A badly-wrapped package.

[eternally_aggrieved]

A brown paper package sits on Ahrotahn's desk in Relto. It shakes and wobbles, giving the general impression that it is grievously annoyed.

Comments

[all_the_worlds_have]

After four symbols, the tumbler unlocks, producing an enormous cast-iron key in the shape of a hollow cross.

[calledtoventure]

The key clearly doesn't fit the small square hole, or the star-shaped slot.

She tries a few words on the letter-tumblers: FIRE, WATE, EART, WIND, EFWA, LOCK, OPEN.

[all_the_worlds_have]

Nope.

[calledtoventure]

Perhaps something interesting might happen if she puts the wick into the small square hole, or the star-shaped slot?

[all_the_worlds_have]

Neither appears to do anything.

[calledtoventure]

She examines the key more carefully. Does it have interesting inscriptions, or moving parts?

[all_the_worlds_have]

No, unfortunately.

[calledtoventure]

She gives the telescope the same treatment. Before she was mostly looking through it; now, she's inspecting the exterior.

[all_the_worlds_have]

No, once again.

[calledtoventure]

She examines the lens and its eyepiece setting; perhaps they changed, when the room did?

Then she inspects the book – front, back, spine, interior – and the key again, both through the lens.

[all_the_worlds_have]

No and no.

[calledtoventure]

Perhaps she should take a closer look at the three symbols on the front of the box. And she peers into the square hole and the star slot. She's still wearing the lens.

[all_the_worlds_have]

None of these show anything new.

Perhaps those fragments near the cube can be made sense of somehow...?

[calledtoventure]

She's already found two complete digits there; perhaps there are two more?

If not, can the fragments perhaps be assembled – in her imagination, if they don't afford actually moving around – into complete digits?

[all_the_worlds_have]

It appears that it's simply a matter of perspective.

By peering into the panel from enough different directions, numerals assemble themselves. The remaining two numbers are a two on the top and a six on the bottom. When they're entered into the remaining two turnwheels, a small switch is revealed - a switch that, when pulled, causes the panel with the eye to open and produce a strange wood-and-brass piece of machinery. On the right-hand side there's a small hole with a turn-wheel and a slider next to it. In the center right, a pair of brass arms, clearly intended to hold something long and cylindrical. And on the left-hand side, a small door with a brass latch, which opens to reveal clockwork. One of the gears is merely a flat disc with a small square hole in it.

[calledtoventure]

How delightfully complicated!

Does the clock key fit the flat disc?

[all_the_worlds_have]

Why yes, it does!

[calledtoventure]

Wind, wind.

[all_the_worlds_have]

With a bit of winding, the clockwork begins to move. A flat ring of small slides begins to spin past the pair of semicircular rests.

[calledtoventure]

Does playing with the turn-wheel or the slider produce any interesting results?

[all_the_worlds_have]

The turn-wheel produces sparks inside the hollow, but the slider appears to be locked.

[calledtoventure]

Ahrotahn's current theory is that this is a movie projector and she needs to find a bulb to go in the brass arms.

...Perhaps something interesting might happen if she puts the key there instead? It's made of metal; a short circuit might cause it to heat and glow.

[all_the_worlds_have]

The brass arms are too large to hold a lightbulb, and there don't appear to be any electrical contacts in the hollow. The key is also too small to bridge the arms, so her experiment can't be attempted.

[calledtoventure]

Hmm.

...aha. The telescope might fit.

[all_the_worlds_have]

As soon as the telescope is put into the arms, they grab it, aligning it so that the viewing end is pointed directly at the slides blurring past.