Patchwork Universe

Lady Violetta Kingsley

[Continued from City in the Sands.]

"Oh dear," exclaimed Lady Violetta as she emerged from the mist. "This isn't right at all." The grey buildings all around her put her distinctly on edge. "And I'm almost certain the sky isn't meant to be that colour at all. Unless it's the Aurora Borealis or something." Violetta was quite put out. It was most unreasonable for magical portals not to go back in the same direction that they came, although she supposed that one had to put up with a certain amount of capriciousness when dealing with such things. But that didn't exactly help her to get home, did it?

Spotting someone emerging from a house, she trotted over to the grey clad person. "Er, hello. I appear to be a little lost. Do you know where I can get some water for my horse?" The person stared back at her blankly. How stupid she'd been. If she was this close to the aurora, she must have been transported to somewhere near the north pole. Odd though. It felt warmer than the moon had been. Perhaps this person spoke Eskimo or something. "Aldersley? Do you know how I get to Aldersley?" she annunciated more slowly and clearly. in the hope that might be of some help.

Harlequin · Average Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Chimera

The man appeared to be addressing the horse's shoulder when he spoke.
"There's a pump and a horse trough in the square, miss. Just head to the clock tower. I ain't never heard o' no Athersly though; sounds like one o' them posh places though, erm... begging your pardon miss" he mumbled as he escaped back into his house.

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 10:19 pm Post subject:

"Er, thank you." Violetta responded rather weakly as the man's back vanished inside. "Who'd have thought it? Still, I suppose everyone civilised speaks English these days, the Empire being what it is and all. Come on Blackie, lets go and find the square."

Traipsing through the dull streets, the now rather long suffering horse was clearly glad to reach the square at the very centre of the town. "That's the spirit, old thing," exclaimed Lady Violetta as the horse, smelling the water, made a bee-line for the trough. Hurling herself off Blackie's back with an efficient enthusiasm, Violetta worked the pump until there was enough water in the trough for Blackie to have a good long drink.

Now, at her leisure, Lady Violetta surveyed her surroundings. The clock tower caught her attention. "A quarter past three - I'm sure that can't be right. Still, different angle of the sun at more northerly lattitudes and so on, I suppose." Tying blackie to a railing near the trough, she decided to investigate the clock tower - if nothing else, it might provide her with a view of the immediate area. After all, it occurred to her that this place might be all surrounded by fog like Aldersley was. What she needed was some sort of navigational method. After all, having already been to the moon and the North Pole, who was to say where her next trip through the fog might lead? It would doubtless be both terribly embarrasing and more than a little fatal to end up at the bottom of the ocean or something.

Crossing the square quickly, parasol grasped tightly in her hand, she surveyed the tower for a visible means of entrance.

Harlequin · Average Joined: 19 Mar 2004 Posts: 33 Location: Chimera

She completed a full circuit of the base of the tower. Four walls making a square, and two doors on opposite sides. The larger of the two was obviously the main entrance, with two individual doors set in a stone archway, but initial experiments revealed that they were locked. The smaller door at the rear of the tower was a small wooden rectangle, which would have looked at home on one of the surrounding houses.

Lady Violetta tentatively tried the handle, and was pleased to find it open. She peered through the small gap she had created, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. A narrow wooden staircase could be made out, which seemed to hug the interior wall. The stone walls enclosing the staircase prevented her from seeing into the centre of the tower. She could see the dust motes drifting in the daggers of sunlight from the slit windows.

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 8:13 pm Post subject:

"Hello?" Lady Violetta shouted up the stairs tentatively. "Anybody there?" She raised her eyebrows and took off her spectacles so that she could rub her eyes. "I do seem to breaking into an awful lot of buildings today. I'm sure that's not quite a civilised thing to do, but, well, when you're on an adventure, the rules are different I expect. And anyway, who knows if it's still today anyway."

Gathering her resolve and replacing her spectacles neatly on her nose, Lady Violetta slowly began to climb the steps to the tower. Hopefully there would be some sort of window she could look out of and get her bearings. Would that help though? And what had bearings got to do with bears anyway, exactly?

Lady Violetta Kingsley · Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 12:13 pm Post subject:

Violetta sighed a deep sigh of the type she imagined was appropriate for a woman in the throws of a maudlin fit of discouragement. The top of the clock tower had revealed only another locked door, and the small landing proved unoccupied, dusty, and as unilluminating as the bottom. She could see that mist surrounded this place on all sides as it had done at Aldersley. This was a clear indicator that she was, in fact, in some kind of maze, albeit a rather oddly constructed one, since the obfuscation of one's route through it lay in the mists on the perhiphery of each area, rather than by the use of walls. Possibly there was some sort of rational pattern to the way that the mists behaved, but she was currently at a loss to interpret - perhaps more data was required.

In the meantime, that didn't help her get back to Aldersley, and time appeared to be behaving in a most peculiar manner. Lady Violetta discovered this when she reached the bottom of the clocktower again, and glanced upwards to see that the time on the clock was 3:15 again. Surely she couldn't have spent an entire day in the clocktower? It definitely seemed much shorter than that.

Glancing downwards, her eye caught the brass arrow attached to the clocktower wall, noting its incongruity with the surroundings. Since the arrow was quite unlike anything else she'd seen in this place, she could only assume that someone had been marking their progress through the maze. How very scientific of them! Presumably then, if she followed the arrows, she would encounter a fellow intrepid explorer - one who might even know the way back to Aldersley.

Mama was going to be absolutely furious when she got back. It wouldn't be helped by the fact that she wasn't going to believe a word of this. Frankly if all this sort of thing was due to overstimulation of the mind, the way mama said it was, then she was greatly surprised, since she was sure she'd at least have dreamed up someone to talk to. After all, Blackie was a horse - conversations with her tended to be a bit one sided.

Another thought occurred. Without knowing how the mists worked, she couldn't even be sure that her predecessor's arrows were of any use whatsoever. If, as she was beginning to suspect, they transported her quite randomly from place to place then there would be no-one to follow. Still, it wasn't as if she had any better ideas, so follow the arrows it was. If she were especially lucky, she might end up back at Aldersley by sheer random chance anyway.

Mounting Blackie, she rode off northwards, in search of her mysterious forebear.

[OOC: Edited to insert a door. Continued in Imperial Foundry: In which progress of a sort is made]