Henry exited the vehicle with a practiced poise after quickly downing the rest of his drink. What he found outside was almost exactly what he pictured, the grandeur of the manor was matched only by the magnificent gardens and the beauty of surrounding area. Certainly the manor was impressive, but Henry had always found the style rather boring, so his attention remained fixed on the wonderful scenery. Snapping back into focus, Dr. Halibern turned to face his hosts, dutifully feigning interest in whatever it was the younger man had to say and accepting the obligatory handshake with a firm grip. Other than making a point to remember everyone’s names, Henry hardly listened to David’s introductions. As the group made their way inside, taking in the splendor of the grand hall, Henry immediately took note of how quiet it seemed to be. He had been inside holy temples with more noise than this. No matter how recently they had renovated the place it just didn’t make sense for a house this old to produce so little sound. Unless they had managed to tear apart the house and soundproof the whole thing it would be impossible not to hear the rustling of whatever servants were required to keep the place up and running. And they were preparing for a ball? Something was off, and in order to keep his wits about him, Henry decided that for the time being it would probably be a bad idea to do any more LSD today. It wouldn’t be fun tripping balls around a bunch of socialites anyways… People in suits had a way of killing a man’s spiritual side… Coctail hour at 7 was all he really needed to hear, however, so once they were done with all the tedious exposition, Henry immediately made his way to his room. If the quiet had seemed eerie, then the furnishings in this room were downright disturbing. Far from the luxury manor suite he expected, the place was set up like the interior of a traditional Indian palace, right down to the Hindu and Tantric statuettes and the lavish Buddhist prayer box. By all means this was the room of his dreams, but there was no way the family would have had all this stuff on hand. Whatever voodoo magic they had used to figure out his tastes be damned… Unless one of these fancy swedes just happened to be a collector, buying this stuff would have cost the manor a lot more than any reasonable billionaire would ever spend on a stranger. Something was really wrong, and Henry couldn’t wait to find out what. Much more excited than afraid, the Doctor happily lit up the incense he had been provided with and went to prepare a bath. ---- After the bath, feeling very rejuvenated, Henry stood in front of the mirror for a while, doing various grooming things… Putting a little product in his hair and brushing his teeth or what have you, until he suddenly realized he hadn’t even looked at his bedroom yet. Like the lounge, it’s style was impeccably suited to his every fantasy, even including the little basket on his bed, containing two king size Kit-Kat bars. If he was dreaming, he didn’t care if he ever woke up. Grabbing one of the packages, Henry moved back out into the lounge to rummage through his bags for a second. Retrieving the desired items, he then planted himself on the sofa, laying his prize on the small table before him. A bag of thick, medium length filters, Buglar rolling papers, and a tin of his favorite tobacco, Norwegian Shag. ---- [hider=Henry in his dinner clothes][img=https://eldelaymi.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/tumblr_mhgo7tbibq1rpzhh9o1_500.png][/hider] By the time 7 o’clock rolled around, Henry had filled his cigarette case and gotten himself all dressed up in a 3-piece suit. Ten minutes later, and he was showing up fashionably late for cocktail hour, “Excuse me, sir, would you like anything to drink?” asked a server. “Hmm… What grade of cognac are you serving this evening?” Henry answered, discretely placing a 20-krona bill in his jacket pocket. “Ah, I see the gentleman is of discerning tastes!” The server smiled, “We have the VS blend Courvoisier tonight, but if you like I may set aside the Louis Royer XO for your pleasure.” “That would be fantastic, thank you, sir. I’ll take it with a drop of spring water, of course.” Tonight was going to be phenomenal, Henry told himself, drinking expensive booze on other people’s dime was a very difficult experience to ruin. The woman he had talked to before seemed a bit simple, but nice. Of course, he could hardly blame her for being taken aback by his verbose driveling, but it had been amusing to watch her reactions. But again, even if everyone else at the damn manor was a horrible bore, at least he could milk them for every last drop of their liquor cabinet. “Thanks again for this, I’ll be sure to remember it.” Henry told the waiter with a little half salute when he had returned with the drink. After he was gone again, the Doctor found himself in need of a fine hand rolled cigarette to accompany his glass of liquid gold, and made his way outside to light one up. This brief adventure outside was largely uneventful, and therefore requires very little description. He smoked a cigarette and sipped his drink. That was all. Feeling a little disappointed by the lack of excitement outside, Dr. Halibern figured it was probably time to see if he couldn’t find anyone interesting to talk to for a while… And there she was, standing in sharp contrast to the various Swedish socialites buzzing around, another one of the manor’s special guests hanging on the arm of staircase. “I don’t believe that we’ve been properly introduced, yet.” Henry smiled, having made his way across the room to meet her, “As I said before, my name is Dr. Halibern. It’s a pleasure to meet you miss…”