Madame Tarsa's Toybox
Madame Tarsa's Toybox was a magical chest which stood in a corner of Interdimensional Toymaker Madame Tarsa's Workshop. It was bigger inside than out, and was home to many of Tarsa's sentient marionettes. The Toybox contained the Toymaker's Labyrinth and its many doors into the worlds within the Toybox, such as the Christmas Toyland.
Nature
At least some of the sentient toys could leave the Toybox at will to investigate what was going on in the “outside world”. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker) However, to most, it was a prison of sorts, where Tarsa dumped toys, or occasionally other beings, who inconvenienced her. Assuming they made their way through the maze without getting trapped in any of the rooms, travellers would have to go through three trials (involving fighting unique toys) to reach the exit, which was actually the keyhole of the chest, appearing as an opening at the end of a huge staircase from within. Tarsa, ever the sportswoman, would let people who beat the trials fair and square leave without further issue. (PROSE: The Toymaker's Labyrinth) The walls of the box were “ghost-proof”. (PROSE: The Ghosts and the Machine)
History
A “few months” after the Darius incident, Copper-Colored Cupids Larrikin-1029 and Pessimist-242 stumbled into the Workshop of Madame Tarsa. When they pledged to stop her from completing the Toy Cupid and reverse-engineering a Love Potion formula, she dumped them in the Toybox, where they found themselves in the Labyrinth. After some wandering, they reached a room at the end of a long corridor where each wall held a door. The first one they tried released life-sized toy soldiers with real rifles, the next was a doorway into Wild West Town, but the third door led them to the final hall separating them from the stairway and exit. After they defeated the first two trials (a living chess set and a Mechanical Skeleton), Tarsa ended up entering the Toybox herself and having a swordfight with them, making herself the third trial. However, with the help of Pessimist's Fog Ship, they managed to wound her and rush out through the keyhole before she could heal. Accepting their victory, Tarsa made no attempt to return them to the Toybox and even helped them return home. (PROSE: The Toymaker's Labyrinth)
On Halloween 2019, when the Great Ghost's legion invaded her workshop, Tarsa casually flicked them into the Toybox, not expecting that they would possess an army of the marionettes imprisoned within and then bust their way out. (PROSE: The Ghosts and the Machine)
Around the time of Christmas 2020, the oldest toy in the Labyrinth had taken up residence in the “old dollhouse at the top of the hill” in the Christmas Toyland. This led Juliet-178, Arganthone-056 and Jenny Everywhere, who had been advised by the Frog Mayor to seek her on the off-chance that she would have knowledge of use in restoring the frozen Madame Tarsa to life, to visit the Toyland. There, they boarded the Toyland Railway's train (taking advantage of a comically fortunate, but coincidental, reduction awarded to “copper automatons in the company of dimensionally irregular humans”) and made their way to the dollhouse after enjoying the scenic tour of the Giftbox Mountains. (PROSE: The Time of the Toymaker)
In December 2021, when CS-NA asked her for help in learning more about Christmas, Madame Tarsa briefly considered showing him the Toyland before remembering that its inhabitants were busy with their Ribbon Harvest Festival. (PROSE: The Winter Quests)
Joybuzzer once visited the Labyrinth to meet some of his “siblings”, but ended up getting into a fight with a plastic minotaur. (PROSE: The Winter Quests)
