Two heads peek out of the second floor bathroom, one stacked atop of the other. The purple-haired fiend pushing her detective accomplice's bck-haired head down as she tries to get a better view of the semi-darkened hallway, looking left and right like this was a simple road crossing.
I should be gd we didn't run into anyone inside the washroom. No doubt that person would have been the first victim of Madi-san's lulz, head bouncing off the marble sink-top while she commandeers your detective to stuff her in a locker somewhere. She would probably also strip her and wear her cocktail dress as some sort of perverse camoufge as well. Its not like it hasn't happened before!
"Forget the Sxlent Assassxn rating, we're doing a Tuxonly run tonight!" she so poignantly decres while pushing her entire body weight down behind me in jumping joy. My tiny bones creak under the weight of those daemonic udders of hers, face grimacing with aching pain.
"I don't see anyone in the hallway, so do we go left, or right? I say we go towards the light---"
Just as I was about to take a step into the hallway, Madi-san yanks the colr of my haori jacket back!
"Stop right there, detective defective! Look!"
Madi-san points up to the rounded gleam of transparent silver embedded at intervals along the ceiling. They resemble small overturned bowls, except I can vaguely sense that they are not as simple as they seem... The reflective surfaces are a clear oddity in the darkened hallway; an inexplicable, invisible oppressive energy bearing down upon the ground, as they swivel like silver, irisless eyes.
"These things look like [Pondering Orbs]..."
I ponder that thought out loud to Madi-san, but I guess to (You), this is the first time you are seeing one. [Pondering Orbs] are a common way to send information in Vespana, being able to record events in real time and py them back ter. Usually taking the shape of a round, translucent crystal ball, I once watched an entire joshi purowresu[1] match on one before!
Sadly, you can't surf the Chans on one.
Why would there be [Pondering Orbs] here? One possibility is that they are decorations, but considering that the hallway is already carpeted and adorned with flower vases and ornamented wood, that seems unlikely. They are spread out at regur intervals, occupying key spots like that high blind spot around the corner. It would definitely be a weird pce to watch joshi purowresu, even if you are really, really into that kind of stuff!
Therefore, my conclusion is that they are [Observation Orbs], whose job is to transmit the recorded surroundings to... somewhere else in the chateau! If someone is watching over this hallway, then the very moment we step under those [Observation Orbs], the whole house is going to be on alert!
"I don't think we should move carelessly, Madi-san, maybe we should go back the way we came..."
That one earned me a sp on the top of my head.
"We came THIS far already! Don't chicken out on me, Aya-chan!"
"It feels like we are trespassing..."
"Oh NOW you are worried about the big red 'You Are Entering A Restricted Area' over the minimap?"
"What minimap?!?!"
"Phone! Give it, Aya-chan! Don't tell me you didn't want to come, wearing a 「kemeno」instead of your usual outfit!"
I can only sigh in frustration at how the empty-headed idiot is murdering my ancestral nguage again as I reach into my kimono[2] for my blue flipphone; which is immediately snatched away by Madi-san and opened up. She scrolls through a store menu with her thumb, and nds on a single app:
Orb Range Visualized
BY Kess Grinne (Verified Author)
Never be bothered by pesky [Security Orbs] or deterred by ser chambers ever again! This app visualizes the alert range of [Security Orbs]. Comes in 'Sunset Red' and 'Glowie Green'. Additional colors in paid version!
Madi-san taps on the app button, not forgetting to give a five-star review of this fine and totally not criminal app, also liked by 'PhantomThiefQui' and her ilk. As she holds it horizontally with the camera pointed at the hallway before us, she sweeps the top of the room to the bottom, and as she pulls my phone away, a miraculous thing happened.
I can now clearly see a cone of red light being emitted from each and every orb in the hallway. The faintly red and weak light is mostly static, but will sweep with regur patterns from side to side! When Madi-san scans the other side of the hall, simirly shaped cones appear, revealing the positions of every other orb on that side!
Rubbing my eyes did not make this sudden illusion go away.
Not even when I did it twice!
What the...? Is this the source of how you are able to seemingly do anything with your phone, including but not limited to turning it into a mini fshbang grenade?! A keqqing store app?! How?! How does this work?!?!
"Imagine having a phone for two weeks and never opening up the app store, couldn't be me!"
This is way too convenient of a thing, who is this Grinne guy anyway?!
"Do you meet the inventor of the Pxkebxx in the starter town?! I don't think so, Aya-chan!"
No, that's not the point... Ahhhrgh!!! That's not important right now! The important thing is that we can somehow now SEE the range of these orbs, and it doesn't look like they cover every part of the ground. Every few moments when they sweep the area, they leave rge gaps in-between...
If we move smartly about this, we might just be able to take advantage of the gaps...
"Aya-chan! You are in charge of this floor! Do your 'detective schick' and mess up whatever the culties have pnned here!"
And what are >you going to do, Madi-san?
"OBVIOUSLY I'm going to find the control room for that 'No Recordings' bonus!"
I have no idea what that is, but I guess you are going to turn off the [Security Orbs] somehow.
"Ogey... Aya-chan finally gets how this works!!" Madi-san mocks coming to cp for me with both palms in front of her.
Thanks? But I did not appreciate that cpping.
Its smug aura mocks me.
Right, if we take this slowly, one step at a time...
"Non non! We go right now!"
Ah, wait, you stupid idiot---!
Instead of sneaking around in the dimly lit hall, Madi-san takes a stage left ---
--- an oversized handstand into a [Security Orb's] blind spot!
She ducks, just in time beneath a high sweep of crisscrossing conical red light, edge of her beret almost caught in the red glow!
There's no slowdown for this madwoman.
She ducks, weaves--- exaggerated and acrobat-like movements continuing into a flipping somersault.
Just as her boot heels tap on the carpet,
she unches into another somersault,
barely missed by conical red light!
She takes a look behind her at me with a sheeto-eating grin;
just a close shave before the [Security Orb] being cut off by , she leaps---
pushing off with the back of her heel---
entire body pressed low---
two arms extended before her---
a crouched dive?!
Here?!?!
That absurd move cleared three orbs at once,
piercing through the small path opened up by the orbs' swiveling sequence!
Before turning the corner, the mad Frxnchwoman hollers for the whole floor to hear,
"KEEP UP, AYA-CHAN!"
That Frxnch biichii!
I had pnned to take this nice and slow, maybe let Madi-san run out of steam a little while I wait inside the washroom, but apparently that's not possible anymore, is it?! Someone is definitely going to come up here to inspect what is going on, and the st thing I want happening to me is to find myself on the wrong end of a locked bathroom cubicle, a victim of poor locked room construction!
... and obviously I can't do the insane kind of acrobatics that Madi-san is so fond of!
So my only choice is to try and dodge the vision of the orbs in the other direction. Pressing my body against the wall, my small frame allows me to slip just barely past the edge of the conic red lights. For once in my life, I am thankful that I don't have Madi-san's figure, because some of the cones-of-doom were cutting it really close in front of my face!
Through a combination of back-pnted-against wall crabwalking and crawling under the tight space of decorative drawers, I finally make it to the opposite of the hallway, only to find that the st [Security Orb] is covering the entire stretch of the corner, with no gaps for movement!
I could try and dash my way through, missing one orb out of ten is probably an accomplishment for me already, right? But I really don't want to think about who is other end of those orbs or what they will do to me if they catch a small and cute shadow in green kimono dash by! Probably very yabai stuff that can't make it into this visual novel!
My other option is to destroy the [Security Orb] itself. Maybe a table leg to the face would suffice. But there must be some underlying logic behind why Madi-san chose to evade the conic light rather than just brazenly walk down the hallway with a 'YOU MAD?' face. It would probably prompt a whole different response team if one of the cameras went down, like those Tactical Espionage games that Madi-san pys.
But... that's not an option. Looking backwards at the red cones routinely sweeping the hallway behind me, and realizing that someone was bound to come and investigate Madi-san's hootin' and hollerin' sooner or ter, I try to stand up...
... and bump my head against the ornamental table I am crouched under!
"Ow!" There is some rattling as the vase atop wobbles precociously, but manages to stay in pce.
...
Huh.
I wonder.
If there is someone on the other end...
Is there some way to take manual control of these things?
Go Go And Learn Moonrunes With Aya-chan![1] joshi purowresu- Professional wrestling, but for girls. It airs on orbs every Wednesday night! Why does purowresu exist on this continent anyway? Another mystery that may never be expined!
[2] kimono- 着物 , the traditional attire of my ancestral home in the Old Continent! What, you guys don't have kimonos in the New Continent?!
HouseDerouxScribbles
