revenance_rpg | What's this, what's this?

Entry tags:

What's this, what's this?

Characters: Anyone who wanted to go explore the mansion
Content: Exploration!!
Location: The abandoned mansion
Time of Day: Whenever
Warnings: None

There have been rumors of it being haunted. There have been suggestions that what's inside might not be what people remember. Which is correct?

No one can say for sure, and the mansion certainly isn't about talk. The only answer to questions is waiting inside.

So come, step in through the crack in the wall. Explore the forest and what lies beyond. The answers have to be there somewhere after all.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

York opened up the door and stepped inside. "Let's see what's down here first. There might be a switch here somewhere if we look." He kept his gun ready; he didn't want to get caught helpless again.

The room at the end of the hall is large, with blue walls and a blue and green geometric design inlaid in the floor. The only way in or out of the room is the door you entered through; there are no other doors or windows.

As soon as the last member of your party has entered, an iridescent force field snaps into place over the door, similar to the force field that kept everyone in the post office all those weeks ago. The force field offers you this chilling challenge: to find a way out.

Once you defeat the several dozen Nightmares that appeared along with the force field. They should prove to be challenging as well.

That was new. He could have sworn there was another door in this room. Then again, dreams.

...And Nightmares. Crap. At least the room is fairly open, so York shouldn't have any problems with getting a clear shot. It's a lot of Nightmares for the size of the space, though. At least there aren't any large Nightmares in the party. Well, not too large. There were sheep.

Sheep that could run someone over if they weren't careful or didn't have good reflexes. Ven's sheep came to mind, but now was not the time for that line of thinking. Now was time for just getting through what was promising to be an annoying battle and getting out of this room. Sora hit a distant sheep with a Fire spell and took out a nearby Wheeflower with a quick combo.

This was probably going to suck, at least a little bit.

Celestia set her hooves on the ground firmly, lowered her head, and invoked her magic. Brilliant light blazed up around her horn as she summoned up telekinetic energy, inspired by the effects of Shining Armor's shield magic, to seize Nightmares and hurl them back against the walls like ripples in a bucket.

York got to the side and started picking off the toximanders that he could see; it figured they'd be stuck in a room full of nightmares that specialized in poisoning you. Sparky seemed to pick up on that as well and spent most of his attention on attacking them whenever they were visible. They managed to start thinning the number of toximanders at least.

He had to pause for a moment when the nightmares were knocked back but luckily they didn't seem organized.

Sora was keeping the magic to single target spells. In the meantime, his Spirits also focused on the Toximanders while he was working on taking out the sheep.

This was going considerably better than the battle in the foyer but there was always the chance for something else to turn up.

Celestia, for her part, acted far more aggressively against this horde than she had been against the smaller group. The Nightmares she threw against the walls, she hurled razor-sharp bolts of shining, transient crystal that seemed like condensed sunlight at, catching them before they could dart away. She was very careful to keep her allies out of her lines of fire, addressing herself primarily to those Nightmares that attempted to flank the front line.

The crowd seemed to be thinning out at least a little; that was reassuring. York kept picking his targets carefully. He winced as one of the sheep charged him and quickly got out of the way; Max pounced it right after that.

Sora was able to get up close and personal readily enough, but he was also taking care to stay out of his allies' lines of fire. Thus far, the low point of the battle for Sora was one of the cats latching onto his leg with claws and fangs and refusing to let go until he bashed its head in with the Keyblade. Painful, yes, but something that would likely get a laugh in retelling later on. Jelly Bean had been quick to cast Curaga on him as soon as the cat was dealt with.

Ultimately, it was not too annoying of a battle, assuming there were no reinforcements coming.

And Celestia had her Dream Eater Komory Bat fighting its Nightmare opposite. Inside her mane. Which looked vaguely psychedelic, as the outlines of the mane jerked violently around while the colors continued to flow serenely.

She allowed her magic to fade as they cleaned through the numbers, or maybe just because concentration was difficult at this point.

York breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like they were almost done; the room was definitely mostly clear. Sparky used his flame to battle one of the last cats in room as York cautiously looked around for signs that there might be a second wave.

Sora's experience with something like this was that the chances of another wave were pretty high. It really depended on what happened when the last of these Nightmares was cleared out.

Hopefully, if there was a second wave, they'd at least have a little time to patch themselves up before it appeared.

Luckily for the group, there is no second wave. The last of the Nightmares dissolve into munny and dream pieces, leaving behind a generous amount of Figments and a handful of Fancies.

When all the pieces are cleaned up, one thing is left on the ground, tucked away in a corner: a single undeveloped photograph.

Celestia summoned both the photograph and a Fancy to float in midair for easy viewing, frowning at both in contemplation. "On the one hoof, this seems to be no ordinary figment. And on the other... does an undeveloped photograph have any meaning to those of you who have been here longer than I? Surely it fits in with the other ones that have been appearing, but for it to show nothing this way..."

"It doesn't mean anything to me." York frowned. The other weird object had made sounds, right? "Maybe tilt it or hold it to your ear? The last thing we found like this made some sort of sound, but we couldn't make out what it was saying."

York is spot-on - as soon as Celestia picks up the photo, she can hear something faint, almost as though someone is trying to speak with her. It's vague, though, and muffled; while she can hear a faint voice, it's far too quiet to make out any of the words. The only aspect that truly comes through is the tone, one of urgency and desperation.

At the moment, Celestia is the only one who can hear it.

Sora's really not sure what to make of the blank photo. The similarity to the incident in the post office suggested something, though. Curiosity demanded that he take a closer look at the photo. Manners demanded he not make an ass of himself.

"The fancies are rarer than figments, but not as rare as fantasies," he replied, "May I?" That photo had too much in common with the ID card found in the post office. He knew the card had had a voice attached to it, though he only knew that from someone else mentioning it. If this photo was the same, Celestia already heard it, but he was curious. He wasn't sure if he would recognize the voice, but it couldn't hurt to hear it for himself.

"All of you should touch it, and swiftly," Celestia said, both quick to understand the source of the noise and surprised that it would consider her magic to be a touch.

York reached out to touch the card. He frowned as he heard the voice. "Still can't make out anything from this one. Whoever it is, they need help. We should talk to everyone about this."

Sora took the photo in his turn. It was a bit disconcerting. He couldn't make out what was being said or who it was, but the sense of urgency was unmistakable. Was it a warning or a cry for help? Either situation was possible.

"Do you think it could be the same person it was with the ID card?"

"It may be the only reason, but I'm unhappy with the idea that this photograph was at the end of this battle, in the depths of this mansion, simply because of dream logic." Nor had she been happy with the idea that restoring the items in the mansion to their proper rooms was necessary simply because of dream logic.

"Where did the ID card end up, anyway?" York asked. "Does Ziva still have it?"

Someday soon York needed to chat with North and Wash about how surreal their lives were. But Celestia was right; the dream logic wasn't logic at all. It worked on its own terms, but those terms were bizarre. "It's definitely weird, but at least it's consistently weird."

"Uh, she might? We can ask later, I guess."

Dream logic, video game logic. Who could be sure? It could even be that they were just being tested. York was right about the weird being consistent, but Sora did wonder what more there was to it. There was no question that there was more. "At this rate, it's becoming the new normal. You know I wouldn't be surprised if there's nothing else to find now that we found this photo."

"This does seem to have a certain air of finality about it..." Celestia said, still profoundly disquieted by how all this had happened. "Certainly there is no more of the mansion to be explored, or it would have obliged us with some sound or signal."

"We may as well head out and see if we can help with whatever jetted out of here," York said. "Hopefully this place won't have any more surprises for us." Or weirdness.

What's this, what's this?

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[end thread?]