Chapter 371: Singer, Thief and Liar
‘…’
[Milord? Are you okay?,] Archanidame asked.
‘I’m fine, just…I can’t help but think…is this singer from my time…or further back?’
[Further back?]
‘I only know this from a trivia deep dive…the opera “Carmen” was written 1875…so this lady could have been isekaied from any time between the invention of the steam engine to the first commercially available electric car. That or I’m paranoid and this lady is native and she stole from someone who could have isekaied prior to me and her…man, this is confusing.’
[Ah.]
[Can’t you figure that out from what songs she’ll be singing next?,] Lacerage pointed.
‘That’s…a fair point.’
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=Well…she just sang “Habanera” from “Carmen” and now appears to be singing a number from…”The Magic Flute”? I’m going to guess and say she is from no later than his world’s 1900s AD, but…probably around 1870s?=
=True…I am weirdly glad public domain laws are not an issue in our world, but it honestly scares me that the art world is full of thievery too.=
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For the next hour or so, Madam Venus proceeded to sing operatic masterpiece after operatic masterpiece, in a variety of languages from all over the world.
A bel canto in Ember Tongue.
An aria sang in Feather Word, the language of Soaring Griffon.
A traditional Stampeding Bison war song sang in recitative.
The audience was absolutely enchanted by this performance, for only a true genius could come up with so many different songs and perform them in so many different lanagues.
If only they knew what a certain trio knew.
Well, if only they knew what a certain frog monster possessing a child’s body knew, they’d be mildly pissed.
[Don Giovanni, La Boheme, Tristan und Isolde, yeah, this bitch is just straight up stealing operas from our lord’s home world…well…their home world?,] Jasper mused.
[I didn’t know you were so passionate about opera, Hurricroak. I mean, I know your formula is focused on music and such, but…]
[You’re not entirely wrong, Nepherage,] Jasper agreed, [I do prefer more energetic pieces of music, but I can appreciate music in whatever form it takes…I will not however, tolerate the stealing of another person’s music and claiming it as their own original work like some kind of hack, even if it all came from another world!]
It was good thing Jasper(read: Hurricroak) was used to conversing and expressing emotions via thoughts, otherwise they might have caused a scene with their outburst. As far as the crowd was concerned, Jasper looked as if they were just overcome with emotion at the performance.
[Y’all think…Razor and…Spring…are…okay?,] Frosttusk asked.
[Lemme check,] Nepherage answered before tuning her mind to contact the aforementioned protos, [how are you two holding up back there?]
[Well, for starters, we learned that the name of the guys who kidnapped Janice are named Simos and Graff,] Razor Maiden answered, [Their names sounds fake, but that appears to not be the case.]
[That’s good.]
[That being said, Simos appears to have fallen asleep during the performance. He’s not snoring, but the man is sleeping with his eyes open. Spring Brawler was about to go over and poke him in the eyes, but I stopped him.]
[It looks so…dry over there…though,] Spring Brawler added to justify their actions. Evidently his first coherent sentence earlier in the evening was more of a random fluke than an indicator of his speech development for the rest of the evening. He could still form coherent fragments though.
[That’s…mildly disgusting,] Nepherage replied, [anything else we should know about?]
[Aside from me learning that I find opera boring? Yes, there is. Apparently Victor and his associates here have made arrangements to meet someone after the show at…a warehouse I think? It’s hard to tell what I’m looking at here.]
[Send the picture.]
[Physically? That might blow our cover.]
[No, through this?]
[Oh…right.]
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Eventually, Madam Venus’s performance came to a conclusion after she had a sang an incredibly moving song about her undying love for her non-existent prince.
It was very moving, and a straight up rip-off of Romeo and Juliet with some details changed.
Not that any members of the cheering and applauding crowd knew in regards to any of that.
With the performance now over, the elaborate curtain that separated the performers from the audience came down and obscured Madam Venus from view.
The crowd began to get up from their seats and exit the theater in an orderly, yet still somewhat chaotic fashion.
To some, such a chaotic movement of people made it very hard to move and get anywhere they had to be on time, but for those who knew how to navigate such crowds, it was as simple as a fish swimming in water.
“Okay, let’s get-wait…what happened to that odd couple from earlier?”
“What you mean? They’re right-huh?”
Victor was pretty sure that throughout the entire performance that the people calling themselves Rachel and Sam were squarely seated to his immediate left this entire time.
While it was pretty obvious to conclude that they probably left the room immediately after the final number, he figured he would have noticed movement happening right next to himself.
‘Fucking swear to the gods ever since that kid knocked me in the jaw…bah, forget it.’
Victor, Simos and Graff proceeded to exit the theater as planned, navigating the crowd with the practiced ease of pickpockets, until finally exiting the hotel itself and returning to the familiar alleyways of Pearl Tusk Harbor.
“Think we’ll get there late or early?”
“Knowing Miss Venus? We’ll be there at the exact time she’ll want us to be there.”
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“Phew. I’ll need a chilled stiff drink after a performance like that, but alas, I have business to attend to.”
Madam Venus let out a breath as the curtain fell and she could now move about as she wished without the crowd seeing her.
She may have enjoyed the prestige and privilege that came with being an operatic diva, but the crowds were something she never really liked.
As she left the stage for her dressing room, she began to muse on her upcoming business dealing, namely what she would wear.
She may have been a black marketeer, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t look good while doing it.
Once she returned to her room and opened the dresser within, she proceeded to parse through her many, many outfits in an attempt to find something suitable.
“Let’s see…I should probably go with something subtle and probably flexible enough that I can escape in if this trio turns out to be nothing but turncoats…then again, I do have the shadows for that…hmmm.”
It took her a few moments before finally settling on a simple cloak, underneath which was a set of leather armor.
Once everything was donned, Madam Venus proceeded to admire herself and the outfit in the mirror, making sure nothing was astray.
“Hmmm. This will do.”
She was just about to leave the room, before stopping due to remembering something important.
“Ah wait,” she told herself, “I need to get a mask.”
She quickly turned heel as she returned to the dresser and pulled from it a leather bound trunk with a pair of golden locks.
With a snap of her fingers, the locks undid themselves and the trunk swung wide open.
In it was a collection of masks in all sorts of shapes and sizes, but all elegant in some strange alien way.
Each of the masks were in their own little slots in the trunk, with a label underneath each.
Oddly enough, these labels were in the form of names.
She began to lazily waver her finger above the masks as contemplated on which one to take.
“Let’s see…I’m on Stampeding Bison, so I need to be…ah, here we are. Hello ‘Fia’, my old friend.”
From the trunk, she pulled out a stone mask carved into the shape reminiscent of a bison’s head.
She admired the mask for a moment before turning it around and placing it upon her face.
Once it was firmly in place, the mask began to glow as aether began to surge throughout it’s structure and into her face.
In a matter of seconds, the mask became incorporeal and then merge itself with her face, subtly changing it’s structure from that of a refined middle aged woman, to that of a rougher middle aged woman, with the most notable difference being the color of her eyes.
Madam Venus’s eyes were a brilliant blue, the kind an audience could sink into.
Fia’s eyes on the other hand were a deep gold color, the kind that seemed to relay power and danger.
“Ah…that’s better,” Fia said to herself once the masks had finished merging. She re-examined herself in the mirror in order to evaluate the changes.
“Hmmm. I keep forgetting how pretty Fia’s eyes can be. I should come to Stampeding Bison more often…but first, let’s go and retrieve our lost sheep. Shall we?”
Finished with her make-over, Fia proceeded to exit the dressing room as if it was the most natural thing in the world, the trunk of masks closing on its own accord as she left.
