Quote Originally Posted by Lychee View Post
Nico put his spare weapon (the worn officers blade) into the team inventory, noticing that many other emissaries did not have weapons yet and feeling like he ought to share what he had, since he was so lucky not to lose it.

He snoozily wandered through the city, somehow still sustaining sanity damage from a past life ((OOC: Does our sanity reset to full just like health does when we die and get reborn?)).

He ambled his way accross to investigate 42) The Candle Mansion (ABANDONED). Ghosts didnt scare him! Plus, rich people might have lived here and left their money behind.
Oops.

Yep, I fixed that goof with the Sanity Stat. It does get reset and refilled once you die. This silly squirrel simply forgot. :P


You first decide to add your worn officer’s blade to the cabinet, feeling as if you’re already well-equipped with the Rogue’s Dagger already.

[|AW| Worn Officer’s Blade] (Adds 1d6 damage to successful attack rolls) has been moved from Nico’s Pack to the Team Inventory

You take the long, eerie walk through the Northern Reach this morning, feeling as though the dusty, hot wind definitely picked up a bit today. At the same time, you notice not a soul seems to be around and it almost gives you the feeling as if you’re the only one still left alive in the world and every other living soul just vanished.

Distant howls and shrieks of ghouls and chimeras can be heard in the distance, but thankfully they don’t spot you at all. When you start to draw close to the Candle Mansion, you spot a crooked and gnarled-looking Aipom ghoul, but after hiding a bit and waiting, he runs off in the opposite direction and into the distance, having never sensed your presence. But you imagine from his physical condition, not all of his senses may be intact…

You then decide to make your way toward the mansion, first investigating the outside. From the looks of things, it definitely looks like a traditional haunted house. The condition is quite poor, virtually every window is broken, the wood is splintering, what used to be light gray paint is now falling off in flakes, the stones are covered with weeds and moss, and there’s hideous, foul-smelling black mold everywhere.

Besides weeds and broken rotting pieces of the mansion, you don’t find all too much out by the front of the building. Meanwhile, the sides of the mansion aren’t any better and it even looks like the house has been sinking into the ground over time.

By the back of the mansion, you catch sight of a strange, almost eerie and ghostly white light by the cracked stone fountain that looks like it hasn’t been turned on in eons. Where water was supposed to come out of a stone Seaking’s mouth, now it’s wrapped in vines and weeds and caked with dirt. Meanwhile, the white light seems to be at the base of the fountain, shining subtly like a little white firefly.

You scoop it up with your paws and it feels comforting and relaxing. It feels as if it’s like a small companion-like star that never stops giving off a gentle and reassuring glow.

[Celestial Essence] has been added to the Team Inventory.

You search some more in the back, but only find the ruins of a rotted and collapsed gazebo and a small rusty swing-set that had both swing seats fall off their rusted chains years ago.

Having thoroughly checked the outside, you then decide to brave the interior, wondering what’s been lurking in there all these years.

You waddle your way up the front stone stairs, though upon arriving on the rotting front porch, you quickly realize your immense girth and body mass quickly results in your foot ripping through the rotting wood underneath. You wrestle your foot out of the hole, and decide to take it very carefully, making sure every step you take in the house can support your weight.

You arrive at the front hall, and even with some faint daylight coming through the windows, the place looks hideous. Cobwebs are everywhere and that mysterious stinky black mold is everywhere in here as well, giving a lot of objects a creepy, fuzzy look to them.

You first go to the kitchen and the dining hall, and you quickly come to the conclusion that you’d need to be dying of starvation to want to eat anything in there with the harshly unsanitary conditions. The wood table is rotting to the point where mushrooms are growing out of it and the vast majority of chairs have had a leg or two snap from under them. Meanwhile, the old chandelier is tangled with cobwebs and dust. And it still reeks in there.

The kitchen is even worse than you expected. Fungus is growing between the black and white checkered tiles and they crack like peanut brittle under your heavy foot. Meanwhile, disgusting and creepy strands of mold and fungus hang down all of the walls and from the ceiling. The whole time, you hear an odd, metal squeaking sound and you have no idea where it’s coming from. Still, you don’t find very much after looking around. Plates, pans, and pots are smothered with grime and dust and some horrendous plant is growing out of the sink like a tentacle monster.

You make it to the den and it’s dark, dingy, and very moldy in there as well. It takes you a moment to identify what used to be a couch by a fireplace, now smothered with mold so thoroughly that it looks like some blob-like abomination. Meanwhile, the wood planks in the floor easily snap like deadwood twigs under your foot. Up above, more of the wood planks have been rotting and falling out of the ceiling.

You then head upstairs, thankful the stairs are made of marble and easily support your weight. But upon reaching the second floor, you now take special care to make sure each step you take won’t send you falling through the floor and back down into the level below.

Up here, plenty of paintings line the sheetrock walls, though they’re so covered with debris and mold that often it’s hard to tell what they’re depicting. A few of them have also fallen off the wall and now lay face-down on the floor. Oddly enough, while you’re on the second floor, you hear an unexplainable ringing in your ears. The cause and source of it seems to be completely unknown, but it’s annoying and it does make you wish whatever was causing it would just stop.

You check the first of the bedrooms, which is so overtaken with wretched black mold that you don’t even take a few steps in. You believe it used to be a child’s bedroom with what vaguely resembles a crib and a mobile hanging above it in the far-right corner, but that’s the only clue you get. Everything else just looks like mountain ranges and valleys of mold.

You decide not to visit the bathroom, either. One peek past the rotting door hanging off the hinges and it’s a jungle of nightmares in there with vines, ivy, and overgrown weeds, forming a misshapen and macabre web all around the bathtub, toilet, and sink. And for some reason, the smell is especially bad in there, making you quite glad you skipped breakfast, because you would have lost it otherwise…

Lastly, you find the master bedroom, which seems to be relatively tame compared to everything else, though it too has seen some of the infestation of mold. The main bed looks like its crumbling, but you search through the bed drawers to find some linens that look stained and greasy. However, under them is a black leather box. You pull it out and open it to find quite an immense amount of socha bills and coins inside.

$325 Sochas$ were added to Nico’s Pack.

It seems the bills and coins were protected with this box, but looking at the state of everything in this house, it probably won’t have been too long before mold covered and consumed this, too.

Lastly, on one of the nightstands, you find an old music box that looks like it hasn’t played music for quite a while. Though something seems a little off with it and it has a distinct but very faint Stalker trace to it. Still, you can’t imagine why even a Stalker would want to come into this place.

You find that the music box is missing the metallic drum with the series of bumps that’s supposed to determine what kind of song it would play. Meanwhile, there’s no winding shaft either, so it can’t be used until that’s been found as well.

It seems they were both removed intentionally, but why seems to be a mystery. Meanwhile, you wouldn’t think much of it and would leave it alone otherwise, but considering there’s a slight Stalker trace here, it might be worth looking into. You decide to take the music box with you, feeling if it stays here, it’ll probably just be devoured by the mold in due time like everything else in here has.

[Defiled Music Box: Missing Music Box Song Drum AND Missing Winding Shaft] was added to the Team Inventory.

You peek into the master bathroom, but not surprisingly, it looks like the ceiling and a large portion of the roof has collapsed into it and filled it with rubble and debris. Still, even with the immense damage, that hasn’t deterred enormous fungus colonies from swarming and smothering it. You don’t even want to try digging through all of that mess just to find out there was nothing in there anyway.

You decide you’ve had more than enough and just want to head out and make your way carefully out of the house. The stink and the ringing in your ears is vile and continuously gets worse the longer you stay and by now, it’s gotten to be almost unbearable. Once you reach the stairs, you head back down and thankfully the ringing stops, though you still never figured out what was causing that. Still, you aren’t concerned or curious enough to want to come back later to find out.

Once you step out of the mansion, the stench is finally behind you and you feel like you can breathe again. Though it never seemed that way before, the dusty air of Exacta City is nirvana compared to the smell inside that house. Meanwhile, the soft and lonely wind gusts blowing past you seem tranquil and pleasing compared to the infernal ear ringing you just endured.

Taking a long sigh of relief, you then make your way back to base to prepare for tonight.

Nico the Snorlax (L: Normal)
Health: 24/24 | Sanity: 20/20 | Purity: 16/16
Battle Stance: Ferocious
Perk: Diplomacy | Abilities:
EQUIPMENT:
Attack Weapon: [|AW| Rogue’s Dagger] (Adds 3 damage to successful attack rolls)
Defense Armor: <Empty>
Jewelry: <Empty>
Utopian Aspect: <Empty>
MERCENARIES:
#1: <Empty>
#2: <Empty>
PACK:
  • $325 Sochas$
    [OMEN Sample Collection Jar]