Slowly and methodically, the Wampus walked her fingers along the keys entirely unfazed by the dust that collected on her pale pads. What did bother her was the collective heaviness in the air from the addition of the dust from the piano. Her lungs were not weak, but there was a growing itchy agitation that she was becoming unable to ignore. Hacking (and eventually spitting on the ground from said hacking), Valerie pointed her wand towards her head. “Sanuspirantes.”

Ah. Much better.

But where had she left off on the keys?

Peering at them through her Bubblehead Charm, it was easy to find where she had left off from the tracks her fingerprints had left in the dust, she continued pushing down on keys until she found two keys side-by-side that simply did not go down all the way. It was as though there was something impeding its progress down. Was what she was looking for under these keys? Checking things once again (pressing down on the two keys with her fingers and finding the confirmation she was seeking) she continued down the rest of the keyboard for any other keys that may produce the same muted sound. Valerie’s attention returned to those two keys in question and began weighing her options. Knowing nothing about music, all practical thoughts were gone and instead she was left with a growing agitation. Whatever it was she was seeking was under these keys, yes? Which meant their immediate removal was necessary.

It was purely instinctual and the consideration that she may, perhaps, annihilate the very item she was seeking in the process did not cross her mind. Perhaps it should have, but before common sense could kick in she had flourished her wand at the two piano keys in question with a malevolent and eager sheen to her eyes for a much needed release. Perhaps if she knew how a piano worked she would have realized that it was not something under the keys that was causing the muffled noise, but rather something preventing the hammer from striking the appropriate string (perhaps where the very item in question she was seeking was hiding) but she did not.

Which meant the piano was about to become a casualty of war. So to speak.

“Bombarda,” she said coolly as the spell blasted from her wand and sent the piano’s keyboard splintering off in every which direction. In fact, the entire front of the piano was now missing. The blast had even shook loose the lid of the piano from its hinges, performed a bit of a backwards flip off the instrument, and inserted itself in the nearby lounge chair.

Nearly slicing it in half, actually, and its chair’s ‘guts’ billowing out from the embedded wood like thick cotton candy.

Unaffected by the sudden cloud of dust caused by her explosion and actually able to breathe easily, Valerie performed a nonverbal Ventus to push the dark chalky air away more quickly so she could examine the remains of the front of the piano while searching through the rubble on the ground for something cherished. Or whatever that stupid wording had been. She sincerely doubted that whatever it was she was meant to find here would pull at her heart strings.