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 Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 9:41 am
Once inside, Toby and Michael would see that the house was just as beautiful there. The floors had been polished, furniture that had been covered with sheets had been uncovered, some of them refurbished. The paintings on the wallpapered walls had been dusted. Someone had taken care of this house.
The garden wasn't nearly as nice. It had tell tale signs of once being a rose garden. Gray, dead branches were scattered behind the house. A fountain had fallen over. "This makes me sad," Maia said, observing. No nymphs or dryads here. She didn't think anything was. It seemed so dead.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 10:06 am
"Oh, wow," Toby said. Dari came in behind him and smiled, looking over the walls. Wallpaper used to be something fancy, not just for little kids' rooms and old people's kitchens.
"Were they all like this?" Toby asked, turning to Michael.
The ghost, too, seemed a bit stunned. He felt like he had walked back in time, and his heart ached for a home like this. He remembered his family, the life he'd had... the clarity of whitelighting could hurt, too. His emotions didn't show on his face, however, and he nodded. "This is middle-class or so. For the men who had to work but could afford cooks as well."
"What were you?" Toby asked.
"The same," Michael said with a slime and a nod. He had a familiar old tug to stay, but when all was well again, this was going to be someone else's home. "Where do you want this?"
"Well, we couldn't ask the family much, so we'll set it up here in the entry. All of these walls are going to be rough..."
"That's Victorian architecture for you," Michael said and began to set up the tripod.
- - -
Lori gave a thoughtful hum and tapped his pen against his leg. While the dead garden was definitely sad, it was good for their investigation. A fae wouldn't have been sleeping here unless it was sick, and if it was sick it likely wouldn't have cared to fight once it woke up. The homeowners clearly hadn't done this. This was decades of neglect. The surveillance could stay inside, then. He said none of this to Maia, though, who had never really been on a fact-finding mission like this. Every piece of new field work could be a learning experience.
"So, what do you think?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 10:45 am
Maia looked around the garden, then to Lori. "I don't think there's anything living here," she said. Even the wasp nest attached to the old broken swing was empty.
"Want to go inside?"
The house had misleading passages. There seemed to be a whisper on the air inside. The paintings seemed to move. One the paintings began to leak something that was staining it from behind.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 11:30 am
Lori smiled and nodded. "Sure. We can help set up and do a walk-around. This house is pretty beautiful, huh?"
Back inside, Dari was drawing a cord between the new camera and the nearest outlet. They all knew the electricity may not last long, fae or ghost, but whatever they could catch might be vital. Besides, protocol was protocol even if it didn't make a whole lot of sense.
"Do you feel anything?" Toby asked Michael as they set up a second camera in another room large enough for it to matter.
"Something," Michael said, "but we know there's something. It's female, whatever it is. A person, not a thing."
Toby nodded.
Dari stood and felt something... strange. He spotted a nearby painting leaking fluid, frowned thoughtfully, and approached it to touch it.
"What is it?" Lori asked, coming in the front door.
Dari shook his head. "Water." He eyed the ceiling.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 12:10 pm
"It is," Maia agreed. She wished they were here on better circumstances. She was worried about Toby.
The ceiling began to drop. It started off slow and then became more constant. Drip drip. Drop. And then the water started pouring from the ceiling. Something was causing it.
The floor began to shake. Paintings fell from their hangings on the wall. Curtains moved of their own accord. Something glass sounded like it broke in the distance.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 12:19 pm
Dari didn't say another word. He sprinted up the stairs to try and find the source of the water. If it was a burst pipe they might be screwed, but if it was a normal overflow he could hopefully stop it. Lori grabbed the camera and moved it out of the way of the water. They were waterproofed, supposedly, but it always worried him.
Toby jumped out of the room. "What's going on?!"
"First attack!" Lori chimed back and pointed to the ceiling. Toby looked up and sighed. Damnit.
"We'll cover the outlets!" Toby said, and came back to look to Michael, who was also staring at the ceiling.
"She's angry," Michael said.
Toby smirked. "You don't say."
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 12:59 pm
The house stilled. The curtains stopped. The water kepy coming.
Maia looked around, alarmed. She started covering the outlets with Toby. "What is it?" She asked. A girl? A fae, or spirit?
There was another whisper on the air. It was definitely a feminine voice. The words were soft welsh.
"Michael, can you see anything?"
Whatever it was, it seemed interested in Dari's presence upstairs. It shoved at him and began moving things in front of him. A basket of chocolates floated before him.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 1:29 pm
If only they hadn't been so quiet! Michael perked, his brows furrowed, and he tried to listen. "I don't know. I'll try to look." He disappeared then, off to find the spirit, whether it be fae or human. Unsurprisingly, he wasn't too popular with the fae in general, but maybe since his whitelighting people would feel differently about him.
Dari blinked at the floating chocolate. Ghost or fae, accepting theri food was not a good idea, for different reasons. He wouldn't so much be affected, but the spirit clearly didn't know what.
"No, thank you," he said, and headed for the bathroom where he heard the water running.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 1:59 pm
The chocolate disappeared and whatever it was shoved at Dari again. A cupcake appeared instead. It floated in a circle around him before vanishing.
"Eat and leave, please." Said the voice. "Leave, please."
The water turned itself off.
Maia looked to Toby. "The water stopped," she said.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 2:10 pm
English! Dari stumbled when he was pushed, but what caused him to pause was the voice. It didn't say just what their target was, but it did say that it could speak English too. The poor interpreter might be saved some trouble.
Then the water stopped.
Dari eyed the bathroom door, which he hadn't made it to, and then looked around the hallway.
"Well, we can't leave until we speak with you. We don't know who you are, and people have been getting sick. It's our job to investigate," he offered. It was worth a try, right?
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 3:17 pm
The spirit was still invisible. It did seem to pause, though. "Leave this place, or more will die," it said, after giving Dari's words thought. It didn't want to talk. And it certainly didn't want them there.
There was silence, and then the facets were on again. The spirit had left Dari to cause mischief, whatever it was.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 4:51 pm
Dari paused again. More would die? As far as they knew, nobody had died. The deaths in the house had all been well before renovation had begun, so either this spirit was ancient or it was bluffing. Maybe it was both.
"I'd rather not surprise you, so I'll just tell you that we won't be leaving. If you want to talk to us, we're all open to it."
The water came back on then and Dari knew he wasn't doing well. He sighed and went to turn them off, admiring the bathroom for a moment and wondering if the floors were going to be ruined over the course of this investigation.
He came back downstairs to find the others back to putting up cameras, and that all the outlets now held waterproof covers that formed around the cords. Lori was setting up a sort of home base of electronics with a canopy over them.
"Well?" Toby asked, looking up from his bent position.
"It's a woman, she speaks Welsh and English, and she says if we don't leave we'll die. She tried to bribe me with candy."
"So she knows you, then!" Toby said, turning back to his work. They had to keep things light.
Dari smirked and shook his head.
"Did you see Michael?" Lori asked.
"No."
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 6:01 pm
The doors upstairs started to bang. Dari was being ignored. If they wouldn't leave, their time here wouldn't be pleasant. The stove in the kitchen turned on and started to smoke ominously.
Maia frowned, hurrying to the kitchen. "She's really upset, whoever she is," she said, trying to find what was smoking. The stove! The kitchen sink turned itself on, the disposal started making metallic noises, like a fork was stuck inside.
"It won't turn off, guys," she said, hitting the switch.
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 6:12 pm
"Looks like we might be taking showers at the hotel!" Toby chimed, as if it was all totally fine. he came after Maia to try and help her turn off the disposal. "She'll stop when she realizes we don't care." Was the smoke real, he wondered? He peered into the burners. He held his hand over them to see if they were hot.
Michael appeared as he was stepping between two stairs. He did so gradually, almost gracefully, rather than suddenly going from invisibility to solidity. Dari looked to him, and Michael shook his head.
"We'll have to take shifts," Lori said nonchalantly. Acting unaffected was definitely a key to stopping some of the bullying, just like in school. "Make sure nothing goes wrong while we're all sleeping."
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Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 6:42 pm
Hopefully that was the case. She'd stop when they stopped caring. The stove was hot and smoking, the microwave started beeping, but a timer hadn't been set.
"No luck?" She asked.
Lori's idea sounded reasonable. "I hope she stops," she said. "It'll be easier to reason with her." Hopefully, she settled down.
Toby's left hand was taken by an invisible one. It was inspected, and dropped. "Leave," she said. "Leave!"
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