[quote]"You're Vincent DeMoore," the Queen said in recognition, mild and curious. A small smile glinted on her pale face. "I feel better knowing someone of your experience will be accompanying this expedition."[/quote]

Vincent felt impressed that the Queen recognized him. They had never met face to face until now, and only on occasion had he seen her and that was because Father brought him to the Palace a few times on business only to be babysat by Randy. There was a small pleasure he felt in the fact that he held Randy's life in his hands now, and he could do whatever he wanted with it. He grinned wolfishly and nodded. He would enjoy taking advantages of the resources he would get in the mansion and could move freely through the estate.

He glanced at the bracelet the Queen handed to Berry trying to get a good view of the sigils written on it, but he couldn't get a decent view of them. Watched as she directed Berry in how to use it and memorized the map of the people and teleportation points for future use. The locations were precise enough that he could figure out the rest from his perfect recall. He turned his attention towards the portal as he impatiently waited for Roy to return with the all-clear.

Roy burst through the portal to announce the all-clear finally and Vincent eagerly stepped through. The room he ended up in was the ballroom which was huge and could hold a party of one hundred and fifty people comfortably. An empty stage sat in the south side of the room where the half-night half-day sky could be seen through parts of the stained glass window on the wall. An empty and covered buffet table surrounded by a dozen dining tables and chairs were placed on either side of the stage so that the middle ground could be used as a spacious dancing floor. He could see one of the servants of the household frozen on the stage in mid-sweep staring at the small pile of sand she had swept up earlier this morning.

He knew the alarm sigils would trigger a few moments after the next person entered the room, so he said aloud. "The people that enter this room through this portal are guests of Vincent DeMoore of House DeMoore, and are allowed to come and go as they please." He knew the reason they didn't trigger at Roy's presence was because he was a robot and the sigils were not set to deal with intrusions by robots.

Vincent faced the portal to greet whomever came through and once everyone was in the building he said. "Welcome to my family's estate. I need to go to the library to scan through a few books. Feel free to explore as you feel necessary. There's likely a few more servants around here, and... my mother." Father could be anywhere in the city.

He wanted to research a few sigil and rune strokes before beginning his tests with the souls he had in his pocket.