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!

Hanako is an Intermediate Hunter and Advanced 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]
  

Oh no this was scary! Hanako liked to explore as much as anyone but when it came to the dark and creepy...it well and truly wasn't her forte. She eyed the building with an obvious sense of reluctance, her paws itching to take her away, back into the sunlight where a pretty thing like her ought to be. But then again where was her sense of adventure? Was she really scared by a strange and slanty building? Yes, but not enough to make her turn her tail and run away just yet. If nothing she'd take a moment to have a quick nose about, see what there was to see and back off before it got too much, yeah? Maybe. She was a fickle thing and now was no exception to that rule. Pulling in a long and steadying breath Hanako ventured forth and approached the mansion.

Failure

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. Your history of exploration tells you it'll be much more effort to fight the slant and you decide to walk up the right side of the stairs, suddenly a board gives out under your weight and you plunge leg first into the hole, your ankle smacking painfully on the interior structure of the stairs as you do so. You’re too focused on your pain to notice anything out of the ordinary as you push through the door.

Hanako has sprained her ankle

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]
  

Ouch! Hanako winched as she gingerly pulled her paw from the hole, her ankle throbbing to the point where even she could tell she'd injured herself properly. Not just some dramatic princess nonsense her usual "injuries" worked out to be. She moved more carefully from now on, pale eyes taking in the sight of dust and cobwebs, but inadvertently being drawn up yet another set of stairs. Common sense told her to turn around and head back, to go home but she ignored it cause duh. Using the banister this time to support her weight she managed to make it up the stairs without hurting herself, not an impressive fear in and of itself but she felt relieved nonetheless. There were plenty of doors ahead and there she was, slow and steady as she approached the one in the centre. She just wanted to have a look, that's all. So she liked to think.

Failure

As you approach the door, the sounds get louder. For a moment your courage flags. You decide you're being silly, the noise is probably just the wind, it seems likely this room will be open on one side like the other one. You 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.

Hanako has lost 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]
  

Ouch again! This wasn't going very well at all, was it? Not only had something walloped her nose hard enough to leave blood but this???? She'd travelled a lot but not to the extent that scary scenes like this rolled off of her like water off a ducks back. With slow and hesitant steps she approached the pile, her brow creased as she worried her lips, trying not to let her gaze linger on the dolls above for a moment too long. Her tail curled in between her hind legs as the voice ricocheted through her mind, that should have been enough to send her skittering back home but despite herself the temptation to do as she was told, to people please-spirit please?- was too strong to resist. And thus she went to fix them.

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 along your chest, that one's likely gonna hurt for a while after you get out of here.

Hanako 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]
  

Nothing was going right, not one thing! How unfair! The moment she tried to help out she was pelted with evil dolls, they whacked her all over, riddling her with forming bruises as she skittered away. The staircase laid ahead and she rushed down it, taking one moment to catch her breath. Even breathing hurt now but adrenaline coursed through her veins and kept the worst aches and pains away, for now. She hoped things would get better, but they didn't. She soon found herself searching the room in a panic, paws trembling as she rooted around, desperate to appease the voice. And then her icy gaze landed on the corpse once more, so foul and hideous that her stomach churned and bile rose up her throat. Fine. Here goes nothing! She went to find them in the corpse.

Failure

You swallow the lump forming in your throat and tear your gaze from the temptation of escape. Your history as a hunter helps to calm you, you’ve dealt with your fair share of old corpses. You close your eyes and then- 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 feel like you’ve had your face in this corpse for who knows how long and suddenly a wave of nausea hits you, you pull yourself free and immediately turn, emptying the contents of your stomach over the edge of the table. Clearly you were insane to try this in the first place, you jump off the table and head back into the Foyer, feeling quite the fool.

Hanako has lost 10 Navigation skill points.

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
  
• Locked
  
• Locked
  
• Alright that’s enough adventure for one day! [Leave]
  

HRRRRRG! Covered in blood and muck, and now the contents of her stomach, Hanako stumbled out of the kitchen and back into the foyer. Oh what a mess she was, bruised and vommy with a throbbing ankle that was difficult to ignore. The door was right there, she could have easily limped on back home and really ought to have but the voice-louder than ever- was difficult to ignore. Save them? Hm. Everytime she'd done as the voice commanded something went wrong, as though punishing her for being to eager to please. Perhaps it was an important lesson for her to learn but as of now the nuance of it flew right over her head. Woosh. She stared at the door, flinching as something passed her, ruffling her yellow stained coat. Fine, she would do as she was told again. She would save them.

Success

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. 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. But you prevail and as you lick the blood from your lips, tense and waiting for the next attack in the pitch darkness 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, and as you slowly open your eyes you notice something glinting, you quickly snatch it up before turning to inspect your surroundings

Hanako has found a [Redacted]!

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]
  

For once that wasn't so bad. Snatching up her prize, Hanako blinked blearily at her surroundings, more than a little dazed and confused. Her vision finally settled and her gaze rested upon the skeleton in the corner, locked away in its cage. Considering how mean the voice had treated her thus far she felt as though maybe it ought to stay there. But...she didn't like the idea of being mocked either. She ought to have taken a step back and went over the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, a skeleton that spoke in her mind?? Hello?? But either be it pain or just the adrenaline coursing through her veins she didn't have the time or mind to be sensible. Here goes nothing! Throwing caution to the wind once more she stepped forth to release them.

Failure

The rumbling echoes in your head again and you feel your paws drawing you towards the skeleton on the ground, behind it is a pile of bones and you notice there appears to be one missing from the current set up. 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 left everything behind. 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. You spot a low glimmer between some tree roots and decide to swipe them as a consolation for all you've been through tonight.  

Hanako left everything behind, but found 50 gems.

THANKS FOR PLAYING!

Hanako received a total of 5 punishments and 1 reward?:

1 Punishment is a sprained ankle (Affects only rolls, does not need to played outside of event)
1 punishment is -5 Navigation skill points [Complete! - nyx]
1 punishment is mild chest bruising (You may play this Icly as you wish, heals min. 1 ooc week)
1 punishment is -10 Navigation skill points [Complete! - nyx]
1 punishment is a Losing all rewards (Removed: [Redacted])

1 Reward? Found 50 Gems [Added! - nyx]

Hanako has no hidden punishments or rewards!

Thank you for your participation!
- Lolaf