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!

Chimera is an Intermediate Intellectual and Advanced Fighter
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]
  

There was a storm on his heels and the young wolf was in search of shelter. Briars clung to his black and white pelt as he progressed as if begging him to turn back. As he did with all those that wished for him to go against his own will, the boy pushed on, leaving clumps of fur in the grasping thorns. In time he arrived in a clearing. Chimera's working eye narrowed against the breeze that blew into his face. Though the storm chased him, the wind as well seemed to be pushing him away. From behind, thunder rumbled ominously. The boy sneered, lips curling back to expose curved killing fangs. He would fight the storm if he was able, but alas, he was not. As the first drops of rain began to fall, Chimera made up his mind to enter the strange, foreboding structure up ahead. What choice did he have, really? Giving his coat a shake, the boy stalked forward towards the dilapidated old house. Fear wasn't in the child's repertoire as of yet, so he felt none of it as he moved up the steps in an attempt to enter the house. "Speech"

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.

Chimera 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]
  

Chimeras thick, blocky skull bought the boy entrance into the crumbling old house. Again he stopped to allow his hampered vision to adjust to the difference in light. Dust danced through the rays of light that filtered through the place and Chi released a mighty sneeze. He shook his head, sniffling a bit before be began to explore the place. It was different than anything that he'd seen before, but he still wasn't afraid. Really, the only time he could remember ever being afraid was the very first time that a Silent One had appeared before him. Retracing his steps, he appeared before one of the doorways. This one seemed to draw him in and he stepped forward, paw extended in preparation to open the door. A sound on the other side stopped him for a moment and he strained his ears to try and decipher just what it might be. With no luck, he mentally shrugged and, with all of his might, Pushed the door open hard and fast. Whatever was on the other side, hopefully it would be startled by the action, giving him time to assess the situation. "Speech"

Failure

As you approach the door, the sounds get louder. For a moment your courage flags. You decide you're just going to face whatever it is on the other side and push the door open and- Bam! Pain blossoms in the bridge of your nose. You reel back, eyes screwing shut. Shit. You lift a paw to your nose and feel it come away wet. Your nose is bleeding from whatever it is that hit you. You stubbornly wipe away the blood, test your nose again and find it’s at least not actively bleeding. You’ll live, unwounded aside from your pride. You glance down at your paws and wince as you see what hit you in the face, a cracked glass orb. You can’t help but feel you should have listened to your instincts, and feel a little less confident in yourself.

Chimera has lost 5 fighting 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]
  

Pain lanced through him and the boy winced. An instant later he began to growl, his pelt bristling as he prepared to shred whatever dared to attack him. Nothing comes, however. He looked down and noticed the orb. His brow furrowed slightly before he moved through the doorway and into the room. His neck craned a bit as he looked about the space. It was eerie and Chi's flesh began to prickle. Moving forward, the voice echoed in his mind. Fix me? Slightly intrigued by the pile of parts, Chimera decided to fix whatever needed fixing. He began separating out the parts into their various species. Only then did he begin to put them together. "Speech"

Failure

You sort through the piles and try to pick out pieces you think match, your unsure exactly what your supposed to be looking for, but finally you manage to get a set of limbs you're pretty sure match, you carefully rearrange the pieces a few times, finally settling on an arrangement you're pretty sure looks right, then step back- a harsh ringing starts in your ears and you flinch, eyes screwing shut. You are frozen there for a few minutes and then an ominous rattling sound breaks through the high pitched whine and you open your eyes to see dolls launching themselves off their perches at you. You scramble to flee from the room trying to dodge the projectiles hurled your way, but don't manage to get out of the room unscathed. You keep pelting down the hallway, you race down a smaller staircase and stop only once you're at the bottom. You skid to a halt, panting and sore. You quickly take stock of your wounds and notice pain in your right side, that one's likely gonna hurt for a while after you get out of here.

Chimera has become injured.

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]
  

More pain. After running from the room, Chimera had to stop to take a breath. His side was killing him. One of the puppets or whatever they were had crashed hard into his ribs. He couldn't yet tell if they were bruised or broken, but he knew that he would be feeling the ache for quite a while after. He'd skittered out of the room, claws grasping at the floor to keep himself from flying down the stairs head first. Once at the bottom, he tucked his ears against his skull, gave one last scathing look at the room above, then moved towards and open doorway. Once more that strange voice raped his mind. Chimera didn't like that one bit. He needed to have a choice and that voice took his choices away. Perhaps the sooner he followed through, the sooner the voice would leave him alone. The two-toned boy went through the room, destroying any semblance of order that it once had. Something seemed to be pulling him towards the table so, despite his aching ribs, he leaped upon it. The young wolf's single working eye stared hard at the unidentifiable carcass. Eyes narrowing, he knew what he had to do. Using his big paws, he split the ribs open wide, practically tearing the carcass in two. "Speech"

Success

You tear into the corpse, searching visually then... swallowing the lump forming in your throat- plunge your muzzle into the corpse! It is uncomfortably and inexplicably soft and wet for how old it must be and there is little resistance as you fish around for something, you’re not sure what, in the old gore. You fight down your revulsion and press on, even as you start to wonder what you’re even doing anymore. Then your nose bumps something hard and you feel a tug at the back of your mind. Clamping down on whatever it is you hurry to pull yourself and your prize free. With a wet squelching noise you release yourself from the body and slowly open your eyes, noticing a skull clamped tightly between your fangs. You jump down off of the table and stash it, heading back out into the foyer. Feeling a little proud of yourself.

Chimera has gained 10 fighting skill points, He also now has a skull! Wow!

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

Chimera ripped open the carcass and came out with... a skull? What in the hells was he supposed to do with a skull? The young wolf almost discarded it, but something within him told him to keep it. With a grumble, he kept it with him and moved from the room. There was a door there that he hadn't given much attention to before. He'd already been everywhere else, might as well check that place as well, right? Outside the thunder rumbled, but it was lessening. He could probably leave soon if he wanted to. Down into the dark he went and once more, that now familiar voice cut through his thoughts. Chimera shook his head with irritation as though to dislodge the voice with the action and send it out of his skull. Save them? Who even were they? The brush of something next to him brought a low, guttural growl from the boy, his teeth flashing in the dark. They wanted to be saved? Fine. Sliding the skull over his head like a helmet, Chimera brought his head low, making it level with his spine. He charged like a giant black and white battering ram. "Speech"

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 new head gear! 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 - Crack! You feel pain blossom in your tail and roar in pain. You thrash about wildly, your helmet flying off and shattering noisily close by 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.

Chimera has gained a minor maim, his tail now has a bend to it.

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]
  

His head collided with something, but the success was fleeting. A moment later some large beast grappled with him in the dark. A sharp pain cracked him hard in the tail and the boy yelped in pain. Whatever had handled him so roughly seemed to slink away and Chi gave chase for a few steps before blinding light stole his vision. With a hiss, the light sensitive young wolf shielded his good eye from the glaring brightness. Peering out from beneath his crossed arms, he scanned about for the enemy. It was...gone. What the actual fuck? There was no way. With his vision adjusted somewhat, he spied the cage across the room. The boys eye narrowed and he moved towards it, only to feel that familiar pain as the voice once again cut through his mind. The tones were louder. Grating. Painful. Chimera's jaws gnashed and his pelt bristled. "Be patient, you bastard." Stalking towards the cage, the boy glared at its contents. "You'd better make this worth my while. Freedom is worth quite a bit." He'd come this far and he refused to stop now. Raising one paw, he swung the door to the cage open wide. Reaching in, he extracted the skeleton and placed its bones on the floor rather than in the cage. Literally released. Chimera stepped away, placing his back to the wall. All he had to do now was wait. "Speech"

Failure

The rumbling echoes in your head again and you impulsively move the whole skeleton out of the cage and sit down with a huff. You wait, and wait and then you realize there's a bone missing from the arrangement. You look through the pile and find one you think will fit. You look at the skeleton again and your eyes fall on the skull, it’s an odd shape you’ve never seen before, not as rounded as you might assume with a massive eye hole in the middle, two smaller hollow tubes on either side of it. You feel something very off about the skull but at this point you simply desire to get out of this house! So you place the other bone. A soft light emanates from the skeleton and for a moment you feel the paranoia lift.. And then the light above you blows, loudly popping as it showers glass down on you. The rumbling starts again and this time you know it’s laughter, it grows in volume and you hear the sliding from the creature from before again. Fear grips you and this time you flee, up the stairs, out the foyer and into the forest. You don’t stop until you’re fully surrounded by trees, and it’s only as you rest for a moment, hunched over and panting that you realize you were in such a hurry to leave… you only grabbed one of your items. You walk back through the forest, 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.

Chimera left everything but the 100 gems behind.

THANKS FOR PLAYING!

Chimera received a total of 4 punishments and 1 reward:

1 Reward is 100 gems [Added! - nyx]
1 punishment is -5 fighting skill points [Complete! - nyx]
1 punishment is mild rib bruising (You may play this Icly as you wish, heals min. 1 ooc week)
1 punishment is a minor maim (permanently bent tail)
1 punishment is a Losing all but one reward (Removed: +10 fighting skill points)

Chimera has no hidden punishments or rewards!

Thank you for your participation!
- Lolaf