The most important part of a business, in The Piano's opinion, was to offer something no one else--or at least very few others--could. To this end, it had two plans for wares it could offer that it could find right here in this room.

One, the living gemstones of rare and fascinating Lesser Gembound. For those who wished to reproduce, what better way to give your offspring useful, unique, and visually striking traits than the ghostly fauna of Andromeda? Two, the living Lessers themselves. Archimedes had found his Golden Charger useful; surely there would be those who would desire the Lessers of Andromeda as either novelties to keep or familiars to make use of.

The Piano wheeled its way through the room slowly, woodlike and metallic joints creaking a little as it did. A soft, glimmering melody idly rose from its soundboard, not cutting through Andromeda's stillness but rather adding to its atmosphere with impressionistic harmonies like scenes through rippling water.

One might notice that the melody only used The Piano's high and low notes, not its middle range.

This was because the strings of the middle range had sprouted hundreds of sharp ivory teeth, and were just waiting to be unleashed.

Perhaps because The Piano had somewhat of a compulsion toward preparedness and competence in general, it desired to back up its teeth with something more. A paralytic venom that would stop flighty Lessers, especially those with special locomotive abilities like some of Andromeda's endemic fauna, in their tracks.

A long moment passed, marked only by the development of variations and more complex embellishments on its soft melody, and The Piano had not managed to synthesize any. Perhaps it was the distraction.

It fell eerily silent.

In the ensuing silence, The Piano tried again. It felt a familiar wetness on the surface of its strings as a low-pressure venom began to ooze forth, coating the magically-sprouted teeth. Despite the success of its magic, it did not return to playing its shimmering melody. It would not do to spook any of the Lessers it was looking to find, after all.

Now that it was fully ready, The Piano cast its magic out and listened. Any Lesser Gembound, of any size that it could handle, especially if they were found in groups (to maximize its chance of catching one or multiple, and to maximize the chances that one or multiple would have a stone) could be a potential target it would consider. Its toothed, venom-soaked strings curled and flexed, ready to find their next victim.

In the Piano's vicinity, it could sense the heartbeats of seven living Lessers. One was very small, and relatively slow-paced, located near a small outcropping of rock nearby. Two of them were larger and grouped together, their hearts beating quite rapidly. It was a little hard to tell which was which, as they seemed to be moving around each other quite a bit. The last four heartbeats close to the cave wall, and slow. None of them moved as well, perhaps suggesting that they were at rest.

It could sense more farther out - this cave, after all, was teeming with life. But these seven were the closest and in the Piano's immediate area.

@The Piano

Larger heartbeats were probably good, right? A more sizeable catch. Plus, there were two of them. It could sweep them up in one strike, or use one as a backup if the other escaped. But first, it crept closer to the heartbeats quietly. It wanted to get a good look at them first, hopefully without scaring them away. If they were Lessers not unique to Andromeda but ubiquitous to the rest of the rooms, they wouldn't be worth its time.

The closer it got, the more risk it took in possibly scaring them away. But in the very dim light of this room, it truly could not see well. The Lessers were hidden by shadows, or their forms were just blurred enough to be indistinguishable. It could not make out what they were, so it had to keep rolling closer and closer.

It felt it could not approach further without giving its own nefarious intentions away, so it decided on a different method to improve its sight. It directed magic to the alien script on its side, but the spell flickered and failed. How perplexing. The Piano fell deep into thought. Was it because the anatomy of its sight organs were not quite the same as those on most Gembound?

It tried again, with more attention given to how exactly the spell would work with The Piano's perplexing anatomy this time. Though the script twisted and writhed, there was no change in its reflectivity or how well it could see in the dark. The Piano's strings twitched with carefully-restrained irritation. It wouldn't do to give away its aliveness and predatory intentions just because it got a little annoyed.

In its mind, The Piano recalled a calming melody it had learned several cycles ago. It pictured the neat bookshelves of the Palace, and the drifting petals of the blooming tree in Cepheus. When it had settled in this tranquil state of mind, it tried again.

Patience was indeed a virtue; a layer of tissue bloomed across the golden script on its side and suddenly it could see much better. It focused its sight in the direction of the two large, quick heartbeats.