Glayp'neir (Arc 1)

"hhmmm, perhaps I should give Jian some space...wait, Is that Sharpe. That doesn't look like the room he popped out of,almost impaling my neck. Maybe he's investigating something. It can't hurt to see whats going on.

"Why hello there Sharpe. I changed my mind about paying Jian visit and..."
Jack's ears quickly picked up on the sounds of gears and springs of the door the were standing in front of was about to open.

Jack whispered "please forgive me if I'm interrupting something here"

he straightens his posture to look presentable to whoever was behind that door

His relief is extreme as soon as the footsteps vanished again. He slides down the wall with a deep sigh. He doesn't want to move, but waiting there is extremely tense aswell. The risk outweighs it though, so he likes being hidden in his little corner. He will have to wait and calm down a bit before he will risk moving out. If really required, they could call his name and he would react. He pulls out his blade and takes the charm around his neck. He starts working on it carefully to calm down.

Hitomi takes the quill clumsilly and stares at it. She pays close attention to the tip and waves it around and then looks at the doc. After a short while the quill leaps out of her hand and begins messing up the paper, making very lose pictures of big stick figures and small ones with angel wings surrounded by poorly put together trees.


Infront of sharpe and jack, the door opens and a young, rather short, maid with medium hair and bangs and relatively big eyes appears before them, carefully peeking into the hall.
"Yes hello? How may I help you?" She says politely and continues to open the door, just enough for her whole face to be visible through the door. The quizzical look making it clear that these weren't the people she was expecting infront of her door.

Sharpe smiles, trying to appear friendly and non-intimidating.

"Uh Hi, I'm Sharpe, this is Jack here, I'd like to ask you a few questions if that's fine. I saw you earlier in the hall but I didn't get a chance to ask anything. Everyone here has me on my toes and they look like they've had the life sucked out of them, but you look lively and well, an utter and stark contrast." He walks a bit forward and takes a seat.

"Plus my friend here probably has loads of questions."

He shifts in the chair and retains his smile, scratching his stubble.

"Now, I gotta ask too... you wouldn't happen to have seen someone lurking about, would you? Another guest, perhaps?"

She probably wouldn't know who he's talking about, Air's not likely to have been caught at all, knowing her. Still, he feels the need to check, just in case.

Dr. Atrium takes the sheet of paper and looks at it and studies it for a bit. This could have a number of meanings to it. Who are the tall people and the people that look like angels? Where are the people in the picture? With the trees that were added, he thinks that it is a forest. The poor quality of the drawing brings up another question, why IS it such a poor quality? He has used the quill and charm that Maxwell gave him for years and the pictures that it usually draws are quite good but in Hitomi's case, the picture looks like it was made by a five year old. Her mind must be different from everyone else. Then again she isn't human so that is fair. He takes the charm from her and makes the quill draw.

The first picture has a picture of a young female angel with her white feathered wings blowing in the wind and golden halo above her head. He points as the stick figure with angels then points at the angel he made.

"Is what I made the same thing that you made here?"

"Sharpe introduced me as Jack instead of using my alias. Your invitation addressed me by my real name which stands to reason that the help already knows my real name anyways. But what if he spouts out my real name to the wrong people? Oh, I can imagine that could cause some havoc. Why is Sharpe asking about 'someone lurking about'? He must've seen something. hhmmm"

"Actually, I don't have too many questions. My Friend and I are having an investigation, and we would just just like to know if theres anything suspicious you may have seen. Going back to that previous question, has there been any other guests here other than Dr. Atrium and Jian?"

Ayame looks at the brash man who rudely pushed his way into her room. She ponders in confusion, remembering that strange woman from the dungeon.

"Mn... No there are no guests that I know of except the lady I just directed to her room. She was invited to the castle by the master. She was initially supposed to arrive with four other companions though all of them have yet to arrive, and maybe won't."
She moves to the other side of the room and presents another chair for jack. "Please, sir. Make yourself comforterable and I'll be glad to help you two if I can."


Meanwhile at doc's room. Hitomi stares at the picture and frowns, then looks back at doc. She eventually grows tired of the imagery and gets up from the bed and begins investigating the room.

Sharpe's smile smirk fades from his face as he realizes how rude he was, absent-mindedly barging into the maid's room like that. He stands up and bows his head to her

"I'm sorry miss, I just realized now that I came into your room without asking, and I am sorry for that.

He sits back down, then crosses his arms.

"Now as for some other questions, I'd like to ask why we were expected. It was mentioned earlier and I don't like the thought of it at all. As well, I have these pieces of jewelry here..."

He pulls out the three pieces, the blue cracked gem and the two green solid pieces and shows them to the maid.

"I don't know what these are, but I found them in my room? I suspect there are more things hidden away in the dark nooks and crannies, but I wish to know what these could be before rooting around some more."

Dr. Atrium folds the drawing that Hitomi made and puts it into his pocket with the photo of her. He crumbles the two drawings he made and tosses them in the trash. He watches her look around the room and smiles. After a few he gets up to check on his things in his bag. He pulls out some bread and frowns, the bread is molded and no good. He throws it out and pulls out some crackers he has been saving for a while. He opens them and pops one in his mouth, then spits it out. The tastes was so bad! It's like the crackers are over three years old, he throws the crackers with the bread. What is going on here?! Why has all the food he had gone bad? It must be this realm he decides. He pulls out the rest of the food he had and has to throw it all away. He then pulls out his charm and his heart sinks to his feet. His charm that allows him to use magic during the day is empty. He throws the charm back into his bag. He has no idea how long it is going to be until the next full moon. It has to be a full moon or he will not be able to charge.
He gets up and kicks his bag. Now he isn't going to be able to help his group during the day if they get hurt. Maxwell did teach him how to help and heal without the need of his magic but it made everything so much easier. He goes through his bag again and pulls out an older medical book. If he is going to be like everyone else during the day, he is going to need to brush up on his medical skills.

"Oh bloody hell, Sharpe. We need to find that girl. Your gems can wait."

"Uh, yes, those gems do seems quite suspicious, Sharpe. Madame, if you would be so kind as to divulge any information you might have on these and then tells us which room the lady you just mentioned is in, we will be on our way"

The carving seems to calm him down a bit, bringing him to a state where he dares himself to at least peek into the corridor. He slowly gets on his feet, moving out of the corner, carefully moving along the wall towards the door, his hand guiding the way towards the door's handle. He opens it just a crack, peeks out and then opens it wide enough to check the other side. Nobody there, everybody seems to be in a room. He slides through the opening and shuts the door behind him silently, moving to the doc's room. He leans against the wall peeking in there aswell. Just the doc and Hitomi are in there. He carefully slides in, closing the door behind himself.

"I think I'm a dead man", he says, then slowly finding a place to sit.

Ayame looks at the three pieces in confusion and shakes her head. "I have no idea what these are but I can give them to our alchemist if you would like him to figure it out for you." She looks at the floor with a slight worried expression as she ponders. "I've only been here for about a week or two. Recently hired to be a maid. I'm sorry for the inconvinience." She gives a slight apologetic bow and then rights herself back up. "The woman who arrived late evening today is just a few doors down from the doctors room. She seemed very tired so she'll most likely be resting."

Sharpe buts his hand to his chin and thinks for a moment. If they give them to the alchemist, he could identify them, yes. However, they could lose possession of the gems. He doesn't want to give away that they have possession of them, they could be quite powerful and important.

"I feel that perhaps later, I could visit the alchemist. I want to be there in person to see first-hand what these might be." he says.

A half-truth, but it'll do. At least he's not really lying, he could actually do that.

"Don't worry also, it's understandable. So to continue, you see this place doesn't exactly make the most sense, how did you end up here? You seem to be rather timid about this place, but yet eager with that you now have a job. How did you come to be a made for such an ethereal place? You don't have to share if you don't wish to, I never mean to prod."

Dr. Atrium sighs putting his book down. He will read more later, he gets up and walks over to the servant that is laying in his bed. He takes the necklace off and waits for her to wake up from the spell induced sleep.

"Hello again." He tells her when she opens her eyes and looks over at him. He smiles and tries to look calm and friendly. "I hope you had a good nap. I was wondering if we could talk. How long have you been working and living in this castle?"

He looks over when he hears something fall and chuckles when he sees that it was Hitomi. She was looking at his coat and when she pulled on it, the chair that it was on fell. Seeing her jump and looking at his coat like it is alive makes him laugh. He then looks back at the servant.

"Sorry about that, she is curious one. Also, what is your name? I don't think you ever told me."

This castle has an alchemist? Ahahaha, alchemists, the delirious precursor to us rationally minded scientists. Sharpe does bring up a good point. She looks full of life compared to everyone else. You sick fiend! Do you employ these people just to suck the life out of them til they are nothing but a dry husk like the doctors patient?

There was a small and hard to notice amount sympathy in Jack's voice as if witnessing a fly being consumed by a venous fly trap

"Don't worry darling, you've done absolutely nothing to inconvenience us. Sharpe does bring up a good question. This place doesn't seem to have high notoriety, so how did you find out about this castle and get employed here? Were you given an invitation similar to the ones the guests receive, perhaps?"

Being completely ignored by the doc he just proceeds to sit down, watching him talk to the servant. He then takes a look at Hitomi, which seems to fiddle around with the coat. Due to him being calmed down, he then thinks about looking at the device again. He sees the blinking dots on it, which are, according to Jack, other people. The beeping though, which was the skull's head, is not there. Still unaware of that phenomenon he takes a look at the device itself. What an interesting item to look at. He peeks into the corridor again to check, nobody there. Sighing in a slight relief he looks back to the doc doing his work.

As jian looks at the device he notices a blue dot in the room where him and doc are in. The other two green ones are in a room a few down and the blue skull is merely blinking. No sounds are coming from the device at first. The device suddenly vibrates in his hands, startling him at first and upon closer inspection there is now a red dot next to the blue one representing him.

The servant rights herself up and looks at the doctor, shaking
her expressionless gaze. She merely waits for an order and disregards anything else the doc is asking her.

A few rooms down, Ayame nods at the two infront of her. "Well, I had been looking for work all over the place and my family desperately needed the money. I managed to get a job at a local family business down in Recudor, though the pay was awful compared to this. About a week or two ago a friendly man named Marcus came to visit, he said it didn't seem like the location sat right with me and offered me a job as a maid at this castle. Initially I had thought it was abandoned but he assured me my family would be taken care of and they needed the extra hands." She nervously looks at the door, thinking about what happened in the dungeon. "...Supposedly they are planning a big dinner party in a month or so, and Marcus and his whealthy family are looking for maids and butlers to help out during the event." Ayame shudders a little and begins picking on her dress.

the part about the dinner party catches his ear.

"A dinner party? Are you sure, or does it seem shady? Maybe it's something else? I saw those four strange, people at the table, along with Clarent. Who might they be? they certainly did not look lifeless." Sharpe says to the Ayame. Detecting her body language, she is obviously troubled by something.

"Why are you not as lifeless as the rest of the help? I know you only got here a week or two ago, but still, you would think that if it's something immediate we'd be getting nothing out of you, or worse. Is there some sort of initiation or something?"

She certainly is a goldmine of information, he reflects to himself. He'll have to keep her handy in that respect.

Dr. Atrium frowns at the girl. She is lifeless. I would be surprised I she could do anything without being ordered to. She is nothing more then a walking corpses... He thinks to himself. He looks down at her and gets an idea.

"You were instructed to do everything I told you and you couldn't disobey me, there for everything I say must be obeyed as if it was given by your master. I have a new order for you that you must obey. From here on out, I am your master. You no longer will listen to anyone else in this castle but me. If you understand what I am telling you then I order you to tell me your name."

He stares at her anticipation. Hopefully he worded everything just I right so nothing could go wrong. Being wrapped in trying to find out about about this girl, he hasn't even noticed that Jian walked into his room and tried to talk to him.

She's hiding something, but she's too nervous to say what. being threatened perhaps? maybe she's simply scared? I find it highly doubtful she's willing to tell what ever it may be. and who's this Marcus fellow, eh? Your partner in crime or just another one of your servants, hmph

"Madame, I would just like to thank you for your cooperation. You have been quite helpful with your responses to our investigation. Pardon me, Sharpe, but I think I'll just head back to the doctor's room and check up on everyone. Good day to you, Miss Ayame"

"Sharpe can stay if he thinks he can get anymore intel out of her, but I'm going to find that new guest. Sharpe and Jian are here to investigate the disappearance of the girl, Doctor Atrium is here for vengeance for the murder of his family, and you already know why I'm here, so why has this new guest arrived?"

Jack finds the room a couple doors down from the doctor's room just as Ayame said and knocks

"That conversation has probably given her enough time to rest."

The skull is there blinking and the device vibrates. Jian's confused, it's close to a red dot, so a different person. Unsure of how to handle the situation, also being a bit paranoid at the moment, he gets up and walks to the doc. He taps his shoulder.

"Did you not notice me coming in or anything? Anyhow. Have a look at this device, there's a skull close to a person.", he says a bit tense.
"Where are the others? Maybe it's one of them", he adds thereafter.

This all doesn't feel good. People keep endangering themselves more and more. Or rather get chased by hit.

"Should we check the situation?", he then asks, awaiting the answer.

The servant takes in the information the doctor gave her. Her master had told her to obey the wishes of the guests. The guest wishes to have full control over the servant. She nods at the doctor as he is distracted by Jian and severs her control of her master. The servant becomes lip and falls backwards onto the bed, closing her eyes as her body begins to dissolve into dust and bones, a disgusting rotting smell building in the room as she decomposes at an alarming rate. The doc and jian look at the scene bewildered as only a skeleton and dust remains instead of a servant. Hitomi jumps on the bed, having wrapped herself in the docs oversized coat and picks up the skull playing around with it as if it were a toy as doc and jian stare at each other in wonder. The red dot has dissapeared off the radar.

As Jack walks past docs room he notices a rather foul smell but chooses to ignore it for now. He gets to the door of the newly arrived guest and knocks. No response. He decides to knock again and announce himself, still no response. The door is unlocked so he decides to open it and finds that no one is inside. She must have left as him and sharpe were talking to ayame. Which would be weird given that she was heading to bed for rest. Or was she?

Meanwhile in Ayames room. The maid shakes her head and answers sharpe. "I'm sorry, I don't know what to tell you. I... Don't think its safe for us to talk but..." She nervously looks around the room and then walks up to sharpe, standing next to him as she whispers. "Don't go to the head-maid for information. She's not safe... That's all I can tell you." she whispers cautiously and nods at him before walking up to the door. "I'm afraid I need some rest for now, I'm sorry. If you need any further help you can ask any of the other maids as I am off duty for today."
She opens the door for sharpe and gives him a stern yet worried look.

"Damn, that rancid smell. almost as if theres a rotting corpse in the doctors room. Oh well, he's a sorcerer. its probably some sort of voodoo stuff. damn, nothin in here. hasn't unpacked any bags, nothing fancy about the furniture. I'd better leave before she sees me. Everyone other than myself who has been invited here turns out to be some sort of lethal killer. It stands to reason that she's probably just as dangerous and won't take kindly to intruders. I'm done making bad first impression considering there's nothing resembling a clue to be found in here"

Jack leaves

"perhaps I should find out what sort of potion the doctor's brewing that would cause such a horrid spell"

Sharpe gives her an intensely concerned look, and as she opens the door, he takes off his glove and grabs her arm, however slowly and without force. He looks her in the eye and then pressures his fingers a little, but not enough to scare her.

"Miss. If you run into trouble, come find me. Unless you have a pre-existing disposition with someone. Something here isn't right and I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

He releases and steps back, bowing to her at a ninety-degree angle.

"Arigato gosaimasu, so some would say in my profession." He bends back up.

"Have a good rest. Be safe and Godspeed." He walks out of the room and looks down the hall. He wanders back to his room and notices an utterly atrocious and pestilent stench. Something between rotting corpse and - actually, nevermind. Just a rotting corpse. It seems to be coming from Herr Doktor's room, so he walks down and finds Jack outside it, probably wondering the same thing.

"The feth is he doing in there? Preparing a stew?"

Sharpe knocks on the door but hears nothing, so he turns the nob and opens it a crack, and sees a grotesque picture. Not as bad as he's seen elsewhere, but still very bad.

"Sacred Feth..." he mutters quietly.

When Jian taps his shoulder, he jumps a but and quickly turns to him and chuckles.

"Sorry about that Jian, when I am met with a puzzle I really focus on it." He notices how worried and tense Jian looks. "What is the matter? You look like things about to take a turn for the worse." He says being serous.

He listens to Jian talk about the odd box that he found saying how there is a skull shaped dot next to the normal dots on the screen. Doc scratches the back of his head sighing. He was never good with tech or understanding anything about it. But usually when someone marks something with a skull, it means death so he can understand why Jian is worried. As he is thinking he hears the servant fall back on the bed. At first he doesn't give it any thought until the smell kicks in. He turns to see what the smell is and is caught off guard at what he sees.

"SHIT!" Yells as he rushes over to the bed.

He puts his hands in her chest so he can try to use the forbidden spell even though it isn't a new moon out but the moment he touches her, she starts to turn to dust. He backs way waving his arms to get the dust out of his face. He watches at Hitomi leaps on to the bed to play with the bones. He normally wouldn't care but she is wrapped I his coat.

"Damn it...looks like I wasn't able to heal her...all I was about to do was free her soul. May she rest in peace now."

He looks over at Sharpe with a sadden look on his face.

"This is what is left of the servant that I was trying to help. Turns out the reason thy look dead...is because they are..."