The Marquis

As Draigo made his way down a long and wide hallway, flanked by taxidermied aether beasts that ranked all the way up to the fourth grade, long and sorrowful notes began to creep into his ears.

'Oh joy...it's that kind of mood,' Draigo thought to himself as his ears was assailed by the harsh and metallic musical stylings of his soon-to-be patron. While Draigo wasn't sure if it was because of the instrument of choice or because of how the musician was like, Draigo knew he wouldn't have been able to synchronize with the man even if he was paid a massive fee.

'Just keep your chill, give him the hair, get paid and go get drunk...,' Draigo told himself. He steeled his nerves once more, before walking towards the door where the music came from.

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The man that Draigo was about to see was a well-to-do elite known as the Marquis de Howlite, and for all intents and purposes, he was a creepy motherfucker.

The Marquis just showed up to Emerald Eye City one day, completely out of the blue, and just bought the biggest estate at the time as easy as one would buy a loaf of bread.

The sheer amount of money he dropped to do so made waves, the fact that he was also an Aether Grandmaster was enough to turn the heads of the local powers to look into who this guy was exactly.

In terms of public knowledge, it was known that the Marquis was a nobleman not from the IronHeart Kingdom capital, rather he was an exile from the neighboring Crystal Blossom Kingdom. At least that was the assumption based on the Marquis's personal coat of arms, a wolf's head surrounded by a rose made of howlite, hence the title.

Additionally, anyone who had physically seen and met with the Marquis would describe him as, roguishly handsome with piercing eyes, impeccable facial hair and a voice smoother than a well-polished shield...anyone who met him beyond these standard social gatherings would say he was freaking creepy, or at least had weird tastes.

The Marquis would comission artists to sculpt him various statues of people doing various activities made of all sorts materials, but he'd always request for them to punch a out a perfectly circular hole where their hearts would be.

The taxidermied beasts he would keep as decorations inside the house would all have oddly visible marks and cuts around their torsos, giving the impression that they all perished while having their hearts and cores ripped out, by outside forces or themselves.

The Marquis also had a knack for painting...guess what his main gimmick was.

But there was one thing the Marquis was absolutely obsessed with, even above the whole "hole in the chest" thing, that he would pay absolutely ludicrous amounts of money in order to indulge in it. And it was for this one obsession that Draigo came to visit the Marquis de Howlite.

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"Have you prepared yourself?," the manservant asked as he placed hand gingerly on the door handle. From behind the door came a metallic sound of notes being frantically played one after the other.

"As I'll ever be," Draigo weakly replied.

The manservant nodded in response before turning the handle. The manservant didn't even have a chance to move the door himself before a wave of sound flung it open and assailed Draigo point blank.

'Bah! It's like standing in front of an orchestra of nothing but trumpeting baboons! This is the infamous 'pipe organ' of the Umbral Spider contient?!,' complained as he covered his ears. He may have had a respect for music, and was certain that a trained master could make full use of this instruments, the one playing it certainly wasn't.

As Draigo took in more and more of the sound, he soon realized that it didn't come from a single point in the room, rather it came from the entire room itself.

At the other end of the room, it's player and owner, the Marquis de Howlite was pounding away at a strange table of buttons and dials, oblivious to the cacophony he was causing or reveling in it, Draigo couldn't tell.

This bombardment of noise went on for a full minute before slowly dying down into silence as the sole occupant of the once noisy room slowly stopped playing.

"Corriandis," a deep yet smooth voice called out from the room, "why have you deemed it necessary to open my inner sanctum?"

"Pardon my master," the manservant said with a bow, "But someone has come in on the manner of...business."

"Business, you say? What kind of business?"

"The inspirational kind."

As soon as Corriandis said these words, the Marquis slowly stood from his seat. The Marquis turned towards the door, an unnatural smile on his handsome face.

"Then by all means, come. And let us talk of," the Marquis paused as he ran a hand through his hair, "business..."

Draigo was politely pushed into the room by the manservant, who just as quickly left the two men to talk in private by closing the door behind him.

At this moment, Draigo felt like he was just thrown into a lion's den, and something nastier just ate the lion. The old musician stood stun for a moment before taking a breath and recomposing himself.

The Marquis patiently watched as Draigo prepared himself.

"So...Marquis," Draigo began to say, "I hear that you pay well for...inspiration."

"Indeed I do," the Marquis nodded, "but only if it meets my criteria."

"Well then, I think you won't be disappointed by this then."

Draigo reached into his pockets and pulled out the two lockets of hair that he took from Alicia and Harriet earlier that day. When the Marquis saw the offered goods, his eyes began to grow wide and shine a bit.

"Now this first lock of-Whoa!"

Before Draigo could even begin his sales pitch, the Marquis quickly snatched both locks of hair from his hand and began to violently smell them, smothering the locks into his face like a hog in a flowerbed.

The sight made Draigo a bit...queasy.

'Is...is this the perk of being strong or being rich?'