She would spin the drum a bit and pull out a lot, the merchant called out a plot number, and she then called out whatever was written on the lot - be it the name of a business or an individual.

The whole affair took less than half an hour, and at points Zelsys dissociated altogether, so mindless it was.

After the drawing, Zel’s attention was drawn to the stage taking shape across the street. It wasn’t any of the peddlers or larger mobile shops nearby, but instead that stage which displayed the most technology at once.

All sorts of boxy devices were set up all over the elevated wooden platform, with thick cables connecting the whole mess. Two of the musicians were loudly arguing about “the pyro” and how it would be pointless for the first set because of the “entrance ceremony”. The shorter one - a small woman with long black hair and a boxy instrument - argued that it probably wouldn’t even last four minutes, let alone a full set’s worth, then proceeded to question whether the man had even prepared a full set’s worth of music for “some weirdo breaking a priceless ancient golem”.

“Right, ‘bout time I took down the perception barrier huh?” she said offhandedly as she did some stretches to get the stiffness out of her left arm. It had been acting up a lot more in recent days, but she chalked it up to the limb rapidly regaining strength and the pain at the connection point fading just as quickly. She could feel a thickened band of bone forming where it had been severed if she really tried to focus on it.

“Huh? But the entry ceremony isn’t scheduled until-” the merchant began panicking, but she cut him off: “I said take the barrier down, not go inside.”

“Ah. Yes, no problem with that,” he nodded, then turned to his burly… Guards? Servants? It didn’t matter. He gestured to the table, “If you would, I believe Valhoun will need this back in time to fleece the local gamblers.”

“Fleece, huh?” Zef raised an eyebrow.

He laughed, though there was some bitterness behind it: “As it turns out, a big chalkboard telling them just how unlikely they are to win isn’t enough to stop those with the will to gamble.”

With a similarly bitter chuckle, Sigmund nodded, “Wish I’d known when to cash out back when I was dumb enough to gamble…”

“Well I ah, must depart for now. I’m certain at least a few of the petitioners will take issue with the lottery results, as they always do…” said the merchant, pulling a gold-shelled ornate watch out of a heretofore unseen pocket. Before he actually slinked off into the crowd, he at least had the courtesy to state that, “I believe the entrance ceremony is scheduled to go through in around an hour and a half, if those stagehands don’t go off bumbling around somewhere. Again.”

They certainly didn’t seem to be slacking off as far as Zel could see, in fact they were hauling equipment and stage components like their lives depended on it. Was that a man-sized drum they were rolling up a ramp onto the stage?

Zelsys almost looked forward to the music more than she did fighting that golem.

Almost.

She stepped back through the barrier, walking to a particular spot some distance from the gate. There was nothing there - no control rod, no lever, no glyph to place her hand on, it was just an arbitrary spot. Placing her hand on the cold stone, she just focused her mind and with a spark of will, the barrier flickered. Like a bubble popping, one of its layers receded, and a surprisingly quiet reaction could be heard from the crowd over the wall - still raucous, certainly, but not nearly as much as she’d expected.

That small task done, she returned to outside the barrier.

They had an hour and a half to kill…

...And so once more, they perused the myriad curiosities, this time spreading out from the sect, and gladly so - a denser crowd had gathered to gawk at the grand structure now that the perception barrier was gone.

Strolvath and Makhus drifted down the street, the former stopping at a wheeled bookstore staffed by an ancient-looking Ankhezian, while the latter flitted between the numerous weapon merchants, alchemists, and drug peddlers.

Zel and Zef weren’t much different, which was how they knew where Makhus was most of the time in the first place, eventually drifting to the stage itself due to the appearance of an unmistakable outfit. The red top, the cone hat, the implausible cut of clothing overall - the most noticeable difference was that unlike her mother, her cleavage was open, an ancient-looking flute nestled in it. She also had a few token pieces of armor, in the form of shin-guards and a single shoulder guard.

Indeed, it was her. Not Arnys, but that other woman that they’d seen atop the Serpent’s Head, presumably her daughter. She seemed to have just appeared out of nowhere atop the stage, doubtlessly possessed of a similar ability to go unnoticed as her mother.

They, however, were noticed immediately.

The moment they approached the stage to get a closer look, her amethyst eyes locked onto them, jumping between them before settling on Zelsys.

“Well aren’t you exactly as unrealistic as mother said you were,” giggled the young woman, tweaking one of the pegs of her double-necked instrument. “The name’s Ezaryl Krishorn, as you likely already knew, and as you can hopefully tell, I’ll be leading the accompanying show to your entrance ceremony.”

“When I think of noblemen, I certainly don’t think of stage musicians,” Zef admitted.

“Who can blame you? The absolute state of this country’s nobility before their well-deserved culling was almost more comical than sad. Almost,” Ezaryl shot right back with a malignant glee so genuine that Zelsys immediately knew the type of nobleman the young heiress was speaking of.

She plucked a cord a few times, then strode over to the edge of the stage and sat down, pulling an ornamental pipe from her outfit’s single, incredibly loose sleeve.