As soon as the hidden door had opened up far enough, Zhen Liu and Draigo immediately released their respective bars and booked it into the corridor as quickly as possible.
"Go go go!"
"Hah!"
Click!
As soon as Zhen Liu and Draigo crossed the door's threshold, the door closed behind them with an audible click. While they weren't sure if they could reopen it on this side of the door, presumably there was an exit elsewhere. Otherwise they could attempt to power through later if they needed....granted, they needed to be able to see where the door was.
"Dumb question: can you see anything in here?"
"Nope, it is pitch black."
"Great..."
Zhen Liu entertained the idea of using one of his loose cores or one of his kaijins as a light source, more specifically Nepherage. He was just about to summon her when a peculiar scent started to tickle his nose.
"Hey...do you smell...oil?"
FWOOSH!
"Bah!"
Like a haunted house tour or a clearly cursed tomb, torches that were lining the wall began to ignite one after the other until the entire corridor was lit up. It was in this moment that Zhen Liu and Draigo both realized that they had entered a much bigger room than anticipated.
"That is a lot of stairs..."
The torch light revealed that the space behind the painting was not a simple hallway or corridor, rather it was a long spiralling staircase that lead down, down, down to a simple, empty room with nothing to it but a single door. If anyone were to jump off the stairs, they'd be in for a long fall down.
A complex feeling arose in Zhen Liu's stomach, a mix of fear, anticipation and...questioning.
'Well this place is obviously man-made,' Zhen Liu thought to himself as he placed a hand on a nearby wall, which was made with what appeared to be blocks craved from marble. Marble was about as expensive here as on a certain blue planet, so the fact that the Marquis used it for an underground tower was just...an absurd use of wealth.
'Who...who did he pay for this?,' Zhen Liu asked himself. He wasn't asking himself so much in terms of where the Marquis got the material, more on how did he manage to convince a team of people to just build him this creepy ass underground lair.
As Zhen Liu began to ponder on the origins of this creepy area, a strange sound broke him out of his headspace.
"Huh? Is that mu-hey, where you going?"
Zhen Liu was about to ask his new conspirator if he heard the music too, but the latter had already gone ahead down the stairs. Zhen Liu could vaguely make out a few murmurs.
"Hold on Wyvara...I'm coming..."
Zhen Liu had long stored the kaijin core within himself by now, but after Draigo repeated those words, he felt the core in him vibrate once more.
'Huh...'
_________________________________________________
Twang, Twang, Chung, Chung.
Twang, chung, Chung.
"Across the rivers and the seas...pass the mountains and trees... I hope to find you waiting for me..."
'Hmmm. It sounds like how she played, but it lacks the same depth and...gravitas, that she had...what am I missing?'
Deep below the surface of the Manor de Howlite, away from prying eyes and nosy bystanders, was a hidden chamber of sorts.It was designed with acoustics in mind, in such a way that no matter where one stood in it's confines, they'd be able to fully immerse themselves in the musical stylings of whoever was playing inside it. Granted, one had to contend with the lack of seating within the chamber.
There was very little in terms of furniture, save for a circular stone altar of sorts that had a figure covered with a silken cloth laying atop it, and a simple stool that the owner of this strange chamber and the estate above, was currently using.
A tall, pale man with an unearthly charm to him was strumming away on an unusual looking shamisen while singing a song that had captured his heart years ago.
The instrument's body was made of a crab shell that seemed to sparkle under the light like a fine cut ruby gemstone. Stretched over the hollow parts was a brown, mottled skin that seemed to vibrate with the same life as the beast that once wore it. It's neck was a solid piece of lacquered wood with three long black knobs at the top that looked like hornet stingers.
Each stinger, was then connected to a string that stretched across the shamisen's length. If one were to look at these strings with their naked eyes, they'd see nothing. But if one were to use their more esoteric senses, they'd be able to feel an innate savagery locked deep within these catgut strings.
By all accounts, it was a beautiful, yet strange instrument, one that someone as talented as the Marquis de Howlite should easily be able to master, and yet...he wasn't.
"Hmmm, no good this time either. It still lacks that distinctive...feeling," the Marquis muttered to himself as he approached the end of the song.
He had played and practiced this same song one, two, three, four, five, over a hundred times before and he still couldn't fully master it. It didn't matter how, when or where he played that song, it never sounded it right. Even with the same instrument that was used to play that night, the song didn't sound right, as if it was designed to be in the hands of another.
But maybe, just maybe, after tonight... he'd be able to hear that soul stirring sound once more.
"They'll be here in three, two..."
Just as the Marquis finished playing the song, his maid, Farisia, entered with impeccable timing, a large and heavy box in tow.
The Marquis was prepared to greet the incoming package with a smile, but paused when he saw that only one of his staff members returned.
"Where is Corriandis?"