deercountry | House Log 001: Find me way out there; there's no road that will lead us back

Haunted as all get out, they'd warned Xerxes Break, when the topic of snatching up an abandoned house large enough to hold himself and several teenagers had come up. No one wants it. It's just too much. Sure, there had been plenty of ghostly activity when they arrived in September, up to and including a disembodied hand that likes to run around all over the kitchen. But after a series of pranks involving sugar switched for salt and so on, it was determined that the hand really just wanted to be included in things, so they named the thing Scrabbles and now it's as much a part of the family as Elliot's slowly growing batcat army. So it's gone with most of the ghosts and that seems right and proper. After all, everyone who has arrived from their world is also firmly dead and still kicking anyway. Isn't it a pleasant thing for so many ghosts to be sharing this nice home? When you put it like that, haunted as all get out doesn't really seem like a terrible thing at all.

Anyway it's October now, the ghost activity is much worse, and it all seems to center around some sort of horrible cackling monstrosity living in the basement behind a padlocked door that someone felt the need to hide behind a brick wall.

Probably that's what the warnings were really about.

So, here's how the story goes:

- Shortly after the concerning basement discovery, Dipper Pines posts a very convenient network broadcast concerning ghostbusting, which Break happens to catch with his freshly acquired mad networking skills. It is agreed that probably the basement monstrosity ought to be investigated, and so it is that Dipper comes to visit and Break braces himself for another episode of chasing teenagers around while annoying things happen.

- Annoying things proceed to happen. Turns out the basement ghost was locked down there not to keep others out, but to keep him in. Once released, the ghost attacks and scatters the party, chasing smaller groups of them all over the house in turn. Fortunately, Dipper's presence gives them an even six and nobody ends up alone.

- Armed with Dipper's ghostbusting run-down, every team manages to plant a solid hit on this ghost. After a series of house-wide shenanigans, finally the ghost retreats to its basement lair, and our heroes follow to exorcise the thing properly. Success! ...and so it is that we find ourselves standing in a horrible homebrew blood ministration laboratory, packed to the brim with bad, bad vibes. Turns out the ghost was some crazed mad scientist doing illicit experiments at home, and probably all the other ghosts in the place are somehow his fault. No one wants to think too hard about Scrabbles the disembodied kitchen hand.

- Rifling through the blood minister's notes reveals the existence of a solidly corrupted spouse who was tossed into the attic for safekeeping long ago, and died there. Was this man trying to help his lover through her insanity, and failed? Was he the cause of it in the first place? Either way, this is a house where insane people getting imprisoned in towers and treated as experiments at best is unacceptable, and so it's off to the attic to bring peace to this ghost at last.

- It is decided that all the other ghosts in the house can stay. The only other really scary one lives outside, and to all appearances, eats threats.

- Dipper Pines gets to have the experience of joining a pack of exhausted feral Victorians at the local ramen shop.

Go to town!

Edited 2021-10-15 20:20 (UTC)

The Mission Briefing.[Open]

[It was Dipper's first case in Trench and boy was it exciting. Also terrifying. He never had a problem being consulted in Gravity Falls, but everything here is so different. Less people knew him, and the stakes were much higher. This house he was heading to now definitely promised to be wild, if by just the description of the situation was enough to go by. Okay, Dipper, don't mess this up!!]

[Anyway, this is how the Pandora House has come to have this short (4'8"), spunky Ghost expert in their house. He comes with a large bag tossed over his shoulder and immediately makes his way down into the Problem Area with the rest of the house.]

[Dipper does not have to get close to know exactly what this dude is all about. He can feel the bad vibes from the stairs.]

Oh yeah, this guy's got to go.

[Big words from someone advocating for talking ghosts down on the network. Anyway, he does not waste time getting to work. He empties the contents of his bag:

- 12 or so candles, some of them are white and glittery and smell faintly of milk
- a few jars of salt
- a few lunar orb powered handheld lanterns
- several silver objects including: two silver mirrors, a silver candelabra, a silver platter, a flute and a few silverware items.
- a few containers of blessed water.
- One large vial of paleblood. ]

Okay, so, listen up everyone. I didn't have enough silver mirrors to pass around, so instead I hunted down as many silver things as I could and gave them the same spell treatment. I don't think they will catch ghosts, but they should be effective for thwarting them, at least. I'll keep one of the mirrors and then everything else is up for grabs.

We don't know what we're gonna see on the other side of the door, so everyone look sharp. Any questions?

[ooc: You guys can use this as a mingle before we bust open the door. Ask him questions or talk amongst yourselves.]

[One of those jars of salt? It was suddenly floating up and directly in to Alice's hands as she floated as well, legs tucked underneath her as if she were merely sitting. Examining the jar, turning it a little half to listen to the salt moving inside of it.]

What's this for?

[Look, Dipper, you said any questions.]

[Dipper startled a little when the jar started to lift up on it's own, quickly looking around to see if one of the house ghosts started to preemptively get up to shit. No, it was just the spooky floating girl with white hair.]

[Twins! And he wonders if maybe they're related to Mr. Break? Anyway, he's happy to answer.]

Salt is a very common ward for spirits in a lot of different cultures- at least, where I'm from. It's considered good for purification. You can pour it in a circle or a line, and ghosts and evil spirits shouldn't be able to cross.

Ward and purification... [Repeating the words, squinting a little as she held the jar eye-level then to get a better look at it. That sounded like it would definitely be good.

Then Alice was opening the jar, letting it float from her hands as a good bit of the inside tipped out and floated in the air as well. Circling around and spreading to make it look as if she were in a perma-snow-fall snow globe, opened jar floating around herself.]

Do you think something like this could work in a pinch then?

[Pinch of salt and human salt bomb.]

And we thwart them by hitting them with all of this? That’s easy, the Great Alice shall strike down every ghost in this territory.

[ This confident declaration is slightly muffled because there’s a candle in her mouth. Dipper said up for grabs and she’s taking him at his word. ]

[Break is having a "this may as well happen" kind of day, honestly. A "so this is the situation I find myself in" day. The vibe in here is very similar to the time Oscar Vessalius gathered all the kids together on a super secret mission to infiltrate a boarding school and find out who young Ada had a crush on: Very Serious Business™ to be sure but is it, though? Is it really? He read a novel like this once and it was amusing and all but not his favorite? Break is so torn between genuine concern about a thing in the house that could decide to hurt them, and hoping vaguely that the kids will have a nice time.

He is paying attention to everything, mind. And has no intention of going in unarmed. While Dipper is speaking, Baltus trots over to investigate the pile, and of course he hones in on the most stick-like thing of the bunch and brings it to his person. Feeling it out, Break is deeply bemused to realize he has just been handed a damned silver flute, but sure, sure. He spins it a little, testing out the weight and balance. Sure, he will swordfight a ghost with a flute and then he'll be able to say that he did that, why not. This might as well happen.]

Forks too? [He asks it of Baltus softly and gets a gentle "boof" in reply.] Grab me a couple of those, would you? Ranged combat, you know.

[It's really for the best if there is only one horrifying murder Ghost in a place at a time and Break has moved in, so he'll have to assert dominance over this other one, he supposes. By chucking forks at it which Break is great at. And swordfighting it with a flute. Why not! Why not. He is a squid now.]

That candle's made with my blood, you know.

[He offers her the silver platter for max whacking. She seems like the time to enjoy cracking people over the head with blunt objects.]

[ Alice considers this new fact for a little too long before she decides that this might actually be too weird for her and puts the candle back with hardly any tooth marks. She's not gonna chew on the blood of someone she just met. Lick it in passing, maybe, but chewing is right out. She takes the platter and gives it a few practice swings. Dipper may have been right on the money about this one. ]

Huh. Mine's tastier, more of a jam than a candle.

[ As long as we are exchanging interesting blood facts. This is how one interacts with the peers, she suspects. ]

If I'm also a ghost, am I in danger?

[Oz cheerfully reaches for a piece of silverware anyway. YOLO or something!

... Or more appropriately, because he knows it won't hurt him. He's already accidentally touched the silverware and it didn't cause any trouble. His question is asked solely to keep the mood light. His own included.]

This is exciting. I've heard of ghost stories, but I've never met anyone brave enough to fight a ghost~.

Nightmares aren't anything new. In fact, it's more rare to have an undisturbed night's rest than not. They're not always so vivid, though. Frequently they are dark things that strike him awake in the middle of the night with a deep, horrible dread, the room around him feeling nebulous and uncertain.

Sometimes, though, they are so real he can scarcely tell them apart from the waking world until he's stumbled his way down the halls and found the wash room, fumbling on the shower and drenching himself in cold water until he can think. This is one such night, where the nightmare refused to stay where it belonged. Where it followed him into reality, warping the walls around him into bloody, gnashing teeth.

Not yet fit to sleep again, Elliot towels himself off and wanders his way into the kitchen, looking for something to drink. He does not expect to find company when he does.

Elliot is not the only one having a rough night. Break hasn't slept at all yet -- one of his fits of nerves struck him as he lay there in the dark, his mind trapped in a whirl as he considered over and over all the things he needs to be taking care of now that he has four kids to look after, all of them weird and all of them hurting. And though they'll certainly support one another too, the bulk of it is going to fall to him, and in what world is he the best person for this job? In what world is he going to manage to pull this off? Well, it's going to have to be this one apparently because he just doesn't have a choice, and goddamn what he would not give for the chance to run to Sheryl Rainsworth, to hear her chortle at him and tell him he's overprotective and they can surely handle this or that and even though he knows she'd say it it's not the same as hearing it and he misses her so much --

Unbeknownst to him, she's in the chair nearby, or some version of her is. She's well dressed as always, the usual serene smile on her face. But she's shockingly pale and her head is tilted at a horrible angle that looks even worse contrasted against her hands folded neatly in her lap. Summoned by his thoughts, she keeps Break company as he slouches over a forgotten teacup with one hand buried in his hair, too absorbed in his racing thoughts to notice Elliot's arrival. Baltus is aware of him, but doesn't move from his position with his head on Break's leg, supporting him as best he can while Break tries to remember to breathe.

Edited 2021-11-04 06:34 (UTC)

The whole scene is a shock it's hard to pinpoint what gets him first. If not the tormented looking state Xerxes Break seems to be in, then the absolutely ghastly visage of the woman sitting at the table. He thinks for a moment, its the house messing with him, or one of the spirits playing some awful prank on them, but the longer he looks, the more he realizes he recognizes the woman.

Sheryl of Rainsworth. As a Nightray he had to be familiar with the other Dukedoms, and while he never brushed elbows with any of them directly, it's impossible to not know of their notoriety. Sheryl was a frightening force of a woman within Pandora and commanded significant respect.

So what what she doing sitting at their table, looking like that, while Break seemed to be wholly unaware of the situation? Elliot doesn't know. He isn't sure what's happening and the whole thing makes him uneasy in ways he cannot put into words. Added that on top of the nightmare he just came out of, where he once again watched his sister's head roll down a flight of stairs, his own face coated in the phantom stickiness of her blood-

"What the fuck."

Edited 2021-11-04 07:04 (UTC)

Break jumps so hard he bonks his omen's head on the underside of the table when his knee jerks; Baltus gives a little honk of protest. Feeling his irritation, Break doesn't seem to know where to turn to first.

"I -- Elliot? What are you -- ah, Baltus, I'm so sorry, come here --"

He seems haggard enough that it seems weird that the drink he was clutching was a teacup rather than a whiskey glass, and when he draws his grumbling omen in for an apology cuddle, it looks to be as much for Break's benefit as it is for Baltus's. He's forgotten to add any polite modifier's to Elliot's name, too -- and he's certainly unaware of Sheryl Rainsworth, who sits unmoving through the whole exchange.

Elliot practically bristles like a cat at the reaction. What did he expect to happen? Clearly not that. The tension in the air is like that of electricity, between the two of them and their panic and alarm.

Elliot takes the confusion as a chance to catch his breath. His eyes stay trained on the apparition at the table while he finds his voice again.

"You don't- Of course not, bloody hell."

Sometimes even he forgets that Xerxes Break is literally fucking blind. Anyway, it is far too late for whatever seems to be going on and Elliot's voice is probably shakier than he meant it to be. He moves to the counter while not breaking eye contact with Sheryl before he paws around for the tea kettle.

Edited 2021-11-04 08:52 (UTC)

Now that Break is giving him attention, Baltus takes the opportunity to deposit his entire noodley self in Break's lap, climbing on up whether he likes it or not and draping his neck over Break's shoulder so that he is extra huggable. His long tail still drags on the floor, and one back leg sticks out haphazardly. He is entirely too big to be a lap dog but is as stubborn as Break is, so he's not going to make himself smaller and Break will just have to deal with it.

Make use of your emotional support omen, moron. B(

-- but the omen's tangible, solid presence does help, and if it's under the guise of making it up to him for offending Baltus with the head bonk, Break can perhaps indulge in the comfort of affectionate contact without looking quite as pathetic as he's feeling. He's too far into his nerves for this to pull him out entirely, but Baltus has a weight to him that's deliberate, a choice he makes when he could be smoke instead. He has soft, curly fur. He's muttering to himself doggishly behind Break's head, the sound pleasantly cranky.

"...what are you doing up?" Break asks after a few long moments, while Elliot is messing around at the stove.

The clattering at the counter stops for a very potent moment while Elliot tries to sort out the answer to that question. Tries to decide how much he wants to say.

"Trouble sleeping. The house is playing its tricks."

And then, as he returns his gaze to Sheryl, regarding the apparition with more suspicion now than apprehension:

"You?"

"Something like that."

It's not anything the house is doing that's troubling him now. This isn't the first time he's had a night like this, where he can't slow his thoughts down or breathe properly or relax his shoulders, and it certainly won't be the last. And, just now, it's too early in the month for him to realize that the influence of Trench itself is making it worse for him when he otherwise might have sorted himself out tonight. After all, these worries have been on his mind a few weeks now, and with the stress of realizing how badly this place may treat them all, of course it would all come together in an explosion like so.

Sheryl sits serene and dead, her placid smile frozen on her face.

"One of those tins is chamomile," he offers, correctly interpreting the noises Elliot is making. "Second from the left."

I can't be held accountable if you end up trapped in one of my mirrors, dude.

[He says this very matter-of-factly. But hey! This is pretty cool, Oz taught him some ballroom dancing and now Dipper gets to teach him how to bust a ghost!]

[Anyway, he thinks Oz is joking maybe, but he does watch him when he picks up a silver item, being quietly relieved it doesn't hurt him.]

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but facing murderous ghosts is something I wind up doing often enough that I can actually call it a hobby.

[Dipper is just kind of stunned into silence when all the salt starts floating around. Wow, that was pretty dang cool! He looks impressed!]

Maybe! I bet you could also weaponize it if you get in a jam, too.

[He makes kind of an outward explosion motion with his hands complete with sound-effects.]

House Log 001: Find me way out there; there's no road that will lead us back

Xerxes Break

Elliot Nightray

Alice Baskerville (White)

Oz Vessalius

Alice Baskerville (Black)

House Ghost mini-plot!

Dipper Pines | Who ya gonna call? (Him, apparently)

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[not actually doing anything I just needed to write this out]

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Early October

cw: anxiety

cw: beheading, ptsd,

we're doing great

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