Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Grazie - thank you," Malodore said, accepting the hand up and getting to its feet. "I take it there was nothing of serious interest in the atti-"

It stopped, mid-word, and stared at the now-revealed doorway. "Well. That certainly makes this chaos worth it."

"You- Ah, do that. I'll just.... scout ahead."

Yes. That sounded like a reasonable excuse to run away.

She tried not to show how freaked put she was. Nobody had touched her there, nobody. Mostly because she was too short and coping one would look awkward at best. It could have been worse she consoled herself. Hopefully no one saw and they could never mention that again.

Scouting. Right.

Composing herself Mandy shot the demoness one last startled look before moving towards the newly revealed doorway.

And that's when she spotted the figure.

"One of thems right here!" she shouted back in warning to everyone before giving it a hard look, not yet running up the stairs after it, doing so alone would be foolhardy.

Laying on the floor gave Riley a moment to think.

There were worse things in the world than accidentally groping a student. Or having your tentacle split open while lying on the floor. Or walking into a lighthouse that was quite clearly a trap.

There were worse things.

Like Calder.

And there was no Calder here.

Riley pushed herself up and shook the dust off her body, before patting it away. Her jacket was ruined. She waved some of the residual dust out of the way, before taking a quick look at the damage - and the new door. She meant to take a step in that direction, but Arachne's call stole all of her attention. She took a few long steps while trying to walk around or over debris, and moved to stand at Arachne's side. One hand rested on the ghoul's shoulder as she read the note in her hand.

This note was much longer, and much more detailed. The beginnings of the note had Riley instantly reminded of their first encounter with a reaper in the forest near Amityville. He had drained them of their FEAR as well, hadn't he? The pieces connected with a snap. Unfortunately, the note did not give any clue as to why - it only suggested that these particular reapers did not necessarily reap souls. They reaped FEAR.

Something tells me whoever wrote this note was being used as a FEAR battery. Riley muttered with disgust. The idea sounded.. quite horrific. A fate worse than death.. the words echoed in her head once more.

Riley touched her pin automatically even as the note described the student in question having none. It suddenly seemed a precious commodity, and she would be protecting it as such from now on.

The Moonlit Masque.. Riley read quietly. She hadn't yet been around for the event. Anyone know what that is? Or.. when?

Riley's claw tapped gently against the part of the note that mentioned the Moonlit Masque. Because our mystery student disappeared during one. I am unfamiliar with the tradition, so I do not know if it was a one time thing, or happens every year. If it only occurred once.. then we have discovered the approximate age of these notes.

Turning to Lizzy, she gave her a peculiar gaze. You don't recall anyone gossiping about a missing student when you first came to Amityville, did you? Her eyes finally turned back to the open doorway, and she gestured for the ghouls to follow. Come. We can discuss the note while we check out this new opening.

It seemed simple enough. A staircase, with her favorite hooded figure standing at the top. You move quick. She muttered up to the reaper, as she ascended the staircase.

Or at least, she thought she ascended the staircase. She didn't necessarily seem to get any closer to the hooded figure, nor did she even feel like she was going 'up' anymore. The entire room had transfigured in front of her eyes into some kind of twisted maze of ********. Her first thought was that the illusions had come back. To test it, she took a step to the edge and slowly let her body use what improbable inertia it found to step around the edge, and end up standing upside down underneath the staircase she had just been standing on.

Please tell me someone just saw that. She snickered.

((HP: 22))

When it appeared Mal was going to examine Riley, Astra jumped out of her arms so it would be easier for the doctor to do his job. By this time she had spotted Petro again, but before she could go over to him he had ran off and tried to open one of the doors by force. It was...not a pleasant thing to see, as he seemed to do more damage to himself then the door. She would of called out to him, but she didn't think her small voice would carry that far.

Most the students then choose which way they would enter the lighthouse, and entered inside. She however...did not enter. She was afraid to be by herself, and in this horrible place..but then, going inside also seemed dangerous, now that she was here. Could they all be headed into a trap? was it even safe inside?

As she stood there wondering what to do, her legs suddenly bucked, and she feel to her knees, clutching herself. It felt like her FEAR was being drained away...

"Damned if I do...damned if I don't..." the fairy mumbled under her breath. It seemed that if any student lagged behind, they would start to become weaker...Or, at least she was. Not wanting to lose any more strngth then she already had, she walked through the doors and into the building to find...a hole bunch of rubble. Did the roof collapse in? Judging by some of the students, it seemed so. "Riley? Petro?" She called out. She couldn't see jericho at the moment...but she didn't want to either. Hopefully he fell on his butt as well

Looking about, she saw that a wall had turned to reveal another passageway, so she made her towards it and walked through the door, finding herself in front of the stair case. Another robed figure was inside here too, so he was careful once she began to climb it...Or, climb each step individually. She didn't fly up because she wanted to conserve her energy...and she had a feeling that flying around might make her more of a target.

Pretty soon, she found her destination had disappeared,as well as the beginning of the staircase. "What the...." This, was weird. Sitting down to ponder their predicament, she heard rileys voice, then crawled to the edge of her step, peering over the edge to see that she was just underneath her. And upside down.

"I..didn't get to see that...but I'm sure it was cool" she said uncertantely to the mindflayer, hoping she wasn't about to fall and hit her head. "...I'm willing to bet this may some sort of illusion"

((HP: 25))
Charlie emerged from the basement shortly after Lizzy and Mac. He was completely covered in filth from digging for clues in the rotting food, which might I add, no one had told him to do in the first place. Mac had told him to look around not go dig in the piles of rotting food. Charlie dug through the rotting food any way.

And because the young demon was so filthy he had a very unique rotting scent to him. Thankfully the scent was not as strong as the basement but it still was not pleasant to be standing right next to Charlie. And right now the young demon was standing right next to Lizzy not really paying much mind to what was happening all around him until he heard mention of his name.

" I do not..." Charlie protested to Lizzy, " I smell like.." The small demon sniffed his pits, "Well okay. I smell pretty CLOSE to the basement but mind you not as bad."

(( HP: 12 ))

"Get off me!"

Sheridan growled, roughly shoving whatever debris and/or bodies had landed on top of him. Growl, he was not here to break anyone or anything's fall! Damn it, that hurt!

Snorting, the dragon hauled himself to his feet, tail twitching as he looked around the room. Well as if it hadn't been a mess before--what the hell? He had turned just in time to see the door slide open, gaze move up the hidden staircase to fall on the robbed figure once more. He didn't like the way it was watching them, like a damned cat just waiting for the mice to make a move. If this damned island hadn't been stifling his ability he'd have frozen that b*****d to the staircase!

Moonlight Masque? He'd never heard of it, must have been before he'd enrolled. His tail twitched, looking over someone's shoulder to read the note. He was starting to wonder, to doubt, all these notes had been placed just a little too conveniently.

"Has anyone considered the possibility that these notes are just a ruse?"

That they weren't real, that they had been forged, aged, and left behind in specific places for them to find, that they were all just part of this same sick and twisted game.

Stopping in the meantime, Jericho looked back at Lizzy and the rest of the group. In his fit of rage, he hadn't seen Riley attempt the stairs either. Looking around, he didn't see her right away. Then, peeking over the edge of the stairwell, he saw her... on the other side.

"..."

Well that was bizarre, even by Halloween standards. Grumbling lowly, he looked from the stairs, to the cloaked figure, to the rest of the group and let out a huff.

"Ruse or not, their attacks still drain our FEAR," he growled, annoyed with this staircase he now stood on, "As for what we found, we found another note and a giant mess."

The red dragon motioned towards Malodore as he said this. The last he remembered, the plague doctor had the note.