The Strange and Wonderful House

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The Strange and Wonderful House, often referred to as simply the House, and also called the Infinite House or the Mansion, was a living house of mysterious origins whose interior encompassed an infinite number of rooms, many of them strange or supernatural. Jenny Everywhere was friends with the Architect of the House, and had an unusually good understanding of the nature of the House, which she visited in many incarnations, up to and including the day of the House's eventual destruction.

Description

Nature

The House was infinite (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Welcome!) and home to many portals to and from other dimensions than the one where its original exterior happened to be located. In many cases, transit from one room to another was achieved through portals internal to the house, rather than more conventionally making one's way through the building. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House)

Its internal organisation was paradoxical, including such rooms as a “3rd floor basement”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Every House Needs One) Most rooms' actual relative positions within the House were “fluid”, with the exception of the Stationery Room which was always located at the exact halfway point between the Master Bedroom and the Guesthouse. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stationery Room) Some rooms were incalculably larger on the inside than normal, (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Coat Room) sometimes containing entire biomes, (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Catamaran Loos of Oceania) and some changed appearance based on the observer. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Coat Room, The Dining Room) Time was also malleable within the House, with it being possible to move back and forth in time when one moved between rooms; for example, when nipping out of a party in the aforementioned 3rd floor basement to go to the men's rooms, Rennik described the party as being held “last Thursday”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Every House Needs One)

Some rooms could only be entered by specific people or groups of people, including the Stationery Room, limited to the Master of the Houses and his guests, (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stationery Room) and the Jenny Everywhere Museum, limited to incarnations of Jenny Everywhere and their companions. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Jenny Everywhere Museum)

The House was sentient, with a definite personality of its own. It enjoyed having its residents upgrade its interior, and had the ability to manipulate its own interior to a degree to facilitate their work. For example, when the lawn gnomes began work to graft the Great Glass Elevator into the House to supplement the Stairwell, it began to make various doorways throughout the House open into as-yet-empty elevator shafts. “Buzzing with excitement and creaking with worry, lurching, stretching, and then settling”, the House's active mood was noticed by the residents, who were forced to hold a “continuous seance” on the 7th floor in order to “keep spirits and demons out of closets and cupboards”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Elevator)

Inhabitants

Some parts of the House were home to supernatural entities, including:

There were also miscellaneous human, or seemingly human, residents, such as Federico Ruiz and the other decadent socialites of his Pleasure Pad/ (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Pleasure Pad of Federico Ruiz) There were also visitors to the House who stayed for years, in some cases dying there. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Right Wrong Questions)

The House, or specific rooms within the House, also had human staff. These included the guards keeping watch over the door to the Conservatory from the Guardroom. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Guardroom)

There existed a Master of the House. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stationery Room)

Contents

The Courtyard

The Courtyard was an area in front of the wrought gates that properly led into the estate, but which was still part of the House in some sense. It was “fragrant”, and the air was filled with “softly surrsurring willows and languid will-o'-wisps”. It was always night inside the Courtyard, the sky filled with “alien stars”. There were chimes, always ringing softly in the playful wind.

The gates themselves, although they appeared at first glance to be made of glowing golden metal, were actually made of clear tubing within which luminous insects milled about for an indiscernible purpose. The gates could open of their own accord to let in a visitor. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Courtyard)

The Anteroom

The Anteroom appeared to be carved inside the trunk of an impossibly huge tree trunk, the wood of the walls smooth and unbroken. Its floor was tiled in a spiral fractal pattern in black and white, and it was furnished with comfortable sitting chairs, sofas and coffee tables, arranged across the pillar of cold white fire in the centre, into which guests could step to get to other parts of the House. This fire was fueled by fairy dust which fell from the floating chandelier above, whose light did not come from electricity or fire but from a number of small fairies sitting on the chandelier. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Anteroom)

The Pleasure Pad of Federico Ruiz

The Pleasure Pad of Federico Ruiz was a “shimmering” domed community offering every decadent luxury known to man, and then some, to its select group of socialites. The central few domes offered cocktails laced with “a bewildering variety of intoxicants”, sofas with couches embroidered with the silk of mutated spiders, and golden bathing fountains swimming with “minuscule fish”. The furthermost domes were “small jungles of primal lust” housing more lustful forms of entertainment. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Pleasure Pad of Federico Ruiz)

The Illegal Underground Greenhouse

There existed an illegal underground greenhouse. It was because of its existence that the Pleasure Pad was not the best contender for the title of “seedy underbelly of the House”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Pleasure Pad of Federico Ruiz)

The Catamaran Loos of Oceania

One of the House's bathrooms, the Catamaran Loos of Oceania took the form of an oceanic landscape with waves frozen beneath a shining moon, the waters populated by many calamari. The actual bathroom equipment was located on a boat in the middle of this landscape. The Catamaran Loos could be entered through a portal which felt like “a song on your skin”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Catamaran Loos of Oceania)

The Library

The Library was extremely dusty, and its floors creaked in a frightening fashion. It was connected by a portal to the Library of Hawk Manor in one universe. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Library) The Library had a bespoke bathroom, which was, surprisingly enough, completely spotless, but for the forgotten book. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Bathroom (of the Library)) An “elegant and studious woman stroll[ing] with melancholy through a tattered library” was one of the scenes from across the House glimpsed by another visitor through one of the glass panes in the Conservatory. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: View From a Jungle)

The Theater Room

Like many Victorian manors, the House was home to a theater room. Its players were inhuman beings wearing human faces like masks, however, and getting drawn into the performance was hazardous. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Theater Room)

The Coat Room

The House's Coat Room catered to visitors who wished to leave their coats in storage for the duration of their visits. It changed according to the needs of individual visitors, from “warm and cloying” to tall and drafty, with the valets being anything from Dwarves to Titans to match. The area covered by the Coat Room was apparently immense, such that many visitors who insisted on getting their coats back themselves instead of trusting the supernatural valets tended to get lost and wander for weeks or more; “on many occasions bleached bones of owners [were] found mere yards from their coats”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Coat Room)

The Closet in the Sitting Room

In the Sitting Room, there was a Closet. Allegedly like all closets, it was a portal to the magical land of Narnia, but it was designed to test users' faith in this fact because the real doorway was actually the back of the closet, with what appeared to be its back wall acting as the door. Hence, only if they thought to open it despite their initial disappointment, would the would-be travellers realise the Closet really was a portal to Narnia after all. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Closet in the Sitting Room)

Hallway - P13

Served by a lift – not an elevator, just a vertical shaft with a very forceful updraft – the organically-curved Hallway - P13, whose floor glows a soft blue, provided access to the Observatory through an “elegant door of dark wood”. The hallways was included in the original blueprint for the House. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Hallway - P13)

The Observatory

The Observatory was located at the end of Hallway - P13, behind an “elegant door of dark wood” (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Hallway - P13) locked by a complex mechanism. The room itself was circular, with a dome that looked out into the night sky. Around the room were dozens of monitors built into consoles with buttons, keyboards, levers and toggles. In the middle sat a “technologically-advanced ”recliner chair with joysticks on both armrests and a helmet on the seat, from which a user could control the House's defensive lasers. According to its A.I. guardian Ana, the purpose of the Observatory was principally to observe “both space and time”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Observatory)

The Men's Restroom

The House had a men's restroom, where gravity was abnormal, such that one could stand upside-down on the ceiling to do one's business in urinals that were the right way around. Rennik visited it during the party in the 3rd floor basement. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Every House Needs One)

3rd floor basement

The House had a “3rd floor basement”. Rennik once attended a large party that took placed there “last Thursday” relative to the timeframe of the men's room when he visited the latter. Another man at the restroom who asked about the party briefly got the 3rd floor basement confused for the 2nd floor attic by the tennis courts. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Every House Needs One) A “quiet gathering”, “swaying to unheard music in a roughly finished basement” was one of the scenes from across the House glimpsed by another visitor through one of the glass panes in the Conservatory. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: View From a Jungle)

2nd floor attic

A man at the restroom whom Rennik was telling about a party he attended on the 3rd floor basement once got it confused for the 2nd floor attic, with which Rennik was also familiar. It was apparently located “by the tennis courts”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Every House Needs One)

Tennis courts

A man at the restroom whom Rennik was telling about a party he attended on the 3rd floor basement once got it confused for the 2nd floor attic, with which Rennik was also familiar. It was apparently located “by the tennis courts”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Every House Needs One)

The Dining Room

The Dining Room changed based on the observer, with even two people sitting side by side, drinking together, not necessarily perceiving the room the same way. It could appear as anything from “the viking halls of Valhalla” to something more personal like “the nightclub where you had your first kiss”. Even the food and drinks could change — “while you drink your microbrew and have your salt and vinegar crisps, your friend may quaff mead and eat suckling pig”. However, the room's magical effects seemed to also prevent people from caring about all this. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Dining Room)

The Guardroom

The Guardroom was a room staffed with a number of armed guards who kept watch over the locked door to the Conservatory. The guards were always heavily-armed, and there were “rows upon rows of additional weapons mounted upon the walls, all within easy reach”. It was apparently the only way into the Conservatory. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Guardroom)

The Conservatory

The Conservatory was one of multiple greenhouses within the House. It was large and highly dangerous, the only door being locked and watched over by the guards in the Guardroom. Visitors were permitted, but only if they outfitted themselves properly and agreed not to stray off the path, and not to touch any of the plants, or the glass within which some were held. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Conservatory)

The garden was actually a version of the Garden. It was “a beautiful place where plant life of every kind imaginable and some you had never heard of grows together, seeming somehow both wild and ordered”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Back to the Garden) It was entirely indoors, but strewn about with panes of glass, most of which allowed direct sunlight of unknown provenance to stream through. Other panels were windows into other parts of the Strange and Wonderful House. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: View From a Jungle) The “Gardener” of this Conservatory was an infamous mad angel who tried to kill all who entered. He appeared as a wizened old man with a machete to the naked eye, but his reflections revealed his true form as a many-winged creature wielding a flaming sword. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Back to the Garden)

The backdoor of the Conservatory led out of the House and onto a path passing between the Dark Wood and the Tarn, leading to the Ruined Chapel. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Ruined Chapel)

The Stairwell

The Staircase was a spiral staircase starting near the front door and going upwards. These stairs, built when the President of Zimbabwe complained about the lack of stairs and opened on “the first day of Spring”, passed through “an infinite number of portals, spanning the width and depth of the house”. The supports were in the shape of animal limbs, and each stone step represented a ley line. Every four steps was a doorway. The doors went up to the front door of the Attic, but they also went beyond it — and at the very top, there was a golden gate surrounded by “dry ice tended to by the very highest of the goblins”. It was kept permanently closed, and a sign hanging from the padlock stated: “If you have made it here, then you only deserve to fall, for a life wasted is not a life lived in Good.”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stairwell)

The Attic

The door to “the Attic” could be reached from the Stairwell, but, counterintuitively, was not the pinnacle thereof. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stairwell)

The Throne Room

The Throne Room contained fifty thrones, all of them different. Whenever someone sat in their bespoke throne, it would take the place of the head throne, and the occupant would be called upon to judge some accused criminal. Their arm rest had a white button to let them go and a red button to open a trap-door beneath them that transported them to Pandemonium. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Throne Room)

The Jenny Everywhere Museum

The Jenny Everywhere Museum was a wing of the House that was set aside for Jenny Everywhere by the Architect itself to use as a museum for herselves and her friends – and, in practice, as a storeroom for random junk she acquired while wandering the universes. “Known contents” were said to include:

The Museum could only be entered by versions of Jenny or those she specifically invited. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Jenny Everywhere Museum, The Jenny Everywhere Museum (cont'd))

The Dark Wood

The Dark Wood was located behind the House. The backdoor of the Conservatory led out of the House and onto a path passing between the Dark Wood and the Tarn, leading to the Ruined Chapel. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Ruined Chapel)

The Tarn

The Tarn was located behind the House. The backdoor of the Conservatory led out of the House and onto a path passing between the Dark Wood and the Tarn, leading to the Ruined Chapel. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Ruined Chapel) The wandering mendicant who spent his final years near the Chapel drew “a meager sustenance of wild root and clear water” from the tarn. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Right Wrong Questions)

The Ruined Chapel

The Ruined Chapel, (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Ruined Chapel) or “the narthex”, (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Right Wrong Questions) was located outside the House proper, at the end of a path leading out from the back door of the Conservatory. It was in a Gothic style, but the altar bore a statue of a woman with her head and hands broken off, apparently an ancient, pagan goddess. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Ruined Chapel) The ceiling was broken, with the sky visible from within. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Right Wrong Questions) The Chapel was the dwelling place of an entity known as the Lady in Mourning, speculated by some to be what remained of the selfsame goddess. To a visitor who distracted her from her despair via something like a story or a song, she was known answer any question, except for her name. The altar was surrounded by ashes that were all that was left of visitors who had looked upon her unveiled face — for every night, at midnight, she lifted it up to cry out “Woe unto they who once stood on high! Their temples are in ruins and their names are forgotten.”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Ruined Chapel) Eventually, the Lady left, taking the statue and the aura of melancholy with her. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Right Wrong Questions)

The Master Bedroom

The Master Bedroom was the bedroom of the Master of the House. In an exception from the usual anarchic fluidity of the positions of rooms within the House, the Stationery Room was always located at the midway point between the Master Bedroom and the Gatehouse. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stationery Room)

The Gatehouse

In an exception from the usual anarchic fluidity of the positions of rooms within the House, the Stationery Room was always located at the midway point between the Master Bedroom and the Gatehouse. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stationery Room)

The Stationery Room

The Stationery Room, where all official letters from the House were written, was also known as the Stationary Room, referring to its constant position as the midway point between the Master Bedroom and the Gatehouse. However, as pointed out in the Athenaeum's records, it was also a Room of Stationery. The Room was “somewhat small”, with a single desk sitting in the center, facing the door. At its back was a window covered by heavy curtains, and all the walls were covered in bookshelves and, in one corner, a large cabinet. The desk contained an infinite supply of “papers, envelopes, inks, pens and waxes”. Entry into the Stationery Room was restricted to the Master of the House and those he allowed to use it. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stationery Room)

The west garden

The west garden of the House was possibly inhabited by lawn gnomes. At any rate, the gnomes undertook the repair of the Great Glass Elevator after it crashed in the west garden. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Elevator)

The 7th floor

When the Strange and Wonderful House began acting up out of excitement about its impending acquisition of an Elevator, a “continuous seance” had to be held by the residents on the 7th floor so as “to keep spirits and demons out of closets and cupboards”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Elevator)

The Great Glass Elevator

The Great Glass Elevator was incorporated into the House after crash-landing in the west garden. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Elevator)

The Gallery

The Gallery could be entered through ornate wooden doors beneath “the stained glass window showing the birds from which the Seven Noble Houses take their names”. It contained works of art from various styles, time periods and universes, presented in no particular order — including “photographs of poor children in a city that is almost but not quite Victorian London”, “pages from a medieval manuscript portraying impossible beasts”, “a Cubist painting showing the depths of Hell”, and “a painting Van Gogh never made in this world”. The “armed statues in every style imaginable” which adorned the hallways, on the other hand, were not part of the exhibit: they were, instead, “the guards of the Gallery”, who “[brought] swift death to any who attempt[ed] to steal from it”. Deep in the Gallery, any visitor could find a room with paintings depicting key moments of their own life, including a painting of their own death at the far end of the room. “Few [had] the courage to venture this far.” (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Gallery)

The morgue

The morgue, also euphemistically known as “the Rose Cottage”, was a large, cold room containing many slabs. It was kept at two degrees Celsius by its overseer, a mysterious individual going by Malthus. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Rose Cottage)

History

Origins

At some point, an individual prepared an empty blueprint marked with infinite dimensions and gathered other creative minds to help create rooms for the “strange and wonderful house” they intended to build. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Welcome!) The blueprint was progressively filled out. Hallway - P13 was included on the blueprints as “H-P13”, and one of the people with access to the blueprints took to calling it the “Pie” hallway. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Hallway - P13) The Architect personally gave Jenny Everywhere a wing all to herself, which became the Jenny Everywhere Museum. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Jenny Everywhere Museum)

Visitors

The President of Zimbabwe once visited the House and complained of the lack of stairs. This led to the creation of the Stairwell. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Stairwell)

A visitor whose brother had had access to the blueprints once made their way through the House. They passed through Hallway - P13 and knocked on the door to the Observatory. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Hallway - P13) The visitor entered the Observatory and was greeted by the A.I. Ana, who explained the Observatory's function to them. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Observatory)

A party was once held in the 3rd floor basement, attended by Rennik. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Every House Needs One)

At some point, an old wandering mendicant dressed in dusty, tattered clothing, came to the Ruined Chapel at the end of a long journey. He faced the Lady of Mourning without fear and entertained her with an endless array of melancholy songs, asking, in-between each song, if a given name was hers. Every night at midnight, while the Lady removed her veil, the mendicant left the Chapel to gather food and drink from the Tarn, before returning to resume his singing and questioning. He died happy after years spent in this routine, one more question on his lips. His passing affected the Lady to the degree that she broke her own ancient routine: the following night, at midnight, instead of crying out “Woe unto they who once stood on high! Their temples are in ruins and their names are forgotten.” as she always did, she turned her head towards the stars and sang a song of “hope and dreams” before departing the Chapel for good, with the statue also being gone the next morning, alongside the Chapel's aura of melancholy. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: The Right Wrong Questions)

One day, the Great Glass Elevator crashed into the west garden. This was interpreted by hopeful residents as it being “donated” to the House, and the lawn gnomes began work on repairing it and integrating it into the House, much to the excitement of the House itself, although the goblins of the Stairwell were less keen on the project. “Buzzing with excitement and creaking with worry, lurching, stretching, and then settling”, the House's excited mood was noticed by the residents, who were forced to hold a “continuous seance” on the 7th floor in order to “keep spirits and demons out of closets and cupboards”. (PROSE: Our Strange and Wonderful House: Elevator)

On one occasion, an incarnation of Jenny Everywhere ran into the Strange and Wonderful House while chased by Jenny Nowhere. She tried to hide in a dark room, but was found by Nowhere; however, Everywhere picked up a lamp and clobbered Nowhere on the head with it before making her escape. (PROSE: Jenny Everywhere and the Nowhere Spiral)

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