She holds out the money. "Well, here's the passage fee."

"Thanks. Where's a good place to get food and water? - And you can stay on the ship while I shop, if you'd like. Your company's delightful but I don't need to drag you on everything."

"There's a grocery store that way-" she gives directions. "But I don't know how to get on your ship."

"I can show you the trick, and key you in so you can see it even when it's invisible."

"Thanks."

Back to the clearing, then. You have to grab the invisible rope (which Villanelle is apparently able to see) and tug it in a certain way - with the telekinesis spell - and then step onto a (still invisible) ramp.

Once Ellie's inside, though, she can see the insides of the ship - which seem to be made out of wood and paper painted with fantastical scenes. The helm's on the opposite side and three floors up from the entrance, and the ship's evidently a bit large. Villanelle keys her in at the helm, and then explains how to get out of the ship - "And it'll be easier to get back in, now that you can see it."

"Things are usually like that. Hence why eyes are so popular among creatures with regular access to light."

Giggle.

"Feel free to wander. My personal stuff's generally locked, and if you can get into those I'll be impressed. Nothing's dangerous, though I'd rather not have any fires on board."

"I'll try to keep things neat."

"Cool. See you in a bit."

"-Do you want the crown back?"

Small smile. "How about you keep it for now. I'll need it back before we take off, but it sounds like I won't need the edge it gives my magic while I'm here."

"All right."

And she heads out.

Ellie starts wandering the ship. The aesthetic seems vaguely... Japanese or something, with all the wood and pictures.

There's a lot of small rooms, mostly. It's cramped. Villanelle's bedroom is probably the larger one, with a folded down cot covered in colorful blankets. There's a study adjacent to it, shelves full of thick books and odd crystals, and a library packed full of even more papers and crystals across the hall from that. The bottom level seems to be mostly storage, with a small galley kitchen. There's a few more potential quarters, mostly currently given over to storage, and a storage room turned into an art studio.

Books... tempting. But maybe she should try excavating one of the rooms to stay in first. On the other hand, there might be some kind of organization system she'd mess up.

Books it is.

The books are an eclectic mix, in a variety of languages. The ones in Villanelle's studio seem to be mostly legal references; there's also folders of notes on cases, locked. The ones in the side library seem to be art books, fiction, and a smattering of nonfiction - history, arcana (spell theory and magical item identification), and guides to trap designs.

Interesting.

She pages through the art books.

Motion studies, mostly, it looks like, for the first - sketches of dragons and a kitten with tentacles and a humanoid frog with teeth and birdlike humanoids and human-like creatures that're far too tall and thin with overly large eyes and long fingers...

There's some still lifes, too, drawings of strange plants and buildings - a cityscape with floating skyscrapers, a tree with eyes...

There's a sketch book near the bottom, with sketches of people (probably, mostly; there's some alien species in there) in assorted states of injury. They're a lot more complete than the other drawings, and are also annotated, with color notes and mentions of light sources, and also names and dates and often contact information.

That's. Uh. That's certainly something.

She puts those back carefully. She's not quite sure she wants to advertise that she was looking through them just yet.

How about that arcana?

Arcana! There is so much theory about spells and magic!

These books seem to assume you understand that theory. They're rather densely written, and mostly in - a language that isn't English but that she understands anyways, actually.

Something called 'planes' is probably involved in magic, and there's mentions of an Astral Sea, and arcane, and a good bit of dry discussion of experiments on the properties of this or that spell... One arcana book is a comparative of arcane and psionic magic and manages to be clear about what neither actually is.

Well, the Astral Sea at least she think she heard Villanelle mention as a place the ship can go.

The language thing is weird, but she gets bored with the impenetrability after a bit and switches to history.

The history books are a lot less dry and impenetrable! They're mostly about the wars and histories of this or that great nation or empire, though some are older, about long lost peoples and species and worlds. They paint a fantastic picture, of magic often defining and turning the tide of battles - of exceptionally powerful individuals deciding the fate of numerous worlds in a single casual appearance. A wizard drops an army on his enemy's doorstep; a cleric prays for a miracle and turns the army to stone. A tear between two planes opens, demons pouring through, held off by a dragon as a paladin order organizes an evacuation and resistance. A city of delicate spires falls in one night as magic fire burns the stone to ash. A goddess vanishes, depriving her clerics of magic, causing the collapse of an empire. A sorceress ascends to godhood and declares one of the bloodiest wars in recent history. The same individuals pop up in disparate times; it seems some of the most powerful magic users are either very long lived species or outright immortal.

(Villanelle's place of origin, Aitania, is the subject of a good few of the books; apparently the empire's ruling class is mostly elves, other species hedged out of governmental service. The empire's inclined to imperialism, and gets into a lot of wars. Elves seem to be traditionally long lived, with individual kings and queens ruling for centuries.)

This is all- It's really a lot. Elves and wizards and multiple other worlds. All this history somehow makes it more real.