Timing, timing, timing
[Milord? Did that maid seriously stand there for a full five minutes, just to wait until that song ended?]
[Yes, Nepherage. Yes she did.]
Zhen Liu and Draigo had basically run down the flight of stairs once they heard the music playing. Well, Draigo started running. Zhen Liu just ran to keep up. However, before they reached the bottom floor and rush through the connecting the door, they had to stop a couple steps above it.
Immediately below them was the deadpan psychic maid, who was just standing there as still as a statue.
'At this point in pretty sure she is being mind controlled or something,' Zhen Liu observed.
Zhen Liu was tempted to just jump down there, knock her out, take the box and get the hell out of dodge, but he held himself and his kaijin back.
He didn't have much practice when it came to stealth, and he didn't want to alert the Marquis about his and Draigo's presence.
'In retrospect, I should not have taken so long to intimidate this old bard,' Zhen Liu thought to himself when he side eyed Draigo.
Surprisingly, the aforementioned old bard didn't attempt to jump down there either. Whether Zhen Liu could contribute Draigo's caution to cowardice or foresight, he didn't know.
However, once the music had stopped playing and the maid had entered the adjacent room, Draigo was the first to move downward.
"Come on, let's go."
Like clockwork, Draigo and Zhen Liu moved into the space that the maid left behind, and pressed themselves against the door in order to listen in and see what was going on in the room next door.
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"Where is Corriandis?," the Marquis asked, a look of curiosity on his face. He wasn't upset that one of his staff members was absent, merely surprised.
"There were some...difficulties...,"Farisia began to explain, her voice indicating no emotion, "we had to...split up."
"Splitting up is normally no issue for you two, what happened this time?"
"It happened...like this..."
Farisia proceeded to regale the Marquis with everything that had happened up to this point, leaving no details behind.
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Draigo and Zhen Liu were at just the right angle to see everything that was going on in the room, but the Marquis and his creepy maid wouldn't be able to see them. Zhen Liu could see from the corner of his eye how Draigo was eyeing the shamisen that the Marquis had laid to rest in
'Well this is going to take a while...good to know Zhen Hai and Matilda at least rescued someone before I did. But now I'm gonna have to fight the Marquis, great...'
In his field of vision, two holographic cards appeared out of nowhere, each with a unique header and description.
Zhen Liu was about to dismiss the weird prompt, citing that there was no time, until he heard how slow the deadpan maid was talking.
"After igniting...the tent...we..."
'Alright, we got time. Lay it on me.'
'Immediately pass. What's option two?'
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Meanwhile
"Okay, now let's open up the box," Zhen Hai declared after firmly double knotting the rope around the significantly shrunk down kidnapper.
Zhen Hai and Matilda were all set to open up the box and get their friend out of there, but stopped when they detected movement coming from their defeated opponent. They had to whack him over the head a couple more times to knock him out before deciding to just tie him to a nearby tree.
Once the kidnapper was secured they made their way to the box.
"Alright, so you got a way to pick open the lock, or-"
SLASH!
"-or that. That works too."
Before Zhen Hai could finish his question, Matilda had produced a hatchet from her dress and straight up hacked off the lock like it was nothing.
The lock fell with a loud clatter.
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"And then...I escaped...," Farisia explained.
"Hmmm."
The Marquis stood there patiently as Farisia slowly explained all that had occured up to now. From the circus fire, to the chase,to the unusual application of his handiwork. Granted, a story that should've taken only a minute at most got stretched to five, but that didn't matter to the Marquis. He was more focused on the box and its contents
The Marquis nodded with understanding. "Very well...time to open the box then."
The Marquis began to channel aether into his hand, but Farisia put up a hand to stop him.
"Please...allow...me..."
The maid held out an open palm and pointed in the direction of the box. Slowly, she curled her hand into a fist. As she did, the lock began to crumble like a piece of paper.
Crack.
Once it was fully crushed, the lock fell to the floor.
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'That's option two?! That sounds even unsafer than what you did with the Salamander pattern!'
'Side effects are an understatement!'
CLATTER!
Zhen Liu was about to mentally complain further when he heard the lock to the box fall to the floor. As it did, he turned to see who was in the box. He paled when he looked into the room.
'Oh no...'
Zhen Liu had expected to see Jin Fang or Alicia locked within the box, with the other being in the box that his cousin secured.
He did not expect that the box the maid was carrying would split in two and that both Alicia and Jin Fang were now at the mercy of the Marquis!
'Then that means...uh oh.'
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"That's not good."
"Oh no..."
When Zhen Hai and Matilda opened the lid to their box, they were shocked to find that it held...nothing.
Not a person, not an object, just...nothing.
A couple seconds after opening the box, it suddenly burst into a cloud of black smoke and transformed into a small silver coin.
"Then that means..."
"We gotta find Zhen Liu. Now."
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"Well done my maid! I knew it was a good idea to have you learn that anima trick!"
"Thank...you..."
Seeing how the Marquis was staring at Alicia and Jin Fang's unconscious bodies, something in Zhen Liu snapped. He made a rather tricky decision in that moment.
'How long until it kicks in?'
'Alright then.'
"Draigo, I'm going to need you to-huh? Where'd you-damnit!"
Zhen Liu didn't know when or how, but the old bard had somehow snuck by him and into the weird room and was making a silent bee line for the shamisen. Unfortunately, Zhen Liu could already tell that the maid would probably see what Draigo was doing.
'Damnit, fine! Three minutes starting now!' Before getting ready to go and probably rescue Draigo, Zhen Liu made a swallowing motion with his left hand.
'This is going to suck...'