Rubbing at her chin, Citron listened as the others left or prepared to leave down the trapdoor that they had found; talking amongst themselves quite audibly. She even heard Penelope, from a bit away, asking if anyone had found some sort of key; something she herself rather obviously hadn’t done. She hadn’t done much of anything, really, and so while she could have simply followed the others down their hole, and even felt like that was likely the best course of action… Well, she rather felt that she had been yet to pull her own weight, and didn’t see herself doing that by following a bunch of people who knew what they were doing. “...Alright,” she’d rub at her neck, turning on her heels. The hardest part was arguably, convincing herself that there was anything important to begin with. After all, so far this was just... A mayor's house. But everyone else seemed so determined that there were clues to be found, so the least she could do was go along with it. “Something important. Something, important…” She’d glance at the rest of the side of the room she was on, eyes moving past the array of hams to hone in on the lone crate in the corner of the room. “...That’s… Probably kinda suspicious, right?" She murmured to herself, rubbing her hands together.
Approaching the crate, Citron kneeled down to nudge it, testing it’s weight. And in doing so, found that was… Quite light, actually. While it wouldn’t open, being bolted shut, she found it was light enough to pick up, rattling around a bit as she examined the strange crate. Putting her ear to it, she heard what sounded like a bunch of smaller, in comparison to the crate, items bouncing around subtly; with something else rattling around inside. “Without a doubt, mysterious…” She trailed off, fumbling around with the crate a bit. Grabbing at the top, she quickly re-found out that it was, very much locked tightly together. “C’mon, open… I’ve gotta do SOMETHING…” Furrowing her brow, she began to pace in circles as she continually tried to open the crate, tugging harder and harder…
...Until her foot caught on the stone flooring, and she instinctively found herself flinging her arms outward to stabilize herself as she stumbled forwards; hurling the crate against the ground in the process. Wincing, Citron watched in what felt like slow-motion as it smashed into the ground, a resounding crash of metal on metal from the lid echoing out… And two bolts came flying out from the mechanism keeping the lid shut. Kneeling down, she slowly raised the lid, only to feel her heart come crashing back down. Not only had she caused more property damage, the lid now opening without any locks stopping her… But it hadn’t even been for anything worthwhile. No, inside, there were a few extra empty bottles of wine; with insulation having been the only reason they hadn’t shattered with the bolts. “No, no, no…” She trailed off, grabbing one of the bottles. “That… Can’t be right. Why would it have been locked if it was just for some-- Some stupid bottles?” She wondered aloud, shaking the first bottle, only to hear nothing. With empty dark glass, and a lack of a cork, it was easy to see that they were empty, but… “There’s gotta be something…” She trailed off, setting the first bottle aside as she scanned it for any sort of details, an engraving that seemed out of place, a label, something… before moving onto the next.
It wasn’t until she was at the bottom of the crate, that her heart skipped a beat. Buried beneath the others, wrapped in insulation, was one last bottle. She wouldn’t have even thought to check it, if she hadn’t accidentally unraveled it; causing the bottle to fall against the bottom of the crate. Yet even as it unraveled, and fell into the crate, a quiet, yet ultimately substantial ‘tink’ of metal on glass grabbed her attention, bringing a smile to her face. “...Yes, yes, yes-” she grabbed at the bottle, her smile turning to a grin. “I, I did it, I found something! I think, at least,” she found herself quickly getting up, peering inside the bottle as if she herself was surprised. Looking inside the glass, she found what appeared to be some sort of… Metal, silver object. “Is-- Miss Penelope, are you still over there? Because I think I found something small and metal that, may or may not be a key? I’m not sure yet,” she explained, rattling the bottle around as she tried to orient whatever was in there correctly so that it would fall out into her hand.
It was always so difficult to get something simultaneously small yet long out of a narrow bottle...