Seek out the diary

"So, let me see if I have this straight," Becky says, resting her temple on her fingers and trying to calm down. "This mansion can supposedly grant wishes, but we can't leave? So it's like a genie and a bottle all rolled into one?"

"Something along those lines, I think..." Roger stands looking at the ring, turning his hand over to see it from various angles. "Should I test it out? Try wishing for something?"

"Hmmm..." Becky rubs her chin. "Not yet. Best we know what we're dealing with first. Let's go find that diary the tape mentioned first."

"Oh yeah sure no problem," Roger snarks. "How hard can it be to find Great Uncle Sebastian's bedroom? There's only like a hundred of them to check!"

"There was a bedroom on the top floor that was much larger than the rest. That's probably the master bedroom."

"Ugh," Roger groans. "Stairs..."

After a tiring climb up several more flights of stairs, the couple arrive at the top floor. The landing is relatively small, with only two doors branching off from it: one directly in front of them, and one to the side.

They step through the closest door and gasp in awe at the room before them. It may be labelled as a bedroom, but it's really more of a studio apartment unto itself. There is a bed, of course, an enormous Alaskan king-size big enough to hold at least four adults side-by-side with plenty of room between them. Then there is a TV against the opposite wall, large enough to make most cinemas jealous, with several sofas gathered around it. In-between, there is a study set up with a desk and expensive-looking computer.

Nearby is what appears to be a dining area and fully equipped kitchen. There is also an open-plan bathroom in the opposite corner; a huge bathtub, shower unit, and even a toilet are shamelessly on display. Which goes some way to explaining why only having one other bathroom labelled in the house, on the ground floor, didn't drive Sebastian crazy.

The most fascinating part of all, however, stands in the very centre of the room. An enormous glass cylinder within a polished brass cage, with mysterious dials, valves and pipes attached, it looks to Roger like something out of a steampunk movie. The container appears to be about one-tenth full of a vibrant, hot pink liquid.

While Roger is staring dumbfounded, Becky makes her way over to the study and searches through the drawers. "Found the diary," she declares, pulling it out and leafing quickly through it.

There are an uncomfortable amount of details regarding Sebastian's various sexual exploits written within, but amidst all that, she manages to find instructions regarding the lust magic of the mansion.

"Okay," she relays to Roger, "so it seems that making wishes will consume LP, 'Lust Power'. That's the pink liquid in that vat, supposedly. LP is generated as residual energy whenever anyone has an orgasm, so any time someone climaxes within these mansion grounds, the LP will be collected and stored automatically."

She turns a page. "Apparently making wishes with low stored LP can be very dangerous. The mansion will attempt to compensate by forcing any occupants to orgasm until the required LP is gathered. But if you pair a high-demand wish with a low number of people in the house, it'll push everyone to orgasm beyond their limits, and they'll die. 'Sirius' learned that the hard way, it seems."

"Yikes!" Roger shudders. "Good thing we didn't try it out carelessly before. But how are we supposed to know if we have enough then?"

"Uhmm..." Becky flicks through a few more pages. "Ah, here! Do you see a dial on the machine with a red half and a green half?"

Roger moves closer to the machine and has a look. "Yup! The needle's set straight down the middle right now."

"Right, apparently you can just ask if there's enough LP to grant a certain wish, and that dial will flick to either green or red depending on whether there is or isn't." Becky reads a few more lines. "There are other dials which tell you exactly how much LP you have stored, and how much LP that wish would take, but Sebastian apparently couldn't be bothered figuring out those, and so just relied on this basic yes/no gauge."

"Seems straightforward enough," Roger muses. "Should we try it out?"