Look For A Back Door

After circling around to the back of the massive house, you find another door. This one is fairly nondescript, covered in a green paint that's chipping away and the knob made of simple brass. The only odd thing about it is probably the fact that it's already open, if only by a crack. Cautiously, you peak in the door but see nobody inside. Just an empty room. Seeing no danger, you slowly open the door, trying your best to keep from making a sound...

CLANG! CLUNK! SPLSH!

You jump, startled at the combination of the sudden noises and the trickling sensation running down your back. Turning around to see the source of your surprise, you spot a bucket lying on the floor in a puddle of orange paint. Someone must've left it as a prank for whoever would be stupid enough to come in that door. Still, given how luxurious this home is (at least from the outside), you'd think that they'd be better off keeping the doors shut than leaving them open so that they can guard their property with childish pranks. Or maybe it's not that simple. On second glance, you notice small bits of black paint in the orange. As you watch, they slowly extend into long, thin stripes, and then soon thicken until the paint has a tiger-like pattern to it. Odd. You reach down to inspect it closer, touching it and find that it's already dried, your finger squeaking across its soft and shiny surface. Wait, squeaking? That's not good.

Your hand's dart to your back, where the paint had fallen on you. You reach back to feel where you were hit and feel that same smooth substance covering the back of your shirt. Quickly scrambling to get it off, you pull your head through it as fast as you can, and are met with more squeaking and rubbing as it comes off. Once it's on the floor, you can see the back of it, patterned perfectly after a tiger. This is just bizarre, you think to yourself as you give your back a scratch... and, once again, hear a squeak.

Turning your head as much as you can, you try to investigate your back. All you can make out is a bit of the right side, but that's all you need to see to know that it's definitely there, and it looks just like it does on your shirt and on the floor: a shiny orange and black tiger stripe pattern. From what you can tell, there's a wide trail of it running down your back. Looking around frantically for a mirror, you see one above a nearby couch and try to use it to get a closer look.

The paint runs the full length down your back. At the top, just below your neck, you can see that it starts broad, almost reaching to your shoulder. As you go further down your back, you can see that it sort of funnels itself, so that it becomes thinner as you go lower. By the time you reach your waist, you can see that it's probably only around a few inches wide before it dips into your pants, and at the seat of the pants themselves, you can see a bulge where the paint must have collected. You twist them over a bit to let the paint drip out, but as it pours down it stops just short of the floor, the stream of paint suspending itself as though it were attached.

Soon, more of the paint from the bulge runs down its length, thickening it and giving it more definition and a slight curve. Within moments, it stops flowing... but it doesn't fall from your pants. You try pulling them down, but it stays stuck to the rest of the paint. You try pulling at it, but find that the paint is actually VERY tightly adhered to your skin and only manage to cause a sharp pinching sensation as it tugs at the skin beneath its base. Finally, you reach up to try and just peel away the whole chunk of paint, rubbing its edges at the top of your back, but find that it's no use. It's so skintight that it doesn't even feel like it's on top of your skin, but instead, like your skin just stops at some point and the rubbery paint begins.

You pull your pants back up, the tail perkily hanging out the back, and put back on your shirt surprisingly enough, you manage to peel the paint off of that with no effort, leaving it apparently unscathed so that you can explore the rest of the building. There's got to be someone or something around here that can help you get that paint off.