The Woodland Mansion

You are wandering through the woods when you first notice the mansion out of the corner of your eye - an impressive building that towers over every tree in the forest. Something draws you to it. Maybe you are in need of shelter from an impeding storm, or maybe you need somewhere to hide. Maybe you even want to steal from it. But, for whatever reason, you decide to walk towards the woodland mansions. The trees around become unfamiliar, and it is only when you are on the steps of the great building that you realize you have completely lost your way in the woods.

At the very least, you have arrived at your destination.

But for a mansion as massive as this, no servants or guests roam its halls. It is abandoned, and you are unsure of why. You will eventually find other people like yourself who have wandered in from the woods, but they will be without answers as well.

And then, without warning, you will find yourself at the mercy of the first wave.

Spoiler

Time for a quick explanation! The waves are bursts of magic that transform anyone inside of the building. They tend to last ten-fifteen minutes. There's a twenty minute period between each wave, and this is the time where people are returned to their original forms. Clothing might change a little too, depending on what a person becomes during a wave.

Example: A wave transforms a vampire into a werewolf. In the wait period, they're turned back into a vampire. But when the next wave comes around, they find that they've become a zombie.

The things they become during the waves tend to be on the creepier side, but it's honestly up to you! As long as its something different, anything goes. The roleplay starts right after the last wave ended, so we have some time for our characters to explore and meet each other.

Spoiler

And here's some pictures of the interior!

He should have never strayed so far from his house.

He had needed to scare those kids. The place was dangerous, even for him, and he couldn't bare the thought of them getting hurt if the floor gave out from beneath them. But they had been harder to chase then he had guessed, and they somehow ended up leading him off into the woods. They must have circled back around at some point, but not before he had gotten hopelessly lost.

He pulled his cloak closer to him. It appropriately billowed in the breeze, but for once he didn't really mind. He was too busy with literally bemoaning - it was a habit he never could quite break - his fate. He pushed through another thick bit of foliage. If only he had just let them go into the woods! Then he wouldn't be in this mess.

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a building become more and more evident in the distance. He wasn't sure how he hadn't noticed it before - the mansion towered above the forest. He looked behind him. Unable to find his home, he decided that the only thing left was to go there. If he slipped inside, he could get to the top floor and see where his house was. He would just have to ham things up - he even had his ratty old cloak, so he could easily play the part.

But when he arrived at the front steps of the magnificent mansion, he realized that he could no longer recognize the woods. Even the trees looked unfamiliar, which was a great cause for alarm - something like that didn't just abruptly change.

He slipped in through the front door.

As he wandered the halls in search of a staircase, he began to notice that he was the only one there - no matter where he looked, he couldn't find another soul. Which was admittedly terrifying, but also a relief. He threw the hood to his cloak back and peered around the room he had ended up in. It looked like it had been a storage room of some sort, with clothes on hangers and boxes filling the entire area.

He carefully peeked around the room.

It couldn't hurt to take some of the clothes, right?

Spoiler

Okay so slightly mentioned character (Sevy) and new ones (Leone and Kit). Leo and Kit are childhood best friends who recently got caught up in Sevy's quest-y thing.

Leo is just a human who has no idea what he's doing most of the time, and Kit is questionable and catches on to more than people think.

Leo is thinner and on the short side. He has brown, unkempt hair, freckles, and is currently wearing a navy trench coat (with many pockets- he was designated to carry the group's stuff)

Kit has red hair that's currently up in a top-knot, a long-sleeved patterned dress, and combat boots. Oh, and an attitude.

Sevy slowly circled the sky above the lush forest in an attempt to locate their position. It wasn't really helping- the forest seemed to stretch for miles in either direction, and from up here all the trees generally looked the same. He flew down a bit lower, checking up on Leo and Kit where he had left them.

They seemed to be yelling and waving their arms, trying to communicate with him. Sevy sighed- he had explained several times that no matter how loud they screamed, he couldn't hear anything over the wind howling in his ears.

He circled one more time. There seemed to be some sort of building about half of a mile away. He flew closer to check it out. As far as he could tell from his vantage point, it looked like a giant mansion. Something about it gave him the creeps, but he figured that leading the group inside any sort of shelter would be better than wandering the woods aimlessly. He headed back to Leo and Kit to let them know.

Meanwhile, Leo was trying to defend himself from Kit, who had started to point fingers about their situation.

"When is it ever a good idea to take a shortcut through the woods?" She rolled her eyes as they fell into step, "all we had to do was ask for directions- I told you we should have."

"Kit! The only person around besides us was that creepy street vendor guy. Why do I always have be the one to do things? You could have asked him if you wanted directions so badly."

Kit sighed, not having a retort to that.

"Whatever- Sevy's coming back."

Leo glanced ahead of them, where Sevy was slowly lowering himself through the trees.

"Okay, bad news: I have no idea where we are. Good news: there's a mansion up ahead that we can check out." He said.

"Yeah, fine. What other choice do we have?" Kit sped up a bit so that she was walking in front of Leo.

Eventually, they came upon the mansion, which seemed to loom meanacingly in front of them.

"Creepy." Leo whispered.

Kit nodded. Sevy said nothing, though he had thought the exact same thing and was even more disturbed now that he was seeing it up close.

The three of them cautiously climbed the steps to the main double door, solemn. Kit knocked once before pushing the door open. At first glance, it was obvious that the place was abandoned- there were no signs that anyone was currently living here.

Opting to stay together, the group walked through the foyer, their footsteps echoing through the sparse rooms.

"Hello?", Leo suddenly called, "anyone home?"

Kit punched his arm, too spooked to remrimand him.

Spoiler

Description: A young man who appears to be around 17-19 with short, dark blond hair and deep blue eyes. He has a scar that runs diagonally across his face from his right temple to the left side of his jaw bone. He wears dark pants and knee-high, fur-lined boots, as well as a brown t-shirt and long jacket, under which he has two long, silvery, curved knives.

Sieben sprinted through the woods, his pistol in his fingers as he fled. The sounds of pursuit had faded behind him but he still couldn't bring himself to stop. His heart pounded in his ears with deafening volume and he could feel the very leaves breaking under his feet. It wasn't normal, it wasn't right, and there was something...else. An awareness he hadn't had before. An instinct.

He stumbled as he tripped over a loose cobblestone and nearly faceplanted in front of a large wooden mansion. Sieben stopped and pushed himself back to his feet, panting as he took in the sight - it was massive, something that someone rich might have, like Boomslang. This wasn't her style, though - it couldn't be here. Could it?

He was in the middle of trying on a suit that he had grabbed off of the racks when he first heard people in the foyer of the building. It was the type with a draping back, which was why he had been so eager to try it on. He had found an old suit once, back when he had first moved into his current home - it had been dusty and covered in holes, but he had tried it on and gotten a kick out of how he looked. But that suit hadn't had the draping back, so he just had to try this one on while he had the chance.

He had the coat halfway on when he first heard the voices. The pants, the shirt underneath it and even the shoes were already on. He frantically looked at the corner where he had deposited his cloak. It was too risky to hurriedly get this off and put that on instead! With his luck, they would reach the room while he was in the middle of taking one thing off or putting the other on.

He hurriedly scanned the room for something - anything - that he could use.

A pair of gloves was a good start. He could see a white set of them peeking out of a box that said costumes on it. He didn't question it. He just slipped them on and continued to dig through the box. Unable to find a mask, he settled for the next best thing: a wig that would cover his face if he angled it just right. The hair was auburn, and it looked as if it had never been brushed. But, at the very least, it was long enough to cover his face and neck.

He grabbed onto the final part of his disguise. It was an obnoxiously large top hat that he had found resting next to the gloves.

He checked his appearance in the broken mirror in the corner, readjusted the strands of hair so they were covering his face, then ran over to his cloak and threw it on for good measure. He wasn't going to leave it behind. Then he checked himself one last time.

He looked incredibly bizarre - so much that he almost laughed at what he saw. The clothes unsurprisingly hung incredibly loose off of his form, as he could never find something that looked just right on his body. The hair made him look like he had come out of some horror movie, and the combination of the hat and cloak made him look like some cartoonish villain.

But at least it was something.

He slipped out of the room and into the foyer without any one of the three noticing. He made sure to stand a good distance away from them before he spoke - the last thing he wanted to do was have one of them knock off part of his disguise in their surprise.

"Hi," he said, giving a small little wave to make sure his sleeves didn't accidentally roll up to reveal what was hiding underneath.

Leo was the first to notice the bizarre person standing near the stairs. He let out a yell in his surprise and jumped.

"Get off me." Kit grumbled. He looked down and realized that he was gripping her wrist. He let his arm fall and composed himself.

"Hello... sir." Sevy peered at the person, taking a guess at the gender of this stranger, "do you own this property? We were just, uh, passing though and needed to find shelter."

"What he means is that we're lost." Kit piped up, glancing at each of the boys in turn and slowly enunciating her next words, "could you give us any directions?"

Leo rolled his eyes- he doubted that this stranger knew where they were, regardless of whether or not he lived here. He most likely didn't, anyway. Kit was just trying to give him a snub from earlier.

He winced as the yell of surprise hit his ears and he uttered a few of his mentor's favorite choice words under his breath in German. After he recovered from the initial surprise and pain he entered the mansion and started towards the sounds.

"Oh, uh," he said, looking the three over with wonder when he noticed the wings coming out of one of their backs. He had never seen something like that before, and it took all of his focus not to keep staring at it from underneath the wig. "I'm lost too, actually."

He thought for a moment. A name was good in a situation like this, wasn't it? He hadn't had to come up with one in a long time, not since he had been able to hide his face behind a plague doctor's mask. "I'm Gri-" No, he couldn't give a name like that. It had to be an actual name, not just a nickname based on who he really was! "-ffith." He slipped into his pockets, just to make sure no one tried to shake them.

He walked through the halls, striding with speed and purpose.

As it turned out, his reflexes were not at their top performance when he was still becoming accustomed to his unnaturally keen senses, and he nearly ran into a winged figure near the stairwell.

"Entschuldigen Sie!" he apologised quickly, taking a step back in surprise. Was this...an angel? They did look a bit like Drei or Neun...

Sevy stepped back from the man who came from down the hall. He casually folded his wings tight against his back. It was definitely more uncomfortable than letting them rest freely, but he was picking up on stares from both of these strangers. It was making him uneasy.

Leo jumped a little at the entrance of this new stranger.

"Is that a gun?" He whispered loudly, elbowing Kit and gesturing with his chin. Of course, none of these actions were subtle.

Spoiler

Marisol: Brown hair that goes down just below her shoulders, pulled back from her forehead by a green and red bandana. Ties her hair back in a ponytail via a cord with some dark brown feathers attached to it. Wears tan shorts and a faded blue shirt, accomplished with sandals that, thanks to constant use, are close to falling apart. Brown eyes, tanned complexion, more muscular tone. Human.

Arlais: Pronounced Ar-lay. Dark brown skirt and a matching blue shirt. Shorter than Marisol. Otter.

"Trees," Marisol grumbled, shoving branches out of the way. She stamped over the dirt, eyes fixated on the mass of branches and roots ahead of her. "Always f***ing trees."

"Don't these look a little different to you?" said Arlais. She stayed close to Marisol, dodging swinging branches when the other girl did. Arlais reached out to brush some of the leaves. They looked greener and thicker than she'd last remembered.

"Dunno," said Marisol, as they stepped out into what looked like a clearing. Up ahead rose the side of an imposing wooden mansion, which towered over the surrounding trees. The nearest trees had all been chopped down, and a rusty axe still stuck in the middle of one trunk. Directly in front of them, almost indistinguishable against the rest of the mansion, a door came into view. A concrete step led up to it.

They hesitated for a few seconds, taking in these odd surroundings. "F***," Marisol said, walking over to the axe. "I'm guessing this ain't the house we were looking for. Looks all big and empty."

"Maybe we should-" said Arlais, still at the edge of the clearing, but Marisol had already ripped the ax out of the tree trunk and headed towards the door.

Marisol stopped in front of the door. "If little miss princess couldn't give us some simple directions," she said, slamming the ax into the door, "Then I ain't waiting for her to show up. A storm's coming, and I want some shelter."

Arlais took a step forward. "I'm not sure-"

Whack!

Another step. "Have you tried-"

Whack!

Another step. "Would you just-"

Whack!

Slamming a foot on the ground, Arlais marched over to Marisol. "Did you check to see if the door is open?" Arlais shouted, pushing the door open.

Marisol looked inside the mansion for a few seconds. She blushed, ripping the ax out of the partly destroyed door. "I knew that," she mumbled.

Oh. English. He didn't like it, but Dreizhen had taught him well and he switched to the distasteful tongue of the enemy. He had a very thick German accent but at least spoke their language.

"Sorry, sir, excuse me," he said, slipping the gun back into his belt, wanting to show that he wasn't hostile.

He nearly jumped when he heard someone literally breaking down the doors, and gave a startled cry of alarm when he saw they were slamming an ax into the wood. But then the noise came to an abrupt stop, and he caught a glimpse of two people standing on the steps when he looked at the holes the ax had left.

He hesitantly approached the door, grabbing onto the handle and giving it a jerk as he took a large step back. The door went flying open, slamming into wall beside it. The sound reverberated throughout the foyer. Giving a small wave like the one he had given the three earlier, he said "hi" and wisely took several more steps back.

Whoops. This building wasn't empty after all. And here she was, just standing there, ax in hand.

She quickly moved the ax behind her back and waved. "That, uh, wasn't me," Marisol said, gesturing to the door. She stepped out of the way so that Arlais came into view. "It was her fault." Then she grabbed Arlais's hand and pulled her outside.

"They'll never guess it was us," Arlais said as they pressed themselves against the wall. She sounded high-pitched, and her claws scraped the wall.

"Very funny," Marisol replied, turning around, leaning down, and sticking her hands beneath the wood. "Let's go see if there's a basement or something to hide in."

Sevy calmly watched the man who had spoken with an accent. He sensed that something was- off about him. He didn't exactly seem like a threat, but something in the air around him felt almost heavy.

Kit sighed as another set of insane people entered, and then left. She was already done with this entire situation.

"I'm going to go poke around upstairs." She turned and started making her way up the staircase.

After a beat, Leo went up after her.