For a brief moment, Jesús wondered just how much time he had left. Was he moving too slow? Or, did he still have enough time to fiddle with the piano to find out what the instrument was hiding? Given the size, the piano seemed like it wouldn't hold anything too large; however, he also had to consider that, for the sake of the challenge, they might have used magic to transfigure the object. Shrinking it made the most sense to the sixth year, though he did wonder just how small it was. Would he miss it if he wasn't careful?
And when he found it, would it trigger some sort of reaction somewhere in the shack?
He thought about all of this as he continued fiddling with the piano key. After what felt like an unnecessarily long struggle, Jesús was finally able to tug the key off. If he had any sort of decency, he would've felt bad for treating the instrument so roughly. But, as he tried to continuously remind himself, he was in a hurry. As he didn't actually care for breaking things that didn't belong to him, his conscience was relatively clear. After placing the key to the side (there was no telling if this key, or any other piano key for that matter, was actually useful or not,) Jesús looked into the now vacant spot on the keyboard. To anyone just walking into the room, nothing would seem amiss. It would've just been another missing key on a rickety piano in a ridiculously dusty room.
Obviously, Jesús knew better (as he was partially responsible for adding to the piano's raggedy state.)
Brandishing his wand, the sixth year cast Lumos and peered into the hole. He considered just blasting the other keys off of the piano and then searching that way but, and his voice of reason always came at the most inopportune moment, the riddle was specific. More or less, anyway. He assumed that just removing the one key was necessary, and while Jesús lived for theatrics, he also didn't want to accidentally disqualify himself over an impulsive thought. He reserved that option as a last resort, if he couldn't actually find what the item inside (although he felt that lucky might be on his side.)
It was much darker than he thought it would be, and he found even more dust inside the piano (probably due to the exposure from the loss of the other keys.) Jesús searched and searched until he decided to just take the plunge and stick his fingers (the ones that fit, anyway) into the space. When that didn't work, he bent closer, moving his wand over the area to get a better look. While he wanted to scan quickly, he knew that he had to be careful to look thoroughly. Nothing about the challenge was predictable; for all he knew, the piano could come to life and start attacking him.
As his search continued, his thoughts drifted to the location of the second item. He narrowed the location down the kitchen, and was fairly certain the stove was his best bet to start looking (and if it wasn't in the stove, his only other options were one of the two fireplaces.) He just needed to find the first item. Brows sloping downwards, Jesús swore he saw something out place within the piano. He looked again just to be sure that his eyes wasn't playing tricks on him, but ultimately straightened himself and picked up the piano key again. Rolling it between his fingers, Jesús inspected the piece to see if there was anything special about it. He glanced back down at the newly-made empty space on the keyboard, and then looked at the piano key in his hand. He repeated this a few times before irritation settled in. There was something that he wasn't seeing; and while he didn't want to just keep standing in front of the piano, he knew he had to figure it out before moving on.
__________________ Coming soon. |