"Oh, thank the Goddess!" The Liara-Lana-Laura asari said, staring down at Shepard with blue eyes as big as saucers.
Shepard stared, mouth slightly open. She slammed it closed and gulped.
"Are you okay? What happened to you?" She dropped her bag on the floor and slowly walked closer to the orb, circling it.
"This thing I'm in is a Prothean security device," the asari replied. "I cannot move, so I need you to get me out, alright?"
"Wait, a Prothean security device? How did you end up in there?" Shepard asked, her lips curling into a barely contained smile. This wasn't funny.
Kismet maybe, but not funny.
She swore she saw the asari blush, a deep purple. Jane decided it was her new favourite colour.
The voice that came out of Lana-Liara-Laura was much meeker this time, but it reverberated in Shepard's soul. "I was cleaning an artifact for a professor and, well, I must have hit something I wasn't supposed to. I was trapped in here. You must get me out. Please."
Shepard's heart thumped against her chest, a hollow burn climbing at the word 'please'. A slower burn crept up her cheeks.
She looked around for the artifact, "Okay, what am I looking for?" She asked, looking up at the trapped woman.
"Oh! Yes. Right. Well I probably bumped into the activation switch on that table by the door, but perhaps just placing the piece back on the table will reset the pressure plate?"
"Okay, honestly I only understood half of what you just said," she admitted, "but I'll figure it out." She did as she was told and replaced the artifact on the table, after crawling under it to find the damn thing.
There was a brief buzz as the orb blipped into nothingness and Jane spun on her heels in time to catch the falling asari in her arms. She felt the warmth of her positively burn where they touched and quickly set her on her feet, clearing her throat and rubbing the back of her neck with her hand.
"Thank you. I would have been in there all weekend if you hadn't come along. I'm Liara T'Soni."
Liara.