Manor of Tian

Anon makes a damn good atmospheric horror storytime, with a party of adventurers exploring a haunted manor. Hopefully you enjoy.

The Story

I have a story for you, the tale of the one and only time I ever felt afraid while playing a DnD campaign. I'm not much of a GM I'm afraid, so please excuse my writing.

A couple of months ago, I was invited to join a short campaign hosted by a good friend of mine. Let's call him Gerald.

Gerald is one of my favorite GM's. He knows when to let the players run wild, and he knows when to reign them back in. He sets up consistently good adventures, and when coupled with his excellent range of voices and impressive improv. skills, you'll find yourself having fun at his table no matter what.

So when I heard he was running a one-shot event, I cleared up my schedule to go and play with him on a rainy Saturday.

I was the last person to arrive. Counting Gerald and myself, there were six people in the room. Our characters were already rolled up beforehand, seeing as we had about four hours to start and complete a game.

I had a rogue who joined up with the other characters, a stereotypical fighter, a female cleric, a wizard, and a ranger.

We started out in the back of a rickety cart driven by an old hick. Our little party had been formed beforehand at the request of a nameless benefactor who had handpicked each of us for the mission. (This plot point was never wrapped up, but it didn't matter for reasons that will become more obvious later on.) Our mission was to purge an ancient solitary manor of the "evil that possessed it." Hence the long ride to the middle of nowhere.

After nearly an hour of in-game time (we had a little while to converse among ourselves and roleplay a bit. Gerald loves letting players personalities bounce off of one another) we finally arrived at the old manor. The peasant pulling the cart accepted his payment and made a holy sign with his hands before departing hastily.

The five of us walked up to the manor door and knocked.

After knocking loudly, the two oak doors slowly creaked open. At this point, we players all shared bemused looks. We knew what was about to happen, or so we thought.

We entered the manor warily, with the fighter walking first and the cleric bringing up the rear. We had considered leaving a party member of two outside, but we knew that the inevitable was about to happen, so we all entered the manor through the tall doorway.

The doors swung shut.

We all rolled our eyes internally, and the ranger went over to the doors and tried to open them again. To our immense surprise, they opened up again, but the view was not the same as before.

Instead of plain fields and wide forests, the outside of the manor was a seemingly infinite expanse of rocks and small cliffs.

After making a group decision, the ranger carefully stepped back outside, and waited. He walked around for a bit, and nothing happened. Shrugging, the ranger walked back inside the house. We closed the doors, but kept one propped open with a bit of "driftwood" just in case.

The manor had three floors and a basement from what we had been told. In front of us was a grand staircase, so we figured going upstairs might be a good start. As we did so, we began noticing how fine the interior of the manor once was. Small marble statues and precious figurines were scattered everywhere, expensive honeywax candles lighted our way. Seeing as I was the degenerate rogue, I stole a few jewel-encrusted figurines for good measure, cringing internally as I did so. To not steal them would be meta-gaming, so I was forced to take the risk. The wizard took a candle, and we ascended the fine stairway.

A long hallway stretched out on both sides, and we split up to check the rooms. Most were uninteresting, living rooms and storage rooms and the like. And then we heard a scream.

When I say we "heard a scream," I mean that we actually heard a scream.

Gerald made us jump when a horrific cry of primal terror seemingly emanated from nowhere. One player nearly dropped his dice. Gerald had played the sound from his phone, which was concealed behind his GM screen.

He told us that the ungodly scream had come from the room at the far end of the west hall. We all rushed to investigate, and entered the room, expecting ghosts or other poltergeists.

Instead, we found a blindfolded woman tied to the ceiling by a web of ropes and hooks in one of the bedrooms. The bed beneath her was stained red with blood, seemingly from someone else, for she appeared unharmed.

We managed to help her down and untie her, and after the cleric managed to calm her down we started asking her questions. All she could say was: "Red red red red red red red" over and over again. She was staring at the bloodstained bed while she uttered these words.

After speaking with her for about a minute, our characters heard something crash downstairs. We had to investigate, but we couldn't leave the girl behind either, so we split up.

The cleric and the wizard remained with the almost-catatonic girl (who we managed to deduce was a resident of the house) while the rest of us went downstairs.

As we descended the stairs, we heard another crashing sound, this one coming from behind a locked door. I offered to lockpick the door, but the fighter merely grinned and broke it open with a few well-placed kicks to the lock.

We entered the kitchen area of the house. No candles lit this place, so I lit a torch and entered first with my two companions behind me.

The kitchen was a mess. Silverware and pots and pans and half-eaten meals were all over and ended up in strange places. We found forks and knives stabbed into the ceiling, pots and pans stacked up on the floor, all sorts of odd touches.

We went deeper into the large kitchen, and heard another crash. We rushed to its source.

I pivoted where I stood, and held up an arm to cast out some light. Illuminated by my flickering torchlight was a small shape clad in gray garb. The miniature monster was chewing a chunk of what was probably human flesh, and when it saw us it howled.

Gerald got us again.

The tiny creature jumped at me, and I managed to dodge it while swatting my torch about. The fighter swung his sword and missed, the ranger loosed an arrow into the darkness that seemed to hit its target.

The creature moved too quick for us to see, and it vanished into the darkness. A few tense seconds later, and a gray shape blurred across the floor towards me, leaped upwards and knocked the torch out of my hand. It landed on the ground and died out.

The fighter felt something savagely bite his leg, and he swung his sword blindly, hitting the ranger for minimal damage. The three of us hurriedly escaped the darkness of the kitchen and returned to the main room. The fighter pulled the door shut. He seemed to regret busting the lock now, because we couldn't keep the door shut (in swung outwards)

We decided to go back and visit our other two companions on the second floor. When we returned, the room was empty. The cleric, the wizard, and the young girl had all seemingly vanished without a trace. The ranger couldn't even find footsteps in the dust.

The three of us looked at the other two players suspiciously, but they simply gave innocent smiles and wouldn't answer any of our questions. Gerald had a little smile on his face during the entire exchange, and he finally ended our meta-conversation by looking down at his papers and mentioning that one of the doors on our floor was swinging open and banging shut over and over again.

Our team of five had been cut down to three, and none of us knew any real magic whatsoever. Clutching our steel weapons, we left the bedroom nervously.

We walked swiftly down the hallway, alert in the event of more tiny-monsters leaping out at us. Ahead of us, we could see a wooden door slamming open and shut repeatedly. The ranger chimed in, mentioning that it was one of the few doors we didn't open before (the scream had cut our investigation short)

Once we reached the door, it stopped moving. We slowly entered the room, not really wanting to.

This room was another bedroom, mirroring the one in which the young woman had been trapped. However, this room was nice and tidy, the bedsheets a pure white. We noticed that a small washroom was attached to the bedroom, and the ranger entered to look about while I stood guard with the fighter.

The washroom was a tiny place, with a large tin full of water, a large oval mirror leaning against the wall, and a few candles sitting about the room in precarious positions.

The ranger inspected the room, checked the tin of water, and decided that nothing was out of the ordinary. Just as he turned around, he saw something flash in the mirror.

For a brief moment, he saw a dash of red in the glass of the mirror. He turned back to look at the mirror more closely, and he began examining it from many different angles, trying to see what had reflected into his vision.

The ranger put both his hands on the mirror and peered into it, and suddenly the mirror filled up with red color, it's reflective glass showing only a painfully-bright crimson nothingness.

The ranger fell back and tripped, and ended up falling into the tin of water. As he got up, he looked at his hands and saw that they were stained with blood. He looked down at the wash tin.

It was now filled with sticky, thick blood.

At that moment, the mirror shattered, and the house began to shake as if some huge toddler had picked it up and began swinging it around in a rage. The ranger was batted about in the small washroom, and the fighter and I were thrown to and fro.

Eventually the shaking stopped, and we suffered no serious injuries. We didn't have time to celebrate however, as a horrible chill crept up the spines of our three characters simultaneously. The players who had been controlling the wizard and the cleric smiled at each other.

A bizarre sound came out of Geralds phone. It's incredibly hard to describe, but it sounded like a man murmuring to himself mixed with the sounds of metal scraping against each other, and the occasional tick-tock of a clock could be heard. At the end of the fifteen second musical cue, the sound of someone screaming in reverse overpowered all other sounds.

The sound died, and I looked at the other players uneasily. Gerald provided us with no other information as to what the sound was, or what it meant.

With no other clues to go on, the three of us decided to go back downstairs and enter the kitchen again to deal with the gray-monster, which was the only tangible threat we had faced so far.

The fighter led the way back down the stairs, but before we reached the kitchen, I noticed something. One of the previously-closed side doors opposite the kitchen had been opened.

We decided to investigate the new room, for fear that some other nightmarish creature might emerge from it while we muck about in the kitchen.

Taking a new torch in hand, the fighter walked through the open door and entered the lounge, which was dimly lit by the small amount of sunlight that entered through a huge window. The sprawling window almost seemed to be the centerpiece of the room.

Wary of enemies, we searched the room, checking underneath couches and behind bookcases. We pulled out every book in that room in desperate hope of something happening. We discovered that each book in the house was identical. Each book was worryingly titled "How I found the joy of living" and was authored by "Nobody." The pages were all blank, or burned.

The poor ranger decided to examine the window.

Once again, the ranger saw a brief glimpse of something red, and this time he knocked an arrow to his bow in a vague hope of being able to shoot whatever nefarious being was present in this house.

Instead, the window was suddenly possessed by a number of red streaks that looked very much like paint brushes, or splatters of blood. The ranger fell backwards, and Gerald looked at the ranger's player.

"You have taken one point of permanent intelligence damage." He said.

The player was even more shocked than we were. In all my life, I had never heard of "permanent stat damage" of any kind.

The ranger's player took a pencil and lowered his intelligence score by one. After doing so, he asked Gerald what had happened.

Gerald laughed. "You have a bit of red in your brain, now." He said. The wizard and cleric, who had been paying close attention this entire time (props to them for not getting on their phones or something) shared a knowing look.

The three of us shared a look of our own. It was a look of the "oh, shit" variety.

Back in the game, the ranger was knocked unconscious for a brief second, and the red color left the window. The fighter shattered the window with a solid punch for good measure, which I quickly derided him for. Now anything could crawl in through that window from the outside.

"Anything could get in through the front door that we left propped open," he countered. We were silent for a minute, and then we heard a scuttling sound come from somewhere in the main room.

The ranger had awoken at the sound of the window being broken, and we all returned to the main room in a flash. We caught a glimpse of a small shape crawling up the stairs to the second floor at a frightening speed.

Heedless of danger, we charged forward, chasing after the small monster.

The creature leaped onto the walls and crawled faster than we could run, its gray misshapen body flapping about as it exerted itself. It turned a corner down one of the hallways, and ascended a second set of stairs we had not yet ventured up.

Scuttling like a cockroach, the small creature climbed up the stairs and vanished from our perspective. We ran up the stairs, weapons drawn.

Looking about, it seemed as though the third floor had been abandoned too. This floor only had four doors, and all of them were shut except for one.

We hurried towards the open door, and peered inside. A small bed took up the corner of the room, and a huge candle the size of a man sat in the middle, shining its faint light on the peeling walls.

We entered the room, cautious of an ambush. The ranger knocked an arrow to his bow, and a speedy shape hopped into view, and then jumped again, clinging to the fighters face and savaging his eyes with its tiny claws. The fighter gave off muffled screams as he desperately pulled at the little gray demon, trying to rip it away from his face.

The ranger fired a lucky shot, and stuck the tiny monster in its chest. The fighter yanked the hurt beast off of him, and threw it to the ground. I swiftly threw a dagger at it and missed.

The small creature panted and hissed as it tried to scuttle away, but the fighter was too fast. Despite the blood running over his eyes, he managed to crush the gray creature underfoot. It's body gave a meaty crunch.

The fighter stood back, waiting to see if the monster would move again. It didn't.

Leaning close, the fighter flipped the creature onto it's back, and was greeted with the face of a prepubescent girl.

The "small monster" had actually been a feral girl, probably possessed by some kind of ethereal horror. The reason why it appeared gray to us was because the girls old dress had faded and become gray and tattered over time. Her face was twisted and her teeth were bloodstained, but it was definitely a young child, no older than six.

The fighter stepped back in horror. We all did. The fighter began speaking with the ranger and I, begging us to not tell anyone when we left this place.

The ranger did not reply. It was not until later that I discovered he had a wife and a young daughter back in some cozy village.

The fighter continued speaking with us, growing more and more frantic, and for a few seconds we didn't comprehend why his voice sounded strange. Then, we understood that some other sound was playing.

Gerald was playing the horrible sounds again, which I will refer to as the "Despair Song" from now on.

He hadn't mentioned that something was going to happen, he hadn't tried to get our intention. The sound had just started to play, and we had barely noticed it before it ended with the reversed scream.

Gerald looked at us each in turn, and mentioned that the huge candle in the room had just gone out. In fact, all the candles in the entire manor had gone out, our torches too.

Several doors starting opening and closing from unidentified places, and we all felt the same shuddering chill creep up our spines.

A simple voice said to us: "Let's play hide and seek."

We felt an unnatural presence enter the house. Our characters suddenly knew that if they were caught, they would die an unspeakable death. This knowledge was not something they were told, it was something primal, instinctual almost.

The fighter felt something brush the back of his head, and we began to run.

We ran out of the room, and down the first flight of stairs. We could feel the presence behind us, as exemplified by animal terror in our hearts urging us, begging for us to sprint in the other direction.

At this point in the game, I was relatively un-scared. I had surmised that this would be a horror campaign from the first description, and I had prepared myself for it. I roleplayed along and never cracked any stupid mood-killing jokes, but that did not mean that I was afraid.

However, as I ran, a voice said: "Look behind you."

My rogue looked back for a brief moment, and saw an infinite canvas of RED behind him. The color clung to every wall, seeped in every crack and dripped from every hole, like an all-encompassing living ocean.

For that little stunt, my rogue took two points of permanent constitution damage, and tripped in terror.

If the fighter hadn't caught me and dragged me back onto my feet, that red nothingness would have swallowed me whole.

That was when I felt my heart beat faster, and with a kind of childish wonder, I realized that I was afraid.

Running at full speed, we flew down the final flight of stairs and ran outside the manor as if the Devil himself was chasing us. And for all we knew, he was.

The manor doors swung shut, and we were trapped outside on the infinite stony frontier. After a few minutes passed, we attempted to break our way back in. Our lockpicks snapped, and our strength faltered. The doors held shut.

We circled the gigantic manor, searching for anything that could help us get back inside. The few windows that lined the house were too far up, and their were no footholds or jutting pieces I could use to climb back inside.

Besides, after what had just happened, I didn't want to crawl back inside by myself anyway.

The ranger did not speak to either of us. He seemed unusually morose, probably as a result of the incident involving the feral child. If only we had known what was really happening.

With our options narrowing by the minute, we decided to make for the largest cliff in the distance, perhaps an hours walk. It would provide us a place to shelter, and perhaps we could figure out some way to make sense of all this madness.

We had not forgotten our two party members either, and that poor girl was still trapped somewhere within too. But what were a trio of non-magic users to do? The place was sealed up tight.

With what little gear we still had slung over our backs, we hiked off towards the cliff in the distance.

How pathetic we must have looked, a shifty eyed rogue leading a crestfallen fighter and a depressed bowman down a path leading to nowhere.

We finally made it to the cliff, and our journey made several things apparent to us.

Firstly, the sky was not the sky we had known before. The usual light-blue had been replaced with gray, and what few clouds traced across its surface were of a dull-gold coloration, and were shaped like human faces. Not one cloud had rained, and I considered that something of a blessing.The sun was a deep shade of blue, but still gave off ordinary light. This strange place was not anywhere in our kingdom, we knew that much.

We reached the cliff, and hiked up about fifteen feet or so to a nice outcrop that was sheltered by a jagged flat rock that extended above us and protected us from the sun.

We set up our camping gear, and waited. Nobody wanted to talk anymore, and the sun began to drop, so we decided to try and get as comfortable as possible and go to sleep. Perhaps something would change the next day.

We set up a night watch, with the fighter going first, then me, and then the ranger. That way, nothing could sneak up on us. It seemed like good logic at the time.

The fighter completed his watch after a few hours, and I was awakened to take his place. After an uneventful four hours, I awakened the ranger, and went to sleep.

My dreams were dark and macabre, but difficult to recall. All I could remember was dancing with otherworldly spectres and demons. At the end of the dance, I ended up with the cleric as my partner, and the two of us danced in a swirling void. The wizard watched all the while, waving a half-empty bottle of wine in one hand, and a roaring torch in the other.

I awoke in the middle of the night, my hair damp with sweat. I shifted onto my knees and started to rise, but a harsh whisper told me to drop back down. The fighter was facing me, a dagger in his hands. His sword was still sheathed, and leaned up against the cliff wall a few feet away. I couldn't possibly understand what was wrong. Then, I heard the sounds.

Have you ever heard the sound of wind rushing through a cave? It's a haunting, insane tune that seems to surround you on all sides, seems to get inside your head and bounce around your brain and drive you mad.

We heard something much like that sound, punctuated by odd crunching and tearing sounds. The fighter weakly gestured to his right, and I slowly turned my head to see what was making those ungodly noises.

The ranger stood, framed against the soft moonlight, his arms twisted at painful angles, his head twisting and snapping back and forth as his entire body was racked by terrible spasms.

I looked back to the fighter, who gave me a brave smile without much strength behind it. He pointed at me, and then pointed to the rangers side, and made a jabbing motion with the knife.. He performed several similar hand motions as he silently directed me towards our plan of action.

He would create a diversion of some kind, and I would sneak behind the ranger. The two of us could take him if he proved to be possessed.

With a grim nod, I acknowledged his plan. The two of us tensed up, and then we put our plan into action.

The fighter stood up abruptly, and lunged for the ranger, attempting to put him in a choke hold. As he did so, I snuck up to the rangers side in case things got nasty.

As the fighter grappled with the agile ranger, the armored man suddenly gave a shout of surprise. The ranger was looking at him face to face, despite the fact that the fighter was holding his arms together behind his back. The rangers neck had twisted around much like an owls, and his once green eyes were empty and cold. His mouth was drawn back into a pained smile, like that of a man accepting his own demise.

The rangers bent arms began to elongate unnaturally, and soon the fighter found himself struggling to keep the slippery monster together. Abandoning any pretense of saving the poor man, the fighter drew his knife and began hacking at the long-armed abomination.

I awakened from my stupor, and joined the fray, getting a sneak attack in on the monster that was once our party member. It did little good, for the creature did not bleed when we cut it.

The head swiveled around to meet my gaze, and its once-human mouth dropped to release a monstrous shriek that echoed throughout the cliffs.

The jarring shriek echoed, and was then answered by a seemingly identical shriek. Suddenly, wild shrieks and hellish calls seemed to surround us, and in my peripheal vision I could see more twisty-armed humanoids sprinting towards us at top speed.

"RUN!" The fighter cried, and grabbing his sword in one hand and a bag of gear in the other, he descended down the cliff wall like a surfer.

I was in quick pursuit, and just as I jumped to reach him, a spindly hand grabbed my wrist with surprising force, and began to crush my bones.

I turned and began stabbing blindly at the ranger-thing, my blurry vision giving me brief glimpses of red wounds and a grinning face. After the fifth stab, I managed to break free, and without a moments hesitation I followed after the fighter.

I managed to catch up with the fighter, and we ran as fast as we possibly could.

Behind us, the wicked screams of those twisted creatures followed us, the slapping sound of bare feet beating against chipped stone filled the night.

A pale arm twisted around itself like a corkscrew reached out for the fighter, who deftly drew his blade and cut at it while still running. His efforts were rewarded with tittering laughter, followed by more screams.

We ran and ran, the shaky moonlight lighting our path. At one point, I could swear that I felt hot breath on the back of my neck, but I did not turn to look. I would not make that mistake twice.

After two more minutes of running, the fighter suddenly stopped. I stopped too, not knowing why.

"Why are we stopping?!" I shouted.

The fighter put a finger to his lips, and then looked behind him. I did the same.

The way behind us was empty. No horrible monsters, no echoing cries. It was as if the hellish pack that had been at our heels not seconds before had vanished into thin air.

Not one to waste an opportunity, I continued my run to the house, but this time I went at a more forgiving pace. The fighter asked if we should return, but I didn't bother to respond. There was no way either of us were going back out there ever again.

I could picture myself slumbering with my back against a rock, and awaking in the dead of night with hands holding me down and ghastly faces peering at me with those vacant smiles.

We reached the manor unmolested, and collapsed. The fighter volunteered to take first watch, and I did nothing to dissuade him. The rest of the night went by peacefully, but sleep was difficult.

In my line of work, I have fought savage men, and stolen from crime lords. I have set off magical traps and dealt with mythical creatures of various kinds, but those screaming things were worlds apart from anything else I had ever encountered.

I prayed I would never face them again.

By the time I was ready to wake the fighter up for his shift, the moon had dropped out of view and been replaced by the bizarre blue sun.

The fighter got up slowly, and we ate what little raw food we had been able to save from the gear bag. We decided that we could always raid the kitchen if the food situation got dire, but that would require us to reenter the manor.

When we felt ready, we stood back up and walked around the manor again. As we approached the front door, we smiled despite ourselves.

The front doors were wide open, and the candles inside the house were lit. Something was expecting us to return.

We debated the pros and cons for a short while. The fighter argued that we could return to the cliffs, but I brought up the point that we wouldn't know if those creatures would be asleep during the day. They could be lying in wait for us as we spoke.

Sure, there was that red entity within the manor, and the feral child had been there too, but it felt wrong to abandon our friends. And besides, whatever had opened those doors clearly wanted us back inside. How could we refuse?

We entered the manor, and surveyed the state of things. The kitchen door had disappeared. In the place where it had once been, only firm wooden walls existed. The lounge door was closed shut, but we had no intention of going into that empty room again.

The second floor staircase was still open, but something else had caught our eye. Behind the staircase was another door that led to a small closet-sized room. A stone stairway descended into the darkness, probably leading into the basement.

And suddenly, my dream made sense. The wizard with his bottle of wine and his torch, it had to be a message! The basement would be our next stop, after we searched the rest of the house.

The doors on the second floor were all shut and locked tight, and the fighter refused to ascend to the third floor for obvious reasons. He rubbed his shoulder as we went back to the main room.

So far, so good. No nightmare monsters, not red colors. We grabbed a few candles and descended down a set of stone stairs, careful to keep our blades at the ready.

The basement was not a basement at all, it was a wine cellar.

Perhaps "cellar" is underselling the location. It was like a wine museum.

Long and winding hallways stretched in every direction, hundreds upon thousands of wine bottles protruded from the walls, their reflective surfaces distorting our faces into funny shapes as we walked by.

We chose our passages at random, and although we had to backtrack and start again many times, we were making progress into the heart of the expansive cellar. The wine seemed to crowd us on all sides, and I would have swiped a few bottles if I hadn't been scared witless.

The rangers absence was sorely missed as we tried again and again to find our sense of direction. Things seemed hopeless until I made a discovery.

A scrap of white-gold cloth lay crumpled up in a dusty corner of the cellar. I picked it up and examined it as best I could. There was no doubt, it belonged to the cleric.

We followed the passage way, occasionally finding another scrap of white-gold cloth, or a few drops of blood. We hurried along, our candles flickering as we rushed through the dim corridors.

At the end of one final passageway stood a heavy wooden door. The lock had been broken already, and it was slightly ajar.

With dagger in hand, and the bulk of the fighter behind me, I pushed the door open and prepared for the worst.

The wizard was crumpled up in the corner, his spell tome shredded to bits and his dagger bent into an "L" shape. He seemed unconscious.

In the middle of the room sat the cleric, who stayed so still I thought she had perished, but upon our entering she struggled to raise her head.

"You finally made it." She croaked, and suddenly gave way into an explosive fit of coughing. She clutched a corroded mace in one hand, and the holy talisman of her god in the other. Her white-gold garb was soaked with blood.

"What happened here?" The fighter asked, swinging his candle about and examining the scorch marks along the walls.

The cleric sighed, her breath coming in raggedly. "That red demon came in here... And nearly killed us. I managed to scare it off, I think. Don't be fooled. It will be back soon, and it will do everything in its power to kill us."

"What about the girl?" I asked, double checking the room.

"She's gone. Up and ran the second we felt that chill. But we did find this." The cleric lifted up a leather-bound book, quite unlike the many copies we found in the lounge. "It belonged to the man who owned this accursed manor. It's mostly ramblings and strange languages, but it mentions how to return to our world, how to be free of this terrible place. The girl, we need the girl most of all."

Horrible noises and the sound of a ticking clock began to fill the room.

The clerics eyes widened, and she threw the book to me. "Leave us! Only the two of you can get out of here now. Go!"

The fighter went to pick her up, but she swatted at him with her mace weakly. Behind her, the wizard began to spasm, and he opened his eyes for the first time. They were red.

The cleric coughed, and held up her holy symbol. "I can hold it back, I know it. Go now, before it kills you too!"

I turned to run, and the fighter grudgingly followed. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a red shape escape the wizards mouth and move towards the cleric. Her holy symbol turned to dust.

Our flight through the saturated cellar was uninterrupted for a brief period. For a while there, I thought we were going to get away easily. And then, the Despair Song played again, and a familiar voice whispered from behind us: "Let's play hide and seek again."

Our candles went out.

We flew down those cobblestone halls with reckless abandon, the unidentifiable shape close behind.

I saw something winking from the corner of my eye, and instead of turning around fully, I glanced at the many wine bottles that lined the walls. A red streak was traveling over the green bottles, and it was growing closer.

Pushing our abused bodies to the very limit, we continued sprinting around corridors and down hallways. I was in the lead, and my quick mind helped me to ignore a few dead ends we had explored before.

If we went off course even slightly, that would be the end for us. We would be stuck between a rock and an endless cloud of red.

By some miracle, we managed to reach the basement door, and with a mighty effort we bashed the door back open and sprinted back out into the main room. The main doors leading to the stony expanse were shut, and the lounge door was still closed.

We paused to catch our breath, and I looked back at the basement door, which swung open of its own accord. Red began to spill out from the door, and I felt my heart grow weaker as the fighter grabbed me by the hand and pulled me up the stairs.

I glanced at the thing again by accident, and my vision became stretched and wavy. The fighter slung me over his shoulder and barreled his way up the stairs with our enemy right behind us.

When it was clear that the red thing would not stop, he ran up the second flight of steps to the third floor, wincing as he did so.

The four doors were swinging open and close uncontrollably, as if egging the red thing on. The fighter ducked into the nearest room (the one opposite the childs room) and after dropping me on the bed, slammed the door shut.

Silence.

The other doors had stopped swinging, and the entire manor was still. A powerful red light began to shine from the other side of the door, like a roaming torch. The red light spilled underneath our doorway and through the cracks in the door itself, but the entity did not see us. After an unbearable couple minutes, the red light disappeared and the entity departed.

Despite our joy, we didn't dare to make a sound and attract more unwanted visitors. We were on the unexplored third floor of the house, and by all means, we should have died back there in that basement.

The thought dragged us back to reality, and we remembered the poor wizard, and the noble cleric who had been murdered by that wretched monster. If we ever got the chance, we were going to get even with that red bastard.

The only clue we had to help us get out of this accursed land was the rugged journal that the fighter clutched in his hand. This bedroom seemed empty, so it was a decent time to read.

It was as good a place as any to start.

The cleric was right, this book was mostly illegible.

Many of the pages were burned, or torn out. Lines were covered in blots of ink, and all of the pages after the thirtieth consisted of nonsense phrases and fearful scrawlings.

The innermost page of the journal stated that it belonged to "Lord Rydell of the Tian Manor." Well, at least we knew where we were. This place had been so long abandoned that most people just referred to it as "the old manor."

Lord Rydell was a poor soul indeed. The early pages described him purchasing the manor from an eastern man, and described how much his family enjoyed the new home.

He wrote of his loving wife, his firstborn son, his eldest daughter, and his newborn baby girl. (The fighter's eye twitched at this passage)

It became clear to us that the baby girl became the feral creature, and that the eldest daughter he describes must be the girl we found tied to the ceiling. The son is mentioned to have gone on an adventure to some faraway kingdom, and his wife sadly died a week before they moved into the house.

Lord Rydell's writing began to devolve by the twelfth page, as he mentions how much he "failed" his family. (The exact reasons are not mentioned, even in this private journal)

Rydell's spirits are lifted when his son returns from a successful adventure with much loot, including tiny figurines and a holy symbol from a northern temple.

The writing begins to devolve again as he describes a number of frightening things happening in the night, ending in the murder of his son.

A terrible earthquake strikes the house soon after, and the entire sky seems to change. The hapless Lord finds himself trapped in another world, and his servants flee the house into the great beyond, and do not return.

Lord Rydell tries to keep his daughters close, but he suspects that a sinister entity is forcefully entering his mind. To protect his daughters, he decides to take his own life.

The rest of the journal is illegible.

"The holy symbol from the north." The fighter whispers.

"Must be." I reply in a similar tone.

"It must have been a demonic artifact of some kind, or perhaps a wizard cursed it. Whatever the case, we have to destroy it."

"How?" I asked in desperation. "We don't know where it is, we don't know if we even can destroy it. Not to mention that red thing... I looked at it for a second, and I felt my heart grow weaker. If we slip up at any time, we will both die."

"And what's the alternative? We just lie down and die anyway? We leave Rydell's daughter to die to that thing? We are adventurers, but more than that, we were given a job to do, and I'll be damned before I give up."

The fighter stood up, and tucked Rydell's journal into his pocket. He picked up his sword and dagger, and looked me in the eyes.

"Are you coming with me, or are you just going to sit there and cry about how unfair life is?" He asked evenly.

I stood up and flashed a weak smile. "After this is all over, I'm never leaving home again."

The fighter smiled too. "After this is all over, I'm never leaving church. I think I'm going to give the way of the light a second chance. Who knows, maybe I'd make a half-decent paladin."

Walking up to the cracked door, we prepared ourselves for the dangerous that lurked outside.

"Ready?" He asked.

I winked, and opened the door.

The third floor was seemingly abandoned. All the doors were opened, save the one that contained the corpse of Lord Rydell's youngest daughter.

We still had two rooms to check. Perhaps the northern symbol was nearby. It certainly beat going back downstairs.

We snuck across the floor as silently as we could, my large companion making quite a bit more racket than I preferred, but to split up now would be folly.

We entered the third room, and looked about. The room was large, and full of beds and cots that lined up against the walls and made maneuvering through the room difficult for the fighter.

This must have been the servants quarters, I realized. Not much of it was left now. The drawers and bags left behind were all empty, but in the corner of the room, we spied something.

A heavy wooden chest sat alone, a large iron lock keeping the contents of the box safe. I pulled a lockpick out of my pocket. Mostly safe, anyway.

The fighter clearly saw what my intention was, and he turned around to guard my back, his steel sword glistening in the dim light.

I began to pick the lock, smiling a bit as I did so. This lock was more of a formality than an obstacle. It would be seconds before I was inside.

"Pssst. Something's coming." The fighter whispered.

I craned my neck to get a look at whatever was coming this way. Some odd physical shape was lurching towards us, it was still relatively far away, however. I decided to risk it, and continued breaking into the chest.

The fighter kept on his toes, sword wavering a bit. A bead of sweat was dripping down his face.

Finally, I managed to pop the lock off. I opened up the chest, and discovered a small necklace made of polished silver and studded with a blue stone of some kind. I lifted up the amulet in confusion.

"Here it comes!" The fighter called out, and the shape stretched outwards and struck at the fighter with some sort of weapon.

I lit another candle, and held it up to illuminate the odd monster.

The creature was more man than beast.

It had a droopy human face, and simple brown eyes that rolled in its skull. It's legs had been fused together and elongated, with several long strips of skin wrapped around them. It's arms were lanky and scarred, and the weapon it held in its hand was a jewel-encrusted sword. The creature turned its head to face us, and I could see a hole in its jaw. The creature had the general semblance of a slug, or some other repulsive alien being.

It all made sense. Lord Rydell's suicide attempt hadn't been as successful as he had hoped. This thing that dragged itself towards them had to be the old nobleman, it was the only answer.

"Lord Rydell!" I shouted. "Lord Rydell, please! We are here to help! We can put this place to rest!"

Rydell wept slimy tears and swung his blade again at a funny angle, nearly catching the fighter off guard. Rydell spun to face me, and spat a stream of red-green liquid from his gullet. The liquid burned a hole in the place where I had been standing just minutes before.

Dagger in hand, I rushed the corrupted Lord, and together with the fighter I managed to beat the monster back.

For now, we were no longer the hunted. Now, we were hunters.

Working in tandem, the two of us sliced and cut at Rydell, penetrating his defenses and dealing several grievous wounds to his new body. Rydell fought doggedly, dealing many nasty cuts of his own, and nearly vaporizing the fighters head with a chunk of acidic vomit, but in the end we proved victorious.

The fighter drew back his steel blade, and severed Rydells head. This time, the old lord died for good.

The fighter picked upped his jewel-studded blade, and motioned for us to enter the fourth room. As we went, we spoke to one another. Whispering was pointless now, anything with ears would have heard that brutal melee taking place.

"Did you find it?" He asked.

"The northern symbol?" I replied. "No, it wasn't there. All I found was this amulet. Do you think it's magical?"

"Hell if I know. Without the wizard and the cleric, we have no way of knowing anything about that amulet at all. If you want to be smart, don't put it on unless we get into a desperate situation. I don't want you turning all twisty like the ranger."

I nodded, and we entered the fourth room without ceremony. This room was almost entirely empty, save for the giant wooden chest sitting in the middle of the room. This chest was more than three times the size of the previous chest, and its lock was much larger and much more complex too.

Behind the chest was another window, and both the fighter and I avoided looking at it whatsoever. We were more than wary of reflective surfaces now.

The fighter motioned to the chest. "Ready to unlock this thing?" He asked.

I laughed. "I would be, if I had any bloody lockpicks left. The one I used on that last chest was my final one, and its no good anymore."

The fighter considered my statement. "Very well, then we will lockpick the old fashioned way." Using the jeweled sword we took from Rydell, he began hilt-bashing the lock over and over again. At one point, the chest began to shake on its own, and then became still.

We shared an uneasy look, but we continued our assault on the huge iron lock. After a sufficient number of bashes, the lock finally snapped. I helped pry away the chains with my dagger, and we opened the chest.

Inside was the woman we had found yesterday, the eldest daughter of Lord Rydell. She was tied up with rope again, and a gag bound her mouth.

The fighter pulled the gag out of her mouth as I severed the chords. The second she was able to speak, she screamed: "Look out!"

It was then we heard the tick-tock sound of our least favorite song.

Without hesitation, the fighter dropped his jewel-sword and picked up the woman. He looked to me, and we both began running.

The window behind us began to morph and shift, and we knew that the red thing was on our tails again.

There was no "hide and seek" this time, no "look behind you." This creature had grown weary of us, and now it was going to kill us outright.

As we ran, my panicked mind formulated a plan. I ran ahead, and jumped down the flight of stairs to the second floor. The fighter ran by me, the woman in his arms. I ripped the amulet from my pocket, and wrapped it around his neck.

"What are you doing?" He cried out as I ran down the stairs to the first floor instead of running down the hallway.

"Farewell!" I shouted, my voice choking with emotion, and ran down the stairs to the main doors that were still locked shut. I could only hope he understood what I wanted him to do.

The fighter hesitated for a half second, and then sprinted down the hallway, and entered a room. I recognized it as one of the rooms that had a window. So he did understand!

Unfortunately, my time in this world was over. The red ignored my friend, and instead pooled down the stairs to deal with me. I stared into it, unblinkingly. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Why not die fighting, instead of sitting around and crying?

I brandished my dagger, and took a few unsteady steps towards the rapidly advancing pool of red.

I felt my heart constrict, felt my mind go dumb, felt my limbs grow weak and my blood flow slower and slower as I limped towards my oppressor.

I dropped the knife, but it didn't matter. The red swallowed me whole, and let my friend get away.

As I was eaten alive my billions of tiny voracious mouths, I felt happy. It was fine, this way.

It was

it was dark

I looked all around me, and could not discern my surroundings. Only...

If I focused, I could begin to erase the darkness. It would squirm away, and I could see what was really there.

Where was I?

A table. A bed. A nightstand with a toy doll sitting precariously on the edge.

I looked down at my hands, and nearly gasped. They were translucent, a strange icy-blue shade. It was then that I heard a voice.

"Hmph, what? Did you think you could just sneak by us without saying goodbye?"

I spun around, and saw the face of the cleric. She too was intangible, and slightly blue.

"You see now, don't you? We died, and we cannot pass on, for the Red One still resides here, and so long as he draws power, we will never know release."

The cleric smiled. "But it's not all bad. I've met some new friends." She turned and gestured behind her.

I saw a small family. A tall woman with a bitter look on her face, but a pair of eyes that still twinkled even in death. I saw a young man no older than twenty, sitting with his back against the wall. A young girl no older than six was tugging his leg and saying something to him.

An old man sat on a stool, and when we made eye contact, he looked away.

"Lord... Rydell?" I asked tentatively.

The old man met my gaze, and sighed. "More or less. Welcome to my wonderful home." He raised his arms and gestured to the small room they were trapped in.

I looked to the cleric. "What do we do?"

The cleric laughed. "What do we do? Nothing, we can't do anything. We are ghosts, and not particularly powerful ones either. I suppose... All we can do is wait for the end of the world."

I turned to the young man, who stared absent-mindedly at the ceiling.

"You, you brought back this thing. This red demon. What is it? What does it want? Why is this happening to us?"

The young man groaned, a deep ghostly OOOoooooh sound that emanated from the depth of his soul. He laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh.

"The Red One is not a demon, it is something far worse. The Red One is a mere facet of the entire set, a piece of something infinitely bigger and infinitely crueler. The Red God, the wretched thing that exists in the nightmares of wicked men, it seeks a portal into the physical world.

If it were to ever escape this manor, it would be able to feast upon the terror of mankind, and then it would create a portal large enough for it to fit its entire disgusting bulk through

Once that happens, it's over. Ghosts, men, dragons, deities, it doesn't matter. He'll devour them all, because that's all he knows. We are doomed."

I sat down, or at least tried to. This new ghost body was another headache I did not need to deal with today.

"So you're telling me... That we can't do anything."

The man nodded. "Unless someone found my old amulet, and somehow had my little sister with them, there will be no end to this torment."

I smiled. And then my smile turned into a grin. And then I began to laugh, laugh so hard I thought I might become sick and die again.

Lord Rydell looked up at me slowly, understanding dawning in his eyes.

"There's still a chance." He said softly.

The young man dropped his uncaring look.

We ghosts all looked at one another, daring to believe.

There was still a chance.

The fighter, gods bless his stalwart soul, soldiered on. Through the infinite rocky landscape he trudged, the tired girl asleep on his back.

He had felt terrible all day. All of his allies, including that brave rogue, had all died. Now there was only him, this girl, and a stupid amulet.

The fighter had almost cried out when the rogue had wrapped the amulet around his neck. Cursed items could be very dangerous indeed, for he knew, this amulet might strangle the one who wears it.

But an hour had passed, and there had been no strangulation, no evil curse.

He sat down, and placed the girl down too. There was no way in hell he was going near those haunted cliffs, the memory of the screaming things was still burned into his minds eye.

He couldn't very well go back to the manor either. It was a no-win situation, he should have seen that from the start. No matter where he went, he was sure to die eventually.

The girl began to stir. She had been asleep ever since they had escaped the manor. Being abused so much in one day had clearly drained her of all energy, and the fighter was fine not talking.

There wasn't much to talk about, anyway. What could he possibly say? "Hi, so I really like the way your brother doomed your entire family. Oh, who am I? I'm the guy who murdered your little sister. And your dad. Hey, want to talk about swords?"

The fighter dragged a hand through his hair and sighed. It was pointless.

The girl slowly awoke, and started breathing quickly. It took her a few moments to realize that she was safe and out of the manor. When she finally did, the fighter fingered his amulet nervously.

"So, did you sleep well?" He asked.

"You again..." She said.

The fighter smiled. "So you can talk. Last time I was worried you might have lost your mind."

The woman grew distant, her eyes staring off into the infinite horizon.

"Nonono!" The fighter said quickly. "No, your fine now, don't worry, you're... Are you laughing?"

The girl dropped the act and laughed. The fighter felt more than a bit embarrassed.

"Sorry," she said, "I just wanted to see the look on your face. Let me make it up to you. My name is Cynia. Who are you?"

The fighter smiled. "I'm Robert. It's good to meet you Cynia." He touched the amulet again.

She looked at his hand, and then looked at the amulet. Her eyes widened.

"Where did you get that!?" She exclaimed.

"Wait, no, we didn't mean to steal it, we just-"

"No, I don't care about that. I mean, that amulet, do you know what it does?

Robert shook his head. "I don't know much about magic and stuff."

Cynia's face lit up. "That was my brothers seeking amulet. It can find any one thing you want, once a week. If we use that amulet-"

"We can find the northern symbol!"

"And then we can destroy it!"

Robert stood up suddenly and picked up Cynia, and spun around with joy.

"We can do it, they didn't die for nothing! I won't die for nothing! We can do it!" He cried out.

Cynia gave a tinkling laugh, but then she tapped Robert's shoulder.

"Please put me down. We have work to do."

Robert and Cynia discussed their plan, and everything was set.

Cynia's brother had tried to destroy the northern symbol, but had found to his dismay that the artifact could occasionally short-range teleport when it felt threatened, and his amulet of seeking had been stolen (presumably by one of the staff) some time before the incidents began.

The servant found to his chagrin that the amulet can only be operated by those who receive it fairly, or those who are blood related to the original owner (if the owner were to die without passing the item on first)

Cynia held up the blue-stone amulet, and closed her eyes. She swayed back and forth, and finally pointed at the manor.

"Second floor, bedroom. It's beneath the bed where... Where... It's beneath the bed. We didn't have time to get to it because The Red One swept into the room after you left. We were forced to flee, and you guys somehow missed us stampeding into the basement. It's a good thing the Red One got preoccupied with you shortly afterwards, otherwise we might have died days ago.

She put the amulet back around her neck.

Robert drew his sword and walked up to the manor doors. "This isn't going to be easy." He cautioned.

Cynia smiled, and put her hands on the doors. "I wouldn't have it any other way, you know." Her hands glowed with a soft light, and the doors began to swing open by her command.

She smiled at Robert's puzzled face. "The Rydell family dabbles in magic." She explained.

The unlikely pair entered the manor for the last time. They ran up the staircase with not resistance. They walked over to the bedroom where Cynia had been tied up a day ago.

Robert reached out his hand, and opened the door.

The room was empty, as they had hoped. The bedsheets were still bloody.

Robert and Cynia walked briskly over to the bed, and prepared themselves. Cynia reached under the bed and produced the northern symbol, and Robert readied his steel blade.

The symbol was a rough talisman made out of horsehide. The talisman had been painted red, and it was took the vague shape of a hand with six fingers. It was hard to believe that such a small item had caused so much trouble.

Regardless, it was time to put an end to it. Cynia placed the talisman on the bed, and Robert swung his sword at it.

Seconds before the sword and symbol collided, the symbol vanished. There was no poof of smoke, no magical explosion. Robert just blinked, and the thing was gone.

Cynia already had the amulet out, and she was about to close her eyes when Robert saw the blood patterns on the sheet begin to shift and wriggle like tons of sanguine worms.

"Go, now!" He shouted, and pushed Cynia towards the door.

The blood got up off of the bedsheets, and began chasing the two would-be heroes. The Despair Song continued to play on an endless loop, the screaming growing more shrill with each rotation.

As they ran, Robert clutched at his sword with a feverish grip.

This was it. This was the end.

Cynia was running with her eyes half-shut, Robert kept a steady arm at her back, helping her run with her impaired vision.

The amulet was shaking back and forth as they ran, possibilities everywhere. Where would the amulet end up? In the now nonexistant kitchen? In the wine cellar? That would be a damn shame, because Robert had instinctively led Cynia up to the third floor, and if the artifact wasn't there, they were going to be in for a world of hurt.

The whole world would hurt, now that Robert thought about it.

Cynia broke her concentration and pointed excitedly. "Above us!" She shrieked. "It's above us!"

How was that possible? They were on the third floor. Unless...

The northern symbol was on the rooftop of the old manor.

All of the third floor doors were shut, save for one. The room were they had discovered Cynia trapped in the chest still had a window, and although Robert was wearing heavy armor, perhaps Cynia could scale the walls. If she couldn't they would all die anyway, so it was worth a shot.

Robert directed Cynia towards the room, and she swiftly entered the room, and with Robert's help, the two of them picked up the heavy chest and shattered the window with it.

Just as they broke the window, the Red One entered the third floor. Robert slammed the door shut, and handed Cynia his blade.

She looked at him, mouth about to open in protest, but he silenced her.

"I can't climb up there in my heavy armor." He explained quickly. "You have to do it. Go now!"

Cynia flashed him a sad smile, and took the sword. She carefully stuck her barefeet on the windowsill, and slowly began scaling the exterior wall. Robert noted that she was more agile than he had assumed.

The red light spilled underneath the doorway again, but this time, the door began to creep open. Robert turned around, totally weaponless, and faced the Red One.

Well, "face" is a word with many connotations.

Robert was wise, and he covered his eyes with his hands, but still stood between the Red One and the window defiantly.

Sometimes, a fighter has to fight with what he has. And if he has nothing, then he has to fight with nothing.

The Red One stopped advancing, and seemed to almost see Robert for the first time. The terrible red beast became sentient, and it spoke to Robert in a crystal clear voice.

"Why do this? Why fight?" It asked.

Robert was shocked, but he didn't show it. "Why not?" He asked.

The Red One craned its red neck and peered into Roberts soul.

"You are not a good person. Why pretend?" It said.

Robert shrugged as best he could with two hands over his eyes. The Despair Song was pounding in his skull, making him weak, but he carried on.

"You know, we only came here to do a mission. Kill a few zombies, get a bit of gold for our trouble. I never wanted to play the part of the hero."

He smiled.

"None of us did. But this is where we ended up. Funny, isn't it? Because of a couple random adventurers, you're never going to be free from this place."

The Red One cackled in reverse. "Idiot. Do you think I don't know what's happening? Do you think I don't know what that fool Cynia is doing? I tried to keep her alive, tried to make her cooperate, but I am a meager being, just a piece of the greater whole. My father would not let me do things the way I wanted, but he is desperate now. We both are."

The Red One looked up.

"In a minute, your friend will strike at the artifact, and it will teleport again. Then, I will kill you, and she will be totally alone. She will have no choice but to help me go free.

And once I'm free, I can call my brothers, and my father. Together, I will destroy everything. No, I will ((())))((())))(((())))) everything."

The Red One would have smiled, if it had a mouth. "Funny, that particular concept does not exist in this realm."

He looked up again. "This is it."

I still remember the moment when the door swung open, when the Red One became too preoccupied with its own freedom to keep us properly locked in.

With my fellow ghosts at my side, we fled our prison, and flew into the house.

---

Cynia raised her sword, and struck at the talisman. As she swung the blade, she said a silent prayer, begging whatever decent god was out there that this time, it wouldn't teleport away.

The talisman vanished into thin air a half second before the sword would have made contact.

---

The Red One swam into Robert, and began the terrible process of ripping him apart internally.

---

If only the Red One had not given into its primal urges, its terrible desire to devour all that moves, perhaps it would have seen a pair of invisible hands clutching the talisman.

The unholy talisman floated right above Robert, who saw it with his right eye. He smiled.

---

The talisman went out the window, and back up to the roof. The ghost dropped it there, and Cynia pounced, not wondering where it came from, only taking the advantage as it appeared.

This time, there was no teleportation, and the talisman was neatly severed in two.

---

Now, the Red One knew what it feels like to be eaten alive, as the natural laws of this world took effect.

It had never known pain before this day, but today it learned. The Red One was expunged from reality, and was sent screaming back to the infinite red void from whence it was spawned. The Red God slumbered again.

---

Robert fell on his face. His right arm and legs were severely shriveled, and his body was wrecked in general, but he was alive. He was breathing. He was laughing.

It was over. It was over.

EPILOGUE:

I would like to say the world returned to normal, but the world was normal all along. The manor returned to the ordinary world, and whatever nightmare had possessed it before passed silently.

Robert stood, supported by Cynia, and before them the now-visible ghosts of Cynia's family and the unlucky adventurers appeared (myself included)

There were tearful goodbyes. We were too long for this world, and our departure had to be soon.

Lord Rydell's wife vanished first, an approving look on her face left with her.

Then Cynia's brother faded away with a big proud smile.

Then, the little girl, Cynia's younger sister, began to vanish. She looked up at Robert, and stuck out her tongue.

But before she totally disappeared, she ran up to Robert and Cynia and tried to give them a big hug. Is it possible for a ghost's heart to break?

Lord Rydell himself was one of the last to go. He shared some private words with his daughter, and the two of them laughed, the two of them cried. He looked over to Robert and myself, and he waved us goodbye. We waved too.

The cleric gave me a wink before she left. Hopefully she'll get to serve whatever god it was she worshiped.

I looked near and far, but the spirit of the wizard never appeared to me. I fear that something truly horrific happened to him. A shame, too. He was not so bad.

The ranger's ghost did not appear, because the ranger appeared in the flesh. He and about twenty other men and women returned, their clothing tattered and their arms scarred. The Twisted Things were Things no more. They went their separate ways, but a few tearful women could no bear to leave their poor Cynia for a second time, so they stayed close by.

Then, it was my turn to go. I felt myself drifting away, dreading the place a foul rogue like myself might end up.

But then again, I helped save the world, right? Surely that's worth something in the next world.

---

Robert and Cynia were married a month later. They had three children, one of whom is absolutely determined to become an adventurer. She keeps up pretty well with her hobbling father.

The Manor is no longer cursed, but people do not like going their still. Some memories don't fade away.

---

This was the story of one of my favorite DnD adventures. It has its flaws, it has spelling errors, I understand, but it was one of my favorite experiences yet, and really encapsulates what the entire medium is about for me.

Thanks for your time, and have a good life Anons.