Log:This Spooky Old House: Exploration Edition, Part 3

This Spooky Old House 2020/07/13 	 Blockbuster Kid Tengu Phantom Blink Felix Bran

3

Bran looks around. "We're heading upstairs, right?"

"Actually," Phantom gets an odd look on his face. "I...feel like we need to go to the basement."

Blink finally looks away from her massive pianist accomplishments, to side-eye Phantom. "That's only because it's creepier and spookier downstairs, right?"

Bran furrows his brow, "But we need to defeat this...spirit of the house, right? Where is it?"

Phantom closes his eyes and rubs his forehead. "This house is warped. Like Harrington's mind," he explains, then his eyes open. "But the fast way would be to see if Blink can teleport us there safely."

Bran thinks about that...and tries to focus his mind...to look for where the house's 'mind' might be located.

Phantom thinks on it. "Chalmers said Harrington was probably on the third floor. But this house doesn't -have- a third floor."

I can't find an online character with that name.

"I can get us anywhere fast," Blink reminds Phantom. This is much better than nowhere fast... though her leaving off the 'safely' part may or may not be intentional.

Bran says, "Unless the basement is floor number 1? Some kind of weirdo European counting of floors?"

Evan murmurs, "I thought he was on the third floor, Phantom. Isn't that what you told us Chalmers told you? How can we get there by doing down...of course, how can a two story house have three floors?"

"It could be weird counting," Phantom shrugs. "And...yeah. It's nuts to think going down leads up. Don't know why that concept is stuck in my head."

Blink pffts. "They started numbering from the top, of course... and you -do- know that three-dimensional space is just an artificial mental construct that people invented so that their brains could make sense of what they're perceiving, right?"

Bran nods. "Well, we can try downstairs first. That's where the threat came from. If it's not there, we try upstairs. Maybe there's a stairwell to a...floor we can't see from the outside? Like...it's hidden?"

Phantom nods to Bran. "Could be that. Hidden passageway up to an attack from down there?" He looks at the ruined piano on the stairway. "We should be careful going over that.

Felix starts to say something in response to Blink then apparently thinks the better of it. He instead takes the rod from his his leg holster and extends it to baseball bat length. "OK, so, down? And who's first? And has anyone heard from Summer over the comms?

 Phantom says, "Blockbuster, see if you can come in and close the door to keep those skeletons out, then meet up with us."

Blink ...well, blinks as she realizes what she said. She then scowls and mutters a "Nevermind." What the $#@!? Where the hell did that come from? Alright, she knows were it came from, but when did she turn into her mother?! "Yeah, down works for me."

She looks back to the door and yells, "Hey, Busty! You coming?" She sends it over the link, too, just in case.

Felix chokes back a laugh at Blink's nickname for Blockbuster. It comes out a snerking sound.

At Felix's question, Phantom says, "I suggested it. I'll go first." He notes Blink's uncharacteristic construct talk and starts to walk down slowly.

"Cominnnnnnnng~" calls Blockbuster. She kicks off of the ground, sailing into the house on a pillar of light. There is only a brief pause where she tries to figure out how to close the door. Eventually, Blockbuster just pulls the door that KT ripped off of its hinges into its former place in the doorway.

Blockbuster promptly comes skipping through the air toward the others while she leaves the skeletons to figure out how to open a door like that!

"Heeeeeeerrrrrrrrrre!"

Bran tries to climb past the debris slowly.

KT easily makes it over the debris. He points out, "It's dark to you all down here, right?"

Phantom carefully climbs over the debris and on to the other side. Being blind, Phantom is used to the dark and is fine leading the way.

Bran looks for...a light switch. "Yeah, I can't see anything down there.

"Like, someone needs to flip on a light switch," complains Blockbuster as she floats down the stairwell after the others. Extending a hand, Blockbuster simply starts firing balls of variously colored light into the air. They immediately drift into random orbits around her, shedding rainbows into the darkness.

Ha ha ha! You thought you were playing with Blockbuster, but it was we, Dio, all along!

Felix acrobatically vaults the debris then stops, takes something from his bandolier and holds it out to Bran. "Flashlight?"

Phantom smiles. "I thought you were a living lightbulb, Blockbuster."

Bran hesitates, but he takes the flashlight. "Umm. Thanks." He doesn't turn it on immediately, since Blockbuster started to light the stairwell up, but he holds onto it, just in case."

The basement is lit by the light Blockbuster casts. It seems it about the same size as the house above lengthwise but only about half as wide (To those with sense to detect about 16m long by 8m wide). The ceiling is really high for a basement (a bit over 3m, or 10 ft). The stairs turned as they came down against an interior wall and open in the center of room lengthwise, facing north. There is a door visible in the northeast corner but views of the southeast corner are blocked by the stairs.

A badly worn pool table sits in northern part of the basement and a folded ping pong table rest on the floor near the center of the room. There is also a brick fireplace against the west wall.

"Huh. Somebody didn't know how to have fun," Blink notes at looking/sensing around the room. "Unless this is just storage of all the junk they didn't use anymore..."

"Could be, Blink," opines Blockbuster. She looks around idly, maintaining the light levels as best she can. What a weird place.

Phantom walks around quietly to get a sense of the southeast corner while his clairvoyant senses take in the room.

KT follows along, drawing up the tail end of the train while Blockbuster lights the way. He doesn't mind the dark, honest.

In all the fuss of getting down here he's even got the folio back in hand. He idly opens the folio to read whats written inside.

Dozens of microscopic tendrils rub back and forth, finding the texture off-putting. More tendrils join the fray as his hackles rise and his suspicions grow- especially after that blood stone in the yard.

"Oh man- whoever is behind all this really loves painting with blood... well I suppose this is more akin to dying it. Still... Not a pleasing sensation." KT says aloud as he moves to open the folio. He can't wait to wipe his hands on something to get this grit removed.

Blink checks out the pool table briefly. Why? Because who doesn't want their own 8 ball? If there's one there, she goes for 'eight ball, Blink's pocket.' Then her attention is grabbed by something else. The bane of every brave adventurer or horror movie victim: a door.


 * BLAMF*

She blinks to stand next to an interior wall near the stairs. "Anybody know what's behind door number one?" There. She asked! Though she doesn't really wait for an answer before trying to push and/or pull to try and get it open. It was mostly hidden, which means that it -must- be investigated.

Bran checks the hidden portion behind the stairs first before heading into the rest of the room. IF someone was hiding here...it would be there.

"This place is, like, tres uber weird," opines Blockbuster. She folds her arms across her chest and purses her lips, expression becoming gradually more introspective and focused.

KT finishes reading over the paperwork. "This is weird - spooky movie stuff..." He says, being careful not to sound too alien with Bran around. "Its a contract... signed in blood. By someone named... Damon Harrington!" He shouts, recognizing the name.

"He sold his soul to a Gentleman... named... hmm... just 'Gentleman'? That's weird. Is that a title?"

Blink pushes on the door and it starts to open inward. As it does, all of you can hear a scrabbling sound like claws on rock coming from behind the door.

Bran, on the other hand, finds that behind the area hidden by the stairs blocking the view, is another door on the interior wall but in the southwest as opposed to northeast corner.

Bran says, "Found another door." He then stops as he heard the noise from behind the door. Blink is opening. "Umm...."

Phantom shrugs. "Just Gentleman? Sounds like a title." He looks confused for a moment as Blink pushing on a door he didn't sense was there. And then looks more alert at the scrabbling sound and turns towards her.

The scrabbling sound from beyond the hidden door doesn't get any louder nor any softer. It's just a continuous scratch, scratch, scratching.

Blink hears it, too, of course. "Sounds like they've got rats. Anyone bring any cheese?"

Phantom walks over to Blink and the door at the base of the stairs. "I was thinking more skeletons, actually," as he tries to sense what's beyond the open door.

"Um, should we see what that is? Or just shut the door?" asks Felix. "And if we go in, I think..." He falls silent as Phantom speaks.

Bran moves back out to the middle of the room to get a better view of the door that Blink is next to.

"You think...?" Phantom asks Felix patiently, keen to know what's on his mind.

"Well, nothing is coming out...yet. So, maybe just leave it be for now?" continues Felix.

"That makes sense." They did see skeletons outside, after all. Not to mention that the hidden door she found could lead to a closet. "So, in or out?" Blink looks to the others.

Bran looks to Phantom, "Can you tell which way we need to head?"

"There's some cabinets and a table in there," Phantom says. He shivers briefly. "And some sort of covered thing. Like a well? Broken statues...something written on the floor...and I think just one zombie arm."

"Oh just the one? I wonder if they don't come as a matched set any more or if zombies loose them the same way hu-- the same way people lose socks?" KT muses as he steps up next to Phantom.

cc :was willing, was just being nice and getting other opinions to ignore, first.

Felix looks like he'd be moving up but there's only so much room to enter the door.

"Don't tell me you're scared of some disarmed zombie skeleton thing..." Blink hops past Phantom with a *BLAMF* into the room. The writing could be something important, like 'Here lies the answer to everything' or 'You really shouldn't have come in here' or something. There are also cabinets to look through!

Phantom looks to Bran and shrugs. "I'm not exactly sure. I think the answer is behind one of these doors though." He looks towards the door and hesitates. He's the leader. He should take the risk. Blink blinks past him, so he now hurries inside to back her up.

Kid Tengu moves to follow and back up Blink too.

Bran mutters, "This is going to be like those video games where there are three tin cans to pick up, and we're not sure if they're necessary or not...so we take everything."

Phantom shakes his head. "No, no, this is the one where we find an eagle crest, a lion crest, and a bear crest, and what we really need is a red and purple gem, but you have to keep going from one end of the house to another to get item to unlock the way."

The writing on the floor seems to be one of those classic summoning circle drawings. This one in flaking dark brown. The cabinets in here are really gross with lots of spiderwebs everywhere in this room. The table has some books on it as well as a bunch of knives, from filleting knives to a gleaming butcher knife with runes on it.

The zombie arms sticks out o a fallen over crude statue. Seems to be connected to a plastic wrapped zombie coated in lime that's trying to get out but seems stuck.

"I think it's one where you pick up stuff and then in the end it turns out just to be encumbering you. Cause the designers went way too meta," says Felix putting in his two cents worth.

There were originally four statues, probably with zombies inside, around the circle on the floor. Three are broken open and empty. Matches the three zombies on the stairs.

Blink eyes the nasty cabinets. Hmm. Probably nothing too worthwhile in them. Not worthwhile enough for her. The zombie isn't too hard to notice, of course. "Somebody stole my idea already..." Obviously, she's the first to ever think of dropping heavy things on zombies.

KT squats down next to the summoning circle. "I guess we found the Bloodwriter's room." He says as he looks closer. "What would ever make someone use the ichor of their fellow ... you know. Person. What would make someone use them for an inkwell? Surely there is a marker somewhere in this house."

Bran looks around at the room, "Bleh. What's a 'bloodwriter'?"

Phantom needs a moment to see what the others see, his reaction a little delayed to the blood writing. "Uh. Yikes. So this is...something," his head turns to the books on the table.

"It's always something," comments Blockbuster as she floats near the center of the basement area. She keeps concentrating on her powers, frowning slightly as she bobs in the air.

Felix stands at the doorway as he says, "Um, I'd leave the books and the knives alone, guys. This Harrington guy was obviously in black magick and blood magicks. No telling what's in the books."

Bran shrugs and chuckles. "They're just books, though. I mean...how dangerous can they be?"

The dried circle of blood on the floor turns into bright red blood that forms into the words: DIE TRESPASSER

At the same time, the folded ping pong table out in the main basement room shudders than flies across the room to try to ram into Blockbuster. Simultaneously with that attack, the knives on the table rise up and start to attack those in the hidden room.

And those with with ability to sense minds sense Damon Harrington's presence once again.

Phantom's eyes widen at the knives rising up. "Should've seen this coming..." he mutters.

Blockbuster is much too busy focusing on maintaining her field of light to notice something like a flying ping pong table. It smashes into the side of her body, sending up a brilliant flare of light on impact without seeming to do much more than knocking her out of the air and onto the ground.

"Hey! Like, what the heck?!"

Bran sees the attack coming...and manages to concentrate enough to blunt the impact of the weapon.

Phantom winces as he's struck, but the impact mostly bounces off of his psionic shielding.

KT's chitinous hide is more than durable enough to withstand the knife strike but he knows his friends aren't so durable so even while wincing form the sudden force he's turning to see how he can help his compatriots.

"Whoa!" Blink turns as rusty, dirty blades go a-flying, and it just nicks her costume. No one wants a tetanus shot, much less tetanus, or even getting cut in the first place.

The butcher knife flies at Felix, trying to set itself in his breastbone. It sinks into the haziness around the teen but doesn't quiet penetrate his defenses.

"Ok so the house is... throwing knives now? Is everyone alright?!" KT asks in surprise. "Maybe those of us with squishy, stabbable bits should head back to where the pointy bits aren't?" He suggests to the others while looking at everything else in the room but them so he can be ready for another surprise attack. "Or you know- we go with the ghost and we burn this thing down and call it a success... except... I already #Coded this one..." He sighs. Clearly they're going to have to see it through. At least if they want to stay Trending anyway.

Kid Tengu stretches his arms out before the others in the room and stands to guard them or perhaps shepard them out but he is waiting for the others.

The knives are still moving through the air much like piranhas might if they could fly.

The table moves more sluggishly through the air. Much like a table would if it could fly.

Phantom can't do much about the mindless blades, but he can do something about the mind behind it. His head tracks in a certain direction as his mind strikes out.

A hollow shout filled with rage and pain reverberates through the house.

IT seems to come from everywhere at once.

Blink isn't about to punch or grab a flying knife. She is more than happy to let them flying around all they want, so long as they're not coming at her or anyone else here. One easy way to do that is put one into a bit of toroidal space, where it can fly around forever thinking its in a straight line.

And whatever Blink did makes the filleting knife that was going for her just keep missing.

Bran keeps his defenses up, but he concentrates and lashes out with his mind at the house itself again...now that its spirit is plaguing them again.

Once again, the house echoes with an unearthly scream of rage and pain...and then everything that is floating/attacking drops to the ground with bangs and clatters.

IN the silence, the scrabbling of the zombies hand on the stone floor goes on.

KT frowns. "So... not leaving the room then." He notes as his eyes follow the school of blades, waiting for them to strike out against his friends. He may have keen sight but he certainly can't see toroidal space or one sense combat on the psychic plane.

He looks about as surprised as anyone when the knives fall and their cacophony is punctuated by the falling table in the other room.

"What."

"The."

"Hell?!" He exclaims in exasperated relief.

Phantom offers a fistbump to Bran as he looks around. "Nice." Since the others may not have seen what was done. He's checking for any other hidden doors. "Guess this isn't the right door."

Bran gives Phantom a fist bump.

Felix darts forward and gathers up the knives. His hands full he looks around then at Blink. "Blink, can you get rid of these?"

Blockbuster climbs back to her feet and huffs in mild indignation. She casts a sour look at the offending ping pong table and then looks around the room to make sure there are no more game tables looking to bump her off.

Blink wasn't expecting anyone to hand her a pile of sharp objects. "Uh... sure!" She takes them and vanishes with a *BLAMF* A few moments later she returns, minus cutlery.

Phantom looks to the others. "Everyone okay? It seems like Harrington's astral self had to show up personally to mess with us."

"Nothing serious for me," replies Blockbuster.

KT looks a bit concerned- perhaps finding himself out of his element but is no worse for wear. "I feel like I need more hands. I clearly didn't bring enough." He says as two more limbs fold out from his main arms and a grasping claw sprouts from his tail. His knees pop back as he shifts into a digitigrade stance and his toes lengthen into another matching pair of hands.

Kid Tengu recovery

"Yeah, peachy," murmurs Felix. "And thanks, Blink. Taking ammo out of his hands seems like a good idea."

He then heads extends his rod to full staff size and smashes the zombie's arm sticking out of the 'statue' until it stops moving. The 'statue' still moves slightly as the zombie trapped inside of it still tries to escape;.

Phantom turns his head towards the trapped zombie. "Maybe we should...I dunno. Put that thing to rest? And I guess treat any furniture as a weapon. This is some poltergeist stuff."

Bran furrows his brow, "What's with the zombie statue thing? That's...odd."

"Just that?" KT asks Bran facetiously.

If anyone examines the other 'statues' and the intact one, they look like crude human forms. Or, in a moment of horrified realization, plaster put around humans.

Phantom looks around a bit. "I dunno why someone would...um. I wonder if they were alive when it happened?" he asks uneasily. He checks out the well, lifting the lid briefly and then quickly dropping it. "Yuck. Gross. Nope."

"Ugh. KT! Warn someone when you're going to fart like that," complains Blockbuster when the stink of the opened well hits her nose.

Bran does takes a closer look at the statues. "Victims of this Harrington guy?"

KT looks horrified a Blockbuster's complaint. "I- I- no-nononononono... I don't even have the biological temperament for anything of the sort!" He protests. Perhaps too much. Especially after chili was discovered by the young alien.

Blockbuster places her hands on her hips and arches an eyebrow at KT. Lips pursed, she waits for KT's complaints to cease. She knows about KT and chili.

She knows your sins, KT.

"It was the well, Blockbuster," Phantom grins, though he suspects she knows. "Okay, anyone else see any secret entrances before we check another of the doors out there? This makes me think the stick together plan is super important."

KT sniffs the air a moment. "But... that... that horrible smell came from this..." He explains as he moves to the well covering Phantom just lifted in sudden realization. He cuts pleading eyes at Blockbuster.

"But I know what that smell is... if you went to the lock up in..." He looks to Bran. "Anyway- that's bodies. Emphasis on the plurality. More than one." He explains.

KT sniffs the air a moment. "But... that... that horrible smell came from this..." He explains as he moves to the well covering Phantom just lifted in sudden realization. He cuts pleading eyes at Blockbuster.

"But I know what that smell is... if you went to the lock up in..." He looks to Bran. "Anyway- that's bodies. Emphasis on the plurality. More than one." He explains.

Blockbuster harumpfs. Go on, spoil her fun. She drifts free of the ground again, though more shakily than normal as she starts to condense some of her rainbow light orbs into fewer orbs to keep track of.

Bran nods, "Let's check the other two doors in the basement? See what we come across?"

"...wonderful...maravilhoso...chudesno..." mutters Felix under his breath. "What was this guy a serial killer on top of being a blood ma...OK, *he shudders*...yeah, makes sense..." He moves over and takes out some quick ties from his backapck and tries to tie down the lid on the well. Oddly, or not, it seems there are already points to tie it down.

Blink BLAMFs the BLAMF out of that room and back to the main one. "Ugh. Please tell me whatever's behind the other ones will smell better..."

Phantom nods to Bran and looks at the others. "The guy was insane. IS insane. His mind is...not right. But he's still cunning and sharp," he explains as he leads out to the main room and goes to the next closest door.

"Crazy and sharp as a rusty, bloodsoaked butchers knife." KT notes as he clambors up and onto the wall so he doesn't necessarily need to wait for his turn.

The door is slightly ajar. From behind it, one can see and hear nothing. Unless one has extrasensory perceptions like Phantom. He can 'feel' a washer, dryer, clothesline, cabinets over the washer and dryer, a folding table, ironing board, and a very large water heater.

Bran follows the others back out to the main room.

Felix is the last out of the hidden room. He pulls on the hidden door and lets it close shut behind him. He pats it to make certain it's shut.

Phantom frowns a bit and nods to the washing room. "Uh, Laundry room. We can probably skip that one." He moves on to the last door.

Blockbuster nods to Phantom's summary.

"Totes. Sounds like a wash."

Bran does some jazz hands, "I'm sure his laundry is spooooooky, though." He smirks, "Let's go check out the other door."

Felix snerks at Blockbuster's comment.

Phantom cracks up at Bran's comments. "Or smells like that well."

"Honestly it kinda smelled unwell," opines Blockbuster at the mention of the well.

Probably because you all suspect there might be one, Phantom, Blink, Bran, and finally, Felix, all figure out there's a concealed door at the back of the stairs where there would usually be a door to an understair space. It's at a ninety degree angle to the door in the southeast corner.

How to open the concealed door? That's another question.

Blockbuster isn't paying much attention. She's too busy keeping her powers running correctly in the otherwise infinite dark that would normally surround them all.