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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:19:02 GMT -6
When the only thing that brushed against her was the chilling breeze, she chanced to look back up at the trees. Their bare arms were brown once more, moving stiffly and without a hint of serpentine grace as the breeze wound its way through them. With a glance of longing at the alien face the house resembled, she started to walk through the courtyard, at first trying to drag her feet over the ground to disturb the leaves as little as possible, then each step adding the crunch of leaves to the rustling wind after her bare toes found several roots.
There had been white in the mansion window, but that meant very little here. It might have been the glint of the unseen moon, or some scrap of cloth waving in the breeze. She had to check the courtyard first for any sign that the soft-skin dwelling had already spat out the custom. 5
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:19:27 GMT -6
That it made itself look somewhat inviting was all the more reason to check the courtyard first.
There was no glimmer of white to be found between the arms of the trees though, not from what she could see from the ground, and she was not so foolish as to dare climbing them after their strange behavior earlier. The white of the custom should have worked against it had it been hiding in one of the nooks she approached, or standing out as starkly from behind the branches as the moon itself did.
She realized that the area behind the trees, where other properties should have been visible behind the fence was nothing but pure darkness as she leaned back to peer into one of the further trees. She could not help but avoid staring too deeply into the darkness surrounding the plot after that, eyes straining only to see the branches and not what little lay behind them. 6
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:20:04 GMT -6
She stared at the ground a great deal more after that point, though she kicked away leaves and told herself she was looking for a white feather, or a scrap of pale fur. The leaves revealed no such thing as she searched, and more than once she looked up to find herself by a tree she had already searched the roots of, the leaves shifted back into their undisturbed state when her gaze was elsewhere.
Her decision to search the entire yard must have cost her a significant amount of time, but the moon never moved from where it squatted in the sky, more like some milky blind eye of some beast hidden in the darkness than the natural orb that hung in the sky. Such thoughts had her glance at the ground again, only to find a tree in her path. A tree that she had not searched, that had not been there only seconds before. 7
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:20:42 GMT -6
The mansion liked to play tricks.
She reminded herself of this as she froze, then slowly tilted her head upwards to look at the branches clawing at the sky. Her gaze stayed there, as if to challenge the moving tree, as if she was not afraid of the hellish place of cursed magic, as if she did not have one hand resting on the sheathed dagger. Then there was the sound of rustling leaves behind her, the chill running down her back as no accompanying breeze reached her.
“Ha.” It was a stupid thing, but she said it anyways, mimicking a human laugh. The mansion liked to scare those who trespassed onto its grounds during this month. But if she allowed it to do so, she might leave without the custom. Without it, there would be no pay, no earth-ripper. And so, with another false laugh, she turned to face what moved in the leaves with her. 8
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:21:07 GMT -6
Nothing was waiting for her. Not the white custom, small but with some hidden talents that the broker had been unable, or unwilling, to reveal. Not a pocket pet, nor siblings of the tiny Juggler she had hidden away in her kennel. The leaves looked perfectly uniform, an unbroken carpet of brown as if she had not been trudging through them for nearly an hour in her search for the custom. The air itself was still, as if the beast with the blind eye was holding its breath, waiting for some unseen signal to pounce and rip out her heart as a gift to the soft-skin house.
That image got a genuine chuckle from her, the laughter growing wilder before she cut it off with a snap of her jaws, biting down on it as though to break its neck. The breeze returned, the branches swaying gently in it, and Haix began to crunch her way to the house. 9
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:22:00 GMT -6
She had been to the back of the soft-skin house before. She knew of the infinite field of stones, some with dates and plates of metal, others smooth as a worn tooth. If the custom had hidden there, she might never find it, the darkness there practically a solid thing.
But, then again, she had been in the house before.
That memory gave her pause. The house could shift, doors vanishing the moment one looked away, or those walked through found to be opening to rooms that she had never seen before. If the custom was still in the house, she might never find it. The house itself could twist and hide the creature away from her, perhaps even freeing it the moment she stepped inside. Then the broker and his so-called friend would catch the little crafted beast, and there would be no reshaping of the earth.
Then again, there would not be any if she never entered. 10
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:22:38 GMT -6
Leaving the sea of brittle leaves, a new sound replaced that of her crunching footsteps. The wooden steps groaned under her weight as if she was a thundergug, one stair snapping under her weight. The edges of the rotted wood scraped her leg like the jaws of some small beast looking to snap it off, but she caught herself on the railing before it plunged past her knee.
The railing groaned but held, and she drew out her leg as quickly as she dared. The jagged edges of the step caught on her scales, then gave way as if they had been meant as nothing more than a casual trick. She did not laugh this time, not even when her foot was placed on an unbroken step and seen to be whole. Was the house in league with the custom, trying to drive her away? Or perhaps the custom would be just one more joke it played, a phantom that she could never catch. 11
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:23:37 GMT -6
Better not to think of such things. The door looked different than she remembered. It was just not the holes that pocketed it as if a hoard of hungry wood worms had decided to make a meal of it, nor was it the rusted metal face of a bird that hung at her eye level. It looked wrong somehow, as if it was too large for its frame, bulging towards her as if some living thing rested the other side. Reasoning it could be the custom, ignoring that the broker had specifically stated the thing to be roughly the size of a large enileaf, she yanked on the door handle, planning to surprise whatever rested on it.
The door handle twisted and moved easily. The door did not.
Haix staggered back a few feet, catching herself as her heels dangled over the empty space of the stairs. A quick glance down at her hand revealed the piece of rusted metal in her hand, and she stared at it. The door remained unmoving, still bulging as if the custom was holding it shut. 12
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:24:22 GMT -6
She walked back up to the door, looking between the little hole that had held the doorknob seconds ago and now was filled with shadows, and the rusty metal in her hands. Jabbing the little protruding spear of metal into the hole managed to plug it, but the knob did not catch as she twisted it in the hole. Nor did stabbing it into one of the worm-made holes make the custom on the other side so much as tweet, though the door groaned as she slammed it in yet another hole.
Annoyed rather than scared, but unwilling to try beating the door down with it’s own knob, she set it down on the ground in front of it. The worm holes were angled, looking wide enough for her claws to catch and force it open. But the stairs had been a warning of just such a thing, she reasoned, and she would find it difficult to carry the custom back with her finger tips gnawed off. 13
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:25:06 GMT -6
She went down the sides of the raised porch, carefully testing each groaning slat of wood as if it were the squishy surface of a water meadow before committing to a step. The windows there were broken glass, sharp edges somehow glittering in the shadows of the porch. Another warning then, but she tried to peer into them to see if she could see a glint of white, or of whatever was holding the door so firmly shut. The darkness beyond each window was total, and she drew her dagger in frustration.
It glowed softly with its own orange light, and she could feel the heat radiating off of it as she slammed it butt first into the a;ready broken glass of the window. Naturally, the glass would already be weakened by its previous breaks, the spiderwebs of cracks against its surface perfect points for it to snap and fall apart. And, as it was the hell dwelling, it did the opposite of that and sent stinging pain up her arm as if she had slammed the dagger into steel. 14
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:25:38 GMT -6
After a few more tries to break the windows, her arm smarting, she returned to the door and the odd face of metal that hung on the front of it. The knob was back in place, looking just as rusted and worn as before, and she ignored it to call out a challenge to the custom, or whatever creature it was crouching behind the door. When the door refused to open despite screeching at it, Haix flopped into a crouch to give angry glares a try.
The warnings for this month included descriptions of the inside of the mansion, so in theory there had to be a way to get inside of it. The windows were spears of jagged glass, and even had she been able to worm her way past them, she would be lubricating them with her own blood.
With a groan mimicking that of the wood, she stood up again to stare down the door, eyes flicking back to the small metal face. 15
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:26:09 GMT -6
It looked like a bird head with a long beak hanging from some manner of chain, its shadowed eyes winking at her with the flickering light of her dagger. Prodding it with the dagger did nothing but reveal it to be in slightly better repair than the doorknob, whatever metal it was made from oddly untarnished. She sheathed the dagger without taking her eyes from it, wondering if maybe this was the fate of the custom she had been sent to find. The mansion might have tolerated the beasts it created, but perhaps it had no such generosity when it came to intruding species.
To be careful, she spoke to the metal bird head, a polite request for the door to open as to not antagonize the mansion further. When nothing happened, she gingerly reached out for the beak,wrapping her fingers around the chilled metal as another breeze brushed by. 16
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:26:40 GMT -6
It moved easily enough at first, the beak separating from the door and moving along some hinge in the chain. Then it stopped,and no amount of wiggling and pulling could convince it to come free of the door. Neither did the door seem inclined to move with it, and she released it in annoyance to clang against the worm-eaten wood of the door. The impact was loud, echoing across the yard as Haix stepped back in alarm. She did not dare look away from the door, expecting some beast to materialize from it now that she touched the cursed bird head.
So it was that she had a clear view of the door swinging open in complete silence, its bloated shape not even scraping against the door frame. There was no sign of the custom, no hint of anything inside moving that might have held the door shut, and Haix waited on the threshold with her breath held as she tried to hear anything at all inside the shadow of the house. 17
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:27:11 GMT -6
When no ghost-pale custom materialized, no tiny mockery of a hatchling skeleton shoved its head out to glare at her with glowing eyes, she released the breath. She forced herself to breath normally as she approached the shadow of the door, drawing her dagger in hopes of pushing back the shadows. The small nimbus of light it provided was enough for her to see the moth-eaten tongue of a carpet that trailed off into the darkness as she stood at the doorway. Realizing she was giving whatever lurked inside the house a perfect chance to see her, knowing it would not make a difference even if it was as bright as day inside, she stepped in and pulled the door shut behind her.
It slid shut with a whine, as if the mansion was annoyed that she stole away it's fun of slamming it on her tail, she walked along the carpet with the light of her dagger to guide her. 18
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Post by Alma on Oct 7, 2020 19:27:54 GMT -6
There was no glance back at the door. To do so would show the soft-skin house weakness she could not afford, and the odds of the door even being there had she propped it open were slimmer than a skeleton’s spine. Neither could she have hoped to see it, what little light that came streaming through the windows doing nothing more than showing square holes of slightly lighter darkness hovering in the distance.
She followed the carpet for what felt like miles, what might have been miles as the darkness swallowed up even the hint of windows. When there was a gap in the carpeting, a gaping hole of wood with a pool of darkness so deep her dagger could do nothing to dispel it,she followed the edge of the hole until she found the faded red carpet once more. Without any sign of the custom, without a hint of what lay in the shadows, she might have gone in a full circle and been heading back to the entrance once more. 19
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