The Woodland Mansion

He turned around to look at the strange changes that had overcome everyone else in the hallway, and was about to comment on the changes - and question why it had happened again - when another scream from the first floor shook the house. The window he was standing only feet in front of shattered, sending glass shards everywhere. He only managed to avoid getting cut thanks to his cloak.

The lights flickered even more hurriedly than before. And then, with the same suddenness as the changes that had overcome them, the lights went out.

This only made whoever - or whatever - was on the first floor give a louder scream than before.

Grim shook the glass shards off of his jacket, and went to take a step forward - only to feel a sharp pain in his foot as he stepped down on a piece of glass. He winced in pain and leaned down to remove it, almost immediately losing his balance and tumbling to the ground in a mess of limbs and cloak.

(In his defense, this body's proportions were all wrong.)

Another scream filled the mansion, this one noticeably quieter than the last. "We should probably go check that out," he said, struggling to get untangled and back to his bare feet.

"Yeah," Marisol said, still staring down at her paws. On one hand, her eyesight had gotten dim and fuzzy - no wonder Kendrik didn't pick out colors that well. On the other hand, her sense of smell and hearing allowed to catch everything over the entire floor, if not over the entire building. Yet, when the smell was a mix of snakeskin and fur, and the sounds were conversation and constant, intense screaming, that wasn't exactly a plus.

As such, Marisol screamed, "And somebody better shut their f***ing a** or I'll tear their f***ing throat out!" Hopefully the person downstairs would get the message. Since it was loud enough that Arlais, startled, rose up to and through the ceiling, Marisol was fairly sure they would.

The screaming came to an abrupt stop. Apparently, Marisol's scream back had done its trick. Grim finally managed to get back to his feet, dusting the glass shards off of his cloak and beginning to head towards the source of the noises: the foyer on the first floor. He was starting to get his suspicions that they were dealing with some sort of ghosts, kind of like the one that the otter had become. A partial, maybe? Ghost typically didn't look like transparent versions of themselves, and couldn't usually go through walls unless they had forsaken most of their humanity. Arlais probably had ended up as a partial. And if the destroyed property was an indication, whoever was downstairs was also a partial.

The fun part was that he didn't know if they were actually a partial or in the same boat as them. And now that he was a human, he wasn't sure he'd be able to handle anything like that.

He carefully maneuvered his way through the dark hallway and even more carefully made his way down the stairs. He didn't wait for anyone to follow him. If they were dealing with a partial, he needed to find out quickly. Then they could take the right precautions, and then he could make sure no one got hurt in the process-

He came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.

The entire foyer was in ruin. All the windows had been broken, as well as any light bulbs. The few pieces of furniture had been thrown throughout the room. Even the railing of the stairs had large cracks running up the sides of the wood. The sole light source was the light coming in from where the windows had been only a short time ago, and even that was dark - the sun had set far faster than he had expected.

Then there was the ghost.

They were sitting on top of one of the overturned sofa chairs, their face obscured by another piece of furniture. Grim gulped, knowing that the only way he was going to get a look at this ghost was if he was standing almost right next to them. And since he was only a human right now, that could end horribly.

He stepped around the sofa.

And immediately let out a gasp in surprise, because this ghost wasn't exactly what he had been expecting in the slightest. He was dressed in all black clothes - a black shirt, black pants, black boots, long black coat and black fingerless gloves - but that wasn't that surprising. He was transparent, too, and that also wasn't surprising. What was surprising was what he had in place of a head.

There was a pumpkin.

It had two holes for eyes, and a grin drawn on in what looked like black marker. From behind the holes, a pair of wide golden eyes stared at him. The ghost gave a startled cry and fell back through the chair, which only made him give another cry and shatter the ceramic vase that was only a few feet away from the two of them. The ghost frantically hurried out from the sofa, scooting away from it when he ended up on the ground beside it instead of inside of it.

Kit stopped trying to figure out what kind of creature she had become when she saw Leo once again splayed on the floor. She gently helped him to his feet, straining at how much heavier he'd gotten.

Leo staggered up with help from Kit, and carefully steadied himself. He found that finding a center of balance on two hooves was a bit like riding a bike.

"I think I could try going down the stairs- we should probably find out what's going on with the screaming." He flicked his tail, marveling over how it felt brushing against his legs.

"Yeah. Probably." Sevy stepped over to Leo's other side, supporting him under an arm.

The group carefully made their way down the staircase, Leo in between them and tottering slightly.

"It's alright," Grim tried to gently reassure the poor ghost, wanting to avoid any possible injuries that could come out of any future destruction caused by this ghost's terror.

"I'm a ghost! How could that ever be alright?" the ghost - apparently somewhere in his twenties - replied, his voice muffled by the pumpkin. He got to his feet, walked over to Grim, and poked him to apparently prove his point, only to recoil in shock and fear moments later when his finger went through his chest. The ghost stumbled back and stared at his hands with wide eyes.

This response was lending more and more credence to the theory that he was in the same boat as the rest of them, but he had to play it safe. The last thing he wanted was to convince this ghost that he could get things back to normal when he, in fact, couldn't.

"When did you last see your body?" he asked. Uh oh. That hadn't been half as gentle as he had wanted it to be.

"I'm not dead!" the ghost shouted back, the few windows that hadn't already broken shattering in an explosion of glass. Grim wrapped his cloak even tighter around himself to avoid getting cut by any. The ghost, meanwhile, looked downright terrified and let out a scream the moment that the glass shattered - making something shatter upstairs too.

The scream died down into a whimper. "I'm not dead," the ghost repeated, looking very small and very afraid. "I-I walked in and felt this weird warmth. Now I'm a g-ghost and I don't know how and I can't be dead because I would have remembered dying and seeing my body and I can't get this stupid pumpkin off either and I'm not supposed to make things break by screaming and what if I can't get back to normal and-"

Grim held up a hand. He was aware that this wouldn't have gone over half as well if he was in his actual body, so he was admittedly quite grateful for this change. The ghost fell silent. "This place is changing people," Grim carefully and quietly said, not wanting to alarm him more. "We're not really sure how, but it's happened one time already and we went back to normal afterwards. So maybe we just need to wait it out, and then you'll be back to yourself."

The ghost peered underneath the hood of his cloak. Grim stumbled back in surprise, not ready to have some so readily invade his personal space. People tended to stay as far away as possible. "That explains your appearance, then. I was wondering how a player could be talking." The shift in personality definitely took him by surprise, but not as much as the words being spoken. What was the ghost talking about? "Oh! Before I forget. My name is Télos. I'm the g-"

Télos abruptly fell silent.

He stared over at the staircase with terror clearly written on his face, going so far as to cower behind Grim - something he was sure Télos would have never done if he knew the truth about him. His reaction to ghosts was enough to prove that. "I-Is this place h-haunted?" he asked, peeking out to stair at the staircase. There were several creaks that followed his question.

"No," Grim reassured him. "There's other people here besides us. That's them coming down the stairs."

Télos sighed in relief. "Phew."

Marisol stormed ahead of the others, jumping down the final three steps to land at the bottom floor. Her sandals crushed shards of glass as she took a couple steps forward, staring around at the cracked walls and broken windows. "Is this yer fault, pumpkinhead?" she said, pointing a finger at the translucent man. He was standing next to Grim, who Marisol recognized from the outfit. At least he wasn't a skeleton anymore. "Thanks fer killin' my f***in' eardrums, by the way."

Arlais drifted her way after Marisol, placing a ghostly hand through Marisol's shoulder. "I think he's easily frightened," she said. "We need to be careful."

Snorting, Marisol said, "We just need him to shut his trap. He looks like you, so you can go punch 'im or strangle 'im or somethin' if I can't."

"Yes," Arlais said, rolling her eyes. "Because violence is always a good idea."

Marisol nodded. "Sure is!"

Télos let out another earsplitting scream and ducked back down behind Grim. Even though he couldn't feel his ghostly touch, he could tell that Télos was a trembling mess. "There-there's a g-gh-ghost," the man stammered. He hesitantly raised his head and peeked over Grim's shoulder, only to let out another scream when he saw Arlais. "You-you said this place wasn't haunted!"

"It's not," Grim said.

Télos, exasperated, pointed a shaking finger at the now transparent Arlais.

"She's like you and me," Grim explained, looking back in the man's direction. His golden eyes - a color he had never quite seen before - were wide in fear as he looked between Grim and Arlais. "She's not a ghost normally, just like you. And ghosts aren't that scary, anyways. They're just kind of sad and lonely."

Télos hesitantly stepped out from behind him. He took a shaky step in Arlais' direction, stopped, then took another one as he said in a sheepish voice, "I'm sorry for getting so scared of you," he said, "seeing that we're in the same boat."

At that moment, Leo's hoof hit one of the stairs wrong, and he found himself quickly tumbling down the large staircase. When he finally stopped falling, laying at the landing below in a heap, he assessed the damage. Other than a few bruises and a gash in his leg where he apparently stabbed himself with his own horn, he was fine.

Kit winced through Leo's entire fall, only managing to squint her eyes open when the banging and clattering stopped. She made her way down to stand next to where he sprawled on the floor.

"Are you okay?" she gingerly helped him up for the second time in the past ten minutes. He nodded and shakily stood.

Sevy simply stared down at the two, still at the top landing. In truth, he was the one who had missed a step when the lion and the ghost had moved past him. His grip on Leo had slipped.

"Oops." He called down, "Sorry! My bad!"

"Are they also like us...?" Télos asked, bewildered, as he turned back to Grim.

Grim nodded.

"Huh," Télos commented, crossing his arms.

His apparent fear of ghosts seemed to have vanished into thin air; now he wasn't a trembling mess like before, which was admittedly quite the improvement. But something about the change - something about the way Télos was acting - just didn't sit quite right with him. He had a sneaking suspicion that Télos was more powerful than he appeared to be, though he had no idea why, seeing that he didn't even know what Télos really was like.

"It's weird," Télos said, looking around at the other people there. "There's a surprisingly high amount of people who look like players. And while that totally makes sense with me, I have absolutely no idea what's up with the rest of you-"

He suddenly stopped and stared at Grim.

Grim shifted uncomfortably.

"You're not wearing anything under that cloak," Télos pointed out, looking away and covering his eyes. "You're entirely naked under there, aren't you?"

Arlais nodded. "That's perfectly fine," she whispered, but the screaming pumpkinhead man was already talking to the skeleton man. Or, saying that he wasn't wearing anything under his robes. Which, between the screaming, people falling down the stairs, and Marisol putting her hands over her sensitive ears because of both, was almost mundane.

"Could someone tell me what's happening?" she whispered, standing around. "What's this about 'players,' and what am I, and why is he not wearing anything?"

Télos turned his attention away from Grim's lack of clothing and stared at Arlais. The personification of death was admittedly quite confused by the look; he seemed like he honestly expected them to know what he was talking about. After staring at her for a good minute, he finally answered one of the questions she had asked.

"A player is...well...that guy over there." He gesture at Grim. "They're usually incredibly emotionless, and they talk with white text that appears over their heads."

He pointed up at the air above his head for emphasis.

He rested his head - or, rather, the pumpkin - in the cusp of his hand, musing for another moment before adding, "I think Lex called them hu-mans? He would know, being one of them. But, anyhow, that's what a player is. And there's a surprisingly high number of people here who look like them, although that's definitely because of this place's ability to transform people."

Now it was Grim's turn to do the staring. What on Earth was he talking about? Humans weren't like that at all-

Oh.

Maybe he wasn't from Earth?

Before pursuing that particular topic, he decided to answer the other questions Arlais had. "You're a ghost," he quietly said. "A partial, if I'm right. They're the ones who can go through things, and can do what Télos was doing earlier. And I'm, uh, not wearing anything because I don't usually need to wear anything but my cloak? It's just kind of how people imagine me, so it tends to work out best if I just fit the description when I meet them..."

Arlais looked down at her feet, which had partly molded into the floor. "As long as I can move," she whispered to herself, remembering how terrible her last form had been. She didn't quite know what ghost meant, or what all Telós - the pumpkinhead man, right? - could do, but it wasn't as though she had any other choice but to accept it.

Still, she looked up at him and frowned. "I know quite a lot of humans," she said, "But I don't see anything over their heads." She titled her head to Marisol, who had backed up against a wall and placed her hands over her ears. Ugh, there was nothing Arlais could do - she couldn't even give Marisol a hug. What a horrible place.

Télos stared at her in disbelief. "That can't be right! All players-"

He suddenly fell silent, frantically glancing at the occupants of the room and the room itself. He looked incredibly nervous. So nervous, in fact, that the horrified gasp he gave underneath his breath shattered a vase on the other side of the room. This was followed by him giving a quick scream and ducking behind the nearest piece of overturned furniture he could find.

Grim watched this all with growing confusion. Télos had seemed fine only moments ago. What had suddenly frightened him so much? (Well, he did know the reason for the scream and hiding behind the furniture bit - Télos seemed to get terrified whenever any of his ghostly powers came into play. But that didn't explain the gasp.)

"I'm not on Minecraftia, am I?" he heard Télos say from where he was cowering. He peeked around the overturned couch and saw that Télos was staring down at his hands. "I-I'm somewhere else. But I don't remember getting to another world. How can someone even do that? Am I-Am I stuck on Earth? How am I supposed to get back? What are my chosen going to think if I don't come back? What is Hero going to think? What is Oracle going to think?"

He looked up when he realized Grim was standing there, then immediately averted his gaze. "You really need to put some clothes on under that thing."

Grim glanced down at himself.

Télos went to take off his coat. "You can put my jacket over-" He froze again, this time his gaze dropping down to his ghostly form. "I-I can't give you that, can I? You won't be able to touch it. Oh Ether. I'm stuck on another world as a ghost and now I'm crying and this is really disgusting - why did I ever think putting this stupid thing on was a good idea?"

Leo had oriented himself, balancing enough that he could walk without support. After that, he was able to take a closer look at his companions. He let out a cry when he turned to Kit.

"Ugh- your face! That's really creepy." he stared into her huge eyes, which seemed to be all pupil. They glared at him in response. "Uh... no offense." he quickly added, stepping back in case she tried to punch him.

Kit sighed and shook her head. She could have easily commented on his own appearance, but it wouldn't have helped anything. Making her way into the foyer, where the rest of the group had gone, she wrapped her coat tighter around herself. Leo hadn't seemed to notice her apparel, or lack thereof, but she was extremely conscious of it.

Sevy followed along behind the two, and upon entering the room, he immediately took notice of the transparent man with the pumpkin head, who seemed to be... crying. He took inventory of what seemed to be going on, and crouched next to the ghost.

"It'th alright, Thir." he hissed, trying to control his forked tongue, who had a mind of its own, "we're all going to figure out just what's going on."