There is a wrongness about the scene I am witnessing right now.
"Now, drink."
Fox-mask passes the small saucer of ill-gotten blood to the Prinz, who holds it statue-like before her face. Behind them, the provider of this cursed dish stands in slumped attention, oblivious to the ongoings in this room.
"What's wrong?" Fox-mask tilts her head at a ninety degrees angle, not understanding the unexpected hesitation. It pulls closer to Rufti's bnk face, perhaps it expected her take her suggestions to down the saucer immediately!
That's some gall to ask Machigatte iru[1] in this sort of pce! For starters, there's some sort of perverse cooking going on in this room! I don't think that human blood is safe for consumption, not even for charity! Why aren't you saying anything about this, Rufti-san?! And you! The wolf-earred girl at the side, you just had your blood stolen by some strange masked person! Show some anger! THE REI face is NOT a sign of strength!
A new wave of fighto-juice is injected into my small and cute brain, but that did not st long! There is an immediate heaviness to my thinking afterwards!
No good... Its not just them, even my own thinking is slowed to an infinitesimally slow degree right now! My own head is being messed with by something in this room...!
My eyes flit across the darkness, having csped to all fours while clutching onto the leg of a chair.
If I had to say what's weird about this room... Eerie darkness, odd lighting and Fox-mask itself aside...
It has to be this pink mist.
When wolf-ears came out, she was following that ntern emitting pink mist.
The very same kind of mist that is wafting about on the floor right now...
That's great, Ayano!
Subarashii, even!
But what am I supposed to do about it?!
Open a window?!
"Aha~ I'm just going to air out the room a little~"
My legs won't even respond right now!
The longer I stay crouched in this pink mist, the foggier my thoughts become!
Is there... is there anything in this room that can help me?
I grasp around in the mist without aim, like someone stuck on a visual novel mystery level where you can't tell if the local idol comitted suicide or was murdered!
Something... something... Anything!
That was when I touched something on the floor.
Something... round and cold.
"Curious. What makes you hesitate?" Fox-mask inches her face with uncomfortable closeness to the Prinz's face, the tip of its extended animal snout almost touching Rufti's bnk eyes.
"Perhaps, the dosage needs to be increased?" Fox-mask pulls the mist-giving ntern in its direction, a burst of pink mist fring outwards from the sides!
That was when I knew!
My thinking was correct!
[SFX:SMASH!]
At the sound of this unexpected sound, Fox-mask snaps its head back into upright position, sudden, halting movements searching the room for the source of this sudden disruption!
There, it finds a small and gasping girl in green kimono, propped up against a chair, hand grasping onto the remains of a silvery [Orb]! It has been smashed in half, fragments of transparent silver cttering onto the floor, edged and jagged half of the shattered orb like a daemonic grin in the darkness!
"... and who are you? I didn't feel your presence at all." Fox-mask rights itself, putting both arms behind its back and leaning its entire body to the right in a '「' shape to look past the sck-eyed Prinz! It rubs its gloved hands on the bizzare mask, before coming to a conclusion, smacking closed fist against open palm!
"Curious...! You are so weak, you barely registered as a threat...!"
Weak? Not a threat?
I'll give you 'not a threat'!
Throwing the rest of the shattered orb off into the darkness, I swipe up a piece of sharp shattered silver, and pcing my open hand underneath...
... I run the fragment right through the middle of my hand!
"AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
My voice! I found my voice again! In the screaming, dripping pain that is thrusting a kunai-like object into your hand, my wincing face recovered all its lost muscles and emotion, every fibre of my body screaming 'idiot', 'baka', 'cinglé' for my test stunt! They make it look so easy and cool in my manga, never try this at home, kids!
As I scream, it seems like the rest of the house found its voice as well, sirens wailing throughout the entire chateau! I knew it... destroying an orb DOES prompt a completely different response! Its like that carjacking game that Madi-san sometimes RPs in, whenever she shoots the head off a bck-jacketed dude with a shotgun, the tanks start rolling in! Someone HAS to come and investigate this room eventually right?
Clenched, trembling teeth and curled up body aside, my mind broke free of whatever spell-like trance the pink mist had me under...! Maybe this crity is temporary, but there are words that I must say right now...!
"Clovis, you bakamite! Don't drink THAT!"
Silence.
There is no response.
Rufti still stands completely still, pte still held in front of her face.
Then, a twitching arm movement.
She raises the tilted saucer closer to her face, as if inspecting its contents...
... then flings it right at the side wall!
The saucer shatters into a million tiny pieces, breaking the odd trance-like spell she was held under!
Still very much dazed, she has enough sense to cover her nose to shield herself from the odd pink mist, backstepping away from the creepy Fox-mask wearer who has no sense of personal space! Pointing at the most suspicious person in the room right now...
"Who... are you? You aren't one of the guests either..."
The absolute million Vida [2] question Rufti! Maybe we should get to it at a better time?!
The Fox-Mask raises both hands into the sky in a U-shape with great and dramatic gusto, as if it were about to give us a name so that I can stop using the word Fox-mask and give it a funny nickname instead---
--- when the most annoying Frxnchwoman voice pipes into the room!
[SFX:BINGBAMFBAMF]
The precursor to trouble began with the odd sound of what sounds like a heavy hand spping the top of a microphone!
In the most eerie turn of the night, the [Security Orbs] which had been pnted on the four corners of this room start to split clean in half and talk, not unlike the lower jaw of a bunraku [3] puppet! I do not think this was the intended purpose of how orbs are supposed to be used, but in this life and death instance, your detective permits it!! the This unnatural and unexpected happening can only be attributed to one person...!
"Ehehehe! Since when did it matter what (((they))) called themselves, am I right, 'La Monarquía'?!?!"
Oi.
Oi. Oi!!
Don't suddenly reveal my (((identity))) like that! This is going to cause trouble down the road, I just know it! Right now, the pink mist is still covering the entire floor of this room, if anything, we should be trying to get out of here, now!
Rufti is probably the most confused out of everyone in the room, "Someone you know, La Monarquía?"
Ah. Not you too! Someone I wish I DIDN'T know. The madwoman continues to pipe her voice into this room, it seems that she reached the golden nd she calls the 'Control Room' after all!
The Prinz blocks off my front with one hand, shielding the injured me from Fox-Mask's advance! Clutching the still-throbbing wound with my other hand, had it not been for the searing pain streaming through red-hot tears, I would like to ugh at this strange bedfellow of alliances! Nobody has any idea who is trolling who now! However! On this odd united front, Fox-Mask seems to pay no mind, her attention completely focused on the orbs now yapping to a purple-haired madwoman's nonsensical beat!
"I KNEW there was some sort of bckmail op going on here!! That's how the glowies keep tabs on the poor saps under (((their))) control! Its always for the dumbest things too! Like licking on a Nxhidx poster that one time! No kinkshaming, but just because you are an important person doesn't mean you are immune to glowie bckmail! In fact, the glowies are more LIKELY to come after you if you ever step out of line!"
...
... ...
hai? What are you on, Madi-san? Shouldn't you leave that for [Deroux Theater]?
"I'm TELLING you that's the basics of how Controllist bckmail works! Trauma-based programming not included, for now!"
Thanks, Madi-san, but you know what would be REALLY helpful?! Finding a way to get (me) out of this room!
Madi-san's voice echoes through all four orbs in the corner at once, reverbing through the room and possibly the same for the rest of the chateau! Amidst the sounds of security sirens and a particurly empty-headed siren here, Fox-Mask is probably the second most confused person out of the bunch. She surveys your small and cute detective who has been helped up onto her feet with a cocked head,
"You... are [La Monarquía]?"
"Hey!!! You should be paying attention to moi'!"
I'm so touched I want to cry now, Madi-san! Even in this sort of dire situation the crazy Frxnchwoman DEMANDS to be the center of attention! But please, suspicious Fox-Mask-san, put your greviences to the disembodied boob-for-brains instead! She deserves it!
"... but we know exactly who you are, [Exposer of Conspiracies]."
"Yep, that's moi'! Want a sussy tendie for guessing righto?"
Having found an opening to use those outstretched arms, Fox-Mask decides that this is the best time to go into a devious vilin monologue! These glowies... culties, whatever! They have ZERO sense of timing!
"Time and again, you have interfered in our affairs.
Time and again, you will fail to stop what is coming.
Do you know why?
You have no backing,
you have no background,
nobody will believe you even if---"
"Stoppu!" I can feel Madi-san raise the proverbial palm two floors away to skip over the unnecessary cutscene, "We don't have time to do your stale-ass YWNBAW copypasta! Do we look like the /pol/ girls to you?! And besides..."
"... nobody will believe moi'?! Ehehehe! Then do YOU believe in ghosts?!?!"
There is a silence on the other end from Fox-mask, Madi-san's random question having short-circuited everyone's brains!
"No."
"Then that white hand on your shoulder, is real right?!"
"That sort of infantile triAAACCCK---!!!"
At that moment, a familiar bck-gloved hand bursts from the curtain behind, grabbing the back of Fox-Mask's neck!
Go Go And Learn Moonrunes With Aya-chan!
[1] Machigatte iru - Read as間違っている , a way to tell someone resolutely and formally that they are wrong!
[2] Vida - The currency of Vespana! Continentals hold their pouches in magickal storage and don't carry what we think of as money in the Old Continent here!
[3] bunraku - A sort of theater in my ancestral homends. It heavily involves puppetry, some of them have some awesome tricks to them like changing faces instantly!
