Looking around and through the windows is slightly complicated by overgrowth from the gardens, but if she's determined, she can see into the entrance hall, and a few other rooms, though curtains block the view of others. They're all in rather poor condition, but nothing obviously dangerous, though the air around the stairway looks slightly weird.

When she opens the door, the echo of her declaration can be felt around the room. The door welcomes her.

Entrance hall is a room of white marble, that was probably beautiful once, but now is covered with thick layer of dust. On pedestals and recesses there are statues and busts, small paintings hang on the wall, some not very level, a fireplace stands silent and dark. 

D'aw, thank you, House.

"...Thank you.  You did not have to accept me, or want me.  But insofar as you are something that is capable of being done right by...

"I am bound by my commitments to the principles of peace, prosperity, and equity, more than even the Law I swore to enforce under Kyros.  And for all those under my aegis - which you are - I shall ensure their well-treatment to the fullest of my ability.  It would reflect poorly upon me to neglect my duties, after all.

"Let's get you cleaned up, shall we?"

She'll leave the stairway for later, and focus upon the ground floor.

"At the moment, I expect the path to this to route through the Curia, for which I shall likely need letter-writing materials to inform them of who has taken the Librarianship into her own trust; if you've opinions on this matter, I would hear them, as best I can."

...She's not actually expecting there to be a response - if there is a mind incarnate here, it's very quiet - but she will not neglect someone because they're not obvious.

No response. 

The room containing the stairway is also the room that has passages to all the others, so she will have to go through it if she wants to explore the rest of the building.

And it has the slight distortion to it?

She'll take a closer look with her magic senses, maybe even poke it with a modification of the 'touch' Sigil.

There's certainly magic in the room, of protective nature. It seems to be focused further up, but small amount of it does fill the room.

Ah, wards.  Unless they look like they're going to bite her, she can leave them alone for now.

They're limited to the room, but hard to tell beyond that, there's no structure she's used to.

Interesting; she'll have to take it apart and figure out how that even happened sometime, let alone what it properly does - but right now, she's looking for stationery, not doing magic research.

There doesn’t seem to be anything qualifying in the room. 

...and anywhere else on this floor?

Would require going through the warded room, even if avoiding the stairway.

Yes, she is, at the moment, willing to risk that.

The air in the room feels thick, and her steps cause ripples in the magic, but if she avoids the stairway, she can slip to another room.

The room is clad with wood, and contains does a contain a desk and a stack of paper. As well as a bookwheel, a lectern, and shelves, filled partially with books.

Wonderful.

...Well, rippling magic is...fine.  Magic trying to hurt her is not fine.  Thick air...She'll have to figure out what the fuck later, but right now she has a letter to write to certain overly presumptive University Trustees.

(Also she is going to briefly survey the shelves, on general principle.)

The titles she can read are as follows:

— "Collected Hush House Lectures", A.P.
— "Apollo and Marsyas"
— "Ambrosial!", A.W.
— "An Almanac of Entrances", W.H.
— "Notes on Binding", G.D.
— "Stolen Histories", A.S.
— "The Treatise on Underplaces", C.H.
— "Advice on Containment", T.B.
— "The Moon's Egg", T.
— "The Alloy of the White Rose", white flower in place of initials
— "The Three and The Three", sun in place of initials

Four books have titles in unknown languages.

There's also three... wheels of metal on one of the shelves? They don't seem to have writing on the side.

An envelope is prepared, in the same form as the envelope she received.

Her name is not placed upon the envelope's return address.

Dear presumptive representatives of the Curia,

    I hope you know that no soul capable of reason would extend trust to you sight unseen, merely upon the, let us say, fortuitous coincidence, of a letter arriving amidst tumultuous events, even if they are quite hard to explain otherwise.

    I do not intend to trust you until I have had a chance to verify what I have learned, and will learn, of your nature and intentions, myself.  However, we do seem to have a desire to preserve lore in common, and on this I believe we can cooperate.

    If you have other goals, or friends, or enemies, now is your chance to preach to me of them.  I will be quite annoyed if I must topple another Archon, but even moreso if I find out only after they have made that need apparent.

 

    (That is not to say that you have much hope of stopping me, should I find it necessary to do so.  I have injured the invincible and outwitted the omniscient even as a mere mortal; a city fell by my hand, as have multiple Archons been laid low.  I have bent the world to my will with no more than my will and my words - a feat previously reserved for none other than the Overlord of Terratus, who inaugurated Her rule with the Edict of Storms laid upon Medrev, and soon after spoke the Edict of Dust over the world entire.)

 

Sincerely,

    -- Fatebinder O. Vaudelle of the Empire of Kyros, Archon of Archons, Master of Terratus Entire,
       Representative Plenipotentiary of the Court of Tunon, Archon of Law and Justice,
       In her own right an Exarch Ascendant,
       Governor Emeritus of the Provinces of Azure, Viridian, and the Stone Sea,
       Proclaimant of the Edict of Stone and the Edict of Execution,
       By popular acclaim entitled Stonemelter, for defense of the people against the Archon Cairn,
       And Librarian in residence at the Hush House of the Isle of Brancrug.

...She forgoes properly signing it, because who knows how magic works here - certainly not her - but she does seal it, with sealing wax and everything.

...Really, she should have first skimmed the books before writing a threat she's unsure of her ability to follow through upon, but she would hardly have dared half as much as she had, was she properly accounting for uncertainty, and look at her past successes.

...She's going to skim the books before she sends this, though.

...Starting with "Advice on Containment", "Notes on Binding", and "Collected Hush House Lectures", specifically; she'll branch out to "Stolen Histories" if she has time before she needs to acquire sustenance.

Advice on Containment, Thirza Blake: promises "ways to keep Wood-things out of trouble, and Mansus-things in it", talks a lot about vessels and mirrors.

Notes on Binding, Gideon Dewulf: Equal parts medicine and tailoring, with uncharacteristic amount of mentions of "history" for either of those fields.

Collected Hush House Lectures: Records of guest lectures given by Arun Peel, mostly various historical events. "Worms" are a persistent theme throughout, and "History" appears contrasted to "Eternity" in many passages.

At this point, she should probably consider acquiring sustenance.

She will have to leave through the warded room, of course.

Oh, blood and fire, of course it's mystery cultists.

She takes notes.  Factual notes, non-obfuscatory notes.  She has the paper for it.  Each Item Worth Capital Letters gets a page - so that's one for Mansus, one for Woods, one for Histories (Secret?), one for Worms, one for Eternity.  ...Hmm, she should document organizations, too.  Curia, Suppression Bureau, "Nocturnal Branch" as a subset of this?, and she is pretty sure that the Church is a front.  It writes the same way.

This is going to be irksome.

Anyway.  She needs lunch.  She has 10s.

...She will be going back to the tavern to spend it, unless she finds a fruiting tree.  (Farm blessings - of the Sigil of Life - when concentrated into a single plant, can produce quite a marked growth, though it takes something from the land - she never did have the time to figure out precisely what, Forge-Bound style - to repeat this trick with the same plant repeatedly.)

Magic in the stairway room reacts more to her presence this time, but she can still slip through.

She can try looking for a fruit tree in the (overgrown) gardens, but it's going to be a challenge of its own.

...Reacts how?

(Mmm.  She's no wilderness woman and she's in her formal robes; she will not be doing such activities until she has better clothing for it.)

Hard to say exactly, but its presence seems to gather in the air just around her, though nothing non-magically observable happens.

After passing the room, she can make it to the Sweet Bones without incident.