light when Ornea took a step again, like it reacted to her movements. And the shadows moved on the walls and the unreal figures dances anew. Ornea’s heart was pounding hard and her breath was going fast and shallow, as she passed by some kind of barrels and tool-racks that flanked the desk.
This place could easily freak anybody out !
She had obviously been right to suspect that maybe everything wasn't as it should be when she had met the Alses that day in the storm. The radiant councilor, actually, although the ethaefal hadn’t told Ornea this and the others hadn’t said anything either. The others ... she thought a bit about the other people who had been there, seeking shelter from the storm. Then there had been the cupboard crisis, with it’s solution, such as it had been. She had gained some information and she had actually believed ... yeah ... she had actually felt like she had gained information and been in control a little bit, but now she wondered how much she knew really. Lhavit seemed to send her mystery after mystery to deal with.
The room made her feel intrigued but uncomfortable. Partly she itched to investigate the things there a bit closer, but commonsense made her refrain, for now. The best would be to walk over to next door and try to find her way out of the mansion. But she decided to stay a bit and sort out the notes first, as she had promised Edward. She pulled out a chair and sat at the big desk, picked the notes from the backpack and started to look through them and write them in a better way, on a fresh parchment.
Ornea sat with her back to the door she had come in through and her attention was so totally focused on her task that she wouldn’t even hear if somebody entered the room right now. She glanced at the eerie carvings once in a while to make sure they weren’t moving. Otherwise she focused on her job and forced herself to write very slowly and carefully and with her best handwriting. She used the quill and ink she found on the desk. It was easiest that way.
If everything was calm she would complete the paperwork, put the notes in the backpack and find her way back out to the garden party.
