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Nyctohylophobia (Perma-death Quest)

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I find it amusing that the person you guys voted for twice was the only success in the rolls. Good on you all for uping that Social Link! I look forward to eventually writing down this:

 
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Chapter 5: The Abandoned House
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    • [X] Tell them you and Sierra came across a bear trap during your hike; there's probably still some active traps in the woods and we would be better off finding the house in the morning, when we have better chances of spotting them.
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    Dice Roll said:
    Eli = 45 (FAILURE)
    Danielle = 5 (FAILURE)
    Sierra = 35 (SUCCESS)
    Lucas = 53 (FAILURE)
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    "I don't think that is a good idea..." You say as rubbed the back of your head. "Earlier when Sierra and I were hiking we came across a bear trap in a clearing. I don't want anyone of you to get hurt, so maybe it'll be best if we all went in the morning when we have a better chance at spotting any traps that might be lying around."

    Eli, Danielle, and Lucas looked a bit alarmed at the news of you finding a bear trap in the woods. They looked to Sierra who nodded her head. "It's true." She said as she leaned back a bit. "We were walking along when a, uh, tree branch fell right next to us and set it off." She looked to you briefly, her eyes telling you to roll with her explanation. Seems she really didn't want to tell the whole true of the situation. "On second thought, let's go in the morning so we don't run the risk of stepping into any traps that might be out there..."

    You smile at her, glad that she had your back. You looked to the others who seem to mull over the idea in silence, Eli and Danielle looked to each other trying to read what the other was thinking, Lucas was fiddling with the beer bottle in his hand. You were sure that they could see where you were coming from, it made sense to go tomorrow. Eventually it was Danielle who spoke up first.

    "I still wanna go."

    What? She still wanted to go? After being told that there might be traps still lying around? "Why-"

    "Yeah, same here." Lucas said with a shrug. You looked to him in confusion at first, but then remembered that out of everyone he was the most drunk, so of course he'd still want to go. So you turned to Eli, he was a pretty level-headed guy, surely he could see your logic. Eli shifted around in his seat, rubbing his hands and shifting his gaze away from you and seemed a bit uncomfortable.

    "Eli?"

    He finally sets his eyes back on you and gives you a sheepish grin. "Sorry Medea..."

    "Why?" You began sinking into your seat. "Why do you all still want to go despite what we just told you?"

    "Well... here's the way I see it," Eli straightened himself up, wrapping an arm around Danielle's shoulder and pulling her in closer, much to her delight. "While you two might have found a bear trap, that doesn't necessarily... mean anything."

    "Doesn't mean anything?" You repeated the words, narrowing your eyes at him, to which he raises his hands in defense.

    "Okay, poor choice of words..." He chuckles nervously. "What I mean is, that doesn't exactly mean we'll come across any on the way there. The forest is pretty big and the hunter who put down the trap you guys found probably didn't set down traps in every corner of an entire forest that people camp in."

    "I suppose, but-"

    "Besides, it isn't like we aren't going in unprepared. We've got a map, we have flashlights, and I even have a first aid kit." He gives you a sympathetic look. "I get you don't want us to get hurt, I don't want that either, but the chances of us stepping into a trap on the way there is probably slim."

    "But didn't you say that the guy who lived in the house set traps all the way up to his house?" Sierra asked as she folded her arms. Always great when she has your back!

    "I did." He nodded. "But that was a long time ago. Any traps there might have been have either been triggered or have fallen into disuse. Plus given how stories like these get exaggerated overtime, the guy probably didn't actually trap the whole forest."

    "Way to undermine part of the story, babe..." Danielle said sarcastically, giving her lover an annoyed look. Eli shook his head and just petted her head, which she seemed to enjoy.

    "Point is, we're going to be fine." He says while giving Sierra a confident smile. Sierra just looked at him for a bit and then sighed and raised her hands in defeat.

    Okay, so Sierra has given up on trying to convince them. That isn't good. You shift your gaze around, looking to Danielle and Lucas. Danielle was too busy enjoying the physical attention her boyfriend was lavishing on her to notice your look and Lucas just gave you a shrug.

    "But what about-"

    "Medea..." Sierra place a hand on your shoulder, cutting you off. "I don't think we are going to convince them." She sighs as she pushes herself up from her seat, giving you an apologetic look. "Come on, let's get ready to go and make sure the Three Stooges here don't get themselves in trouble." She turned away from the group and began walking towards the tent.

    You sat there for a bit but eventually you do get up to follow her, quickly moving to her side as she made her way to the tent. "I think we can still convince them." You reason, as you follow her into the tent. "Let's tell them about the old-"

    "Medea, no!"

    That gave you pause. It was rare for her to get angry at you, so all you could do is look at her in surprise. Slowly she turned away from you and focused on her bag that was in the tent, shifting through its contents and pulling out items and carefully placing them on the ground.

    "Why?" You ask quietly.

    "It wouldn't work." She stated matter of factually as she pulled out a flashlight, pressing the button on it to turn it on and off before placing it on the ground.

    "Why?"

    "You really think that if telling them about a bear trap didn't work, that telling them about an old man will?" She asks, looking over her shoulder at you. You looked down at the ground, knowing she has a point.

    "But he was more than an old man..." You muttered. "Something was off about him."

    "Yeah, I know." She sighed.

    "Then why not tell them?"

    "What would we tell them?" She turns herself around completely to look at you. "'Hey everyone! We ran into this creepy old guy in the woods! But not regularly creepy, but super creepy! What did he do that was so creepy? He told us to leave and set off a bear trap!'"

    "Okay, I get the point..." You grumbled, looking at the ground dejected.

    Sierra sighs again and pulls you into a hug.

    "Look, even assuming the guy would be trouble, there are five of us and one of him. Not to mention we are all younger than him by a good margin." She breaks off the hug and reaches into her bag. "Besides, I got this." She retracts her arms from her bag, something dark in her hand. When she brings the object in front of her to show you, she presses a small button on the side of it...

    schlik

    ...and a four inch blade popped out.

    "A knife?!"

    "Yeah, I take this everywhere." She explains as she pushes the blade back in. "For self-defense and all that."

    "Why not pepper spray or a taser?"

    "I have those too, but a knife is scarier." She pats you on the shoulder and gives you a gentle smile. "So don't worry, okay? I'm not going to let anything happen to us."

    You mumble a bit, but you do eventually nod. You didn't like the idea of everyone going into a forest with potential danger around them, but you're not going to stop them. Maybe you were just being paranoid. It would suck if you ruined the whole trip just by being overprotective of everyone.

    "Alright, let's get going." With that Sierra returns her attention to her bag, putting everything back inside and slinging it over her shoulder, you follow her lead as you put on your backpack. Soon the two of you shuffle out of the tent together and back to the others. By now the others had gathered at the edge of the camp, looking over the map. Eli briefly took his eyes off of the map and spotted the two of you coming over and gave you a reassuring smile as you closed the distance.

    "No need to worry, Medi." He says as he folded the map and put it in his back pocket. "We're going to have fun out there. You'll see."

    "I hope you're right..." You say, less than confidant. With the five of you gathered you set off into the woods, flashlights flickering on to illuminate the dark wilderness as you begin your trek to the house.


    Quite a bit of time passed since you all left camp for the house; the group having made considerable progess into the forest depite all of you being some degree of drunk. You and Sierra hung out in the back as you all trekked through the woods, Sierra using her knife to mark trees that she walks past to act as waypoints for the walk back. Fortunately none of you stumbled into any traps out here, which was good because you would hate to be right in this.

    "So according to the map..." Eli fumbled a bit with the map as he tried to unfold it while working around the flashlight in his hand. "We should be nearly there..."

    "Good, because my legs were getting tired..." You mutter as you try to massage your legs as you walk. Between this and your earlier hike with Sierra, you've got quite a bit of walking done today. The muscles in your legs were practically burning from exhaustion.

    Speaking of your hike...

    "Hey Sierra."

    "Hmm?" She looks over to you, fiddling with her knife in her right hand.

    "Back in the clearing you wanted to ask me about something. What was it?"

    Her eyes widened a bit, like she was caught off guard by your question. Her eyes darted upwards, as if she was thinking about it and... was she blushing a little?

    "Oh, that was... never mind." She turned her gaze back towards the front of the group.

    "Seriously, what was it?" Now you were curious. You step a little bit closer to her, trying to get a good look at her face, but she just turned her head away.

    "It was nothing. We'll talk about it later."

    "Why not n-"

    "We're here!" Eli proclaimed extacticly.

    You turn your attention back to the front of the group, as you all made your way past the trees you could see the darkened shilloette of a house looming outside the tree line. The closer you got the beams of light from the flashlights struck the exterior of the house, allowing you to make out details of it.

    The moment your eyes set on that old house, the hairs on the back of your neck stood up as you were overwelmed by an eerie sensation.

    The house was definitely old and wore its age for all to see. It was a two floor house, made of stone and rotting wood, with small splotches of white dotting the exterior as if small remnants of where there was once paint, and roof tiles that slid out of place and now hung loosely at the edges of rusted rain gutters. There were two windows on the side you were on, but whatever glass that was once there has long since been shattered, creating portals of darkness into the interior of the house. There was a single enterance, an empty doorframe that had long since lost its door with a single piece of plywood nailed to it and old broken stone steps leading up to it. On the piece of plywood "barring" entry was a set of words written in black spray paint:

    GO BACK

    Honestly it creeped you out, but you suppose that was the point of coming here. You looked to the others and you could see they were all just as nervous looking at it as you were, but on they marched towards it. The five of you slowly entered the house one by one, ducking under the plywood. Eli entered first, Danielle second as Eli lead her by the hand, then Lucas, then Sierra, then finally you. As you all entered the aging floorboard creaked under foot, echoing through the old house.

    Once you were in you could make out the layout of the room you were in. The room was a hallway with two doors to the sides that went into seperate rooms, a flight of stairs that went into the next floor, down straight in the hallway was another doorway, when the beam of the flashlights passed over it you could see that it wasn't a room but rather another set of stairs that lead down towards the basement. You could also make out more graffiti in this room, a few in particular caught your attention:

    HE'S WATCHING

    LEAVE NOW BEFORE THEY HARVEST YOUR CORPSE

    NO FUTURE LEFT FOR YOU

    It seems whoever came her before really wanted to creep people out. Well... more than the house already creeped people out.

    "This place is spooky..." You muttered, Sierra standing next to you made a sound agreement.

    "Well since we're here, let's explore!" Danielle said excitedly as she quickly walked up the stairs, which creaked in protest to her prescence on them. She turned her attention back down the stairs and waved at Eli to follow her before resuming her climb up the stairs.

    Eli sighed. "I better go after her." He shakes his head a bit then follows after Danielle, at a slower pace.

    Lucas examined a bit of graffiti on the wall, a single red line that lead into another room. It would seem curiousity had struck him as he procceed to follow it, to see where it lead. Sierra on the other hand had marched door the hall, aiming her flashlight door the stairs into the basment.

    "The stairs going down still look good..." You hear her say as she takes a timid step onto them, slowly begining her descent.

    [ ] Fuck this place. You are standing here right by the door and going no further.

    [ ] Check out the basement with Sierra.

    [ ] Check out the ground floor with Lucas.

    [ ] Check out the upper floor with Eli & Danielle.

    [ ] Write In
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Check out the basement with Sierra.

    Well, whoever goes in the basement alone usually dies. We are invested in her.

    Granted, if this were Cabin In The Woods logic, Lucas is probably the one who's going to end up triggering whatever the hell it is we end up against.
     
    [X] Call Sierra over to explore the red line with Lucas.

    The basement strikes me as a retarded place to go, but I also prefer we didn't split the party too much.

    And if my horror senses are correct, Eli and Danielle are going to start making out soon, only to be interrupted by the murderer. Their screams will be an early warning system for us to gtfo.
     
    [X] Check out the basement with Sierra.

    Screw the others they wanted to go to the creepy house they can deal with what happens to them going with only sane friend armed with a knife
     
    [X] Check out the ground floor with Lucas.

    Sierra has a knife and a good head on her shoulders, which is more than I can say about the rest of these numskulls. She'll probably be fine, Zhade's point about Eli and Dani stands, Lucas is probably rhe most vulnerable on his own, and I want to try and build another social link.
     
    I'm glad we went with Sierra if ONLY BECAUSE SHE TOTALLY WOULDNT HAVE TOLD US ABOUT THE CREEPY OLD MAN AND THE BEARTRAP IF SHE WENT ALONE

    Like, goddamnit Sierra. Also, why the basement omg even with your knife whyyyyyyy
     
    TheLordofAwesome said:
    It would suck if you ruined the whole trip just by overprotective of everyone.
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    'being'
    TheLordofAwesome said:
    Fortunately none of you stumbled into any traps out here, which was good because you would hate to be right in thsi
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    'this.'
    TheLordofAwesome said:
    The house was definately old and wore its age for all to see. It was a two floor house, made of stone and rotting wood, with small splotches of white dotting the exterior as if small remenants of where there was once paint, and roof titles that slid out of place and now hung loosely at the edges of rusted rain gutters.
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    'definately', 'remnants', 'tiles'
    TheLordofAwesome said:
    Honestly it creeped you out, but you suppose that wast he point of coming here.
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    'the'

    TheLordofAwesome said:
    "No need to worry, Medi." He says as he folded the map and put it in his back pocket. "We're going to have fun out there."
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    No. No, you won't. But we will. :drevil:

    TheLordofAwesome said:
    "The stairs going down still look good..." You hear her say as she takes a timid step onto them, slowly begining her descent.
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    Sure, Sierra, go downstairs, right to the basement. Where all the bodies were found.

    [X] Grab Sierra and drag her after Lucas. "Let's go see the graffiti. We'll check the basement later."

    Edit: Oh. @Zhade already thought of that. Curious.

    Lucas and Danielle are our go-to companions in case of a monster assault, if only because they are heavily inebriated and run slower. :cool:
     
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    All the decisions to make and all the possibilities that it can all go wrong. Sierra having a knife isn't comforting. If anything, that's a sign for bad, bad things to come. In other words, we should not let Sierra even go down there at all. Let's just drag her away from it before she does something stupid. Safety in numbers, after all. ...Or we could be screwed even with numbers, but hey, the more people are in a same location, we could all bolt together.

    [X] Grab Sierra and drag her after Lucas. "Let's go see the graffiti. We'll check the basement later."
     
    I was hoping this would spark genre savvy decision making! All according to plan...
    Nevill said:
    'being'

    'this.'

    'definitely', 'remnants', 'tiles'

    'the'
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    Thank you, good sir! You happened to miss one however! One that I realized I made and it bugged me all day, but no one seemed to noticed! Again, thanks for pointing out these though! For some reason my spell checker has been acting up lately and been missing stuff like crazy.
     
    [X] Grab Sierra and drag her after Lucas. "Let's go see the graffiti. We'll check the basement later."

    Irony is if this leads to nothing and that there was some sort of safe place in the basement that we'll never know about and leads to our deaths XD

    Though... wish I'd come earlier we'd have brought the ol' shovel for Duggy then
     
    [X] Call Sierra over to explore the red line with Lucas.

    Can never have too many meat shields.
     
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    If any part of the house is a death trap, it would be the basement. We do not want to lose the only person with a weapon to it.

    [X] Grab Sierra and drag her after Lucas. "Let's go see the graffiti. We'll check thebasement later."

    Also, didn't we bring a machete? Did we take it with us? Please tell me we took it with us...
     
    Chapter 6: Writing On The Wall
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    • [X] Call Sierra over to explore the red line with Lucas.
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    "Sierra!" She stops her descent into the basement, turning to look in your direction. "C'mon, let's go check out the house with Lucas."

    She looks at you for a moment in thought, then shrugs and walks back up the stairs and over to you. With Sierra in tow you followed the red line on the wall into the room Lucas walked in, the line lead to an image that had been sprayed painted onto the wall. The painting resembled a shadow of man, appearing like it had been burned onto the wall like those images of people's shadows had been burned into the sides of building at Hiroshima after the nuke went off. The line lead to the eyes of the shadow where it met with red dots that had small trails of red at the bottoms, like the painting was crying blood. Above the painting were words spray painted in red that read "There was a man here, but he's gone now."

    "Why do people need to make stuff so creepy?" Sierra asks as she inspects the painting.

    "You should check this one out." You hear Lucas say from behind you.

    Both you and Sierra turned around, seeing Lucas shining his flashlight on another painting on the wall. He was obscuring most of it so you walked over to get a better look.

    "It's a bizarre art to be sure..." He says thoughtfully.

    From looking at the painting you could tell it was made with actual paints in painstaking detail rather than spray paint. It was a tree with many branches, lifeless and bare. Scattered on the branches were human bodies, impaled on the branches or hanging from them by their internal organs, painted with such incredible detail they almost seem photo-realistic. Painted blood was slick upon the branches and trunk of the tree, seemingly dripping down and pooling into a lake of blood at the base. Innards were hung from the top most branches like grotesque decorations of some sort of insane Christmas celebration, with a murder of crows sitting among them, pecking and hoisting them higher still. Whoever painted this must have worked on it for hours...

    "Dude, those are bodies hanging from a tree. That's not art, that's fucked up." Sierra says, folding her arms.

    "I don't know, I think I could see Francisco Goya painting something like this." He says, waving his hand at the painting.

    "No idea who that is, but that doesn't change the fact this is creepy as fuck..." You muttered, feeling kind of sick by just looking at it. "Can we look at something else?"

    Thankfully your friends heeded your request and the three of you moved on to another painting in the room. Honestly it wasn't much of an improvement as each new painting or words graffitied on the walls were some degree of creepy, like there was some unspoken rule for those coming to vandalize this place had to help make it the most freaky art gallery in the world. Sierra seemed to share this sentiment as she looked at everything on the walls with an unnerved expression. Lucas meanwhile was looking at everything like he was in an art museum, taking particular interest in the paintings while nodding his head thoughtfully. All he needed was a complimentary glass of wine to help complete the look.

    You guess it wasn't really all that surprising, while he may not look or act it most of the time, the guy had a hidden love for the artistic. He was more open for his love of movies and music, but he knew enough about traditional art that he could name drop artists you've never heard of. Shit... You could maybe name ten at most, and only the real famous ones like da Vinci. Of course, he wasn't an artist himself, in fact he was down right terrible, but there was nothing wrong with having an interest in art. You just wish he didn't find this "art" so fascinating.

    Eventually you all grew tired of this room and moved on, going through another door into a side room. And the moment you walked in you immediately concluded that this may be creepier than the last room you were in. On every inch of the walls were eyes painted on, all of them looking in the direction of the door. The moment you set foot within the room, you were flooded by this sense of being watched... If that wasn't creepy enough, there was this single wooden bench in the middle of the room, looking far too pristine and new to have been originally from this house, facing an old derelict fire place. Above the fireplace were a set of works that were carved into the wall that read "Cursed be the man who enters this place".

    "Why? Just... why?!" You hear Sierra say as she looks around the room. You had to agree, who the hell would want to make something so creepy?!

    "I think it is kinda cool!" Lucas says as he takes a seat on the bench.

    "Well of course you would, you damn nightmare fetishist." Sierra remarks sarcastically as she also takes a seat on the bench next him, stretching out as she did so.

    "That's a little mean, Sierra..." You say sheepishly as you take a seat on the bench next to her. It was a bit of a tight squeeze and you essentially sandwiched Sierra between Lucas and yourself, but you're on the bench!

    "Well it's true! He's the kind of guy who cheers when the killer in a horror film kills somebody."

    "To be fair," Lucas says, raising a finger. "They tend to write those characters to be as unlikable as possible so you don't feel bad when they are killed."

    "That always seem to be self-defeating to me." You say, wanting to weigh in on this subject. "Why wouldn't you want to make your characters as likable as possible in horror films? There's more tension and dramatic weight to when the killer finally gets them."

    "Shoddy writing." Sierra shrugs.

    "And because most horror films devolved into torture porn." Lucas nods. "Like the Saw films."

    Sierra groaned in annoyance at the mention of those movies. "Are they still making those any more? I stopped paying attention after... what, the tenth movie?"

    "Seventh actually, but I think another one was announced recently..." Lucas scratches the back of his head, unsure.

    "Why won't they let that awful movie franchise die...?" Sierra groans again, pinching the bridge of her nose. "And take those Paranormal Activity and Purge movies with them..."

    "The Purge wasn't that bad... Not great, but not bad." Lucas chuckles nervously as Sierra just glares at him like he just suggested kicking a puppy. Quickly he turns away and clears his throat. "So what horror films do you like?"

    Sierra's expression softens as she looks up towards the ceiling, thinking. "Well my favorite is Predator."

    "Seriously? I mean, good choice and all, but not what I was expecting." Lucas says surprised while Sierra shrugs in response. "My personal favorite is The Fly."

    "You know... I have never seen that movie." Sierra says. The moment the words left her mouth you could see Lucas' eyes light up.

    "Ah! It is fantastic! I have it one Blu-ray, we should check it out together some time!"

    "How about after we get back home?"

    "It's a date!" Lucas raises his fist and Sierra gladly bumps her's against it. "So Medea, what is your favorite horror movie?"

    You hummed in thought, thinking about all the ones you've seen. "I think-"

    Before you could give your answer a loud thud from a room above sounded through the room and shaking the house, causing all three of you to snap your attention upward towards the ceiling as a loose cloud of dust to flutter down to the floor.

    "What was that...?" You squeaked out quietly.

    "Dunno..." Lucas muttered, looking a bit concerned.

    "Probably just the lovebirds goofing around." Sierra reasoned. "I'm sure everything is fine."

    Lucas made a sound of agreement, but you could help but feel concerned. You continued to stare up at the ceiling, wondering what could have caused that thud.

    [ ] Ignore it, it was probably nothing.
    - [ ] Write In what you want to do next.

    [ ] Go check on Eli & Danielle.

    [ ] Ask Sierra to go check on Eli & Danielle.

    [ ] Ask Lucas to go check on Eli & Danielle.

    [ ] Suggest all three of you go check on Eli & Danielle.
     
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    • [X] Suggest all three of you go check on Eli & Danielle.

    I find it very amusing that they are talking about horror movies:D
     
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