The case of the Haunted house

## Act 1

If there's somethin' strange in your neighborhood, who ya gonna call?

Well, not the ghostbusters, since they don't exist. Instead, you have to settle with the second best alternative: The Troubleshooters.

That's at least what a desperate landlord did, in order to get rid of a haunting that was driving him and his tenents mad.

Sitting down on the Troubleshooters' new couch (aquired after the Wifestalker case) with a large cup of coffee, the landlord described their plight. Every night since the great poweroutage, the toys of the children in the complex had sprung to life, rendering the tenents and landlord incapable of sleeping.

Four nights, the same deal. As soon as the sun set, the toys sprung to life, danced, played, and causing a ruckus throughout the complex. Even when they had tried to burn all of the toys, they had returned unscathed. If this continued, they'd all have to move; something none of the tenents could really afford.

Indeed, the reward for the case wouldn't be exceptional, but hey. Not like they had anything better to do while Fred was out of town refitting Actionvan to remove the guts and grime left in it after the Wifestalker case.

The duo went to the apartment complex, and found that the tenents were all in a similar state of mind as the borderline snapped landlord. Despite their obvious tiredness, the tenents did their best to be good hosts and customers, providing the troubleshooters with thatever they could, but it was Edgar that turned up the first substantial clue.

Walking through the complex, Edgar could hear... whispers. It seemed his unique state of being in between life and death allowed him to pick up the voices of the ghosts that resided within the complex.

Confronted not with an angry poltergheist or a spectre of revenge, but instead the ghost of a small girl, Edgar managed to gain some much-needed insight from the spirit's words: "Help us. She's destroying us."

## Act 2

Having gained this new insight, and finding no clues hinting towards occult activity, Edgar and James decided that now would be a good time to do some research as to the history of the location.

Retreating to the public library, they begin sifting through decades, even centuries of history; yet still their search finds out little. The building had been built in an abandoned lot, later abandoned, torn down, and rebuilt. It isn't until they go back before the time of digital public record, digging through ancient, musty paperwork that they find something useful.

Back in the 1800's, some 500 years before current time, there was an orphanage on the lot where the apartment was built. The orphanage had burned down, killing many a orphan that had been living within. The only survivor had been the orphanage matron, who had later been hung for the gross neglect which had caused not only the orphanage to burn down, but also several buildings surrounding it.

This all seemed... promising. Well, it was the first really solid hint that they had gained so far.

Knowing that their own knowledge about the occult and spirits in general was rather minor, they desided that now was a good time to evacuate the tenement building for the night, and call in some help.

Setting up the tenents in a nearby hotel building, and calling in Edgar's crazy necromancer uncle, they prepare to fight fire with fire.

Or well. Ghosts with Ghosts.

## Act 3

Using an ancient ritual of spiritwalking, Edgar and James enter Purgatory, where the ghosts lingered.

Finding the apartment building a wierd mix of the buildings that had once stood upon that lot; they quickly come to find an old cellar which no longer existed in the physical world.

And being reasonably genre-savvy, Edgar knew that it was obviously down there that the wonky spiritual bullshit was happening.

He wasn't wrong.

Descending the stairs, orphan ghosts warned them that "they" were down there, and that "they" were dangerous indeed.

Soon seeing what "they" meant, they found a great chasm in the ground leading into... elsewhere. Around this pit to oblivion there was a great circle of magic, populated by restrained ghosts, and overseen by the mad spectre of the ancient orphan matron, beckoning something from out there to come into Purgatory.

Having none of that shit, Edgar dashed forth, and disturbed the circle of summoning.

As the ritual became undone, the ghosts of the children long dead fled their captivity.

Alas, it was too late. A half-formed thing from the void was coming. The matron hailed the beast as her god, and was devoured in the beast's unnatural hunger.

Knowing better than to get close, James decides that the proper way of dealing with this isn't to fight the thing, but to bring the building down on its' head.

As he brought down tons of spiritual rubble on the beast's head, the thing was pushed down into the void, back from whence it came.

## Act 4

Disaster averted, Uncle helped the ghosts of the dead to find their way to whatever lies past Purgatory.

Well back in the real world, the haunting was lifted, and the case was complete. Accepting only enough money to cover their expences, Edgar and James departed the complex as heroes; even if no one would truly know what they had done to save the day, or how much they had really saved.