In their experiences traveling through worlds in different points of times, Lila learnt that there's rhyme and reason in the adventures they're taken on, even if it doesn't necessary make sense in context.
Since the day Hamon pushed her and Theodore through the doorway of the TARDIS, Lila picked up on the subtleties of the adventures.
Occasionally, Lila sees the common thread in them, if there's a house party they've been brought to, then there's an incident. Whether it has come to pass or not, it changes up, but they're there to intervene, be preventing the incident from happening, or keeping a set of events from going astray.
The universes they've went through sometimes followed the same scripts, with the differences in them, sometimes simple, sometimes grand, sometimes insane, but in all, they're keen on their designs, enough that the blowbacks from trying to change an event that hasn't happened yet wasn't worth a gamble.
To describe a universe, think of it as an author, one that has their pages lined and centered, their inkwells half-empty, they're writing their story of the century that they've been sitting on since they were a tiny universe.
They've got their stories in their head, rattling around, trying to get through a narrow doorway from the mind to the pen, but it's dribbling like cold maple syrup.
Hours spent trying to get their work onto the paper, they went through two pens already because they wore the tips to the point, they're nubs, and they're becoming proud of their work, slow and methodical as it seems.
They're enjoying themselves, everything's coming together, maybe they'll win a prize for their work, get a movie deal or two, or even a television adaption, but then comes two schmucks who stepped out of the TARDIS, unexpectedly.
The universe didn't account for this.
It's a toss-up what they think of her and Theodore, either some see them as a nuisance that must be punished, or perhaps a tool for their uses.
The most experienced universes use them as plot tools for their novels, while the inexperienced or impatient ones do everything in their power to rid them, wanting to keep the integrity of their novels.
For every unique universe they enter, there's always a similar thread, but the universe's different how it uses the thread.
This one, there's a similar thread with something going on in a mansion, but the universe seemed adamant about her and Theodore's trespass.
Though, given the theory that Lady Thornton turned into a Sabbek matriarch, well, maybe this universe liked body horror.
Why the universe didn't allow the Sabbek after that, maybe it has plans down the pipeline, and didn't want them back here until it was time.
A house party, it's a common trope, always has something underlying it, the murder mystery some adventures ago, to this, there's always a twist.
An easy story for the universe to write, a dash of drama, some intrigue, maybe an alien or two.
It wasn't the case here, there's no indicators of aliens present, though they wouldn't know what to classify the Sabbek and the Drekker.
As it stands, there's no pushback against their appearance, nothing that suggested that there's a set point, not unexpected, there's been adventures where similarly, there wasn't any set points they couldn't alter and the universe didn't make it known they're intruding on its design.
Thinking about the possibilities of universes having their own designs, not something that Lila expected to prattle about, but really, she didn't have anything else on her mind, as she and Hammond went through the same way she and Theodore did finding the original basement.
Elsewhere, Theodore's up to his tricks, doing whatever he can to keep Harold from realizing that there's unexpected guests in his mansion.
"Up here," Lila pointed the Sonic Screwdriver towards the direction of the hidden door she and Theodore went through.
Nodding, Hammond went towards it, checking it, finding that Harold locked it after he caught Theodore and Lila down there, but nothing deterred him.
With some elbow grease and stubbornness, Hammond opened the door with ease, upon entering the original basement.
Hurrying through the opened doorways, Hammond searched for Grace, but didn't see her initially, while Lila kept up with him, keeping the light on the Sonic Screwdriver bright as it helped alleviate the fears of exposure from the manchineel fruits still embedded in the walls of the basement.
"How could anyone think importing manchineel fruits was a good idea?" Lila lambasted the owner that brought them to England, Hammond agreeing with her, before saying that Arthur mentioned that it wasn't uncommon for people at the time importing something like the fruits, dabbling in medical curiosities.
Didn't mean that there weren't casualties in the curiosities, but Arthur mentioned the possibility.
However, that wasn't until it came out that the owner was a friend of Harold Thornton the Second and that changed things considerably.
Arthur went digging and had Hammond help, despite his condition, Arthur wasn't deterred digging through boxes looking for any sort of papers.
The stories Hammond has about Arthur getting stuck in those boxes!
… For another time.
It'd appear that when the owner died, he didn't leave it to family, his wife and two children reportedly died of illness only two years after he bought the mansion, Harold Thornton the Second turning up on the third year while he mourned his family's untimely death.
"If he's willing to kill to keep it in the family, I imagine he's willing to kill to keep any dirty secrets from coming out," Lila summed that both Harolds would've done what was necessary to keep their beloved mansion away from non-Thorntons, though it's a shaky claim, since the Second never married and there weren't any birth certificates for the Third.
Arthur managed to collect photos of the men with Hammond's help, he helped describe the differences between them, by that point, Arthur theorized that they weren't related, and didn't believe the Second kindhearted to adopt.
Nobody in the town would've come to realize it because of ignorance.
"Here!" Hammond suddenly called out, Lila turning around, seeing Hammond cradling Grace in his arms. Checking her pulse, Hammond found a shallow pulse, but despite the head wound, Grace's still alive.
Coming to his side, Lila looked at Grace, she couldn't have been down here for no more than a few minutes, not wanting to chance it, she motioned with her hand.
Picking Grace up, Hammond carried her as they went towards the door they came through, when they heard skittering noises coming from behind them.
It's the same skittering noises Theodore and Lila heard, this time, it's closer, and Lila spent enough adventures with Theodore to know that nothing ever good happens when there's skittering noises.
"You remember how we got in?" Lila asked him.
Nodding, Hammond responded that he did as he gently moved Grace in his arms as he adjusted his hands, Lila opened the door for him as he hurried through.
The skittering noises are getting closer, Lila didn't have enough time to get through the doorway before something yanked her backwards, unintentionally, Lila lost her grip on the Sonic Screwdriver, while she started fighting back, Hammond grabbing it while keeping his grip on Grace.
Despite Hammond's efforts, he couldn't grab her while he's holding Grace, and amid her kicking, Lila accidentally closed the door on him, forcing him to flee with Grace and the Sonic Screwdriver clasped in one of his hands, as he couldn't risk leaving her on the ground.
Struggling, Lila fought whatever grabbed her from behind, her hands dug into the hands, but it wasn't Harold surprising them.
It felt… clammy… like wet hay, almost, smells worse than wet hay, and the more Lila tried to dig her nails into the attacker's hands to try force them off, her nails went through the hands like a paper bag.
She passively felt something metallic in the hands, like chicken wire, don't know, Lila wasn't looking back, she tried forcing herself forward, but the attacker had enough strength pulling her backwards.
They're pulling her backwards towards the hole that she and Theodore saw, she's doing everything possible, even risked getting her knife from her belt, trying to stab the attacker from behind, but to no avail.
One good tug, Lila fell through the hole, seeing blackness around her as she fell what she estimated 10ft.
Falling into the darkness below, there's soft dirt under her, that broke her fall, but there's going to be a bruise on her ass for a few days.
Dazed and confused, Lila struggled to get her bearings, but when she did, she realized that her attacker pulled her into a deeper part of the mansion.
Struggling, Lila pushed herself up from the ground, her heart beating, but her attacker nowhere.
Took her knife, too.
"God da—" Lila's angry curse cut short when she realized there's light in the distance.
It's faint and while she'd follow the basics of horror movies and not go into the light, she didn't have much of a choice, and she's forced to walk through the darkness, following the light.
The soft dirt padded her footsteps, only her heartbeat was the sound that she heard, her mind on edge, waiting for her attacker to spring up like a bad horror movie.
She's closer to the light, now, her attacker seemingly gone, but this wasn't her first time, and without her knife, she's on edge.
Slowly, her footsteps muffled against the soft dirt, but Lila forced herself into what looked like a lab with lit torches on the walls that magnified what it is.
A lab…
Another trope that universes like using.
This lab's older than the previous labs that Lila had the misfortune of coming across, however.
Though bare, Lila sees that the lab had been used extensively, old burn marks in the tables, sparse broken glass embedded in the ground, dark-colored blotches that covered much of it, and as Lila glimpsed around, she jumped when she heard a raspy voice coming from somewhere in the lab.
"Help… me…" she heard someone call out to her.
Cautiously, Lila went towards the source of the voice, a darkened corner, she grabbed a wooden plank leaning against one of the stone columns as she wielded it like a bat.
"Help!" Lila heard a quick gasp.
She approached someone slumped in the corner, barely moved their head when they heard her approaching.
"D-Douglas?" Lila's shocked when she recognized the person on the ground as the salacious writer, beaten, bloodied, looked like Rocky got through with him.
Groaning, Douglas slowly blinked, blood dripping from his nose as Lila knelt beside him, moving his head slowly, it hurt doing so, and he sees her clearly.
"God! I thought it was him!" Douglas coughed as he felt one of his lungs pushing against what he thinks is a broken rib.
Shocked, Lila asks, "Was it Harold?"
Douglas couldn't nod, but she got the gist.
"Why?" Lila asked Douglas why Harold would beat him like he's Drago and in between sharp breaths, Douglas tells her that Harold wanted to talk to him.
He didn't think anything of it, Harold told him he wanted to talk about the manuscript Douglas's writing for his upcoming book.
"Grace," Lila summed why Harold wanted to "talk" to Douglas.
Barely, Douglas couldn't nod, but he said that when they were talking, Harold poured them drinks, again, Douglas didn't think anything of it, up until he finished his glass, and the parlor room swirled around him.
When he woke up, he was down here, Harold, in front of him, enraged.
Couldn't remember everything in between the beatings, but Douglas summed that Harold was displeased that Douglas learnt something he shouldn't.
"What's that?" Lila's curious at what set Harold off and she heard Douglas struggle as he sharply cough, "His eyes. Grace told me that she saw them one night."
Covertly, Grace told Douglas that she caught Harold in a nasty mood one night. Periodically, it'll happen, but no one would know why, but Grace saw Harold coming out of the wall in what used to be the painting room.
She was cleaning on the first floor, the door to the former painting room slightly ajar, she accidentally caught glimpses of Harold coming from one of the hidden doors, with fire in his eyes.
"Fire?" Lila helps Douglas up from the ground as he struggled, she used herself to counterbalance as he tried to find his footing.
Unable to nod, Douglas responded that it's what Grace told him, that when Harold came out of the hidden passage, there was fire in his eyes.
"When he was in his moods, he'd wear sunglasses," Douglas thoughtfully said as Lila struggled to help him move around the lab.
It's known to the staff that if Harold's wearing his sunglasses, to avoid him, as he'll be in a foul mood, something that Douglas and Grace found the hard way.