Deni tried each of the doors along the corridor and sighed. No luck--they were all locked. The last one he tried was the one at the end, the only one still lit by a candle. He cautiously opened the door to see a dark room. Okay. He held out his lantern and stepped cautiously inside. The floor was uneven and clicked under his hooves. He looked down at the floor and shivered. "Okay," he said. "Ah think it's safe, but the floor is...well, it's skulls."
His siblings came in and looked at the floor. Sara made a face, while Niol shook his head. Having recovered from his initial disgust, Deni looked around the room for some sign of where to go next. It was Niol who found the key tucked into the floor. The only object in the room that seemed to have a lock was the wardrobe in the corner, but when they tried it, it was unlocked. Inside were a pair of skull candles and a bird skull. "Alraht," Deni said, picking up a skull candle. "I guess the key goes somewhere else."
Sara nodded and picked up the other skull candle. "It would seem so," she said grimly. She pointed to the door in the back of the closet, marked with a lock with a skull on it. "Ah suspect it goes there."
Niol was left with the bird skull, which he dropped in his bucket. Holding out the key, he unlocked the door at the back of the closet to see a dark room. "Who wants t' go first?" he asked.
Frankie's luck wasn't over yet, it seemed. The next house was also pretty disappointing--they each got a pack of gross gum, though Fena got something extra. However, Frankie was followed out of the yard by a stray cat that rubbed up against his ankles. "I'm taking you home, too," he cooed at the tan creature. It meowed at him and continued to rub against him.
Fena smiled at his brother. "Congrats!" he murmured. He had received a stick of gum and a stuffed bat. It was a very cute bat, but he still felt a twinge of jealousy for Frankie's luck with kitties.
Histeol stepped aside to let Xei or Prometheus have another turn, although he wasn't sure if Prometheus was all that interested. Something came soaring towards him, only to stop suddenly with a pull on his leash. Teo felt for the object in Haint's mouth. "Another turnip?" he asked his friends.
Ustule nodded, then made a face. Right. Teo. "Yes," she said. "They seem to be popular right now." The turnip was followed by a stuffed rabbit that had seen better days and a glove full of stale popcorn. Gross!
"Alright, resolved," Peri yawned. "Next year, we're bringing umbrellas. Doesn't matter what we dress up as, so long as we have shields." A candy apple, thankfully wrapped in plastic, rolled across the ground to his feet.
nepsah
The next round of the trivia game was more punishing than the last one had been. Nonetheless, Cal got through it with a nice prize, a bag of eyeball candies.
Eidil was as lucky as Cal, or perhaps more so. She won another stuffed bat--so far as she could tell, she was pretty sure that meant that there were only three bats left for her to get tonight! This was accompanied, sadly, by a puppet falling on her head from who knew where. That was creepy enough, but the eyes....the face on the puppet...urgh.
Yaviss watched the half-Geist run away sobbing and felt a twinge in his heart. He hated to leave someone feeling like that, even if it wasn't his fault. He took a stick of cotton candy a stranger offered him with a quiet "thank you" and headed back to campus with his new cats. He needed to talk to Quilo, and soon.
Vederat took the lead for the next house, just as he had for the last two houses. He and the rest of his friends got popcorn gloves, which tended not to be very good, but they thanked the homeowner for them anyway. As they were crossing the street to the next house, however, Ved came across a plushie lying in the gutter. He picked it up and brushed some of the twigs off of it. "I'll have to clean you up," he murmured to it, "but you'll be alright in the end."
Aura wasn't sure what they thought of the popcorn glove, but they were a little jealous of the plushie that Ved had picked up. Be nice to your friends, be nice to your friends... "That's a cute plushie," they said. "Shame about the eye."
Sound Lee munched on the popcorn from the popcorn glove he'd gotten at the last house. "The life skills class has buttons," he murmured. "They might let you have one to replace the missing eye."
Anchriesel got another turn with the cards, but he felt like it was time to move on after this. He won an orange bracelet, which he immediately slid over his hand.
Zalir flipped over the cards, winning zemselves a bracelet as well. Zey picked a matching bracelet--hey, it was orange!--and held it up. "Um, now we match," zey giggled.
Now that they were in the neighborhoods, trick-or-treating could begin in earnest. Without their dragon around to kidnap the queen, their act was a little stunted, but where they were asked to perform a skit, they could still perform one of a royal court--even if it had no plot. They got a lot of suggestions that they needed a court jester, which was more than a little annoying, to be honest...
Darryl bagged a sugar skull from the first house they got to and slipped it into his pumpkin.
Evelyn had fared both better and worse than her brother--she'd gotten a stuffed skeleton in a fetching blue and pink (she would have preferred blue and purple, but blue and pink was good enough). On the other hand, she also got one of those gross popcorn gloves...
Talya was reveling in her luck this evening. She almost had more plushies than she could carry now! She wondered idly how many of these she should give away to Lillian. Her poor Nixie friend was missing out on so much... She'd probably keep this one-eyed rabbit for herself, though, as well as this gross popcorn glove.
Xenophon, too, won a skeleton plush. His had a green skeleton on it, but he already had an idea what to name it. He put it, and the popcorn glove, in his bucket.
On the other side of the street, Ruka was fairing as well as her brother. On the one hand, gum! Gum that went flat and tasteless after a few seconds of chewing it, and then just became a chore to chew. Ruka had to be reminded by her dad that she couldn't spit it out onto the sidewalk. On the other hand, she'd gotten another stuffed bat, a small one this time! Which was very nice.
Ori resisted the urge to pat the prisoner on the hand. "Don't worry, we'll watch out for ourselves," she said lamely. She felt bad for not offering them some help--but she had to keep reminding herself, no, this is an actor, he's not in danger. I'm not in danger. This is just a haunted house, not a...well, not whatever it seems to be! She took a deep breath and proceeded to the next room.
The first room after the hallway had been the skull room, followed by the torture chamber, the doll room, the puppet room and what she'd begun to think of as the "ectoplasm" room. This room was clearly the room of bones--or possibly the room of blood. Here the props and struts that made up the doll/puppets' bones were covered in bright green light piped in from the room next door through overhead pipes. Eep. A dumbwaiter even waited nearby to carry them up to the puppet workshop above! The bones lay out in neatly ordered piles, imbued with their hellish life.
They had been with actors on a couple of occasions now, but this was the first time they were aware that someone was in the room. A Nightmare with a bandaged face was hard at work rubbing green'd rags over the bones as if polishing them with essence. Bringing them to life. Necromancy. The actor was even a Litch! Sitting on their workbench was a pile of treats obviously meant for the guests. But as Ori took a cautious step towards the workbench, something scuffled under papers on the bench. With a howl, the Litch picked up a spiked club from the bench and thrashed the papers with a ferocity that made the Goblin step back.
She looked back to her friends to see them already huddled behind her, waiting for her to join them. Wyrdda made a sign that, for once, needed no translation: We need to be very quiet. Ori nodded and began the slow creep across the floor. The cats and kit seemed to understand the need for silence--the cats moved forward on velvet paws, while Wyrdda picked up Vines to keep his claws from clicking on the floor. Upon reaching the desk, Ori slowly lifted the trinkets from the desk and gestured towards a door on the far side. They didn't have much time--the Litch was putting bones on the dumbwaiter, but would be back in a few seconds. Each member of their party silently touched an object. The meaning was clear--I want this one. Ori took a green and black skeleton plush and a candy apple.
Wyrdda, too, took a skeleton plush, but she also took the odd item out--a glass eye. She looked around at the door behind her, aware even as she did that the Litch was heading towards them. The door behind them had a slot in it, just big enough for the eye to fit into it. It seemed that it needed to go there. Wyrdda pulled her friends towards the wall and lined them up close to each other. When she fit the eye in the slot, she wanted them to be able to move out quickly and quietly--she had no idea what would happen when she unlocked the door.
Wyrdda was already showing much more bravery than Jie was--she was so terrified that her heartbeat was drowning out every sound in the room. She took a plush skeleton and a bag of caramel eyeballs (urgh) and got in line behind Ori.
Kuni just wanted to leave here as soon as possible, snuggle up with his pets back home, and just forget about this whole night. Uch. He took a bag of eyeball candies and got in line behind Jie, ready to protect her if need be.
Nai took up the rear--he was used to it by now. Maybe because he was a Litch himself, he wasn't all that afraid of the spectre in the room--or at least, he hadn't been until it had beaten up the squeaking thing. He shuddered. It had sounded like a flitterrat under those papers... It's all fake, he told himself. This can't be real. He looked up at Wyrdda, willing his face to ask that all-important question--are you sure you want to go last?
Apparently the Grimm understood him, because she nodded firmly. She would go last. He gave her a reassuring smile and tucked away a bag of skull candies, freezing as the plastic bag crinkled. The Litch turned its head towards him, nose twitching as if trying to smell him out.
Ichiru had a lock on his leash today. So help her twelve, this child of hers was a trial. She loved him, but wondered who had donated the other half of the imbue because all of this mischief couldn't possibly have come just from her!
She looked at the goblet that had ended up in her pail. It looked interesting at first, but then she noticed that it appeared dented and...just was really poor quality. That was a shame. She looked down when she felt something soft against her and looked down to see a Fennekit that had glued itself to her side. It seemed she had been claimed, and that was fine by her.
Essei was wary when she held out her bucket since she had been pranked two days in a row. As such, it was a pleasant surprise to receive a candied skull instead. She squealed in delight and decided she was going to savor that and eat it slowly.
Ichiru was sulking a bit since he couldn't get out of his leash, and his mood didn't improve much when he ended up with a bracelet...at least until he realized it was similar to the one his mother had gotten a couple of days ago. He was sore at her, but it still brightened his mood a bit to have something like his mother's.
Tobias picked the raisin box out of his pail and shook it dubiously. As tricks went, this didn't seem so bad. At least he hadn't ended up with poo-looking candy again. He was still working up the nerve to try and eat that thing.
{14} Clove having got a really cute stuffed animal, at least he thought it was cute, kept it out of his bucket and carried it around, he really liked it a lot. Clove went up to the next house and waited jumping up and down as he peered over the other kids to see how long it would be before he could get his next candy. Clove got to the door, and held up his bucket he was almost too excited that he couldn't hold still, and kept jumping up down nearly losing whatever he had in his bucket to the ground.
{3} Corey could not understand all the excitement coming from Clove, looking at clove corey decided it was time to move up after seeing Clove scamper to the side. Corey was unsure if they should be worried about clove, or just leave them be and go on about there day, of getting candy, or tricks that they did not seem to care about it. Corey walked up to the house and said trick or treat, not really paying attention to what the person snuck into their bucket.
{1} Meena was talking to Galathe, when she saw that Corey was moving over to where Clove was, she took this opportunity to scoot forward. Meena stoped talking to, Galathe and cheerfully held up her bucket, she as happy to have at least gotten one Treat, and she kinda wanted to know what she would get next. Meena was now more excited, then disappointed, now that she got at least one candy, she was happy, though she kept hoping that she would get even more Treat.
{17} Galathe was talking to Meena and stoped as soon as she saw corey move to the side and wait next to clove, she waited till Meena moved, before she went up and held her bucket up. Galathe smiled gently, and looked over at the group, she didn't pay attention as the grown up put something in her bucket, she stood there for a moment watching the group. Clove waved at her, and that's when she stoped being distracted and ran over to them, not really showing, that she seemed to care about the Treats or tricks.
Aurelia smiled happily as she popped one of the chocolate skulls into her mouth, saving the rest for later in her bucket. She was about to answer what game she wanted to try next until she saw Meadow run over to the cute little paper ghost dangling nearby, following and giggling when she saw it. "It's so cute! It'll look awesome in the window." Some flashing lights caught her eye and she looked over to see a ski ball game "Ooooh, that looks like fun! Lets try that one!" She grabbed Meadow's hand gently and led him to the game, paying for a round for herself. "I'm gonna get it into the hundred point hole the first try!" A bold goal but one she was going to try. She held the ball like a bowling ball, aiming it carefully before she sent it down the lane. She watched it bounce up, hit the rim and.....it actually went in! "Woohoo!" Aurelia cheered for herself happily....but then the ball shot back out of the hole. ".....The heck?" She raised an eyebrow and tossed another ball down the lane, watching it go into another hole and then be shot back out a moment later. One more ball was tossed into the hundred point hole and it was shot out.....and the something else shot out of the hole; a bright, glowing sphere of violet light jettisoned straight into Aurelia's face, knocking her back with a startled shriek. She stumbled back onto the ground, heart pounding as she opened her eyes and went cross-eyed to see the violet light sphere was.....a wisp...now just sitting on her nose as she stared at it. Was this the thing that was shooting the balls back out? Someone who had seen the incident felt bad and left her one of those popcorn hands (though it looked a little old.)
Lural
Iolanthe was admiring her pretty sugar skull treat when she bumped into someone by accident. She tried to apologize but they threw some kind of candy at her, sticking their tongue out before running away. She felt bad that they responded that way, looking down to see what they had thrown at her. A gummy poo? That was weird.
Kohaku wandered over to the booths where they were selling various trinkets, looking them over before they spied a rather pretty little bracelet. They paid for it and looked it over, smiling before they reached down to fit it around Seeker's neck like a collar.
Chidori was curious about going to this Haunted Hallows festival, wondering if it was like anything in the village. So far it didn't seem like it; if anything it was more colorful and lively. She took a candy bucket and lantern offered to her and joined a group of freshlings that were being guided around by a caretaker. They went to a house and the kumiho watched the other freshlings go up and hold their buckets out while shouting 'trick or treat', seeming to get something for their trouble. It looked interesting. She was dressed up like a ghostly version of herself so she followed suit. The litch dropped something into her bucket with a wink before ducking back behind their door. She looked inside to see a rock that seemed to be glowing with a strange light. Well....this is interesting.
Hailey was far too excited when she won a game! She hooted and danced around before scooping up the pinkest of pink plushies! Kitty laughed as her big sister pranced around, all sorts of excited about her plushie. She, however, had someone rubbing against her leg! excitedly, Kitty looked down to see, well, a kitty! She instantly scooped it up and cuddled it!... and though she wasn't looking, Hailey saw the cat and was instantly jealous!
Excited to see a game she wanted to play, Kismet ran over to the pitching game, paid her tickets, and began throwing the balls! She did awesome enough to pick out a prize! No bones about it, she wanted the skeleton plushie!
Popple smiled as her little prince of a brother caught up to the family! Kneeling down, she held out a plushie to Piero "Here you go lil man!"
Tullio gave a happy smile as he watched his siblings, though he became quite distracted as something seemed to cling to his leg. Afraid to look down, he nudged Popple and she just grinned a wicked grin when he asked what it was! "Crap!"
Piero beamed excitedly as his big sister gave him a plushie, clinging to it tightly before grabbing her hand! He wasn't getting lost this time!
Karma must have been giving off some sort of vibe or something, because everyone was giving the little chimera gifts!... which she happily hoarded.
Crux walked close to the other big male who helped him feel safe around all these others. Picking up a forgotten plush from the ground, he gave a weak smile as he held it out of a nearby little girl. Even though Sythe was NOT a people person, he couldn't help but smirk, pleased that his.... friend?.. was actually reaching out to a kid. So he decided to do the same, extending a spider plush to the child as well
This place was GOLD for getting awesome plushies! Bibbidi grabbed up another spider plush after winning at a game, tucking it against herself beside it's friend she had gotten before! As Babbie wandered, she came across a litter of fennekit pups. They were so precious, but then she noticed one with it's eyes closed. Poor thing. With a nod from the one in charge, she smiled and scooped the little baby up "I got you~" she said in a gentle coo.
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{14} Clove having got a really cute stuffed animal, at least he thought it was cute, kept it out of his bucket and carried it around, he really liked it a lot. Clove went up to the next house and waited jumping up and down as he peered over the other kids to see how long it would be before he could get his next candy. Clove got to the door, and held up his bucket he was almost too excited that he couldn't hold still, and kept jumping up down nearly losing whatever he had in his bucket to the ground.
{3} Corey could not understand all the excitement coming from Clove, looking at clove corey decided it was time to move up after seeing Clove scamper to the side. Corey was unsure if they should be worried about clove, or just leave them be and go on about there day, of getting candy, or tricks that they did not seem to care about it. Corey walked up to the house and said trick or treat, not really paying attention to what the person snuck into their bucket.
{1} Meena was talking to Galathe, when she saw that Corey was moving over to where Clove was, she took this opportunity to scoot forward. Meena stoped talking to, Galathe and cheerfully held up her bucket, she as happy to have at least gotten one Treat, and she kinda wanted to know what she would get next. Meena was now more excited, then disappointed, now that she got at least one candy, she was happy, though she kept hoping that she would get even more Treat.
{17} Galathe was talking to Meena and stoped as soon as she saw corey move to the side and wait next to clove, she waited till Meena moved, before she went up and held her bucket up. Galathe smiled gently, and looked over at the group, she didn't pay attention as the grown up put something in her bucket, she stood there for a moment watching the group. Clove waved at her, and that's when she stoped being distracted and ran over to them, not really showing, that she seemed to care about the Treats or tricks. 
