The Hawthorne Mansion: Dusklight

There was a car waiting for the two of them out front, a sporty SUV with dark tinted windows and a bland, grey paint job. Beyond that, it was difficult, if not impossible, to describe the car. It was average, lacked any defining features and even the license plate was just a jumbled mess of letters and numbers without any way of rhyming them together. There wasn’t even a brand.

Strange.

It didn’t dawn on him why the Order would be using something so different from their usual ostentatious, gilded aesthetic until he was halfway through opening the rear door. John paused, stepped back, and looked the car over one more time. His eyes practically slid off the vehicle, and if he hadn’t been intentionally focusing on it, he might even have overlooked the windows.

That’s… wow. Brilliant. I wonder how many times one of these has driven past me and I haven’t noticed it at all?

“Hey, dude, you coming?” Erica called out from the front passenger seat. He’d decided not to argue when she called ‘shotgun’. “Our princess is in another mansion!”

The stupid joke made John roll his eyes as he slid into his seat, but it did help keep things light. He got comfortable and buckled his seatbelt before taking a look at their driver. She was dressed in a similar outfit to the serving staff, though it didn’t quite fit her ample chest and her hair spilled out of the cap she had pulled low over her face. Her… red… hair.

Oh no.

He had just enough time to hazard a guess before the driver turned the key, shifted into gear and floored it away from the mansion. The sudden acceleration pushed him back into his seat, and John had absolutely no doubt who the madwoman that was currently rocketing them down the forested lane was.

“Moira? What the hell are you-” A sharp turn cut him off, his cheek pressed to the glass of the window as they snapped onto the main road at ten miles over the speed limit, if not more. In the front seat, Erica was laughing her head off and the paladin was concentrating on blitzing through traffic without any hint of a response. John closed his eyes and prayed to anyone who was listening that it would just be over quickly.

Thankfully, the narrow roads within the gated community that the Hawthornes lived in were too tight for Moira’s recklessness, but the fleeting comfort that John felt was short lived as they drove past houses that made his look like an apartment. He felt small and unwelcome, a feeling that he’d experienced too many times over the last few weeks.

The sun lingered at the edge of the horizon, a last, weak sliver of light bleeding over the distant mountains to cast tangled shadows on the pristinely kept lawns and streets. Despite being early evening, the shades were drawn on every window they passed by, and the monstrously large houses felt vacant. Dead.

John felt a chill against his skin. He knew the sensation intimately now, and the thought that came to mind was emotionless and purely instinctual.

Something is horribly wrong.

They came to a stop at the foot of a hill, where a wrought iron gate blocked the footpath up to the bleached Victorian abomination of a manor estate that waited at the apex of the neighborhood. Dead vines coiled about the metal, dried and rotten. They hadn’t seen a gardener’s touch in months… John wondered if it was intentional.

Behind the gate and past a small, one-bedroom house, rose a building at least three imposing stories tall, four if you included the clock-tower like spire that rose up behind the facade, blocking out the setting sun. Gothic spikes lined the rooftops, giving off a feeling more befitting a fortified castle than a family home. It was hard to make out with the lighting, but John could swear he saw a gold glimmer all the way up at the top of the tower.

Erica let out a low whistle, “Okay, this place is 100% haunted. It has to be.” She turned to look at Moira and him, raising an eyebrow, “I’m not the only one who thinks that, right?”

“Nope. Definitely haunted,” John nodded. Now that they’d stopped, he took the chance to ask the question that had been burning a hole in his mind. “Why are you here, Moira? I thought your dad said-”

She cut him off, “My father means well, but I can make my own decisions. Enough talk. The Lady’s work needs doing.” Moira shoved open her car door and stepped out, unbuttoning the strained jacket she was wearing. John moved to look away, but she had it off before he could, revealing chainmail links and her Warden’s badge underneath.

“But we-”

“Don’t bother, dude.” This time, it was Erica who cut him off. “It’s not worth the argument.” She’d pulled out her phone and was looking at it in confusion. “This thing must be broken. It says that we should be standing on top of the entrance, but I can’t feel anything. What about you, dude?”

John closed his eyes, looking around with Astral Observe. What he saw was nothing less than impossible. The sky criss-crossed with arcane energies that glowed a deep yellow-orange while red-purple arcs coursed along the fence and gate and the entire mansion seemed immersed in a sky-blue texture. The magic was so thick that he could barely tell where it stopped or began.

A popup appeared in front of him.

Illusion Barrier - Concealed Artificial Overlay
Level 89
Creator: Victoria Wentworth
No entry or exit restrictions.

Son of a bitch. We’re already inside of it! I don’t… when did we? No, how long have we...

John pulled himself back together with effort, taking a deep breath before opening his eyes. Erica was looking at him with a hint of worry in her expression, while Moira’s was more of a determined expectation.

“See anything, dude?”

“You could say that. It’s… huge. I don’t know when it happened, but we’re already inside of it. It’s weird though… almost like there are layers to it.” Trying to make sense of it was starting to make his head hurt, and John winced with pain. “Sorry, I don’t know how to explain.”

Erica walked over to put a hand on his shoulder, but Moira’s attention was elsewhere. She was staring up, past the manor, at the setting sun. Her brow furrowed in concentration, as if she was working out a complex puzzle in her head.

“What time is it right now?” the paladin asked.

The question caught them both off guard, and Erica looked down at her phone, “Half-past eight? Why… oh.” His partner looked from the screen to the sun, then back again. “Man, that’s sneaky.”

John didn’t follow, “What are you talking about? What’s sneaky?”

“You were right, dude. This whole place is fake. A really good fake too, I wouldn’t have noticed it.” She pointed up at the sky, “It should be past sundown by now.”

“Oh.”

Erica shrugged, “Don’t feel dumb. I didn’t realize it either. Now, why would the Witch need to fake Vanessa’s neighborhood? Why keep time stuck like this?”

None of them said a word as they all turned in unison to look up at the looming manor. The answers were inside, along with who knows what else. John felt the heavy weight of the duty he’d chosen hanging over him. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe he shouldn’t have-

The clear sound of a bell filled the air and John realized that Moira had approached the gate. Built into the stone wall beside it and engraved ostentatiously with a coat of arms was a large bronze bell that the paladin was currently engaged in ringing as loudly as she could.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!” John rushed over to her, trying without success to pull her away from the bell. “Haven’t you ever heard of stealth?” He immediately regretted touching the paladin, as Moira tensed up and turned to give him a look that could have frozen the seawater in his inventory.

“Do. Not. Touch. Me. Newman.”

“What do you lot want?” An older man with dull green eyes full of suspicion had appeared at the gate. He leaned on a shovel and grasped the bars of the metal with dirt-stained fingers. “The master and mistress ain’t seeing any visitors today. You’d best be leaving.” He had a few chipped teeth that had been fixed with gaudy fillings.

The strangest thing about him was that he didn’t have a nametag above his head.

“Go on, kids. Scram,” the gatekeeper spat at them through the bars.

John had gotten so used to seeing them, that his brain unconsciously filtered them out when he wasn’t focused on them… but this man didn’t have one at all. It was jarring and another element that was simply wrong. The only other times that he’d encountered anything like it was…

An enemy.

He cast Observe on the man-shaped thing.

Hollow Mannequin
Level 2 Construct
A soulless creation made from the last memories of a recently slain humanoid, these automatons mimic the appearance, mannerisms and voice of their raw materials. They cannot be given complex orders or be imbued with true sentience.

“You’d best be leaving. The master and mistress ain’t seeing any visitors today,” it repeated like a broken record.

The Thorn materialized in John’s hand and he held out the other in warning, “Guys, that’s not…”

Moira tilted her head very slightly, and then, in a blur of motion, she was swinging. The shield in her hand grew to full size and she fluidly pulled her entire warhammer out of it in one motion. There wasn’t time for the false servant to even put up a defense before Moira had blown the gate inwards and buried the weapon into its chest. It was thrown back, skin tearing from its body and dissolving into the air. What was left clattering to the ground was a simplistic humanoid figure, like the kind that people used to pose for art sketches… except full size.

The paladin stepped through the destroyed barrier and approached the mannequin, crushing its head without pause. One arm lifted up, fingers twitching, then it went limp again. She turned to Erica and gave them both a grim look, “On your guard, both of you. There might be more of them.”

John nodded and did his best to not stare at the twisted metal of the gate as he followed his partner into the manor grounds. He knew Moira was higher level than both him or Erica, but seeing her in action was… impressive. Both women threw around weapons heavier than he’d ever considered trying to lift with absolute ease, and Moira’s strength was no joke. He glanced at the imploded chest of the mimic construct.

I’m glad that she’s on my side…

As his eyes lifted back to the ominously dark windows of the sun-spattered mansion above, a second popup appeared.

Advanced Barrier ~ Investigation
This environment is hiding something important. Keep your eyes open for clues that might reveal the purpose of the barrier, and watch your back. The enemies here do not want you to discover whatever they are protecting.

John tightened his grip on the hilt of the Thorn, sweeping his gaze back and forth across the empty grounds, just waiting for the next monster to leap out at them…