Double Up

"So where do we go now?" Roko asked as Olivia took off her suit jacket.

"Well, we can go looking for the book again." Olivia sighed as she tossed the jacket to the ground, "But who knows where they put it now?"

"Doesn't seem to be in the library." Roko said as he checked inside.

"I could have told you that." Olivia stretched her arms up, pushing her ample breasts into the air, "Our only choice now is to find another book."

"Another book?" Roko said.

"Yeah. Got a better idea?"

"Well, we don't really have all night to re-search the library."

"Then we don't go looking in the library." Olivia smirked, "We head straight for the big man's office!"

"Are we talking about Distol or Ragnum?"

"Either one." Oliva shrugged, "Doesn't really matter so long as I find what I'm looking for."

"Yeah, why am I helping you in the first place?"

"Boy, why are you asking me? That's your problem, not mine. That said you've already been incriminated as my accomplice so you might as well help out."

"Do I get anything out of this?"

"You want a kiss?"

"Who do you think I am?"

"We literally just met about an hour ago."

"No, I met Oliver an hour ago. I met Alexander a few minutes ago and I met Olivia just now."

"Okay smart ass." Olivia scowled, "Need I remind you that I don't even know if Roko is even your real name?"

"Why would I lie?"

"Why wouldn't you lie?"

"Have I lied to you before?"

Olivia looked like she was about to say something but then thought about it again.

"You don't have to think that far back. We've only known each other for a few minutes."

"Right, screw you." Olivia picked up her jacket and flung it at Roko, "I've got better things to do than argue with you."

"I don't." Roko smirked as he caught the jacket and tossed it back on the ground, "I'm just waiting for someone to tell me the way out of this mansion."

"You can't find the entrance yourself?"

"Can't say I remember the exact route."

"Why do I not believe that?"

"Are you saying I'm lying?"

Olivia turned and began to walk away. Roko smirked and began to follow her.

"I assume you know where their offices are?"

"Not really." Olivia grumbled, "I figured I'll find it eventually."

"I figured you would be more prepared for this."

"It was hard enough getting a ticket for this party, now you want us to get blueprints?"

"It's all due research." Roko shrugged, "Can't be that hard."

"It is when you're not...a noble..."

You don't seem to be a lot of things really."

"Oh, like you know any better."

"Well, I do know of one place."

"Oh yeah? Let's hear it then."

"There's an atelier at the back of the party hall."

"An atelier?" Olivia raised an eyebrow, "You think I can find...whatever I'm looking for there?"

"You got any better ideas?"

"Well, okay if we're going to go back into the party then you're going to have to make up an excuse."

"Me?" Roko frowned, "Why me?"

"Well my cover's blown so I can't really walk back in there now." Olivia smirked, "And I don't know the disguise spell myself so don't even mention it."

"Can't you just use your invisibility?"

"T-That was just a one time thing!"

"And you already wasted it?"

"Well I thought I was caught! Can you blame me?!"

"Guess not."

"Anyway, our best bet is for you to sneak back in and grab what we're looking for!"

"What ARE you looking for?"

"..."

"..."

"...Maybe I should do it myself." Olivia muttered.

"Well it wouldn't have worked anyway." Roko sighed, "I got kicked out of the party."

"You got kicked out?!" Olivia sneered, "How the hell did you manage that?!"

"Apparently if you don't have your corsage, you can't attend."

"That's it? What happened to your corsage?"

"I gave it away."

"To who?"

"A maid girl. Apparently people were making fun of her behind her back."

"Oh yeah, I think I remember you talking to her." Olivia nodded, "What, did she lose her corsage so you gave her yours?"

"Yeah."

"Hah! So why'd you do it?"

"Because she was being bullied."

"No, I mean, why did you care?"

"What?" Roko turned to Olivia, confused.

"I mean, she was getting bullied, sure, but she didn't seem to care. People weren't actively harming her, just guffawing at her as much as she was gawking at them."

"I don't need a reason to do the right thing."

"Yeah, no I get that. But like, neither party was troubling the other until you got involved. So what if they were being idiots, no one cared beyond their own enjoyments. Why'd you have to go any tell everyone off?"

"..."

Roko dearly wanted to say something like "Just because it's not causing damage doesn't mean it shouldn't be addressed." But a part of him stopped him. His thoughts flickered between agreement that his own actions were unnecessary and the fact that he didn't even agree with the defense he came up. Once his thoughts stopped crossing each other, the only thing left was a thoughtless void left behind by one question he could not bring himself to answer: "Why did he do that?"

"Were you a teacher's pet back in school?" Olivia smirked, oblivious to the mental crisis going on in Roko's mind.

"I wasn't anything back in school." Roko sighed, "At any rate, our only choice is to sneak back into the party."

"Well, if we're not going through the front door, we'll just have to sneak in through the back."

"Directly into the atelier?"

"Yep. Assuming there's like a window to climb through or something. Problem is getting up there."

"Can't you fly?"

"Well of course I...CAN'T!" Olivia laughed nervously, "Hahaha...why would you even say that?"

"Do you not know wind magic?"

"Oh...right..." Olivia looked around, unable to settle her eyes anywhere, "I know wind magic, sure, but like...I can't really lift anything heavier than...a box...or two."

"That right?" Roko smirked, "If only we had some rope then."

"Right? Let's go look for some rope." Olivia nodded.

"Alright but how are we going to get it up there though?"

"Ummm..." Olivia thought about it briefly, "Can't you make a lasso?"

"And wrap it around what?"

"Oh. Huh."

"And can you even throw a rope that high? I know I can't."

"Alright, fine, geez." Olivia sighed, "We'll figure something else out."

"Or you could use wind magic to float the rope upward."

"Okay, why can't you lead with the good ideas instead of shooting down my ideas?!"

"It's more fun seeing you bumble about."

"Yeah well it wouldn't work anyway. We still don't have anything to tie it to."

"You know how the roof of this mansion's towers are conical?"

"I don't see how roofs can be comical."

"Cones. They're cone shaped."

"Oh. Wait, so you want to tie the rope to the tip of the tower?"

"Yeah."

"...We're going to need a hell of a long rope."

"I mean, that's unless you can use earth magic to warp the stone into a spike. Or into handholds, I guess. Why not steps at this point?"

"Yeah, I'm a lithomancer, not a geomancer."

"What's the difference?"

"Oh, you see there's-"

At this point, Olivia suddenly stopped. She didn't stop moving or talking but she suddenly stopped making progress down the hallway. Like she was walking in place, much to her confusion. Roko seemed to progress with no problem though he too stopped when he saw her predicament.

"What are you doing?" Roko frowned as he turned around.

"I-I don't know!" Olivia cried as she began running only to remain in place, "Why can't I move?!"

"Can you move backwards?"

Olivia took a few steps backwards with no problem.

"I don't get it!" Olivia cried as she tried running again only to find herself stuck at the same place, "What's going on?!"

Roko looked around but didn't find anything that could be creating this magical interference. He ran a map scan but it didn't reveal anything out of place either.

"Does this look like any magic you know of?"

"That's the weird thing! If it was some sort of spacial manipulation magic, I'd be able to sense it but I can't sense anything! It's like an invisible wall!"

Roko watched her struggle for a moment before he looked around again. From what he remembered and from his brief map scan, he knew they were close to the main stairs that lead back to the party hall. Leaving a protesting Olivia for a moment, Roko rounded the corner of the hall they've been traveling and found the stairs that lead up to the party he had been kicked out of. Nowhere else in the mansion seemed to be lit and nobody else seemed to be lingering around anywhere else in the castle. That party hall probably had all of the activity in the house contained there. Him and Olivia excluded. If they were trying to stop someone from approaching anything, it would be the party hall.

With that information, Roko returned to where Olivia was, who was now panting heavily after clearly trying to escape her situation with sheer force.

"So my guess is something's going on in the party." Roko reported.

"Wow, so clever of you." Olivia replied sarcastically, "Why the hell can you move and I can't?!"

"Maybe because I got kicked out of the party?"

"Is that right? How's that supposed to help me then?!"

"Well for starters, you could try taking off that corsage."

"What, this?" Olivia looked at the Paradisea flower on her wrist and began to remove it. The corsage peeled off her skin in a rather disgusting way. Not stuck due to anything like sweat but more like it had begun to cling to her, small protrusions at the bottom of the flower seeming to have made a bit of a mark on her dark skin though they were already fading away. Disturbed, Olivia tossed the corsage onto the ground and took a few steps forward, finally advancing past the unseen barrier.

"It worked!" Olivia cried as she turned around and picked up the corsage again gingerly, "So this thing was stopping me?"

"Evidently."

"But...why?"

"...Well, I can't say for certain..." Roko thought out loud, "But why do you think it would try to stop you?"

"Are you seriously asking me? How am I supposed to know?"

"Why would a wild animal try to keep you away from them?"

"Huh? I mean..." Olivia thought it over with him, "They're probably scared of me."

"This flower attached itself to you and forced an effect on you. It seems like some sort of parasite." Roko replied, "With that kind of power, why would it be trying to keep you away?"

"Cause I can kill it!"

"Olivia, please. If anybody was close to killing the other, it was this flower. It was already attached to you and was in position to take over your body. Let's not forget a similar flower's already been distributed to many other people. We can assume you're out of range of the main body enough that it's not able to affect you. So what is it doing, what can it be doing to everyone else that it's keeping you from interrupting?"

"..." A long moment passed before Olivia finally answered, "It's eating."

"Most likely." Roko nodded grimly.

"But hang on, if it's eating people then it makes sense if it wants to keep you away but I've got a flower. I'm prey that they've already marked. Why would it try to keep me away?"

"Missing out on one prey probably isn't a big deal compared to the feast it must be having up there." Roko bit his lip, "Instead of greedily devouring everything that it can, it's trying to keep the haul that it has safe until they're digested."

"You think this flower has thoughts and plans that complex?"

"If it's what I think it is, then maybe."

"Hmm...maybe I should keep this..." Olivia mumbled.

"What?"

"I mean, that's bad right?" Olivia said quickly, "You've got friends in there still!"

"...Yeah."

"Shouldn't we hurry?"

"...I'm sure they can handle themselves." Roko replied, "More importantly, we're in the position to hit them where they don't expect."

"Is that normally your style?"

"My style is whatever works out."

"Are you the type of person to wing it until everything's resolved so that at the end it looks like you had a plan all along when you really don't?"

"Oh I'm sorry, did you happen to have a rope all along and just didn't tell me?"

"...No..."

"Then I don't know why you're making fun of how I do things when you couldn't even keep your cover straight."

"Okay buddy, let's not forget whose magic we're using to do all these plans to begin with." Olivia scoffed as they began to continue onward.

"Lot of good that magic is doing when you couldn't even come up with a plan to use them yourself." Roko shot back.

"Hey, I would've gotten there eventually!"

"You were going to wander the mansion randomly until you came across an office."

"Like I said, I would've gotten there eventually!"

"Yeah, maybe you could've asked those maids to help you out too."

"At least I beat my maid."

"I defeated my maid too!"

"Nah, I saw you talking to her about some weird stuff. What, did you ask for her number?"

"What, are you jealous?"

"Of what?! I've got more game in my little finger than you have in your entire body."

"Are you sure you're not jealous that you missed the chance to get my number?"

"Oh is that what you're going with? What makes you think I want your number?"

"Fair enough, I don't even know if you have a phone."

"I...left it at home!"

"Left it right next to that brain of yours didn't you?"

"Hey Roko, I know you got kicked out of the party so you don't really have a good souvenir and that's why I want to give you this nice corsage. Why don't you try it on for a bit?"

While every cell in Roko's body screamed to return to that party hall as soon as possible, the better part of him stuck to their plan to infiltrate the atelier. So Roko just silently prayed he wouldn't be too late to save anybody as he and Olivia looked for a rope. Thankfully, they found one pretty quickly in the form of a giant braided cord to a large and heavy pair of window curtains. It was pretty extravagant but both Roko and Olivia agreed that it would be simple to cut this off and unwind the tips of this cord and tie them back together into a lasso. With their makeshift rope, Olivia and Roko began their anxious steps back up to the party hall. When they got there, there was no signs of any struggle. No sounds of distress, no signs of panic or struggle. The night was eerily quiet. Especially quiet for a night where a large party was supposed to be occurring. What's more, the doors to the hall wouldn't open for either of them and though the large windows around this building was lit with bright light, no shadows could be seen moving around inside. Certainly there was no proof that Roko's hypothesis on what was happening was true but there was no doubt that something was wrong with this situation. Still, the two began to sneak around the building before coming to the central tower at the very back of the hall. Roko had only caught a glimpse of it while first arriving here but looking closely at it, Roko could see this being any of the things Distol had claimed it was.

As planned, Olivia floated their rope up to the roof of the tower with wind magic, wrapping the lasso head around the tip of the cone roof. While they had a lot of rope left to climb on it was still a little short, hanging a few feet above the ground. Olivia gave Roko a boost, letting him start climbing before she scrambled up the wall to grab onto the rope herself and began following him upward. Roko hadn't had much experience climbing ropes much but this fancy velvet rope seemed to hold together well. Before long, Roko reached the window at the very top of the tower and pulled himself inside. He quickly helped Olivia up into the tower before looking around the place. It was a pretty barren platform with maybe a crate or two here or there. There was a good amount of room that Roko could see it being used a sort of mini observatory platform as Distol had claimed but it clearly wasn't being used for that anymore if ever. So with nothing else of note, Roko and Olivia turned to the set of stairs leading down into the atelier below. Approaching it cautiously, they two descended it as quietly as they could. As they climbed down, gray roots, pulsating with energy, began to crawl over the walls and floors. Not quite overtaking the actual background nor was it discomfortingly alive like the tentacle lairs he's seen. It was comparable to the Momokan tree but these roots were neither as large nor as widely distributed. Given how aggressive the propagation Roko had seen before, this mild takeover seemed strange. Like it was...sick? No...restrained. Tamed? Even as they reached the atelier, this takeover was only a fraction worse than Roko had seen in Momokami. But all that was forgotten when Roko and Olivia saw what was at the center of all these roots.

"What...the hell is this?" Olivia gasped.