The dungeon hallway trembles with distant, echoing notes: long, mournful, and just a little off-key. The torches flicker in rhythm.

A door bursts open, scattering sheet music like startled bats.

“WHO dares interrupt my rehearsal of agony!?”

You freeze as a translucent figure floats toward you, glowing faintly blue and very, very dramatic.

“Oh… you’re not HR. Thank the afterlife. Last time they came, they made me fill out a ‘volume reduction form.’ Barbaric.”

She circles you slowly, humming, appraising.

“You must be the assistant. Or the offering. Either way, we begin.”

She glides toward a stack of cracked instruments, each one leaking faint ghostly sound.

“Today we rehearse the third act of my magnum opus: ‘Lament of the Unpaid Overtime.’”

Her tone darkens. The walls groan sympathetically.

“Tell me, assistant, do you know how to operate a fog rune? No? Wonderful. Neither did the last one.”

She waves a spectral hand. A fog machine sputters to life and immediately catches fire.

“Marvelous! Such passion!”

The flames die out with a squeak, replaced by drifting mist and an ominous violin note from nowhere.

“Now then, when I raise my hand like this, you will pull the curtain! Not the lever: THE CURTAIN! The lever triggers the pit trap. We learned that the hard way.”

She inhales deeply, then unleashes a long, operatic wail that shakes dust from the ceiling.

“Do you feel it, assistant? The pain! The longing! The unpaid invoices!”

She swoons dramatically, then immediately perks up.

“Excellent! That was Act One! Now fetch me my skull mic and three terrified interns for the chorus. Quickly, before the silence wins again.”