Night 034

[allthekeys]

|| THREAT DOWN

|| NIGHT 034: GENERAL Night rushes in unnaturally fast, darkness smothering the house like a heavy blanket -- blocking all light from the windows. Thick as the darkness is, not even the moon or stars can be seen tonight. Guests who wore their mask will feel the creeping paranoia from the day begin to increase and their attention span begin to flutter. It's so hard to focus suddenly, and the slightest sound startles. Of course it does, because the slightest sound could be danger. For that matter, what is safe? Can you trust the people you talk to? Are they really who they are? The masks hid everyone so well, didn't they? Showed you things about them you wouldn't have known before? Do you know them at all? Every sound seems a little louder, all of a sudden. Each footstep, each creak of a door. Memories swim close to the surface, and sometimes almost seem to merge with the world around the guests. Or perhaps those memories are the reality, and the houses themselves the figment of their minds. It seems increasingly difficult to know for certain, the memories sometimes so overwhelming they block out everything else -- making guests lose patches of time to staring at nothing, or at friends who suddenly look like someone else. One small consolation, despite the nagging doubts and the darkness, is each guest will find between sleeping and waking that a small crown of flowers appears beside them. A touch of the petals will tell them it is real, and it appears to have been made to exactly the right size to fit them. All Kitchens will have a spread containing elderflower champagne, honey cake, candied ginger and a bowl of fresh fruit and fennel salad. A thick votive candle stands central to each spread, red at the base and a lighter orange at the top – a wide ribbon tied around it with a small sun charm hanging. It fills the room with the strong scent of beeswax, sandalwood, cinnamon and other spices. Every now and again Lock appears in the houses, passing through a hall or a room with some kind of urgency. If he notices he's been spotted he will look up with irritation and impatience, but with just the blink of an eye he's gone again; time has moved around the house-guest, the child has left, but they have remained standing still. In the First House the chains are on the offensive once more. They aggressively seek out and smother any source of light, and anyone wearing metal will find it starts to pull them toward the walls where the chains grab for them -- as if to draw them into its embrace. The only area unaffected is the Day Room, where Estella still sits -- the lantern at her feet continuing to repel the invasion. Her canine companion rests, remaining unconcerned. The Art Enthusiast is in the Gallery again, angry and violent. He is extremely aggressive tonight, moving quickly to attack. If the expression on his face means anything, however, he truly does hate to do it. Within the Wallpapered Parlor the fireplace has something wrong with it. Upon closer inspection the slowly burning flames appear to have eyes, a face. The Burning Man has taken it over, making the usually blue-flamed gas fire burn bright and angry. Crossing too close to him draws him forth, and any flame in the room has the same outcome -- no matter how far from him they are. His touch burns and melts flesh. Someone is pounding on the inside of the locked stall of the Public Restroom, the door shaking as they try to force their way out. The Half Sized Bath is even more crowded than usual. A faint sobbing can be heard from inside, moaning as fingers scrabble at every surface to the bathroom. The Drowned Woman is found inside when the door is opened -- and she is quick to lunge. Her eyes are filled with terror as she tries to claw her way out of the claustrophobic room, paying no heed to the person who opened the room except to use them to pull herself along. Her grip is still icy cold and wet, her dead flesh sticking to her victims and her broken nails tearing at their clothes and nearly tearing off. When her grip is on someone, their lungs still seem to fill with water and they quickly feel crushed by the drowning pressure if they do not tear themselves away. If they manage to remove themselves from her grasp, they will something seems to happen. For a minute, they must have simply blacked out, because the very next thing they know they're several steps back and the woman lies on the floor, sobbing as she suffocates. In the Rose Garden the Lady In White is weeping. The flowers fill the air with the overwhelming scent of their pollen, but the woman herself seems to ignore it. She vanishes the moment someone steps within arms reach of her, cries fading away as she does. The Crane is no longer in the Birdcage Room, the door to its slowly swinging cage unlocked and forced inwards, its hinges barely connected any-more. The only signs that the bird was ever there at all are the scattered feathers on the bottom of the cage and a few droplets of blood. In another one of the cages, however, there is a new addition. The corpse is tall and lithe, a long torso with long limbs. The face, too, is almost stretched, a muzzle that eliminates most doubts that this thing was ever human. The nearly translucent fur has been torn off in chunks, leaving bloody and matted patches across the entire body; entire sections of the arms have been torn clean of muscle and flesh. The injuries are sharp, as if something has cut and torn into it. From time to time house-guests will find themselves without warning kneeling in front of this cage, their hands reaching through the bars toward the dead thing. They grasp at a scattering of bloodied feathers stuck to the bottom of the cage. In the Gentleman's Lounge the Perfume Lady's voice sings the sultry notes of blues songs, hypnotic as the slow sway of her hips. The longer one listens, the harder it is to pull one's self away. The thick, poisonous fog that hangs around her seems irrelevant -- the increased difficulty breathing unimportant in the face of her beauty. The little boy in the Stables has scrambled inside one of the stalls. He is just visible through the slight opening of the door, but something has seemed to jam it in that position, leaving him unreachable. From time to time, without warning, the houseguests looking in at him can find his own eyes pressed up close to the crack, staring back out at them with one wide, unblinking eye. The Carved Priest paces restlessly around the Cafeteria, hand pressed against the wall. He seems to be counting his steps, looking increasingly frustrated as the night goes on. Those who approach him will find that he disappears the moment they get too close, starting again at the end of the room. On the bed of the Soft Bedroom a Siren is laid out, flicking through the book that once graced the night stand. Her raptor-gold eyes seem intent on the pages, but at the sound of a guest entering they re-direct. The book is set aside, and the siren rises to greet them -- beckons them in temptingly. Glass Dogs pace the Courtyard restlessly. Whatever agitated them is unclear, but the pack of them stick close together and growl low at anyone coming too close; the sole exception are those who have been close at some point to Tyler, the little boy peering at them from midst the dogs though he doesn't look right. The glass spikes of all the dogs seem oddly reflective in spite of the dark of night. The reflections seen in them, however, will never match their actual surroundings. They show another time and place -- one no one can identify. In the middle of the Mildewed Hallway is the body of a woman, collapsed upon the floor. She shudders and shakes, almost as if wracked by convulsions. Her voice occasionally cries out in pain. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be the Needle Woman-- but by the time one is close enough to tell, she is close enough to go for the kill. In the Bathroom of the Fifth House, there is a general sense of unease. Something is in there, watching you, waiting to strike. But it seems irrational, as you stand alone in the room -- totally alone. It is only upon looking in the mirror that the source of this paranoia becomes clear. The image of a loved one stares out into the eyes of those looking, smiling with something like longingly. Behind them is the Mirror Man, looking as if he would be staring at the same person if he had any eyes to hold their gaze. His head, his lack of face, never waver or move an inch, holding the guest in place. He steps slowly forward, the knife he holds rising to the throat of this loved apparition, while the other hand reaches to cover their mouth, choking off their scream as cold metal hits their neck. The next instant both images are gone. The safe rooms tonight are the Day Room and the Student Bedroom. || THREAT DOWN First House 1. Front Door 2. Entry Way 3. Coat Closet 4. Parlor 5. Formal Dining Room 6. Blue Kitchen 7. Doll Bathroom 8. East Hallway 9. Library 10. Study 11. Dawn Room 12. Closed Closet 13. Nursery 14. Dollhouse Room 15. Dollhouse 16. The Crack In The Wall 17. Maid Hallway 18. Clean Bedroom 19. Dirty Bedroom 20. Closet Room 21. Smoke Room 22. Yellow Bedroom 23. Vanity Room 24. Ivory Bathroom 25. Door to Basement 26. Supply Closet 27. Ballroom 28. Oak Hallway 30. Theater 31. Backstage 32. Locked Door 33. Music Room 1. Hallway 2. Student Bedroom 3. Student Closet 4. Mirror Bedroom 5. Journey Bedroom 6. Fairy Bedroom 7. Red Bedroom 8. Mask Bedroom 9. Trophy Room 10. Gallery 11. Observatory 12. Sewing Room 13. Glass Bathroom 14. Perfume Bedroom 15. Library 16. Cherry Hallway 17. Thin Bedroom 18. Dark Bedroom 19. Light Bedroom 20. Loft Bedroom 21. Ink Bedroom 22. Mosaic Bedroom 23. Day Room 24. Narrow Hallway 25. Store Room 26. Open Bathroom 27. Blind Bedroom 28. Door To Floating Hallway 29. Corkscrew Stair 1. Basement 2. Dirt Hallway 3. Waiting Room 4. Doctor's Office 5. Supply Closet 6. Recovery Ward 7-11. Examination Rooms 12. Treatment Room 13. Surgery Room 14. Ward 15. Morgue 1. Main Room 2. Green Room 3. Half Bath 4. Small Kitchen 5. Garden Closet 6. Empty Hall 7. Radio Room 8. Carpenters Room 9. Painter’s Room 10. Shared Bath 11. Glass Blowers Room 12. Tapestry Bedroom 13. Dollmaker's Workshop 14. Pottery Room Second House 1. Stairwell Room 2. Wallpapered Parlor 3. The Open Door 4. Plain Kitchen 5. Pantry 6. Dining Room 7. Hallway 8. Half Sized Bath 9. The Blank Library 10. ??? Room 11. Open Hall 12. Rose Garden 13. Chapel Courtyard 14. Priest's Room 15. Priest's Bedroom 16. Hallway 17. Locked Door 18. Rough Kitchen 19. Junior Dormitory 20. Bell Tower 21. Courtyard Third House 1. Wind Tunnel Hallway 2. The Front Door 3. Sitting Room 4. Leather Study 5. Gentlemen's Lounge 6. Diamond Dining Room 7. Professional Kitchen 8. Stable 9. Locked Door 10. Orchard 11. Hanging Tree 12. Hot Springs 13. Locked Door Fourth House 1. Tea Room 2. Cafeteria 3. Entrance Hall 4. Courtyard 5. Bakery 6. Patisserie 7. Overstuffed Kitchen 8. Ladies' Room 9. Mis-sized Dining Room 10. Men's Room 11. Servant's Kitchen 12. Unidentified Restroom 13. Empty Kitchen 14. Opium Den 15. Seedy Bar 1. Checked Hall 2. Wine Room 3. Green Bedroom 4. Soft Bedroom 5. Carnivore Bedroom 6. Herbivore Bedroom 7. Sweet Bedroom 8. Chamber of Purification 9. Nasty Bathroom 10. Horrific Hotel Room 11. Locked Door Fifth House 1. Outside Door 2. Plastic Hall 3. Bachelor's Kitchen 4. Garage 5. Abandoned Nursery 6. Boarded Room 7. Rough Hall 8. Old Bedroom 9. Bathroom 10. Pillow Room 11. Empty Bedroom 12. Patio 13. Poet's Room 14. Forgotten Storeroom 15. Mildewed Hallway 16. Broom Cupboard 17. Den 18. Unfinished Stairs 19. Workman's Room 20. Guest Bedroom 21. Lily Bedroom 1. Leaky Basement 2. Ruined Apartment 3. Drained Parlour 4. Decaying Bathroom 5. Jammed Door

Comments

[prideinthefall]

I have a few threads with others where we'd like ghosts and monsters. Would it be easier for you guys for one us to put up the logs?

[allthekeys]

I thiiiink I caught all the ones on Plurk, unless there's something outside of the ones mentioned there?

[corpsecoverup]

Could I get a log with the kid in the stables? Johnny's probably going to be nesting there for a long time. Would he be able to get into the stables, though? Like, would his horse fit in the areas of the house leading to the stables?

[allthekeys]

He absolutely could get there with some ducking. The third house is a fairly large, open one. We could absolutely do an NPC thread with you. We weren't planning an open post for him for this update, were you planning a post for Johnny? If not, we can always do a closed thread at the very least.

[corpsecoverup]

I was planning a post for Johnny, but over in the kitchen near the stables. I figured he'd probably stumble across the stables around nightfall, rest his horse for a while, and then go back into the kitchen to eat some food? (Which would be in the separate log I'm planning on getting started.) I'd be totally fine with doing a closed log!

[corpsecoverup]

Should I make both logs?

[allthekeys]

Hey, sorry about that. I had some guests over and so lost track of this notif. What we can do to save some trouble, if you'd like, is once you make the open log you were intending to do for him anyway, one of us could start a closed thread on that post?

[corpsecoverup]

Sorry for the wait! I drove down to visit some friends. Is it still okay to post the log even though it's daytime now?

[allthekeys]

Doesn't matter that there's been an update! You can absolutely backtag it. Or, if it works better for you, you could make a log for the new update and an individual thread can be backtagged. It's totally up to you!