Norbert stood there, uncertain of what to do, as Vivienne walked past the butler into the mansion before him. He stood still as his brain tried to understand this unexpected outcome. Why would someone living in a place like this and having their own butler ever need to work as a waitress?
The rock garden at the front of the property, enclosed by its black wrought iron fence, Norbert looked at the multi-story place, knowing it could have many more floors inside, going even deeper underground beneath this cavern.
Looking at the doorway again, the snake's eyes looked back at Norbert, and the butler stared at him, darting his eyes between them, beckoning Norbert to come inside the mansion. Knowing he couldn't run away now, Norbert entered the dwelling. The door closed behind him by itself, soundless except for the click of the lock falling into place, sealing Norbert within its confines.
"Is the drawing room free?" Vivienne asked the butler.
"But of course," the butler bowed as he responded, walking in front of Vivienne around the staircase in the centre of the walkway. Norbert saw it and led upstairs, a chandelier halfway up with black flames flickering.
Up the stairs, Norbert saw a single, double door, and the ebony wood with green encrusted handles visible from the first step of the stairs. His eyes followed the structure back down by the fences as he tracked it over with his eyes, sure that he could see them slither slightly, like snakes going through the desert.
When he stared at one, signalling it out from all the others, it stopped moving. In his peripheral vision, Norbert could see them move at a snail's pace compared to before.
Feeling his eyes boring into him, Norbert looked in their direction. Off to the side of the centre staircase, the butler looked straight at him. With a hop in his step, Norbert quickly made his way towards the butler and inside the drawing room, the butler closing the door behind him. Norbert saw the same snake-like design, this one silver with the same green eyes, two gems placed inside.
Not wanting to touch it, he could swear the snake was looking straight at him, daring to do so, its fangs ready to dig into his flesh and pounce into him. Starting to change his vision, Norbert looked down at the door handle to see if it really was magic controlling it or something else.
"I wouldn't do that," Vivienne said from behind him.
Stopping on just the cusp as he turned around, hovering on the border of the two, the magic vision wanting to take over. Norbert, standing on the fence, was able to half see both of them out of the corner of his eye, seeing there was, in fact, magic in the door handle. Drawing in his attention, Norbert fixated on it, a sense of dread engulfing him as the abyss in front of him opened up, starting to fall into it with nothing there. One foot over Norbert, feeling himself start to plummet, when the energy inside him kicked into gear, spinning around him.
Norbert snapped himself out of it and cut the magic vision, returning to normal. Bending over, panting, his fist clutched over his heart as he tried to calm down his breathing, he stood up straight after several seconds, recovering from the ordeal.
Turning away from the door handle, Norbert looked towards Vivienne, standing over a table with metal on the tiled floor and maps sprawled all across it. Paperweights were strewn about as Norbert stared at them, reminding him of chess pieces strewn about the places.
Ripping his eyes away from it, wanting to investigate the rest of the room as he stood there, centring his thoughts on what was around him. Several chairs and cream-coloured lounges scattered around the room, all pushed back to the sides, a glass table beside it, Norbert seeing cups wear and dishes on top, crumbs next to the saucers where they had been used once.
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Norbert saw a globe in one of the corners, the biggest one he had ever seen, much larger than the toy one his parents had back home. Stepping towards it, Norbert finally sees the continents, an island marked off to the side with a little flag poking off of it. Reading what it said, simply: "Grand Arena."
Norbert placed it back down the flag, not wanting to ruin the map with his butter fingers moving markers around, as he turned towards Vivienne. The woman was looking over her maps on the massive table in front of her, not caring for Norbert.
"I see you poke around anybody's stuff without asking first," She said to Norbert. Rethinking his past words, she obviously cared about what he was doing.
Hovering his hand over the wooden mask, he did not see anyone but the two of them as he waited there, not wanting to check the room to see if it was bugged and if he could even distinguish it from anything else. And not wanting to risk it, especially with whatever happened with the handle, not knowing if there were any other strange objects.
"You're safe from the Reekss in here," Vivienne told Norbert, abating his fears.
Taking the mask off, Norbert looked at it, seeing it was just a simple wooden one, flipping it around so he could see the inside, tracing it with his fingers. Norbert could see a crystal embedded in it, not knowing how he could miss it.
Tracing around it, Norbert felt the runes going across it. "What's it for?" Norbert asked the witch, still going over the maps. He placed his sack down next to one of the metal table legs and plopped the mask on top as he looked over the maps, trying to understand what she was so carefully going over.
Sighing in frustration, she rubbed the brow of her nose as she looked up to Norbert. "To stop the Kreevss from spotting you when exiting the arena," Vivienne stated to Norbert; all emotion was stripped from her care, and Norbert felt the frustration emitting her in waves of heat.
Norbert nodded in response, remembering the times when he walked past them without them even batting an eye at his appearance. He wondered if, even now, he would still be chased around the entire city, not knowing when he could have collected his items or if they would be lost.
Distracting himself from the events that could have but didn't happen, Norbert focused on the map as he looked around at the pieces on top. Studying the map, which had a circular dome in the centre and streets going out of it like all the corners of a compass, Norbert realized that staring at the city map.
With the location stuck in his mind, Norbert moved to the next largest one, more sprawling than the other, the landscape it was depicting not circular but narrower, like a slit in a rock. Seeing to the left of it another circle, Norbert nodded, seeing the underground section he currently resides in.
The other scraps of paper had placed on them, fewer lines with more distance between them. The lines depicting rectangles, twisting his head around plans for houses, were shown to Norbert. Scrawling over them in a different ink pen, reds, blues, and greens over the exerts of paper.
He was turning to the figures, and Norbert noticed several posters around the stadium on the larger map depicting the city above. Around them, Norbert saw them move slightly, shifting either left or right. Leaning down next to the desk so his eye was just above it, Norbert looked at the little creature, its little snout and tail behind it.
Standing up, Norbert saw them dotted around the side as Norbert started to piece the puzzle together.
"Why are you tracking nearly everyone in this city?" Norbert asked Vivienne.
The witch looked up from her work, stopping to examine her collection of maps on the table. "Out of everything you could ask first, it's about something I've already told you before." Vivienne said to Norbert.
Shrugging his shoulders, assuming it was to find whatever she asked him before, pointing to one of the Reekss there, the next question coming, "Assuming it to find what you after, why are you even helping to hide me? Aren't I now more of a liability than helpful?" He asked her, wondering what she would say in response. Whether it was about comradely or if he still needed.
"You're a follower of Luck. I knew what I was getting into when I asked you to come here," Vivienne said, walking away from the large table as she flopped back down onto one of the cream couches. Norbert stood up as he continued to watch the pieces move about in their respective places.
Looking over the stadium, seeing one of the maps having a figure there, and bending over, Norbert realizes the man who had grilled him before, asking to find a witch in search of an artefact. I still think it was a ridiculous request, especially needing to chat…
"Dang it, I need to go, or this little man will get even more annoyed at me," Norbert said as he pointed to the figure of the moustache man.
Vivienne shook her head in response, "No point, with the Kreevss out for your blood. If he tries to associate with you at all, then what little peace he can hold onto will be shattered." Norbert ripping his eyes away from the map as he stared at Vivienne, the cogs in his head moving.