Mansion Tour: Part 12

As he made the door close behind them, Yuri said, “For those wondering about it,” said Yuri, “each of the different sections of the greenhouse is dedicated to different regions of the world I lived in, which were where the kind of place they could be found in that world, and each of those sections have a few hidden trapdoors like what you saw me checking while we were in there. Now, then, off to the final part of the tour, at least for the day.” With that, he started heading to the last part of the tour, the area at the far left of the property.

After a few minutes of heading down that way, they saw what looked like a trio of moderately sized sheds up against the eastern fence’s wall. As they approached the sheds, Althana inquired, “What are those structures?”

“They’re called ‘sheds,’ and they’re pretty useful,” said Yuri, “they’re usually small structures that can moved around with a bit of effort, but my sheds are a bit more permanent, mainly due to the special features I had integrated into them upon installation. Which include some subterranean features.”

“What makes these ‘sheds’ of yours so special,” inquired Malza as they got closer to the structures.

“They’re basically where I store all extra bits I’ve mentioned having on hand throughout the tour,” said Yuri, “the closest one to us is supposed to have the extra components for the greenhouse, including parts to clean and fix the exterior; also a few other things that appropriate for that.”

“So,” said Althana, “where are the machines and devices you said I could take a look at?”

“The furthest shed from us,” said Yuri matter-of-factly, “I keep them there for spare parts and the like for the machines, equipment, and so on in the other facilities. That shed also has an underground passageway to the second and third garages, which are separate from the main building, but we won’t be getting to them today due to how I’ve noticed how much of what you’ve all already seen being more than a bit much. So, we’ll just take a look at one of the sheds. I’ll leave that decision up to you ladies; the choice that gets the most votes will be where we go. And before we continue, you’ll notice if you turn your attention to the manor,” they all looked over at the main building, “you’ll notice a side door with what look like clay path stones in the shape of turtles leading between the side door and the sheds, this is to make moving back and forth while the ground is wet and muddy easier and safer.”

“You said they look like clay path stones,” said Inoshana, “care to explain that one?”

“Since magic really doesn’t exist in the world I lived in before coming here, there’s no earth magic to make things easier, so instead, the path stone-like pieces are actually a special system that can be turned into a sort of path ramp for certain equipment to traverse with minimal issue, they’re just designed to look like the path stones you see now when that system is inactive; sometimes the weather can be so bad that stepping outside is not even a good idea. That’s why some cities in my world have special pedestrian pathways that are enclosed for safety and comfort in addition to ease of movement and traversal.”

“And you can use some of your machines to take care of things when that happens; the pathway ramp is for them since they can’t quite move about like we do,” said Thelsia as she was catching on.

“Basically,” said Yuri, “now, I’ll leave you ladies to your discussion on which shed will be part of the tour.”

*********************************************************************************

Almost a half-hour of debating later, the ladies decided on the furthest shed, mainly because of how pushy Althana was on the subject and Thelsia’s academic interest, which offered reasons that couldn’t really be argued against. When the two primary intellectuals of the group both argue for something, it’s hard to reason out a way of going with another option, especially since Lithira also had some passing interest in it all, but mostly because she was looking forward to some info about the world Yuri had grown up in that could align with her personal interests. The rest just decided to go along with everything because they were just having so much fun learning about this place that couldn’t be found anywhere else in the world; Inoshana, in particular, knew this was probably necessary before getting ready for her personal intimate time with Yuri. The reason the decision took as long as it did was the side tangents almost everyone had about what they had encountered on the property thus far; Malza and Alma actually took up a considerable chunk of the discussion just going on about the grass and everything associated with it, which the rest of the party thought was actually pretty cute.

After they let Yuri know about the decision, he hit a few buttons and the door to the furthest shed swung open in an outward motion, as opposed to the inner motion of the greenhouse that had visited prior. After he stepped inside, Yuri reached over the right, and a flicking sound could be heard before the room became illuminated; it was twenty-five by forty-five feet in size and adorned with shelves and cupboards; most of the shelves were adorned with flimsy-looking boxes with different sorts of bulbs on them for imagery, each box had some sort of odd maker’s brand or mark on them, which would likely be on the bulbs somewhere as well.

In the back of the room was a set of stairs leading down, likely to a larger chamber and the passageway mentioned earlier. Yuri opened one of the higher cupboards on the wall to reveal a small collection of tools, many of which were unfamiliar to even Althana as the most technically inclined member of the group, before he said, “These are some of the emergency tools kept in the facility, the lower cupboard as a few different tool boxes with similar tools inside,” he took a quick look Althana before continuing, “and I suspect Althana will decide to borrow one or two of those boxes at some point in the foreseeable future. I won’t go into the technical aspects of the tools, mainly because I just know the bare minimum for their use and which is best for certain kinds of jobs. That said, these tools are here mainly as a means of giving whatever service operator I called in to help when the automatons were less than useful for the situation. I do know enough for quick fixes, but that’s about it in that regard. And I’m sure you’ve noticed my spare light bulbs on the shelves; they’re here for when the lights need to be changed out for whatever reason.” He closed the cupboard and opened another, showing off an array of small solid cylinders, and a few things that looked like metal bricks not suitable for building, “And these,” continued Yuri, “are what ware known as batteries; they’re basically portable power sources that can be used for some of the more mobile pieces of equipment, the automatons all have their own special batteries that they can recharge at special stations.” He closed the cupboard and started leading them down the steps.

The stairs started lighting up as they moved down the stairs; although there was a light already coming from the chamber at the bottom, the stairwell itself seemed to only have light as long as there was someone on one of the steps. A few minutes later, they were in the lower chamber, which looked like it was almost double the size of the room; up top, the walls were lined with machines similar to what they had seen in the manor and a few that weren’t, with the backmost wall having a closed door that clearly was the entrance to the passageway mentioned by Yuri just a few minutes prior to them getting here.

Althana was so excited she started doing a little happy dance as she scurried over to investigate each of the inoperable devices, an excitement that came to a screeching halt when Thelsia said, “I believe Yuri said you could only take three or four at most. And I’m sure two would be more than sufficient for your research, at least at this early stage. That said, I suspect this could result in some truly impressive golems and homunculi in the future.”

“Ruin my fun so soon again and…” Althana mumbled to herself in a tone almost inaudible past ten feet from her.

“As you can see,” said Yuri, “most of the inoperable robots are kept here for various reasons, and I’ll leave the door open for you to come in and grab a few things later. But for now, I suspect you all want to enjoy the pool, and just admire it from afar. So, we’ll head back there and have a bit of a pool party. The rules are simple: if you don’t have any swimwear, then you have **** but to go without any attire at the pool or in the water; please try to keep that all organized at the edge of the pool area for everyone’s sake, I’ll see about getting some towels out there to help everyone dry off when they’re done with the water,” he took a quick look at Althana, “sadly, all the devices here are not waterproof, and are in fact far more likely to get in worse condition if keep too close to the water.”

“I can live with that,” said Althana, “and I can just come back for all this stuff later; close the door behind us on the way out. I’ll let you know when I want back in so you can open the door for me.” With that, Althana put the small circular machine she was holding back down, and the group made their way back out. After they were out of the shed, Yuri used his remote to close the door. As they headed back to the pool area, they entered the pool’s command code, along with a few other commands.

*******************************************************************************

Almost forty minutes or so, the group was finally back at the poolside; the pool was already filled up, and there looked like there was a gray stone walkway leading to the pool from the manor, some of the kiosk machines from their earlier break were lined up near the border between the walkway and the pool area, and some of the tables and chairs that now ringed the pool had a variety of towels neatly laid atop of them.

“Could you describe swimwear to us?” Lithira inquired, “I don’t think most of us are familiar with the term.”

“Fair enough,” said Yuri, “Thelsia is wearing what my world calls a Sling-Bikini; it’s classified as a kind of swimsuit,” he took a quick look around, “But it doesn’t look like any other attire you ladies are sporting is technically swimwear, which means it all has to come off and set aside where the chances of it getting wet are minimized; when you go in wearing nothing we call it ‘skinnydipping,’ and I have a feeling that might catch on in some places.”

As if on cue, they all started taking off their attire. Alma tossed her loincloth onto a nearby chair before approaching the pool; Thelsia draped her bathrobe onto a chair next to herself before going to investigate the selections at a kiosk; Lithira stripped down and laid her outfit in a neatly folded stack on a table with a small stack of towels at the other end of that same table; Usagi stripped down, showing a bit of excitement of going without an outfit for an extended period of time, before going to investigate the pool; Althana took her attire off and left it in a sloppily folded pile on a nearby chair before heading out to the pool to investigate it; Inoshana started to show some hesitancy but then realized it was a chance to show off her full figure to Yuri before they got intimate, so she stripped off her attire and left it carefully folded on a table at the opposite side of the pool from where the pathway was, she made a quick check of her assets before turning around to approach Yuri for a private conversation with him; Malza had no intention of being part of the pool party, so she just took the opportunity to watch it all from the side near where the kiosks were, her position was surprisingly advantageous for observing the entire pool area.