While the ice skating, mask wearing, sickle wielding woman had acted very politely by inviting them in, it didn't change the fact that she was ice skating around a deserted area with a mask on and with a sickle of all weapons.
In terms of suspiscion, she was the more suspicious than the people who followed vague divinations to find a vague figure that hid behind bizarre figures with codes for names.
Looking at it like that, it was just a bunch of unhinged people sitting at a small table in the warmth of a nice cottage, the fact that the woman kept her mask on at all times and that masks covered nearly every walls of this cramped home, most representing old women, only a few representing other things, even if they all seemed to be made to appear old.
The masks were well done and seemed to be made of flexible materials, the hair on each mask also seemed very much real.
Inside of the small cottage, there didn't seem to be any space to make such high quality masks, making the ones paying attention to such details where they had all come from.
The atmosphere was somehow not tense but definitely awkward, despite the attire, the unknown woman seemed to not be very hostile.
Only she was drinking some sort of hot tea since no one wanted to consume anything she offered, her expression was well hidden behind the mask, only her clear green eyes were truly visible, anything else was hidden behind clothes or the mask, since her eyes weren't fully visible either, it gave off a strange impression that was hard to get a hold of.
As Laura was trying to engage in conversations that led nowhere, Molarine took notice of various spot that seemed to have been occupied by items, it was hard to tell what they had been apart from the one that had been on a wall, which had clearly been a painting or a picture hung on the wall.
Things had been removed before they arrived, Grayson had understood that the mastermind had talked with Mansana beforehand, so he was most likely behind these little changes too.
'He arrives before us but doesn't take the chance to remove the former presence of the objects he took away?' he wondered, having also noticed a few of those missing items.
At this point in time, Grayson had already tried a few things and subsequently reset as it had been a complete failure, there was no extracting information through force at all, though it gave a bit of insigth into the mastermind's personality, some sort of barrier activated to protect the woman, he hadn't managed to get to the pirate but she probably had had the same thing.
It was hard for him to imagine someone who unleashed his creations onto some random people to care enough about people at all, it didn't quite fit for a senseless killer to care about life at all.
'Is it not senseless?' that was a logical explanation and as he thought about it, PH-3 was a powerhouse by himself but he stayed in one area, Grayson didn't doubt that the thorn face could expand much further if he wanted but he had only taken over a single village and stayed put, only showing aggression when the three otherwolders had tried to investigate, he hadn't done anything when some soldiers had tried to burn everything down.
He had a harder time judging if the bag head they had met could have done much more but he had definitely let them off fairly easily, Gevaudan had also retreated quickly and OTA-ZS hadn't tried to attack them again.
Grayson felt a little light headed as he tried to make sense out of all of this, he had ideas but immediately discarded them as he couldn't see much logic out of them, all he could of was that the mastermind simply didn't think in the same way and could make sense out of seemingly senseless actions.
"Alright!" he suddenly chimmed in as he slammed his palms onto the table as if raising an objection.
"What are trying to do here? You do work for the mastermind or something, right?" he went straight to the point, an advantage of being able to reset was that he could try the wildest things.
The mask wearing woman wasn't very impressed and just sipped some tea through her mask.
"I can't tell if your 'mastermind' is who I am thinking about but let's assume it is, I was informed that you would come but I am not much of a fighter, my hobby is making masks and ice skating and I am not much of a chatterbox either, so ask your questions and go on your way" she was blunt as she rested her chin on the back of her hands, awaiting.
"Let's start simple, what is your name?" asked Laura, starting over with the basics.
"Malny but the people from the village down the mountaun call me the hag, it seems like they don't appreciate my masks" chuckled Malny, clearly, her hobbies didn't only include mask making and ice skating but also terrifying innocent people.
The village must be on the other side of the mountain since the group saw no such things on their way here.
"What is your relation to the mastermind?" Laura asked similar question to what Grayson's had asked the pirate, they both realised that some questions would come without answers and even without him informing them on the protection measures, it seemed like everyone else also realised that it was useless to try and extract information by force.
"Well, how embarrassing..." the cute manerism was absolutely abject to look at with the kind of mask she had on.
"Hum, how many... companions does he have exactly?" questionned Aiden from the back,having heard about the mastermind's relation with Mansana from Grayson and hearing this now, he was curious.
"Very good question, I swear, he refuses to tell the exact number, I have met about a dozen myself and heard about at least a dozen more, he just doesn't stops, what a casanova, I just wish he would come by more often" she rambled on as she played with her mask's hair.
"What is this sorcery?" wondered Jake outloud.
"Are you people not aware? It isn't well seen everywhere but it is quite common for influent people to have more than one partner, it is less common for women but it isn't out of the question" explained Molarine as she looked out of a window, she had been standing in front of it for the whole duration of this whole thing.
"Anyways, I doubt we'll get anything more from her, let's just leave the crazy lady by herself" she added, earning a look from the lady in question, probably a frown too but nobody could tell.
Laura and Molarine exchanged a glance and soon, everyone was away from this peculiar situation they had been in.
Now alone, the masked woman took off her gloves and mask, letting her pure white hair flow out and letting some cold breeze hit her sweating face and sweaty hands, her hands and face were completely covered in scars, red as if they were recent but they were completely healed, only remnants of old wounds.
"What is he thinking?" she sighed, although it wasn't quite as obvious as it used to be, Theli was a trickster, user of every cheap tricks in the book and even more, in his younger years he had been more of a jokester and Malny could feel that he was at it again.
He may act different but he was still the same.
"Poor guys..." she lamented while shaking her head.