Chapter 14 Unedited

Selected options are:
[X] Introduce yourself
[X] Ask where this place is
[X] Ask of what is causing that scarlet mist you are seeing now

[X] Let’s check on Misty Lake! (Marisa, Reimu, Alice and Minoriko’s perspective.)
_____________________________________

Rumia only stared blankly as she received an unexpected greeting after all the rough handling she had gone through. After all, nobody that is a child would expect a person related to the one who abused her to talk to her in a kind manner.

[i]She's the gatekeeper of this mansion, and is friends with the girl who treated me badly. Why would she greet me?[/i]

Meiling held out her hand, waving it in front of the two cherry-red orbs of the girl in front of her as she waited for the two eyes to start tracking the hand she held out. When that elicited no response from her little guest, she started moving her hand in a faster waving motion. Still no response.

Rumia felt a force causing her to stagger to the side as a hand landed on her shoulder.

"H-huh?"

Contented with the reply, Meiling put her two hands under the blonde girl's arms and helped her up from the fall that she suffered from Sakuya's mishandling. The blonde girl dusted the dirt off her dress and legs as she did, before raising her line of sight to meet with that of the person that stood in front of her.

"Now that you are back up, would you mind telling me more about yourself? I've introduced myself to you already; It is common courtesy to respond with a self-introduction when one introduces herself to you, you know." With a bit of impatient tapping of her foot, knitting of her brows and a grin that is slowly becoming forced, the girl in green walked towards the gate, fetching a metallic contraption that opened into a four-legged structure with a cushion-like object on it. Sitting down, the gate guard passed an offhand remark to the girl, "I can wait all day here for your reply, anyway. There is nothing much to do around here."

She turned her head towards her conversation partner who started to part her lips slightly, then closed them again. Realising that the girl was struggling, she decided to give some encouragement.

"Hey, go on. Don't just open and close your mouth without saying a word: it makes me feel as if I am watching a mime."

"I-I'm Rumia," the young girl stuttered as she spoke, her eyes darting left and right in a frantic attempt to scroll through the topics she had in mind to talk about. Every option scrolled through turned out to be blank, due to the fact that she had not thought of anything to say. Just as she finished browsing through her list of questions to ask in her mind with no result, her eyes landed on the image of the large, towering mansion that stood before her. Decidedly, that was a good topic to ask of. Knowing the place one is in would help oneself a lot. Still stammering, she tried, "W-what is this place?"

"Well, this is the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Grand, isn't it? I take pride in being a gatekeeper of this place, feels just like guarding one of those Chinese Imperial buildings," Meiling stood up and raised her hand, sweeping it in an arc towards the blood-red mansion to highlight the subject which she was talking about. "You should really visit here sometime, especially during the full moon. When the moonlight shines onto the mansion, it gets all glowy with red, just like those two eyes you have there," kneeling down, she pointed her index finger at the two scarlet orbs that the blonde girl had before continuing, "You'll probably like it here."

"Really?" Her eyes opened wide, and her mouth fell open at the description. Mentally, she imagined the sky darkened, and the moon out, with its rays of pure white bouncing off the walls of the mansion, glowing in its sanguine glory. Glorious it was indeed. Only when the gatekeeper's voice interfere with her vision did she snap back into reality.

"Yeah, if you were a guest here that is. There are fairy maids to wait on you and stuff, and the Chief Maid would personally serve you breakfast, lunch and dinner. The lady of this mansion is European, after all. They like to show off their wealth to their guests." The gatekeeper sighed as she slumped back onto the metallic construct she had sat on a while ago as she rested her head in her hands. "If only I was as lucky as that lady with the fancy parasol that came here about six months ago -- she stayed here for a day to have tea with my mistress and was treated like she was the Empress. You should've seen: she had multiple fairy maids pouring tea for her, fetching her cup, serving her cake. . . the list goes on."

Receiving multiple "Ooohs" and "Aaaahs" from the captive girl, the gatekeeper smiled. It has been some time since a visitor has came to the mansion, and to have one willing to listen to the stories of a lowly gate guard -- it was the chance of one in a million. With the desire to entertain herself and her little guest further, she decided to probe her for more questions. "What would you like to know about?

The conversation was quickly ended by the sound of a growling stomach, coming from one unfed Rumia.

Silence. An awkward, long silence.

Rumia looked at the girl in front of her as she hugged her stomach, cheeks flushed. The gatekeeper started with a stifled laugh, then a chuckle before it burst into an uncontrollable guffaw. It was absolutely hilarious, as much as the gatekeeper had thought of her actions as insensitive and immature. As soon as she settled down and regained her composure (she continued to break into short episodes of unrestrained laughter as she did), she fished out a sandwich from her pocket; it was wrapped in a clear material that Rumia did not know of. Meiling simply pulled off the wrapping before breaking the sandwich into two.

"Here, my apology for being insensitive. I haven't eaten yet, so I'm taking half of the sandwich. You can have the other half: this is the standard-issue sandwich that I have been receiving as the workplace meal for being employed here. It's made by the chief maid who actually has culinary skill unlike the fairy maids, so it is marginally more delicious than what you would think a simple two slices of bread with egg and ham would taste like."

Chomp, nom, om. In three large bites, the sandwich was wolfed down and ceased to exist in the world. To a hungry girl who hasn't eaten since dusk till afternoon, the sandwich tasted heavenly. The ham was soft and tender and the scrambled eggs was not overcooked nor runny; It was as good as the gate guard had put it. The only thing that prevented Rumia from giving what she ingested a perfect score was the aftertaste of what seemed like rust.

[i]Rust?[/i]

Rumia paused at the thought, turning to Meiling who was in mid-bite of her sandwich. Lowering her half-eaten half-sandwich from her mouth, she lowered her vision such that she is in eye contact with the girl.

"What? You are not going to tell me that you want my piece of sandwich too."

The answer was a fervent shake of head and a sentence, "There's rust in the bread. My tongue feels funny."

"Oh, that taste," the gate keeper raised her sandwich to finish off the last bit of her mid-bitten sandwich before continuing. "Well, the taste has been there for quite a bit now, ever since the Scarlet Mist appeared. Apparently the mist that my Mistress released was used to block out light, but it also leaves a rust-like blood taste in the food it comes into contact with. I got used to it since about five months ago, so it doesn't really affect me much."

It was only now did Rumia notice the floating red particles in the air.

[i]Scarlet Mist? I think Miss Mokou's friend with that weird hat had been talking about it for a long time now.[/i]

Stumbling upon another topic to ask of, a voice played from Rumia's open mouth, "Who caused this mist?"

"Well, I know it is a doing of my lady. However, I really do not know much about this matter. Maybe Lady Patchouli, Sakuya and Lady Remilia would know why this mist was released."

"Patchouli? Remilia? Who are they?" the girl probed deeper.

The gatekeeper stood up, walked off and came back with another, albeit shorter version of the metallic contraption that was used as a seat. Opening it up, she settled her young guest onto the chair before continuing.

"Sit tight now, this could be a long story. . ."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Radio silence had been the standard for the past ten minutes that Marisa had been riding on her broom. The sound of the wind wasn't exactly entertaining, and no-one responded to the random questions she thrown out. Stealing a glance to the three girls behind her, she realized killer stares being directed from Reimu and Minoriko towards Alice, with the puppeteer returning the favour by sending daggers back with her icy glare. The monochrome magician knew better than to trifle with the girls in this silent but violent warfare that was unfolding and evacuated from the battlefied, looking back towards her front.

[i]I mean, what's up with these girls? It's like they are trying to use their stares to kill each other or something.[/i]

Realising that they had reached the Misty Lake, she attempted -- for the nth time -- to diffuse the situation by saying something.

"We are now at altitute 50 metres above ground. The weather at our destination is going to be perpetually misty, and the temperature is going to be as low as twenty degrees celcius. Thank you for travelling with Broom Air and it has been a pleasure serving you ladies."

Silence.

Marisa felt as if the surrounding air had condensed into a giant block and crashed onto her shoulders. An immense feeling of stupidity, coupled with embarassment and fear entered her as she realised that her puny attempt to act like an idiot with her little skit had only served to make the trio behind her stare at each other more intently, with an even more penetrating gaze that was fit to bore holes in rocks. There was no away around that.

Reimu was first to touch down, with Minoriko deactivating her powers of flight and landing soon after. Alice simply loosened her grip on the broom and fell as she manipulated her dolls with quick swipes of her hands to arrange them in a cushion-like manner to break her fall. Marisa recited a chant, and the broom lost its powers of flight instantaneously, resulting in the monochrome witch falling about two meters through the air before reaching the ground. Reimu and Minoriko were able to establish eye contact while the puppeteer turned away from the two, facing Marisa.

"So, what do we do now?"

The witch replied with a laid-back voice, "We should just stick together and search this area. I mean," Marisa raised her broom and swept it through the air, as if to prove her point, "it's all mist around here, every dead tree looks the same and the scenery just seems to tile itself over and over again ad infinitum."

"I would just like to point out that, if you have not noticed, that I cannot work with those two over there. If you insist on going together, I shall reserve my liberty to take my leave: I have a search party of more than thiry with me anyways. My dolls get along with me far better than I would get along with them." The puppeteer raised her hand majestically, and out of nowhere came a whole legion of the same dolls dressed in a European-styled black-and-white doll dress. The blue threads of magic became visible, each seemingly linking the many dolls to each segment of her hands possible. With another sweep, all the dolls prompty disappeared from sight.

Alice's actions drove the point home for Marisa. "Well, alright. We'll split into two teams, one consisting of Reimu and Minoriko and another consisting of Me and You. Would that satisfy you, Miss-I-cannot-work-with-others?"

The puppeteer replied dryly, "Very much so, thank you oh-kind-soul." Changing her tone of voice, she continued, "However, to prevent those two fools from getting lost in this maze of wood and water, let me propose that each of us carry one of my many dolls. Since each is connected by a thread of magic to my fingers, they are able to find their way back to me or lead me to any of you at any time. In times of emergency, these dolls can also be used as messenger dolls or even for firepower support in a pinch, so they are highly versatile for helping out the weak like you people." Muttering a few magical incantations, three dolls appeared. However, these dolls were not the normal dolls with the black-and-white dress scheme that the other dolls had, but rather with a red dress.

"These are renaissiance dolls. I have given them a different dress scheme for east differentiation/ These are speciallized for the collecting of information, and have lesser combat abilities comapred to my normal dolls. They will follow you around as long as you are programmed as the person to be tracked." Flicking her fingers, it seemed as though the dolls were pushed by an invisible force, with one landing in front of Minoriko, another in front of Reimu and a third in front of Marisa.

"Now that it is settled, I suppose we shall be going our seperate ways for now. You two search the North of the lake, while I'll search the Southern side with Marisa. We'll meet in the middle of Misty lake once we are done."

The two groups of girls soon moved in directions opposite to each other. While Marisa and Minoriko started looking around for evidence and perhaps the culprit, the counterparts of the witch and myriad god turned around. Keeping each other in range of their vision, Reimu and Alice exchanged steely glares fit to freeze the air between them.

[i]Make one false move, Reimu, and I'll. . .[/i]
[i]Try anything funny on me, witch, and you will. . .[/i]

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Hey, Alice," Marisa lifted her hand to pull down her hat further, blocking out the intense glare of the afternoon sun, "I am pretty sure that I have seen this clearing at least three times now."

"How'd you know if we've been here?"

Marisa bent down to point at the ground, not bothering to speak. A pink ribbon laid on the area Marisa pointed to.

"Right, so you left a marker here," Alice forced, keeping her usual smirk. Her conversation partner saw through the facade immediately, however did not tear through the false front that she was putting on.

"I am sure we are still on the right track though, so there is no need to worry about us getting lost."

Marisa lifted a finger at the sentence, "The fact that you even added the word 'lost' to your dictionary, Alice, completely destroys the credibility of what you have just said."

". . ."

Wordless, the puppeteer simply looked into her friend's eyes.

"You could be less. . . blunt about it," was what Alice was able to come up with after Marisa's remark. "To be honest, I have no idea why we cannot walk out of this area. It certainly does not make sense that my dolls are reporting that they cannot 'see' anything, even after I have checked the mana feedback from the dolls to be fine. I am sure that something is behind--"

"Spare me the details, Alice. In short, we are lost, we have no idea how to get out of here and we do not have any way to get out of here."

Alice responded to that statement quickly, "Well, we still have to option to use flight. There is nothing stopping us from trying to find our way out from above."

"True. Let me do it, then."

Picking up the ribbon and reattaching it to her hat, Marisa then held out the broom between her two hands. Closing her eyes and concentrating her thoughts on the image of a floating broom, she started to mutter various incantations as the broom started to leave her hands. She heaved herself onto it, and snapped her fingers.

"Stay here and wait for my good news."

Alice watched as her companion rode her flight device into the air, disappearing by the edge of the sky that the clearing showed.

[i]What should I do right now? Maybe I should. . .[/i]