The Hawthorne Mansion: Macabre Mementos

John fell through the walls of the manor, tripping over his own feet and fumbling face-first onto an expensive rug and the wooden floor beneath it. He managed to push himself up just in time to hear Erica snort with amusement at his predicament as she made the crossing without error, offering him a hand up. He took it and they surveyed the surroundings together.

The room was a sitting room, or lounge, laid out much like the kind that featured so often in detective thrillers. On the left, four plush chairs formed a half-circle by a crackling fireplace, whose warmth bathed the room in an orange glow and the faint scent of alder bark. A polished, wooden coffee table was placed between the chairs and the expensive dyed leather couch nestled up against the right wall, beside a bookshelf filled with oddities. It held a tribal African mask, a rack of gilded pipes, several old volumes, a pair of oriental daggers and a statuette. The final object was uncomfortable to look at… a twisted humanoid figure with no face and hair that resembled tentacles.

At the back of the room was a folding door opened to reveal a closet full of black suits and fur coats. There were two other doors, one on either side, beside the fireplace and the couch. Both were closed and revealed nothing about what might lie beyond. Despite the presence of overhead electric lights, the fireplace was the only source of internal illumination, making the room dimmer than it had appeared from outside.

Both John and Erica waited for a moment, Thorn in the Gamer’s hand and a swirl of black energy just waiting to be called into physical form circling the berserker’s fingertips… but nothing came. No enemies. No traps. Nothing out of the ordinary. They were alone.

“Warm welcome,” Erica muttered, shaking her head. “Would it kill a monster to save us the time figuring out what and where it’s hiding and just come and get us?”

John gave a halfhearted grin. “Yes? Literally?” His expression fell as he realized that something was off. He did a quick headcount. Himself, Erica… “Hey, where’s Moira?”

“Every single time…” His partner gritted her teeth and whirled around to where the portal had been. Only the windows remained now, looking out on a sunset-soaked driveway, notably absent the ravaged car. She growled, her axe forming in her fingers, “Magic. So ‘reliable’. We’ve gotta find her, dude.”

“Agreed.” John glanced between the doors. “Right or left? I could take one-”

“Dooby Scoo. Never split the party.”

Right. Duh, rule three.

A sound came from their left, the lilting notes of a piano from somewhere deeper in the house. John recognized the music as a type of waltz, but played in a minor key. The tone of the piece was suitably eerie and disconcerting. He couldn’t help but feel that whoever, or whatever, was playing it knew that it had an audience in them. A few notes later, it stopped as abruptly as it had started.

“There’s the welcome. When in doubt, follow the creepy music. It’ll usually lead you straight to a sociopath with a dramatic fetish, or a ghost. Man, I really hope this place isn’t full of ghosts,” Erica said, walking over to the closest door to the music, the one beside the fireplace.

John followed a few steps behind, thinking about the very first encounter he’d ever had. The poltergeist hadn’t been easy at the time, but he felt like he could easily take one on now. “Why? What’s so bad about ghosts?”

The door rattled, clearly locked. His partner tried to **** the door, even giving it a shove with her shoulder, to no avail. After a few seconds of effort, she sighed and stepped back, looking at him. “Ever tried to catch something that can walk through walls?”

He hadn’t considered that angle.

While John mulled over the logistics of trapping a spectral entity, Erica gestured at the opposite door. “Looks like we’re taking the long way, unless you see a key somewhere in here.”

“Why don’t you try breaking it down?”

“You’re welcome to give it a try but…” The berserker slammed a fist against the door, or tried to. She stopped just short of touching the wood. At first, John didn’t understand, but when he looked closer he realized that she couldn’t go any further. The space between her body and the door was warped ever so slightly, as though he were looking at a sheet of glass.

He’d seen something like this before, in another of Wentworth’s barriers. Hesitantly, John reached out towards the wood himself, activating Astral Observe in the process. Lines of energy coursed over the space within the doorframe, bending under his touch until his fingertips touched the wood of the door. Around Erica’s hand, they were lit with power and rigid, though they relaxed as she did. They wouldn’t be getting through that easily.

While he had it active, John checked the rest of the room. It was as he’d seen outside and in other barriers. Their surroundings were woven partly from magic and a tangled mess of it at that. Aside from being immensely complex and impossible to begin to understand, it felt… hurried. Most notably of all, the other door had no protections. He walked over and tried it, the doorknob turning smoothly under his grip.

“This one’s open,” he told Erica, shutting off Astral Observe. Past the doorway was a long hallway that turned sharply to the right at the end of the building.

“Of course it is. Looks like we’re stuck playing the Witch’s game.”

Game, huh… that’s ironic… and accurate. This definitely feels like a survival horror experience, that’s for sure.

They followed it to the end, turning to face down another long stretch that ran the full length of the manor before wrapping back around to the left, encircling the building’s eastern side entirely. Several paintings and a full set of armor lined the wall, and the everlasting sunset provided plenty of light through the windows. There was only one doorway along their path, which opened onto a hallway that led straight back towards the center of the manor, this time with several rooms accessible from it and the overhead lights on.

As they tried the ones on the left, both locked, Erica spoke up, “Glámsýni aren’t impenetrable, no matter how powerful the person who created them. See, because they are linked back to reality, there has to be a way out of one… and where there’s a path out, there’s a path in.”

John nodded. It made sense. A barrier without a route in or out would be like a house without a door. Even a jail cell had that.

The doorway at the end of the hallway was also locked, which proved frustrating as it likely led to the same rough place that the blocked door in the sitting room would have opened onto… but there was one doorknob that turned when they tried it. It was on the right side of the hall, roughly at the same lateral point as their entrance into the building.

It led John into a larger, L-shaped room with no external windows. Instead, mounted animal heads were arranged on the wall across from him. There was no furniture, there was no space for it in the more square section of the room, thanks to four large platforms surrounded by little spotlights. Each held an eye-catching object that was clearly on display: A violin was neatly placed on top of what looked like a severed elephant’s foot, the wooden surface inscribed with an ornate signature of a famous musician. A golden tablet emblazoned with pictographs, maybe Aztec, propped up by a Spanish sword. A derringer, not much larger than the size of his hand, resting on a folded red flag crossed with blue stripes and white stars. Lastly… it was hard to see from the angle they were at, but it was large, furry and...

Bearnard? No… it’s not him. It can’t be him. Right?

The last was a large, stuffed bear, claws outstretched and mouth open in a frozen, silent roar of anger. John had never seen a trophy like this before, and a few days prior he might have been awed by the sight. At present, it was like seeing the corpse of a friend put on display. It only sickened him.

He looked away from it, glancing down the shaft of the ‘L’. There was a painting there, with candles all around it and a dish of water placed before it. The woman depicted was younger, much younger, and her clothes were at least a hundred years out of date… but it was clearly Mrs. Wentworth. Her painted eyes stared at him with piercing accusation.

“Erica, can we try the other hallway? This place is creeping me-” John started to say as he let go of the doorknob.

The door slammed shut behind him.

John whirled around, trying to twist it open, to no avail. He could hear Erica pounding on it from the other side and shouted back at her as she desperately told him to stay put.

A gust of wind whispered through his legs and the light to his left dimmed as the candles by the painting went out. A low, guttural sound filled the room. It made his skin shiver with a primal fear that was quenched by Fear Resistance, but only just.

Oh fuck.

Slowly, John turned back to the darkened space, gripping the Thorn tightly. Three of the four pillars still held their objects, but one was missing: the bear. A large shadow moved in the corner of the room, seemingly flowing from one place to another, just out of sight. A growl echoed off the walls as the lights dimmed further, seemingly quenched by the thing’s presence. Heavy footfalls shook the room as a looming beast stalked closer, knocking the violin off its heinous pedestal with a splintering crack.

He backed up against the wall, trying to make himself small in the presence of this… thing. The bear’s snout was visible in the light, twisted teeth poking out through the cheeks and erupting from the jaw as blood ran from its sniffing nose. Eyes like burning coals glowed in the dark and a gnarled paw, soaked in blood and deformed with two, no, three extra claws knocked one of the spotlights over. John couldn’t see where the thing was, but he just knew that it was close.

Come on, come on, get yourself together, you can fight this… you can do this. You just need to focus on…

The wall behind him was suddenly gone and he fell backwards with a splash. The floor was covered in an ankle-deep layer of blood that seemed to be rising quickly. He tried to make as little noise as possible as he could, no longer able to see in the total darkness. Moments before, the wall had been right next to him, but now he had no idea where it or anything was. All he knew was that he was slowly sinking into the sticky, disgusting mire and…

He felt his bones ache as a low, horrifying rumble shook the water. It couldn’t be. He was far from the Everdeep, and this wasn’t even remotely deep enough for something that big, was it?

Something brushed against his leg. Something rough and scaly.

Fear Resistance has been ???????? ?? ?? ??????? ?????.

John ran. He threw himself forwards as much as he could desperately wading through the waist-deep, sloshing ocean of blood that never stopped rising. The ruined body of the violin drifted past him as he nearly swam, unable to find any landmarks as the ground beneath his feet gave way.

He sank into the **** red ichor, feeling rather than seeing the monster as it circled him. The entire ocean vibrated every time it let out another awful purr of satisfaction at having finally captured him. This was it, John felt his heart beating faster and faster and faster and faster as it closed in and…

A splitting pain tore his body in half, his brain threatening to burst from his skull as he felt his ribs break again, felt his muscles tear off the bone and his left arm torn off by the mosasaurus’ terrible fangs. The agony was unbearable without the dampening aid of morphine, and what concentration John could manage longed for the sweet release the **** had given him. His heart was pounding in his chest, expelling the last of his blood through the severed half of his torso, adding his own to the crimson sea.

The creature loomed before him again, and this time he saw it. Terrible. Formless. Larger than anything he could ever dream of. Larger than reality itself. An eye the size of a blazing star, rolling down to look at him. Directly at him. It saw him. It knew him.

Worse, he knew it.

Outsider.

Tendrils and eyes and beaks and teeth and screams and song. Unmakers of reality. A serpentine coil of nonmatter reached towards him as if to caress his face like a lover…

“Get away from him!”

Without a sound, the abomination recoiled in a gust of shadow, retracting back into a form no larger than John himself, revealing the trophy room as it was before. He was on his knees in the middle of it, the Thorn a few feet away on the ground where he’d dropped it. Shadow billowed from his throat, taking with it the taste of blood and freeing his lungs to take a deep breath. As he did, he saw the axe lodged into the faceless monster’s back, and the savage, determined eyes of the berserker wielding it. Behind her was an open door, leading out onto a hallway…

“Oh, Snow…” The thing turned to Erica and her axe fell through it as it assumed a new shape, this time one that John didn’t recognize. A young woman with long, white hair and eyes as grey and cold as a blizzard. She smiled, and though it was beautiful there was something about it that made John deeply uncomfortable. “You of all people should know... you'll have to make me.”

“Aurora.” Erica froze, staring in shock and horror at the woman before her, then gritted her teeth and screamed with raw hatred. She swung her axe straight at her, only to have it pass through a pile of fresh snow, the woman now standing behind the berserker and laughing an airy laugh. It reminded John of bells…

I don’t know what’s going on, but… ugh, my head, but this isn’t right. I was hallucinating and now… who the hell is ‘Aurora’? C’mon, think. I can figure this out I just need to… wait a second.

John used Observe on Aurora.

Zmora
Level 20 Demon
Shapeless creatures that feed on the fear of their victims by shapeshifting into the things that evoke the most terror. They do not seek to kill their prey, instead parasitizing on them for as long as possible, but inevitably drive their hosts to suicide or a heart-stopping ****. Hunting one alone is a challenge that most hardened warriors would fail, but they are much less dangerous to a group due to their inability to maintain more than one form at a time. In some cultures these monsters are known by other names such as Nachtmahr or Nightmare.
452/513 hp
131/166 mp
Status Effect: Fearform (Aurora)

It’s not… of course it’s not real! I feel dumb now, but… later. Erica needs me!

He managed to **** himself to stand, drawing out the Fang of the Deep Sea and splitting it into two copies, before shouting to his partner, “It’s a demon! This isn’t real!”

The enraged woman whipped her axe through Aurora’s cackling face one more time, before turning to meet her eyes with his. They were tinted slightly black, but he saw comprehension. She nodded and tried to take a deep breath, only to be stabbed in the back by the Zmora.

Erica let out a cry of pain and fell to one knee as the creature licked her blood off a dagger made of ice. It leaned over her body and gloated, “Delicious, Snow. I’m going to enjoy toying with you…”

Not if I have anything to say about it!

John hurled both of his Fangs at the demon. One of the daggers sunk several inches into Aurora’s face before it exploded into black smoke, followed by a second buried in her chest for a total of -49 hp. It **** the thing back a few steps, its body losing shape again as the weapons melted into a puddle of seawater beneath it.

“Like that?” John twirled the original as it split into new weapons for him. “Why don’t you try something a bit more direct this time, asshole?”

He could swear he saw the thing… smile. The shape coalesced into a tall, stern woman with a tight bun of grey hair, clicking her tongue at his insolence. “Mr. Newman, I really thought you knew better. It seems you’ll need some more discipline.”

It’s not really her.

Two more daggers flew at the demon, one grazing it and the other splashing harmlessly against the wall as Wentworth simply vanished.

“John, duck!”

He did so without hesitation, Erica’s axe cleaving into the elderly woman standing behind him with one hand reared back, purple energy glowing along her fingers. The creature shrieked and erupted into smoke again, reforming on the other side of the room as the berserker helped John stand and kicked the Thorn in his direction.

“Thanks for that.” John stared at the thing as it shifted between forms, unable to decide.

Erica shook her head. “Anytime, dude. Got a plan for this? ‘Cause I’m just going to hit it whenever it focuses on you.”

“That’s the best plan I’ve got. Though… I might have something.” Now that he was able to focus a bit better, the name of the creature reminded him of a spell that he’d just picked up. It was a bit fighting fire with fire, but worth a shot. “Might be able to give it a taste of its own medicine.”

“I’m fully on board with that. On your move.”

They both tensed as the creature chose a shape, a hulking, four-armed ape covered in bright red fur, something that had to be from Erica’s memories. The thing roared at them, pounding its chest with one pair of arms as the others balled into fists… and then John hit the Zmora with his Nightmare.

The thing reeled backwards, form bleeding from monstrous gorilla to a small, almost skeletal, female humanoid with long, spindly fingers and no face. It flailed at the air in their direction desperately, warding off the two humans that closed in on it. Seeing the creature that had tormented them so much now frightened for its life was deeply cathartic for them both.

“We’ve got one shot each time I do this, so let’s make it count. You want to do the honors?” John asked his partner, already prepping to cast the spell again the moment that they broke the effect.

Erica raised her axe overhead, the dark metal glinting with the light from the spotlights and casting a shadow over the cowering demon. “My pleasure.”