Surprised, Sinistra jumped off the sofa and hastily put her book aside when Eternia staggered into the living room, her arms full of stuff. "Ah, you're here, Sinistra! That's great, so I don't have to go looking for you", the blonde gastped and piled her load on the floor in the middle of the room.
"What is all this, Eternia?" Sinistra asked. "Toys?"
"Exactly! Toys for Japo and the other small ones, so they can play inside, sometimes!"
"Ooooh!" Sinistra exclaimed, delighted. "Does that mean we won the competition?!"
"You mean the Plastikpop photo contest?" Eternia snorted reluctantly as she remembered all the work they had done to create the photo for their entry. She even worked with the babies for that.
"Pff, never. After the deadline we never heard of that contest again, and neither were we shown the winning photo!"
"Aw, that is somewhat..." the Elementalist began, but her voice trailed off. She didn't neccessarily expect to win, but she had been curious about the results.
"Right! These items here were bought properly!"
"But not by you, weren't they? Just this morning you whined about being broke."
Eternia gave her an undefinable look, something between "don't be so cocky" and "I'm embarrassed". "Of course not. The boss bought them and I offered her to lighten her workload for once."
"That isn't like you at all!"
"I want her to sew, so that Dolltopia is finally continued!"
"Right!"
"So, let's get going!"
"Goodness gracious me!" Eternia exclaimed aghast and threw up her hands in horror when she saw the amount of tiny parts in front of her. "I thought we would just have to add some stickers and stick together some parts!"
"This looks a tad bit more complex than that, you're right", Sinistra agreed while studying the Japanese building instructions intently without understanding even a single word.
"What kind of part is this? A kitchen counter?" - "Eternia, that is the main entrance door of the house." - "And what's this?!" - "Err... no clue?"
"Geez! So that's why the boss grinned so wide when I offered to help!"
"What do we do now? Do we even have a sharp knife somewhere? Or how will we remove the parts from the sprues?"
"Pff, we don't even have glue! I can tell you what we're gonna do now!" Eternia stood up resolutely.
"We take the packaging out to the trashcan, and then we go to the ice cream parlour and leave all this stuff alone until tomorrow."
"But in what way is that going to help us, Eternia?"
"I don't know, but it helps to buy us time to think of something."
"How to assemble the items, after all?"
"How to bring them back to the boss without looking like utter idiots!"
"Oh... alright!" Sinistra got her handbag.
When the black haired woman went into the livingroom on the next morning to collect the parts, she stopped in her tracks like hit by lightning. "Eternia! Eternia, come see! Quickly!"
"What happened?" the blonde asked, out of breath and worried, after she stomped down the stairs and stormed into the room. "Don't tell me something broke!"
"No, see for yourself..." Sinistra said with eyes as large as plates while pointing to the floor.
Eternia was speechless for a moment, too. "What... how... was that you?"
"No! I have no clue about modelling!"
"How about one of your minions? An elemental? A ghost?"
"No way!"
"But it wasn't me, either!" Eternia exclaimed, shocked.
The blonde knelt down and examined the toys. "This wasn't assembled by some amateur", she said cautiously. "Everything was cut out with a sharp scalpel and cleaned well." - "I though you don't know anything about model building?" - "I don't, but I know about knives", Eternia disclaimed offhandedly. "I don't see any excess glue, either, and someone did their very best with the stickers."
"Well, I'm sure none of us achieved this while sleep walking. Perhaps it was the boss?"
"Why would she have left the stuff here, then? The toys aren't for us, after all."
"Hm. Now I have no idea."
Lost in thought, Sinistra played with one of the dolls. "These are truly adorable toys", she mentioned.
"Indeed, they look a lot like the real Sylvanians." Both women were able to evaluate this, as the real Sylvanian Families resided directly on top of their roof. "But those neither commit break-ins, nor do they have the right hands to build things like these."
"I agree", Sinistra said. "What I wanted to say is... as cute as these figurines are, currently they creep me our more than a, angry manticore would."
"I can't disagree on that." It was hard on Eternia to admit it. "On the other hand, they make me damn curious."
"Curious? You mean what kind of phantom is behind this?"
"No, curious about where in the neighbourhood a crafty genius hides, who isn't afraid to take over the hard works of others, crossing all hurdles for that task."
"And you think we'll find out?"
"Oh, I'm sure of that. Just you wait, Sinistra. Just you wait."