GAMBIT BRIAR and THE HAUNTED HOUSE

Your fate in this route may be affected only by your current skills. They will be recorded as they appear the moment this thread is published so as to avoid discrepancies between skill level ups and your character's fate.

Most rewards gained in your adventure will be account bound and therefore not tradeable. A handful of the benefits will be for the character you bring only.

There will be fewer choices on this route, except for at a critical juncture. Your story will unfold based on the whims of the universe and your skills.

As the story progresses, encounters will become riskier though you can choose to abandon the adventure at any time. If you choose to remain, you do so understanding the risks!

Harbringr is a Master Fighter and Master Navigator
Lets begin!

GAMBIT BRIAR - THE HOUSE

You emerge from an unfamiliar part of the forest into a clearing, blinking slowly as your eyes adjust to the sudden deepening of the gloom that surrounded you your whole walk. As the dim light slowly becomes more and more comfortable you start making out a hulking shape on the other side of the clearing. Old and creaking woodenly in a wind you can't feel you lay eyes on a dilapidated mansion. The whole building skews to one side, and even in the gloom you can make out that parts of it appear to jut out unnaturally as if grafted onto its massive shape after the fact. Something about it seems wrong, though you are not sure why.

---

• Approach the mansion
  
• Flee with your tail between your legs [Leave]
  

Evening was falling swiftly but Harbringr was going to take advantage of the babysitter as much as possible. He'd gone for a little hunting trip in the prairie when the call of adventure lured him south and into the briar. The moon was rising, big and round and amber in the sky. Against it rested a strange silhouette that was not a tree or anything remotely familiar. Harbringr had to go and investigate. What he found was a strange human dwelling. Like many human relics it was beat up, worn down and had clearly seen better days. "Huh… I don't remember this being here."

Ari, his Japanese macaque companion bounded after him. "I don't either. Leave it alone, Hari. It gives me the- Hari.."

Harbringr had already wandered over to the side of the house. Tilting back onto his hind legs he rested his paws on the sill and peeked in one of the windows. The macaque pressed against him. "See anything?" Harbringr shook his head. "Nope, too clouded with dust."

"Ok, see nothing, now let's… Hari?"

"Oh, oh Ari! C'mere! I think I found a way in." Harbringr waited just a moment for his companion to catch up before gesturing to a slightly ajar door that creaked eerily in the wind. As far as he could tell it opened on nothing but an empty black void. Harbringr carefully approached, reaching out to test the stairs before hoping to venture inside. Behind him Ari muttered about reckless foolishness.

Success

You take a few shaky steps up the wooden stairs, fighting what feels like a much heavier keel to one side than you'd expect, however you stick to the left side of the stairs and make it safe and sound to the landing and push your way into the foyer. As you pass through the doors you spot something shiny, you grab it and stash it for later.

Harbringr has found 100 Gems

GAMBIT BRIAR - HALLWAY

The space before you is wide and open. The air is musty and through the gloom you can see motes of dust. Wherever you are it’s not seen life in a long time. In the center of the foyer is a massive carpeted staircase. You can see doors on either side of the ground floor, but you feel something drawing you up the stairs. Your paws move before you have time to process this fact, puffs of dust rising with each paw step and you quickly feel your paws become covered. This time your trek up the stairs is a safe one, though the place has clearly been abandoned the steps are sturdy and carry your weight. Still you press yourself to the heavy wooden banister until the moment you reach the top floor. You peer into the dark and notice there is a hallway off to the left. On the right is a door, you try it first but the room beyond is covered in debris so you can’t enter, the furthest wall is all but collapsed, the night sky visible through it’s crumbling structure. So you start down the hallway, losing count of the doors you’ve passed as you feel yourself once more drawn towards the middle of the hallway. You pause, even a few feet from the door your being drawn to you can hear something making noise from the room behind.

---

• Approach the door
  
• 2 Spoopy 5 me [Leave]
  

Harbringr pushed his way inside and immediately resisted the urge to sneeze. It was dusty and musty and he would've have been surprised if the place was lousy with mold. Dust collected in a thick layer on the wooden floor that creaked and groaned with every step as if his very weight were causing it pain to bear. He soon reached a staircase that was covered in something… weird. "Hey Ari, look at this…" Harbringr reached out with a paw and tapped the bottom step that was covered in some strange almost fur-like material (carpet).

"Probably the pelt of every moron that's entered this place," Ari retorted dryly. Harbringr let loose a single 'ha' before climbing right up the stairs and taunting his companion to do the same. He kept to the left side of the banister though, wary despite his more carefree attitude. Once at the top he headed down a hallway and started testing doors. It was odd that humans seemed to like to cover their dens with a wood panel.

Hari's ears flicked up as he could've sworn he heard something behind the door he was currently closer to. Ari heard it too, fur frizzing as he grabbed at Harbringr's tail. "Do we have to?"

Hari turned to his friend with a gleam in his eye. "Of course". Harbringr then moved to approach the door.

Success

As you approach the door, the sounds get louder. For a moment your courage flags. You press your ear to the door, jumping as something smashes into the wood on the other side. You freeze, listening intently, after what feels like a lifetime the sounds end and you finally summon the courage to open the door, something scrapes across the floor as you do so and as you look down you see what must have been flung at the door, a cracked glass orb. You silently thank the universe you listened to your instincts, getting hit by that would have hurt a lot. You can’t help but feel a bit more confident in yourself.

Harbringr has gained 5 Navigation Skill points

GAMBIT BRIAR - Fix Me!

You lift your gaze to a truly horrific site, the room you’ve entered is illuminated by the moon visible beyond the window in the opposite wall. Swinging ominously in that pale light are countless shapes that hang from the roof. You cast your gaze about, all around you on shelves, the floor and any other surface in the room are what feels like hundreds and hundreds of small figures. You freeze, waiting for the tiny creatures to jump you and rip you to shreds. But nothing else seems to move beyond the figures hanging from the roof, pushed by the still unfelt breeze. Taking a breath you peer closer at the closest figure and fight back the urge to recoil. It’s a strange thing, a soft body that seemed to be filled with something, and hard solid limbs… but it doesn’t resemble anything you’ve ever seen, the head is a sphere, molded fur of some kind on its head and forward facing eyes. The limbs are mismatched, different in tone and shape, one of them appears to be the leg of a deer, and you recognize a plush lupine tail poking from the back of the body. A doll, and the figures hanging from the roof are marionettes. The sphere at your paws appears to have been another strange head and as you look around all the figures are mismatched in a similar manner, limbs and heads of animals you recognize grafted onto bodies that have limbs and heads you don't. Something about it is all very wrong. In the center of the room lays a pile of limbs and heads, a single cloth body piece in front of the pile. You take a step towards it, and somewhere in the back of your mind comes a voice: Fix me.

---

• Fix them!
  
• Take a Puppet down from the roof
  
• Nope out of there! [Leave]
  

Harbringr eyed the cracked glass orb for a moment before walking into the room, Ari close behind. The room was full of strange figures tied up on strings. They were a mess of mismatched shapes. Some reminded him of the mannequins he'd seen on the Forgotten Isle. He heard a voice and glanced at Ari who stared back at him. Were there spirits in these things? If so, how exactly was he supposed to fix that?

"Hari, let's go back. I don't think we should be here." Harbringr eyed the nearest puppet, head cocking to the side as he examined it. He wasn't much of a crafter beyond making weaponry but he felt agile enough to grab one of these things and get a closer look. Hari leapt up, seeking to grab the nearest puppet in an attempt to pull it down from the roof. All the while keeping an eye out for more falling heads, limbs, butts and what have you.

Success

You carefully try to remove one of the puppets from the rafters, something telling you to be cautious about not letting it fall. You jump up, a less careful method maybe but, you manage to detangle it and gently place it on the ground. The puppet's strange wooden eyes look up at you and you blink, sure for a moment that you saw them... Glow? You hear a click from deeper in the room and notice a wall panel sliding open. You cautiously pick your way over to it and peer in, spotting a dull glow in the pile of items. As soon as you touch the pile the puppets hanging above your head begin to swing wildly, their limbs clanking ominously and you suddenly feel the need to flee. Scooping up the items you found you flee from the room, getting out of there as fast as you can! You peel down the hallway, then race down a smaller staircase and stop only once you're at the bottom. You skid to a halt, panting but otherwise no worse for wear. You quickly sort through the items you found, stashing a dully glinting object and are about to leave the rest when something makes you grab a seemingly innocuous femur bone and stash it too.

Harbringr has found [Redacted] and an old femur... cool?

GAMBIT BRIAR - F̸̢̀I̷͍̽N̷̟͑D̵̢͗ ̸̠̅M̷̭͒E̵̪͒!̵̧̉

The room before you is a kitchen, oddly the centerpiece of the room is a magnificent dark wooden table, it’s covered with tarnished aged silverware and plates and grotesquely a carcass of some kind, right in the middle of the table. The corpse is old and mutilated beyond recognition, you’re not even sure what it was anymore, somehow so old it’s stopped smelling of anything and yet remarkably pristine despite it’s otherwise gory appearance. The voice from earlier whispers in the back of your mind: find me. You cast about the room, toss open cabinets and search under everything you can. Still the voice returns: Find me. You jump up onto the table, hoping it’ll offer you a better vantage point… still nothing… You step closer to the mangled thing on the table and the voice cries out once more, stronger this time. Find me! You look down at the corpse and feel a familiar pull… With a dawning horror you realize what the voice wants from you and glance up, through the door opposite you you can see the front foyer, offering a tantalizing escape…

---

• Find them! In the Corpse
  
• Find them! By searching the room again.
  
• The door is right there! [Leave]
  

The puppets above them started stirring and rattling Harbringr grabbed the items that had appeared in the secret wall panel then dove back out of the room with Ari leading the way. The macaque was clearly grateful to get the heck out of there. They scrambled down a staircase and stood at the base panting. Hari turned to Ari and started chuckling. Ari scowled. "Ok, now can we leave?

Harbringr considered it for a moment but as he looked about the strange room he went farther into he kitchen instead. This was too weird to just leave. Especially when he knew so little of humans. Then there was a voice again. The spirit? Harbringr started digging through cabinets, pulling open the oven and then bounding onto the table with the… well, what exactly was he looking at? He wasn't sure. Hari sniffed it for a moment as the voice grew louder. "Ok, ok. Give me a hint?"

He decided to search the room again, this time bounding off the table and sticking his head under the table cloth to see if there was something there.

Success

You poke around the kitchen again, really making sure to peek into every nook and cranny. You practically jam your nose into each dark corner to make sure you don't forget something. All the while the voice hums in the back of your head. You open a large door, a puff of cool air pushing against your face, you looked in here earlier, the only thing you saw at that earlier point was rotting vegetables. But as you search it again this time you spot something you're not sure how you missed it earlier. A large round object, covered in coarse brown fur. As you nose it the voice in your head suddenly goes quiet. Taking that as a sign you decide this is what the voice was looking for and pull it out. It's a coconut, with what appears to be a face carved into it, though how you don't know. Shrugging you stash it and head back out into the foyer.

Harbringr gained 10 fighting skill points, and got a coconut with a face in it... Nice! What's this? The Skill points Harbringr has gained glow and turn into [Redacted] due to his double master!

GAMBIT BRIAR - Ș̵̨̦̫̗̤̻̝͌̊̌͗̌̚à̶͙̗̭̜̈́͆͊͂̿̉́̔v̸̢͇͇̹̘͒̈͐ͅe̴̖͖̺͍̼̦̬̩̻͗̄̈́͛̄̚͘ ̷͙̩̣͔̣̖͖̤̞̃͜M̵̬̩̟͉̯͑͆̈́e̴̮̪̻͉̔!̸̹͙̹̮̙͇́͗͑̿̈́͗

The door you’ve just exited was the one you saw earlier off to the left of the stairs… all that remains is the door on the right. You cautiously pad towards it, noticing it’s less a door and more an open frame, stairs leading down into darkness not even your eyes can see through. You hesitate for a moment, then something wills your legs to start moving and you cautiously descend into the darkness. Your movements are slow, now even in the thick of if you can hardly see the end of your nose, let alone the end of the stairs. The darkness feels thick, like it’s pressed down on you. You take a step forward and realize you’ve hit the ground floor, you glance over your shoulder, the door way you’d stepped in through is a tiny pin prick up much higher than you thought you’d descended. Something moves in the dark, you can hear it and you jump when something brushes past you, ruffling your fur. The voice returns, stronger than ever: Save me!

---

• Save them!
  
• Save them by using your femur as a weapon!
  
• Locked
  
• Locked
  
• Alright that’s enough adventure for one day! [Leave]
  

"Oooooooo Ari, look what I found!" Harbringr held up the coconut proudly and added it to their stash. "I'm going to name him Wilson."Ari could say nothing other than stare at Harbringr with an incredulous stare. Hari simply chuckled and padded back out into the foyer, his claws clicking on the wood as he walked, stirring more dust into the air that rolled across the floor like mist.

Curiosity pulled him over to the right door with stairs leading down into the dark. He slowly began to head down them as Ari screeched behind him. "Oh, Hari, nooooo…. I don't do underground." Hari paused and glanced back. "Fine. Stay here. Allooooooone…." He kept moving down the stairs and a moment later Ari was right behind him.

The duo descended through the darkness, so thick it was palpable until at last they reached the bottom of the stairs. Hari heard something moving in the darkness, feeling it brush past him as a voice screamed in his head to save them. I've got your back, Wilson! He thought to himself as he grabbed the femur and swung his head with practiced violence toward the figure moving in the dark, seeking to strike it with the femur.

Failure

The fur along your spine begins to rise and you feel a growl bubbling in your throat, you’re just about at your wits end in the place and you aren’t eager to be toyed with by whatever it is that’s lurking in here, still you’re a seasoned fighter and you feel confident in your ability, not to mention your weapon! You hear a tail scraping against the floor and leap into action. You’re really only aware of snippets of the fight. Your fangs meeting fur, the feelings of a wing hitting your face. Something squishy and leathery wrapping around your legs. The crunch of an exoskeleton beneath your paws. You remain tense as you strain to hear your opponent, all is silent and then - Rip! You feel pain blossom across your muzzle and roar in pain. You thrash about wildly, your grip on your weapon slips, you hear it shatter noisily nearby and it seems whatever was fighting you has decided you weren’t worth the effort, you hear whatever it is retreating, sliding further and further away from you. You remain tense for a moment longer and then suddenly an electric hum starts and you are thrown into light. You blink against the sudden light, wincing as the adrenaline starts to fade and your wound started throbbing, you curse your luck and turn to check your surroundings.

Harbringr has gained a minor maim, his muzzle is now scarred.

GAMBIT BRIAR - Ŗ̸̛̘̤̤̪͐̅̾͑̈́͗ĕ̸̫̫̘̮͖̣͓̖͆̈́̿̿͜ͅL̷̡̼̝͎̥̏̊̌͋̓́͐̚͝͠E̴̛̤͇̤̩͑͂̀ͅą̶͖̟̭͖̗̣͌̆͆̓̈s̶͇͎͎̦̮̊́͋̓̊̚e̸̡̮̠͙̥̱̖̥͆ ̵͉͚̦̱̒͆͐͛̈́͘m̴̨̺̻̗͇͚̐̈̓̆̊͗Ë̶̛̦͓̞̬͇̯͍̲̰!̶͖̰̱̬̹͓̉̋̇

You are in a concrete basement, the floor and walls around you are a dull, dirty grey, eerily red near the pipes that run along the roof. You cast about frantically, searching for your opponent but it’s disappeared… Which you realize is impossible. The basement is too small and too brightly lit for whatever you were fighting to have disappeared, you’re certain it was larger than you and you were blocking the only exit… You shiver, taking a few more moments to observe where you’ve found yourself and notice against the far wall is a small wire cage, the door was slightly open and through the gaps in the fencing you can see a skeleton laid out, it somehow resembles the doll from before and the voice returns, this time louder than it’s ever been and somehow distorted: ReLEase mE! You hear something rumbling under the hum from the lightbulb above you, it sounded almost like… laughter? You feel like whatever thing has been leading you this whole time has started to mock you. You feel like you’re being taunted, called a coward.

---

• Release them!
  
• I am a coward, and proud of it! [Leave]
  

Harbringr snarled as pain blossomed in his brain, throbbing and deep. The creature had cut him across the muzzle, lacerations that went down to the bone. Blood poured down his face as Ari cried out to him. Whatever the creature was retreated.

Ari reached up. "Oh, Hari…" Harbringr jerked his head away from his companion as he eyed the lighter area of the basement and the skeleton stretched out near by. He heard a voice commanding him to release it. His eyes narrowed. He felt like the voice was mocking him. Him, a Klein, who had been strung along far enough. The pain in his muzzle stirred his anger.

"Only if you make it worth my while. Better be quick, I'm fast on my feet." Harbringr turned and fled toward the stairs, seeking to exit the house. Leave the thing trapped! What did he care? He would not stand around and be mocked by some spirit! Not after what happened with Costanza! NEVER AGAIN!

-exit-

Leaving

You hear the laughter get louder as you run, but your paws meet no resistance as you fly out of the house, past the threshold, down the stairs and back out through the forest. The walk back out in the briar seems to take longer than it took to get there and your afraid that you’ll get lost in these unfamiliar woods once more… or worse find yourself back at the house. But finally after what feels like the longest night of your life you find yourself back on familiar territory. You practically collapse, and finally feel safe enough to take stock of all that’s happened.

Harbringr has left the mansion behind, with all his spoils in tow.

THANKS FOR PLAYING!

Harbringr received a total of 1 punishment and 4 rewards:

1 Reward is 100 gems [Added! - nyx]
1 Reward is +5 navigation skill points
1 Reward is Redacted and to keep things mysterious for other players still deciding their paths, will be revealed closer to the adventure deadline.
1 Reward is +10 Navigation skill points Due to Harbringr's double master this and the previous skill point prize has been changed to Redacted
1 punishment is a minor maim (Permanent Muzzle scarring)

Harbringr has 2 redacted rewards, Please stay tuned for your prize reveals!

Thank you for your participation!
- Lolaf