The Castle on the Hill

Upon seeing that the others, apparently, did not have any reservations about entering the most definitely haunted castle, Trevor quickly followed them. Inside, it seemed cold, poorly lit, and ancient. Pretty much everything that Trevor didn’t like.

He was very much tempted to call out “Echo!” in the large foyer, but on second thought, it seemed better to stay quiet in this sort of place. Besides, he thought he kept seeing... something out of the corner of his eye.

“What should we—“ he began to say as he turned to the others, but instead he saw Griffith and Natalia standing at a door a little ways away and cautiously approached them.

Natalia was vaguely aware of Trevor coming up, but she was too busy staring at the paintings on the wall. The room she had stepped into was an exact copy of an Egyptian palace. She felt rather than heard Griffith say something that sounded like a warning, but she was in a dream.

Adeline took a step back and dropped her arm. "Um, yeah, no thanks. I'll just wait out here. I really don't want to go in there."

His eyes widened behind his plague doctor's mask.

"I don't-I don't know how this is possible," he said, his eyes growing increasingly wider as he took in the Egyptian palace spread out before them. A small part of his mind reminded him that magic was at play, but he had never once seen any sort of magic that could do something like this.

He entered the room.

Beautiful pillars decorated in countless pieces of artwork held up an equally decorated ceiling, and, in the very back of the room, he discovered two more artistically stunning things: an impressive throne, and an intricately decorated sarcophagus behind it. Still in awe of the sight before him - and the terror and unease that should have been there not registering - he wandered back towards both.

Natalia had also notice and followed Griffith. The closer she got to the Sarcophagus, the stronger the vibration grew. "Do you feel that?" She asked Griffith.

Bleffles stood up on her toes to get a better glimpse of the room ahead through the open door.
She wanted to go with Griffith and Natalia to see it better, but it seemed like Adeline might need someone to stay with her. Anything might happen in a castle like this, it probably wasn't a good idea to leave anyone on their own.

"I'll stay here with you while the others scout ahead." Bleffles told Adeline gently.

"Thank you. I appreciate that." Adeline gave Bleffles a hesitant smile. "Sorry I'm kind of being a scaredy-cat.." she mumbled. "I just have a bad feeling about this place, and would rather not get trapped in a room."

Glancing down, she covered her arm, where she had been nervously chipping off paint and exposing glass.

Natalia's mind was trying to scream at her, but she couldn't stop. The vibration grew stronger. What was going on?

Her question went unnoticed for a moment after it was asked, and it was only when the vibration registered that he realized she had spoken to him. "I feel it, too," he confirmed. He took himself out of the mindset of a tourist and back into his own; he needed to find the source of the vibration. He scanned the room. Nothing seemed to be moving too much, so he doubted it was an earthquake. But if it wasn't an earthquake, then what-

He stared at the sarcophagus.

Even before the mummy pushed back the lid, he was pulling up the body's STATUS. He only allowed himself the briefest of glances at the information present as the mummy let out a heavy, loud groan.


Eyes widening in horror, he grabbed onto Natalia's arm. He didn't know what was happening or how something like this was even possible, but the mummy in front of him was going against the rules of the system - it couldn''t possibly be a good thing. "Come on!" he said, no longer caring if she noticed how thin his hand felt underneath his glove.

Natalia stared at horror and fascination at the mummy. When Griffith grabbed her arm it jerked her back into herself. The mummy turned it's head and looked at them. She and Griffith ran out of the room and slammed the door shut at the same time. Natalia leaned against it, trying to stop trembling.

He refrained from letting go of her arm. She was leaning up against the door, and the door didn't swing outwards - it swung inwards. He gave her arm a sharp tug, his own arm frustratingly popping out of its socket for the briefest of moments.

He just barely managed to pull Natalia out of the way in time. The door swung open a second later as the mummy let out another loud groan. Hand still tightly clasping hers, he stared at the undead Egyptian in front of him. "It doesn't make any sense!" he said, forgetting that he wasn't alone. "It's going against the system!"

Still trembling, Natalia suddenly felt very angry. She stared at the mummy. "Just what do you think you're doing?" She screamed at it, forgetting everyone else. "What do you want?"

The mummy just reached out its decaying hands in response. Griffith tugged on Natalia's wrist in a desperate attempt to get her to move back on her own, very much tempted to give her arm another strong tug to make sure the mummy couldn't grab onto her.

Natalia fell back, still mad. Suddenly she saw something on the mummy's hand and almost fell down with shock. There was a scarab beetle, and on that scarab beetle there was a name. "Pharaoh Tutakahmen!"

His jaw dropped behind his mask.

"That's-that's impossible!" he exclaimed; he wasn't sure if he was talking to himself, the mummy or one of the other people who had been brought to this place against their will. "His time of death was just two hours ago! He couldn't have-he couldn't have died then!"

It was only after he had spoken that he realized he had revealed too much about his abilities.