sticksandbones | MINI EVENT: GHOST RESCUE

A HEARTBEAT BENEATH THE STAIRS

As the season turns, and blood sinks into the ground of the Grove, as monsters with your face haunt the halls, waiting to pounce, something else is creeping into light. Distantly one might see a light in the forest at night, and the next it comes closer. And closer. Until in the treeline you can see it: a pitch black manor that looks as if it’s covered in ash. The trees act as its gates, rebuffing anyone who tries to investigate, and the air smells like rot. Something watches in the windows, but vanishes when you blink.

… But not even this dark manor can stand in the way of one very angry grandfather skeleton, who will, eventually, rattle his teeth and bones in a rallying cry and urge others to follow him, sword in hand. It’s time to storm the castle, and Mr. Bone-Jangles has had enough.

The air within the manor is frigid and biting, and the inside itself is as decrepit as you may expect. Lights and candles can light the way… but only for a few minutes. The wood creaks as if the building is breathing slowly, and sometimes you here a loud thum-thump, as if its unseen heart beats while you explore.

For an already imposing building, inside seems even larger and there’s almost no end in sight as it feels like the halls wind on forever and more and more rooms, from libraries to studies to bedrooms to- … is this room dedicated to WWE Wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson? … Needless to say, there’s a lot to work through, but Bone-Jangles urges you onward.

Wisps of color drift through. Are they your friends? Or something else?

A NIGHTMARE ON YOUR LIPS

And to those who have been locked away for days, perhaps weeks, nothing in this house feels real. Is it a dream? Is it a nightmare? The mere mention of a potential addition from your lips manifests another new room within the manor, but you cannot touch anything. Light hurts and makes you dizzy, while the night is painfully cold. How long has it been? How long will it be?

The burst of life is- new. Exciting. Distantly, you know these people, but the urges of death are whimsical and cruel. Part of you wants to guide them to the attic, where your souls are chained in full to a portrait of you. Break those portraits, and you're free, coming back to life outside, which is what you want, isn't it? Another part of you wants to chase them out, how dare they intrude upon your afterlife? Another yet thinks it’s time to play, but no longer remembers what ‘play’ is- so surely they can dodge the plates and books, right? Right!

And another yet wants the intruders dead. And if not by your hands, then by the demons guarding this world alongside you.

(CODE)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ah. Hello.

[ Odile is floating idly through a massive library on the other side of the door. She can't pick up any of them, but she can occupy herself reading the titles. She's been here two days and she is bored. ]

We met at the town meeting. Dipper, wasn't it?

[ He's so young. ]

[!! He's not alone! Oh thank Paul Bunyan, he was going to start unraveling fast if he was. He tries to uh, write himself in the air for a moment. Pretend he wasn't floating upside down just now.]

Oh! Hey, what's up? We uh, yeah, I think so.

[Pause, as he thinks that over.]

You were talking with my uncle, right? Aren't you a friend of Siffrins?

That's right. Odile.

[ It still seems wrong somehow to think of their little group as "friends", but it's certainly the easiest descriptor. ]

Siffrin is here somewhere as well. I'm not sure where, exactly... This place seems to keep getting bigger.

Nice to meet you, despite the circumstances.

[The mention of Siffrin being here gets an interesting response from Dipper. He freezes for a moment before he looks thoughtful.]

...He's here, too? Of course, I figured it out too little, too late.

[ Odile's eyes on the boy are suddenly very sharp. That was a very telling reaction, and a concerning one. Of course, he could only be a ghost if he had died, but she had been under the impression that the doubles were only out to kill their own originals. ]

...Is that why you're here?

Yeah. I ...didn't clock him as a fake fast enough. When I noticed, he'd caught on and it-

[He reaches a hand up to his chest where there is certainly a telling stain of blood.]

He straight up stabbed me with my own knife, the jerk. Ugh, and all those pastries are probably going to waste on the floor.

[ She winces. It was a strange enough experience being killed by something that looked exactly like herself. She doesn't even want to imagine being killed by a trusted friend. ]

I'm sorry.

[ She's sorry this child had to experience death at all, let alone one like this. But she also feels somewhat responsible, irrational as she knows that is. In a way, Siffrin is her responsibility. And her own double is certainly her responsibility, and maybe this could have been prevented if she'd been just a little bit faster, a little bit stronger. ]

It's cool, man.

[He doesn't seem quite as freaked out about it as you'd probably expect. Mostly that it feels like a huge inconvenience more than anything. A lot of the implications haven't set in yet.]

[He lets out a huge sigh, looking around at the place they're apparently haunting. He frowns.]

...Where are we? I thought when we got killed here, we'd end up in the garden.

[ You never know, with teenagers. And either way, their response to trauma is both none of her business and miles out of her wheelhouse.

She turns to look down the length of the library. It almost seems like it could go on forever. ]

I don't know. We're somewhere in the woods, but there doesn't seem to be any way out. As far as I can tell there's nothing else here with us. Just us ghosts.

Huh.

[This is definitely not something anyone has mentioned before to his knowledge. Which means...the gears are turning. He lowers to the ground so he can start pace-floating.]

So we're definitely dead. This isn't the first time I've died so I know what it feels like, but we didn't follow the normal rules of this place. No one who's died before has mentioned a mansion or being ghosts so-

[A little !!! goes off in his head and he looks up at Odile.]

I think the forest is still messing with us. Maybe it's one of it's stupid games! Maybe we can break out of here somehow?

[ She nods her agreement, the smallest hint of a smile playing at the corner of her lips. Smart kid. ]

Those creatures need us out of the way. It would be a nuisance if we just kept killing each other over and over.

Getting out might prove difficult. We don't seem to be corporeal at all, except where the outside walls are concerned.

It's possible they took less care to prevent others from coming in.

[Dipper is nodding to all this.]

There could be something tying us here, too. Regardless of what game this might be, it seems like we're still following certain ghost rules. It could be a matter of untethering us, or maybe someone has to solve some problem for us...? Finish our unfinished business? Ugh, It's weird being on the other side of a haunting for once.

[He thinks about the walls of the house for a moment and frowns.]

I wonder if there's a way to lure the others here.

There might be answers in another room, but as I said, more keep appearing.

I admit, I have no experience with this sort of thing outside of fiction. Even then, the stories don't often focus on the perspective of the deceased.

More stories should, honestly. Anyway, weirdly enough this sort of thing is my specialty?

[What a wild thing for a teen to say. He's floating about now, looking at the book titles, seeing if anything helpful might be in here. Time to be a chatterbox about his special interest-]

I used to do on-call ghost exorcisms for people back home all the time. I have business cards. Not that I know much about what happens when you're on the other side of it, though. Weird.

...I wonder if my powers work like this.

[ That is a wild thing for a teen to say. But if anyone was going to be an expert on hauntings, it makes a strange sort of sense for it to be a child. Adults should really know better than to get into that sort of thing. ]

What sort of powers? Can you try them now?

[Ford Pines is approaching your location rapidly while not knowing any better about getting into that sort of thing-]

I'm kind of a telepath? Maybe I can make an SOS call to my uncles.

[Normally it works best when he knows the person really well. An Established Connection, that sort of thing. He does close his eyes to try and focus but-]

...Oh. No, I guess that makes sense. [It's immediate how quickly he can tell it's not working.]

Ghosts don't have blood.

[ That is... true. Ghost do not have blood. Odile doesn't question it out loud, but she certainly makes a face. ]

...Anything else?

Nope. Nothing.

[Sigh.]

Sorry if I got your hopes up, but I basically have no signal in here.

[ Signal? What? Nevermind. She smiles slightly. ]

Don't worry, I have my expectations well managed. So far I haven't been able to affect the world around us in any way.

[ She demonstrates by sticking her hand directly into a book. ]

MINI EVENT: GHOST RESCUE

10-4!

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