Quote Originally Posted by C0L0R3D View Post
Heck yeah, back into adventure! So then, I think I’m willing to wander into the night and look into one very peculiar thing - unhatched bird eggs! No, I’m not making any omelettes. That’s a low blow, even for me.

[Investigate the Blackstone Mansion! You know, the one with the Swellow-Swanna blood pact.]
As the night arrives, you head east toward the Blackstone Mansion, home of Basol and Kurita, a Swanna and Swllow that couldn’t bear children and were later found dead in what appeared to be a suicide pact. As you have only the basics of the story that went on here, you decide to see if there’s anything missing and while you feel the situation surrounding Basol and Kurita might not be directly related to the Stalkers, it still seems unusual. You’re not ruling out the possibility of the house having its own dark secrets that not even the avian couple knew about.

As you leave Benni’s farmstead and walk across the long, dusty expanse between the farm and the mansion, the ground feels oddly dusty and cold underneath your Snivy feet. All the while, the light from the moon is only minimal, and this area of town is eerily quiet.

When you arrive at the mansion, you feel an odd, dark familiar feeling of this feeling very much like a traditional haunted house. No lights are on, and you can see the weathering of the wooden walls, molding, and the paint peeling off in unsettling chips.

You search around the exterior, getting a better idea of the wear and tear that this has suffered through over the years of being abandoned for so long. The whole time, you think if there’s a possible curse going on here, as not even the grass and weeds seem to grow all that well around here. Anything that tried has dried out and died. The stone path through the gardens has begun to fade away under the dust and dirt, the old fountain by the back looks like it hasn’t had water in it for over a decade, and the hedges had overgrown out of control before they died, leaving dead and misshapen masses of overgrowth. In the dark, they make intimidating shapes, almost looking like ghouls and abomination monsters.

You don’t find anything of significance out here, so you decide to check the interior. You start with the front door that looks like the lock simply rusted and crumbled over time. You reach out with your green hand and you open the door, hearing the old wood and rusty hinges creak. You then step inside into the foyer, which doesn’t seem overly huge, but it leads to many other rooms of the house, including a living room to the right, a dining room to the left, and then the kitchen toward the back while the upstairs leads to the bedrooms.

However, everything is dusting and dingy. Moonlight comes through the windows and it allows you to see at least somewhat in the dark, and what is allows you to see are the decaying memories of years past. Dust covering over furniture, chairs that have been empty for ages, lights and candles that haven’t seen illumination for years. It makes you wonder what it all must have looked like when it was all new with a newlywed couple ready to start a family…

…but never could.

And yet they planned. You find what must be one of the most heart-wrenching sights to behold when you climb the stairs to the bedroom floor.

A baby’s nursery… a lonely and empty crib caked with dust and baby toys that never felt the loving embrace of a young child’s attention and curiosity. And the walls playfully and once colorfully painted in a myriad of cute themes like a grassy flower field and dreamy clouds. Now the colors have faded, and the paint is chipping off of the walls like a dream that’s crumbling apart.

Meanwhile, the rest of the floor is cold and dark as well. The master bedroom and bathroom lie vacant, with Basol and Kurita’s belongings all still there, waiting but forgotten. And yet, even after all this time, you can’t understand why.

But it isn’t until you attempt to make your way into the basement cellar that you discover something… horrific. Upon the now bloodstained cellar door, you find a massacred Pidgeot with her wings ripped off and her mummified body gutted and merged into a grotesque lock mechanism. Upon the neck of this poor creature, there are three holes marked with a demonic symbol. You look at them closer, and suddenly they twitch, jitter, and almost spring to life, screaming into your mind…

…Broken…

…Crippled…

…Traumatized…

Some of these feelings felt familiar.

This Pidgeot… she used to be free, she used to be happy. And it was as if… something or someone just absolutely loathed that beyond anything else.

EXONULL…

{Corpse of the Free: Hole of the Broken AND Home of the Crippled AND Hole of the Traumatized} has been noted in the Team Records.

“The fangs…” you mutter, feeling that familiar dark sensation.

The holes seem like just the right size for the fangs that were found earlier and are back in storage at Benni’s farmstead. In fact the only one that’s missing is the one that resembles the broken.

Still, while you don’t have all three fangs at the moment, you’ve got no choice but to turn back and come back later once you have them. But as you look up one more time at the Pidgeot, you still have the feeling that whoever Exonull is had an absolute hatred for this poor bird.

As you leave the mansion behind and head back to the farmstead, you can only wonder what lies beyond that locked door. All signs seem to suggest it leads to an even bigger hatred, and for the first time, you almost feel thankful and fortunate not to have wings…

Colored the Snivy (S: Grass)
Health: 16/16 | Sanity: 20/20 | Purity: 16/24 | 6/10 Kurosuōbā | Dodge Rate: 40%
Perk: Diplomacy
Reincarnation Forms: Morelull, Palpitoad, Mega Audino, Pidgeot, Cinccino
EQUIPMENT:
  • Defense Armor: <Empty>
  • Jewelry: <Empty>