Gatsby's House of Spirits

an adventure starring Rook, Stella, and Skirmish

Tweet Length Description: A mysterious summons from Gatsby leads Stella, Skirmish & Rook to a spooky mansion far from home. However their planned sleepover soon turns into a "Creep"over. Will the three of them make it through the night or does this haunted house have other plans?

NPCs:

* Gatsby Souvestre
* Lenny Brandybuck

Settings

* Ennui Manor

Plot Summary

‘Twas a dark and stormy night when our three (and a half) brave adventurers Stella, Skirmish, and Rook (and Lenny) arrived at a castle on a cliff. The castle belonged to fellow FBK member Gatsby – or rather, it would belong to him once he spent a night there. So, he invited his guildmates over to spend the night in the castle during the Festival of the Moon – an especially spooky time of the year.

It took our protagonists a week to get there in a ramshackle carriage, with Lenny dutifully driving it in the pouring rain. He unfortunately caught a cold from it, as you could hear from his slightly altered voice. Skirmish was the only one who talked to him, as Rook and Stella were busy sleeping for most of the week. It turns out that the elderly and dragons need lots of sleep! Once the four arrived, they were greeted by Gatsby, who had prepared a feast for them including fresh and stale bread, delicious soups, and a variety of meats, including a suspicious sort that tasted somewhere between hippopotamus and dwarf. They ate and drank to their heart’s content – with Stella unable to resist adding brandy in intricately carved bottles to her hoard.

After that, they shared spooky stories around a flaming pumpkin. Skirmish started with a story about his village ghost, Rook shared one about his friend who had met an unfortunate end in a haunted house, and Stella’s story was about a girl who murdered and was haunted by her twin sister.

At the end of the storytelling, as if on cue, the clock rang midnight. After the tolling, our adventurers heard a strange noise and the pumpkin light went out, leaving them all in darkness. Stella made her new staff glow and illuminated a strange scene – the house had changed completely! The walls, once a standard off-white, were now stained and dripping with strange, viscous liquid. The scrumptious feast they enjoyed turned into rotting, disgusting old food – except for the suspicious meat, which remained the same. Worst of all, the fine liquor they drank from turned into vinegar, poison, and cheap white wine!

Gatsby swore that he had nothing to do with this change and had no idea why it happened – though he did like its dramatic effect. The adventurers decided to investigate, with Gatsby staying behind to tie his shoe. Once the adventurers left him and Gatsby behind, the two were nowhere to be found. During the party’s investigations, they found more strange things about the house. The pantry had turned into a long, moist hall that once provoked threw up a flood of bile, which the adventurers just managed to avoid due to Skirmish and Rook barring the door.

Next, the adventurers went looking for the parlour. On their way, they stumbled into a room with a painting of a general that Rook found fascinating. There was a door behind there! However, the painting grabbed Rook and tried to pull him through the wall. With his impressive strength, Skirmish held onto him and thwarted the strange ghost’s efforts to take him, though he was unable to wrest him from it. Stella attempted to cast Wall of Force to separate the two, but instead conjured a wall of knives that nearly killed Rook – her magic had the opposite effect in this altered castle! Eventually, the adventurers were able to wrest Rook from the painting’s grasp. They explored some more, looking for Gatsby and Lenny, then went up the stairs and to the parlour.

While up there, they found a snooker table, fully set up. When Rook started a game and tapped the first snooker ball, Skirmish felt a tap on his head. They did some more experimenting and found out that three of the snooker balls were connected to them. They could not figure out who the other snooker balls were connected to. The adventurers each kept the ball that represented them on their person, and Stella stored the rest safely inside her Portable Hole.

She then heard a beautiful but eerie melody – a nursery song she knew from her childhood. She also saw a door and alerted the other adventurers to it. Once they went in the door, she began acting very strange – though nearly an adult, she became like a child and called Skirmish by her brother’s name – Sterling. She went to pet a stuffed white tiger’s head but nearly had her hand bitten off as it came to life. Skirmish once again saved his guildmate by wresting the tiger’s jaw open and freeing Stella’s now bloody hand. He took the trophy from the wall and wore it around his neck so it wouldn’t bite anyone else. Stella was drawn to the music box and tried to take it, but Skirmish got to it first. She stubbornly refused to let go, but Skirmish tricked her by giving her the stuffed giraffe they had won from the Zoo in Petting Zoos and Finding Clues. He threw the music box out the window and the spell was broken for Stella, who was confused about why she was holding a stuffed giraffe.

The adventurers exited the cursed room and headed back to the parlor, where they saw a ghost monologuing about voices and whispers – the same ones Rook had heard from the general painting. They went around looking for the ghost and finally found him in the cellar, this time focusing on an object and saying that he will destroy it. Skirmish took the cover off the object and revealed a 7 foot tall floor length mirror that showed the normal castle in its reflection. After the adventurers experimented a bit with the mirror, they deduced that it showed the normal world.

Stella threw her snooker ball at the mirror. Once it hit, Stella was flung across the room into the mirror – and she would have been in quite a bad way if Skirmish had not tackled her into a pile of barrels and prevented her from crashing into the mirror. However, the adventurers discovered that the mirror was cracked where the ball hit it. In the “normal world,” the snooker ball was an orb of glowing, magical energy, so Stella threw more magic at it and the crack widened. Her magic also started having its normal effects, though it hadn’t fully returned to its usual state. After she cast Lightning Bolt at the mirror, a black smoke began pouring from the widening crack and gathered to form an angry shadowy humanoid who claimed that this world belonged to it.

However, Stella was even angrier at the shadow creature for making her fine whiskey taste like cheap white wine, and she shifted into her full silver dragon form. The adventurers fought the shadow being, who took on the form of a dragon and mimicked Stella’s shape and abilities. However, the shadow monster was quickly stopped when Skirmish told the creature the Funniest Joke in the World. While it was paralyzed by laughter, Rook’s masterful battle skills gave Stella the opportunity to test out the strength of her dragon’s jaws by biting and restraining the shadow monster. As it tried to escape, its smoke irritated her nose and she sneezed it out in a great icy blast, finishing the monster off. The mirror shattered, and the world returned to normal in the blink of an eye.

After enjoying some (thankfully not disgusting) drinks, Rook, Skirmish and Stella walked out of the cellar and found their companions Gatsby and Lenny playing cards. They had been enjoying themselves for quite a while after defeating the monster Skirmish had created in the bathroom a while ago. Skirmish patted Lenny on the back but sent the poor fellow sprawling across the room. Stella healed him with her newfound celestial magic, and the clock rang again, this time signaling sunrise. The adventurers made it through the night, and Gatsby had inherited the castle! All was well in the world, now.

Well, almost. As it turns out, the snooker balls the adventurers took with them from the shadow world were Disaster Orbs. Unbeknownst to them, their reckless playing with the balls caused natural disasters, death, and destruction in other parts of the world. But it's not their problem, right?

Memorable quotes:

* Skirmish: "The bathroom was like that when I found it."
* Stella: "Bad kitty!"
* Rook: \*pulls out and revises last will and testament\*