The Curse of Blackwood Castle

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Fawkes, Penny, and Li are the hosts of one of the internet’s most popular up-and-coming paranormal investigation shows, Forever Ghostly. Filming their latest season has brought them to all kinds of haunted locales around the country, and for their season finale, they are tackling their biggest obstacle yet—the extremely haunted and very terrifying, Blackwood Castle. Nestled in the heart of what is known as The Black Wood, Blackwood Castle sits at the base of Black Mountain. There are many legends and spooky tales about the castle within the nearby town of New Haven, ranging from your typical ‘haunted by the souls of the massacred family who built the castle’ to ‘cursed by an evil witch upon its creation’ to 'the site of many demonic summoning rituals by cultists’ to even ‘might be home to a vampire or a werewolf—or both’. Join the three young investigators on their investigation of Blackwood Castle in this thrilling, text-based adventure. Interview locals, choose where your cameras will go, and bunker down for your 12 hour lockdown inside the Castle. Can you keep the three alive until sunrise? Or will you meet a darker fate? [[Continue]]

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION: *Name: Fawkes *Age: 23 *Gender: Non-binary *Pronouns: They/Them *Height: 5'6" *Appearance: Messy brown curls worn in a bob that comes down to their chin. Round, wire-framed glasses that are slightly crooked on one side. Caucasian, with a gap between their front teeth and freckles. *Personality Traits: Too curious for their own good, Fawkes is not easily scared and most likely to wander off and get into trouble if one of the others doesn't keep an eye on them. *Star Sign: Aquarius Each character will experience the story differently, and react to events in unique ways compared to the others. Is this who you want to play? *[[Yes ->Fawkes's Route]] *[[No ->Continue]]

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION: *Name: Li Monroe *Age: 24 *Gender: Cis Male *Pronouns: He/Him *Height: 6'02" *Appearance: Long black hair he wears in a messy bun 24/7. Hates having a beard, but his facial hair grows fast, so he always seems to have stubble. Square framed glasses sit on his freckled nose in front of warm brown eyes. He's never seen without his famous aviator's jacket. *Personality Traits: The most nervous of the three. Easily spooked, the audience of Forever Ghostly finds him hilarious, even if his job is mostly to keep Fawkes and Penny from attempting to summon demons on every episode. *Star Sign: Libra Each character will experience the story differently, and react to events in unique ways compared to the others. Is this who you want to play? *[[Yes ->Li's Route]] *[[No ->Continue]]

Which character would you like to play? *[[Fawkes]] *[[Penny]] *[[Li]]

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION: *Name: Penny Fisher *Age: 22 *Gender: Cis Female *Pronouns: She/Her *Height: 5'6" *Appearance: Long red hair worn in a high ponytail to show her undercut. Multiple piercings and tattoos. Typically wears dark colors and lots of makeup around her deep brown eyes. *Personality Traits: Flirtatious and witty, Penny is pretty much the star of Forever Ghostly. Definitely the most charismatic of the three, but also one to get into trouble easily. *Star Sign: Capricorn Each character will experience the story differently, and react to events in unique ways compared to the others. Is this who you want to play? *[[Yes ->Penny's Route]] *[[No ->Continue]]

Penny has never been an outdoorsy type of girl, truth be told. Though she has a certain appreciation for the towering oaks and evergreens that envelop them as they pass into the tree line on their way to New Haven, the overall dampness of the day has her distracted. The darkness below the thick canopy of green above them does set her nerves on edge, but it’s the thought of trudging through the mud and humidity that has her unimpressed with the whole atmosphere. Her annoyance only grows when the light drizzle that had been going for a half hour turns into a sudden downpour. She and Li both groan in unison at the thundering rain as it pours down onto the car. Is this good for visual tone for their show? Yes. Does that mean she has to be thrilled about it? Absolutely not. “Was the visibility not bad enough with the fog?” Li huffs. Penny hums, sinking lower in her seat. She runs a hand through her hair, brushing it to one side as she winces at the messiness that is already overtaking it. “My hair is gonna frizz so bad,” she whines, frowning as she pulls down the visor to look in the little mirror there. “You think we’ll have time for me to fix my hair again before we start filming interviews?” Li snorts. “Depends on if we find this town within the next half hour or not. You’re sure this road takes us right onto Main Street, right?” Well... No. <<set $gender to "she">> [[Continue ->P Route 1]]

Entering the Black Woods as they near New Haven feels like entering a whole other world. Towering oak trees and evergreens surround them on all sides as their little SUV passes a sign that says Blackwood County, and somehow the already gloomy grey light that had been filtering through the overcast skies seems to darken even more from the canopy of the trees. Though the skies had been grey all day, like the sky itself was hiding its eyes from whatever waited them in New Haven, it hadn’t actually started raining just yet. Until now, anyway. Fawkes doesn’t move from where they’ve been lying down in the back seat but to tilt their head and look out the window as the sky seems to open up above them. There’s a thickness to the raindrops that hit the window, a heaviness that they know will be setting their companions on edge. As if on cue, Li curses under his breath behind the wheel as Penny groans. “Was the visibility not bad enough with the fog?” Li grumbles. “My hair is gonna frizz so bad,” sighs Penny. “You think we’ll have time for me to fix my hair again before we start filming interviews?” “Depends on if we actually find this town in the next half hour or not. You’re sure this road takes us right onto Main Street, right?” "If it doesn't, I don't know where else we could be." Fawkes tunes out their friends again, as the thundering rain on the roof nearly drowns out their voices anyway. They sit up to peer curiously out the window at the forest, the raindrops on the window distorting the world until it is a blur of grey and green, like paint running down a canvas. They aren’t one to be easily rattled, but there’s something about this whole scene that has their stomach churning uncomfortably. The rain, the fog, the shadow of the trees—it all seems to be obscuring the world around them, trying to hide things from wandering eyes, as if the forest itself was keeping its secrets close to its chest. <<set $gender to "they">> [[Continue ->F Route 1]]

From the minute they pulled onto the highway this morning, with the sun just barely peeking over the horizon as they all chugged their coffees—or, well, as he chugged his coffee while Penny and Fawkes dozed off for a few more hours—he’s had a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. That’s not necessarily new, because he usually has a not-exactly-bad-but-definitely-not-good feeling about most locations they go to for the show, but… …there was just something off about this place. He doesn’t say anything about this feeling, of course. It would just get him teased for being a scaredy cat. Even though the unease gnawing at the back of his mind as the rain clouds settled low over their heads and the trees of the Black Woods rose ever higher in front of them surely wasn’t nothing, there was no proof of it being something either. No proof that it was something other than his anxiety coming to a head just like it did every time they filmed. Yet, anyway. By the time his friends are finally waking up again, the dark grey clouds overhead have started to tentatively drizzle down on them. He can almost feel the storm brewing just under his skin, adding to the creaking of his already swollen joints, and he knows it’s only going to get worse before it gets better. Black Mountain looms up ahead as they finally make it to the outer limits of the forest, and Li can’t help the pang of fear in his gut as the top of the mountain seems to be engulfed by the cloud cover. Fog rolls across the road as they drive, ominous and so thick in some places he has to slow the car to nearly a crawl. And then, as the saying goes, when it rains… …it has to fucking pour. <<set $gender to "he">> [[Continue ->L Route 1]]

“Uh…” Fawkes looks up at the sound of Li’s voice, curious as to what was the matter as the car slows to a crawling stop. The windshield wipers beating roughly from one side to another is the only sound in the car as all three of them lean forward to look up at the road sign ahead of them. They almost laugh when they realize what they’re looking at. The road in front of them is T-shaped, with only one handmade sign in the middle of the crossing to indicate which direction leads where. Unfortunately, because the universe has a wicked sense of humor, the arrow beneath the sign that reads NEW HAVEN has fallen, and swings pitifully in the wind from where it hangs by a single nail. They can’t hear anything from inside the car, but they imagine that the rickety sign is probably making a dejected squeaking sound with each swing. “…huh.” “We have... You have the phone, right?” Fawkes asks, leaning forward and bracing their forearms on either of the front seats. Penny grimaces. “Don’t get mad, but we lost signal like a half hour ago.” Fawkes doesn’t know why they’d be mad at her, but Li just laughs, leaning back against his seat with a sigh. He reaches up and pulls his glasses off so he can pinch at the bridge of his nose, obviously exasperated. “What’s there to be mad about? We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Li sighs. “It’s not like it’s your fault. Besides—when do we ever not have at least one thing go wrong while on a shoot?” They all laugh quietly at that, shaking their heads. [[Continue ->F Route 2]]

Together, the three of them look one direction, and then the other, trying to parse out which direction will take them where they want to go. There’s nothing to indicate which way the old wooden sign was facing—there’s not even a way to tell how long it’s been hanging like that. Fawkes knows better than to think it must be relatively recent, as all the information they’d been able to find while researching this place had been so old and outdated that there is no way that anyone not local comes out here often enough that someone would have fixed it even if it had been like that a while. Fawkes’ eyes land for just a moment on a strange looking set of marks in the wooden pole the sign is mounted on, when Li speaks up. “Well…?” Fawkes looks back at their friends to find Penny blushing and Li smirking at her. “What?” Penny asks, defensive. “You don’t remember which direction it said we were supposed to go before we lost signal, do you?” he asks, laughing a little. Penny blushes furiously, and she smacks lightly at his arm as he laughs. Fawkes grins, watching their Li playfully put his hands up in surrender. “No, okay? I don’t. Just—pick a direction!” “You don’t wanna take a vote on it?” Penny tilts her head. “Why?” “I dunno. Just seems like something we should do in a situation like this?” Penny just groans. “Just pick.” Li hums thoughtfully in response, rubbing at the five o’clock shadow already blossoming on his jaw, despite the fact that it couldn’t be more than half past noon—even *with* Li’s car’s broken clock, there’s no way they’ve been driving on the road longer than seven hours. “I think… left,” Li says after a moment of consideration. “Why left?” Penny asks, raising an eyebrow. “I dunno. What do you think?” “I think we should go right.” Li rolls his eyes, and Fawkes and Penny both laugh. They know that Li loves them both, really he does, but sometimes Fawkes and Penny both enjoy pushing his buttons a little bit, and today Penny seems to be getting quite a lot of joy out of it. Fawkes nudges his shoulder playfully as he laughs, and that catches his attention, as he turns to them and says: “Okay, Fawkes, it’s up to you. Tiebreaker. Which way are we gonna try first?” <<actions [[Left ->F - Left.]] [[Right ->F - Right.]]>>

“Let’s go left.” <<set $bobby to false>> “Left?” “Yeah,” Fawkes says, nodding. “Let’s go left.” “Wait,” Li says, frowning as he turns to look at them. “Really? You wanna go left?” Fawkes laughs, tilting their head at him. “Yeah? Why? ’S that weird or something?” He shakes his head, turning the wheel to take them down the road to the left. “No, no, not at all, I’m just… surprised. You hardly ever take my side on anything.” Fawkes rolls their eyes as they lean back in their seat, propping their foot up on the middle armrest thing in the car. It may be the quality that draws his fans to him, but Li does like to be a little overemotional when it comes to little things like this. They think it’s sweet, and it’s one of their favorite things about him. The road to the left doesn’t change much at first. The same dense, dark forest follows them, ever watchful, as the road takes a few winding turns. Fawkes thinks they spot something between the trees a few times as they drive—things moving, running alongside the car, curious about new blood entering the land. There’s something about this wood that is ancient, roots running deep into the earth below them. They could get lost so easily here, and they’d be hard pressed to believe anyone could ever find them. This forest has been here long before they arrived and will be here long after they’ve left. Fawkes gets distracted from the strange direction their thoughts have taken by a sign on the side of the road. [[WELCOME TO NEW HAVEN ->F Chapter 1]]

“Let’s go… right.” <<set $bobby to true>> “Right?” “Yeah,” Fawkes says, nodding. “Let’s go right.” “Yes! In your face!” Penny laughs, throwing her arms up in the air. Fawkes laughs and Li rolls his eyes, though they can see him biting back a grin as he turns the wheel and takes them down the road to the right. For a few minutes, nothing seems to change. The denseness of the forest around them remains at that same almost claustrophobic level, the shadow of the trees overhead shrouding them from the grey afternoon skies as they venture further into the misty wilderness. The road takes a few winding turns, and after a moment, Fawkes realizes that they’ve been driving up a steady incline the whole time—which is weird, because New Haven is supposed to be in the valley at the base of Black Mountain. Fawkes opens their mouth to suggest maybe turning around, as an uncomfortable tightness rises in their chest, when they turn another corner, and the road comes to an end, tapering off into a gravel driveway. The ground around them is littered with odd debris—tires, empty barrels, piles of brush, things that kind of look like clothes. Fawkes thinks they might even spot a single boot in one brush pile. Up the driveway is a rundown trailer home, with peeling paint on the sidings and signs that read NO TRESPASSING and TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT plastered all over the side of it. Fawkes leans toward their friends anxiously, and they notice that Penny leans back towards them as well, eyes on the windows, looking for any sign of movement. “So… I don’t think this was the right direction,” Li says after a beat. Fawkes is about to answer him, when— //[[BANG! ->F-Right 1]]//

Penny almost laughs when she looks up at what’s caught Li’s attention. An old, rickety, handmade sign that reads NEW HAVEN stands on a wooden post in front of them. The road splits into a T shape in front of the sign, but the arrow that is supposed to have been sitting below the town name hangs from a single nail, swaying in the rain. There’s no real way to tell which direction it had been pointing, but Penny finds it almost funny that it’s pointing downward—almost as if to say ‘Welcome to Hell’. “…huh.” There’s a beat of silence as they all process what they’re looking at, until Fawkes breaks the silence. “We have… You have the phone, right?” they ask, leaning forward and looking expectantly at her. Li turns to look at her as well, and with both of her friends looking at her for direction, Penny can’t help but grimace. “Don’t get mad,” she starts, scratching hesitantly at her nose, avoiding her friends’ curious gazes, “but we lost signal like a half hour ago.” To her surprise, Li just laughs, leaning back in his seat with a sigh. She watches him take his glasses off and rub tiredly at his face, still chuckling to himself, before he runs a hand through his hair. Penny is briefly distracted by the fact that a few strands have fallen loose from his bun, but she doesn’t have much time to focus on that because he starts to speak. “What’s there to be mad about?” he says sweetly. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s not like it’s your fault. Besides—when do we ever not have at least one thing go wrong while on a shoot?” They all laugh at that, shaking their heads. [[Continue ->P Route 3]]

“Let’s just go left.” <<set $bobby to false>> Li blinks, and then laughs, surprised. “Really?” Penny’s face is hot again. “Yeah? What’s the matter with that?” He just shakes his head, turning the wheel to take them down the road to the left. “Nothing,” he hums. “Nothing at all. I’m just surprised you agreed with me.” She rolls her eyes, shaking her head. Leave it to Li to get sentimental about her listening to him for something so silly as which direction they should go to get to their destination. She knows that she and Fawkes sometimes play it up for the camera, not listening to him when he tries to warn them to be careful, to think about what they’re doing before they try to summon demons or something else stupid like that, but… …well, she obviously values his opinion. Why else would he even be part of the team? She’s not sure how long it is that they drive for after that. There’s not really a considerable change in their surroundings as Li follows the winding path the road takes through the forest. She’s already starting to get sick of the whole place—there’s something oppressive, almost unwelcoming about the forest around them. It’s like there’s something in there that knows that they’ve arrived, and it isn’t particularly happy about it. Penny just hopes whatever it is will smile pretty for the camera. Her train of thought is derailed when she finally sees the thing she’d been wanting to see since they entered this stupid forest. [[WELCOME TO NEW HAVEN ->P Chapter 1]]

“…Let’s go right.” <<set $bobby to true>> “Yeah?” “Yeah,” she says, leaning back in her seat. “I trust Fawkes’ intuition.” Li snorts, but takes the right turn anyway, even as Fawkes laughs quietly in the back seat. Truthfully, Fawkes is about as useless with a map as she is sometimes, but they do have a sort of sixth sense for direction that maybe hasn’t always gotten them exactly where they thought they wanted to go, but has gotten them some amazing footage a few times. Maybe this time they’ll get them where they want to go—or at least somewhere interesting, if nothing else. The road doesn’t really change much at first. The denseness of the forest around them remains, and though Penny spots a few old signs nailed to some of the tree trunks near the road. She leans closer to the window to try and get a better look, but she can’t make out anything in the rain. Eventually, as they drive farther into the forest, the road finally comes to an end, and it is very obviously not the tiny, idyllic little turn-of-the-century town they’d been promised when researching. A gravel driveway runs past the end of the road, leading across a little creek and up to a rundown trailer home. All around them are piles of clutter—brush piles, tires, barrels that remind her of nuclear waste containers. The house itself has signs all over it that very clearly say NO TRESPASSING and, even more worrisome, TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT. “Um…” Penny starts, anxiety rising in her throat. “I don’t think this is right…” Li scoffs quietly. “Yeah, no kidding—" //[[BANG! ->P-Right 1]]//

As the rain continues to pound on the windshield, wind whipping it back and forth against the glass as the wipers work overtime, the three of them take a moment to look up the road one way, and then the other. Penny can’t really see a clear difference between either path—the denseness of the trees doesn’t seem to change either way, and both ways see the road disappearing around a curve after a bit. Penny tries desperately to remember what the Google directions had said, pulling up the half-loaded webpage even though she knows it won’t do anything. “Well…?” She blinks, and then looks over at Li again to find him smirking. “What?” she asks. “You don’t remember which direction it said we were supposed to go before we lost signal, do you?” Her entire face goes red as heat floods her cheeks, and she smacks lightly at his upper arm, both of them laughing a little as she says, “No, okay? I don’t. Just—pick a direction! “You don’t wanna take a vote on it?” Penny tilts her head. “Why?” He shrugs. “I dunno. Just seems like something we should do in a situation like this?” They fall quiet for a second as they think, until Fawkes suddenly breaks the silence. “I think we should go right,” they say confidently. Li looks back at them curiously. “Why right?” They shrug. “Just feel like we should go right.” “I was going to suggest left…” “Oh.” The car falls silent again, save for the thundering downpour of the rain outside and the struggling windshield wipers as they furiously sweep back and forth across the waterfall on the windshield. Penny taps her fingernails against the armrest in a mindless pattern, before she makes up her mind and casts her vote. <<actions [[Left ->P - Left.]] [[Right ->P - Right.]]>>

“Was the visibility not bad enough with the fog?” Li groans, glaring through the windshield as if he can make it stop from sheer force of will. The heavy rain thunders against the roof even through the canopy of the trees as he slows the car yet again, trying to be careful for his friends’ sake. Fawkes doesn’t move from where they’ve taken to lying down across the back seat, while Penny sighs next to him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her slump in her seat, fiddling with her phone idly. “My hair is gonna frizz so bad,” she whines. “You think we’ll have time for me to fix it before we start filming interviews?” He snorts, shaking his head. “Depends on if we find this town in the next half hour or not. You’re sure this road takes us right onto Main Street, right?” There's half a heartbeat of hesitation before Penny answers, and he has to fight the urge to laugh. She obviously has no idea where they are, and the fact that they are flying blind into this giant, fog-covered forest is somehow more funny than it is distressing. Maybe it’s because he’s running on pure caffeine right now, or maybe it’s because at least there aren’t a lot of other roads they could be following, but he’s not really concerned, even when Penny tries to brush it off that she’s just as lost as he is. “If it doesn’t,” she says a beat too late, “I don’t know where else we would be.” Well. That’s fair, he guesses. [[Continue ->L Route 2]]

Tossing his head back, he slouches in his seat, rubbing tiredly at his eyes before running a hand through his hair with a sigh. “What’s there to be mad about?” he asks, smiling at his friend. She looks at him sharply, surprised, and he can’t help but thing to himself that she always does look cute when she blushes. “We’re in the middle of nowhere,” he continues. “It’s not like it’s your fault. Besides—when do we ever not have at least one thing go wrong while on a shoot?” That brings a smile to her face, and they all chuckle a bit at that. There have been many, many mishaps over the course of their YouTube career, and this one little bump in the road is no more or less terrible than any other. In fact, since there are only two directions to choose from, it’s barely a concern at all, even as they all look left and right to find that each way looks just as unassuming as the other. It probably won’t even matter which way they end up choosing in the long run—if they pick wrong, they just have to turn around and go the other way. There’s no reason for anyone to be upset with Penny over something she couldn’t control. Though… he can’t help but tease her a little anyway. “Well…?” Penny blinks. “What?” He smirks. “You don’t remember which direction it said we were supposed to go before we lost signal, do you?” She gasps at that, blushing furiously, and he laughs as she slaps playfully at his shoulder. “No, okay? I don’t. Just—pick a direction!” Snickering, he puts his hands up in mock surrender as he chuckles and asks, “You don’t wanna take a vote on it?” Penny makes a face. “Why?” He shrugs. “I dunno. Just seems like something we should do in a situation like this?” She rolls her eyes. “Just pick.” <<actions [[Left ->L - Left.]] [[Right ->L - Right.]]>>

Li decides to take the left turn. <<set $bobby to false>> He’s not sure what it is that pulls him in that direction, but the second he takes the turn, something in his chest loosens a little. His intuition doesn’t often lead him wrong, and it’s saying that he’s made the correct decision as they head down the road to the left. Nothing changes, at first. The rain comes down just as hard as it had been before, the forest is the same blur of dark green on either side of his vision, and there is nothing to indicate whether he’s actually made the right decision or not. He knows it’s just his overactive imagination putting things in his head, making him see things that aren’t there, but he swears at one point that he sees—a person? Standing on the side of the road? He can’t make out any details, as the rain makes it hard to see anyway, but also because he blinks and whatever it was is gone. Which, in his opinion, is not a good sign for things to come. Whatever slight ease to the anxiety he’d been feeling that had come when they took the left turn starts to fade again, and he finds himself grinding his teeth against it. His hips are starting to ache from driving, his fingers already creaky without the death grip he suddenly finds himself using on the steering wheel, and this is just… He’s distracted from his spiraling thoughts when he sees it. [[WELCOME TO NEW HAVEN ->L Chapter 1]]

Li takes the right turn. <<set $bobby to true>> He’s not really sure why he thinks it’s the right way beyond just a feeling in his gut that may or may not just be anxious butterflies—but he figures a gut feeling of some kind is better than nothing at all, right? The three of them fall quiet as they drive, nothing but the rain and the very quiet sound of the staticky radio to break the silence. Penny and Fawkes are both preoccupied with surveying the forest around them as they drive, and though Li is just as curious, he finds himself unable to do much contemplating. Driving in the rain is hard enough, but the winding path the road starts to take isn’t much better, and though he’s got four-wheel-drive, he’s nervous about the amount of water on the road. The road comes to an unexpected end after a few minutes of driving, and Li may not be the smartest man in the world, but he’s pretty sure this is definitely not where they were meant to be. Past the edge of the road is a gravel-covered driveway, leading up to a frankly awful looking trailer home. Whoever lives here is obviously not a people person, with all the NO TRESPASSING signs nailed up everywhere—not a plant person either, judging by junk littering the yard around the house. “I think we went the wrong direction,” Penny says quietly after a beat. Li snorts. “Yeah. Whoops.” “Let’s leave,” Fawkes insists from the backseat. “I have a bad feeling about this—" //[[BANG! ->L-Right 1]]//

“Uh…” Li slows the car to a stop, leaning forward to peer out the windshield to make sure he’s really seeing what he’s seeing. The road they’ve been following has come to a T-shaped intersection, and stuck directly in the middle of the intersection is an old, handmade wooden sign that reads NEW HAVEN. Unfortunately—and unsurprisingly—the plank with the arrow beneath it has broken, and swings pitifully in the wind as it points directly downward, giving not a single clue as to which direction it had been originally facing. “...huh.” Of course. He leans back in the driver’s seat as his friends also look up at the atrocity in front of them, massaging his aching fingers and sighing deeply. He’s not sure what to say, and is about to suggest flipping a coin and taking their chances, when Fawkes breaks the silence. “We have… You have the phone, right?” they ask, leaning forward to look over Penny’s shoulder. Li turns just in time to find her flinching, cheeks and ears bright pink as she fiddles with the phone in her lap. “Don’t get mad,” she begins, scratching at her nose, “but we lost signal like a half hour ago.” Li can’t help himself—he laughs. [[Continue ->L Route 3]]

“If it doesn’t,” she says, hiding her grimace pretending to look at the map on her phone, “I don’t know where else we would be.” She doesn’t really know how to explain that they lost signal about 20 miles back without sounding like an idiot. It certainly isn’t the first time she’s gotten them lost, or had something stupid like this happen—she’s reminded briefly of their trip to Ireland, and the three hour detour they’d ended up taking because she typed in the wrong address. Neither of her friends had been particularly mad, but she still hates letting them down. The rain only seems to come down harder as she finishes her sentence, as if it’s taunting her. She glares out of the windows at the ugly swirl of greens and browns and grey that greet her through the water running down the glass, ears burning. She zones out a little as they drive, unable to focus on much else beyond her spiraling mood. The bad weather and the looming trees surrounding them are doing nothing to help, and by the time she notices the car crawling to a halt, she’s in a particularly sour headspace. “Uh…” [[Continue ->P Route 2]]

All three of them jump in their seats, Penny letting out an undignified squeak as Li cusses roughly under his breath. He turns towards where it sounded like it came from, looking out his window and back up the road as he hisses, “What the //hell//—?” It’s then that Fawkes sees him. Scraggly gray hair sticks out in wiry curls from under a floppy fishing hat as he steps out into the road behind them. The old man is tall and lanky, and in his grizzled, dirt covered hands he holds a literal shotgun—a shotgun which he pumps and aims directly at them. “That was a warnin’!” he yells, taking a few steps closer. “You got ten seconds to tell me who you are and what the hell yer doin’ on my property!” “Is that a //gun//?” Penny gasps, still ducked down behind her seat as she looks through the back window. “Did we just get fucking //shot at//? Fawkes doesn’t know what to say beyond shrugging helplessly at her—they’ve been in some dangerous situations in their life, but this is a whole new level of absolutely ridiculous. Have they stepped into a cheesy horror film? Is a country hermit really threatening to kill them for trespassing on his property by mistake? What the hell is this? “We took a wrong turn!” Li shouts out the driver’s side window, sticking both his hands out in surrender. “We’re just trying to get to New Haven!” For a second, Fawkes worries the old man might just go ahead and shoot them anyway, but after a moment of consideration, he lowers his gun and nods. [[Continue ->F-Right 2]]

Penny lets out a sound that she’s not very proud of, jumping as she leans forward and instinctively covers her head. Her mind is racing, trying to piece together what's happening through the rushing of her pulse in her ears. She hears someone shout over the roar of the rain, but her mind doesn’t process the words, as she manages to sit up a little and peek around the side of her chair out the back window. A crazy old man has appeared from out of nowhere behind them, wearing ill-fitting camo that hangs off his skeletal frame. He’s wearing an ugly fisherman’s hat, but the main thing Penny finds herself focused on is the—the— “Is that a //shotgun//?” Li curses under his breath. “Keep your heads down.” Penny glances back to find Fawkes looking back at her, wild-eyed, and they both do as Li says as Li starts to shout back to the man, holding his hands out the window in surrender. “We just took a wrong turn! We’re trying to get to New Haven!” There’s a moment—a brief, terrifying moment—in which the man with the gun doesn’t move, and Penny wonders if they’re really about to get shot to death right now. All the ghosts and ghouls and demons, and they’re really going to get killed by a crazy hermit with a twitchy trigger finger—but then she sees the man lower the gun through the blur of the rain, and she sighs softly. At least they might still have a chance to talk their way out of this. [[Continue ->P Right 2]]

//“Shit!”// Li hisses a few more expletives under his breath as everyone in the car flinches. Fawkes has curled into a ball in the backseat and Penny covers the back of her neck as she ducks down, while Li, caught up in the blur of white-hot adrenaline, whirls in the front seat to try and see where the noise came from. A figure steps out into the middle of the road behind the car, wearing ill-fitting camouflage pants and a camo jacket. A fishing hat sits low on his brow, covering his eyes as he pumps the—the //fucking shotgun// in his hands and points it through their back windshield, aiming right at them. Through the white-hot panic suddenly pumping through his veins, Li feels a strange sense of protectiveness wash over him, and it calms his nerves enough to make his voice steady as he calls out the window to the stranger. “Wait! Don’t shoot!” “Y’all are trespassin’ on private property!” the man yells back. “The next shot won’t be a warnin’ shot if you don’t get the hell out of here!” *"[[We're just trying to get to New Haven! ->L-Right 2.1]]" *"[[We took a wrong turn! ->L-Right 2.2]]" *"[[We're on our way to Blackwood Castle! ->L-Right 2.3]]"

The town of New Haven is about as flashy and impressive as he had been expecting from the brochures Penny had showed him when they were planning this trip—which is to say that it is not, in any way, flashy //or// impressive. The buildings are cute, in an old timey kind of way, but <<if $bobby is true>>after the excitement of having to talk a crazy man down from //shooting them with a shotgun//<<else>>after driving for about seven or eight hours straight<</if>>, he’s not particularly enthused by the quaint atmosphere. Not to mention, the ever present fog looming hovering over the town, twisting around buildings and reaching grasping, ghostly fingers after every moving thing that passes through it. Maybe he’s just in a mood, but he’s really just—not looking forward to any of this for some reason. He didn’t even have this sense of foreboding at the Hellfire Club in Ireland, and //that// place had probably been crawling with every kind of ghost and ghoul and demon and anything in between out there. There’s just //something// in the air, in the very ground beneath their feet, that just feels //wrong//. He doesn’t know how to explain it. Or, at least, he doesn’t know how to explain it without sounding like an idiot. [[Continue ->L New Haven]]

The town of New Haven is much prettier than they were expecting it to be, when they finally start getting out of the thick of the forest. It’s still raining, but a little less heavily now, letting them see their surroundings a little more clearly as they drive down Main Street. The buildings that line the street are very clearly older, built from aging brick and dated architecture, the main street is littered with quaint little shops covered in ivy and a few are decorated with twisting wrought iron. Fawkes’ eyes catch on a shop that advertises witchy things in its window—spell books, crystals, herbs, rune parchment, charms, incense. Next to it is an antique bookstore, and beside that is a store that calls itself a bazaar with curious little shiny baubles hanging in the windows. There is no one out on the streets, unsurprisingly, but every place they pass seems to be almost frozen in time. Even most of the cars they see parked on the street aren’t quite current, and it only adds to the strange sensation in their stomach. This forest and this land has an energy to it, something that’s just slightly off that makes them twitchy as the hair on the back of their neck stands on end. There’s something more to this whole place than the brochures and books and articles suggest—that’s for sure. Fog still sits low over the town as they drive into the downtown area, so low that it touches the tops of a few of the buildings. Maybe it’s just the fact that Fawkes grew up in the plains and isn’t used to so many things blocking their view of the sky, but the fog only seems to carry over the claustrophobic feeling the forest had caused to settle in the pit of their stomach. It’s weird and uncomfortable and they really don’t think they like this place much, if they’re being honest. Thank god it’s not too long before they reach the hotel. [[Continue ->F New Haven]]

New Haven rises out of the mist like a mermaid from the sea—first a glimpse, and then a full figure clear against the smokey backdrop of the mountains and the trees. She actually finds herself surprisingly enchanted with the way the buildings look as they get closer, all aging brick and white columns and wrought iron. She catches the sight of ivy twisting up the sides of a few of the buildings they pass, and though there is no one out on the streets because of the rain, she sees a fair few people poking around inside shop windows, enjoying their Friday afternoon. It’s a much more pleasant place than she was expecting, <<if $bobby is true>>especially after their little run in with the crazy man in the woods<<else>>even though the brochures she'd read in preparation had painted a similarly nice picture<</if>>. Maybe she could do with a little less pessimism every now and then, she thinks, watching niche little shops pass as they drive. There are lots of funny looking ones that she wants to peek inside of before they leave, to fulfill her need to get a souvenir from every place they visit for her apartment back home, but she’s not sure how much time she’ll even have between filming to check them all out. She doesn’t have time to ruminate much more on that, as they finally pull up to their hotel near the center of the little downtown area. [[Continue ->P New Haven]]

Li seems to somehow be the only one not cowering in fear as the man approaches the car, coming up to the driver’s side window to talk to them. Penny holds her hand out as he gets closer, wiggling her fingers, and Fawkes reaches out to grab her hand, squeezing as reassuringly as they can. They keep their fingers interlocked as Li puts on his most charming smile for the stranger. “Sorry, man. We really didn’t mean to end up here. We—" “—there’s a sign.” Li gapes a little at the interruption, and hesitates, stammering a little. *[[Let Li handle it. ->F-Right 3.1]] *[[Speak up. ->F-Right 3.2]]

Li regains his composure a half a heartbeat later, laughing a little nervously and nodding. “Yeah,” he laughs, rubbing at the back of his neck. “It’s a little broken at the moment. The arrow pointing towards town had been knocked down, so we had to just… guess.” The old man doesn’t seem particularly thrilled by this explanation, propping his hand up on the hood of the car to bend down and look around curiously at Fawkes and Penny. Fawkes can’t really see his eyes well under the brim of his hat, but the feel of his gaze sliding over them sends a shiver up their spine, and they shrink back in their seat, still holding Penny’s hand. “…ya chose wrong,” he grunts, finally returning his gaze to Li’s face. “We did,” Li agrees, laughing again. “We’re not here to bother you or anything. We’re actually on our way to investigate the castle.” Something changes in the old man’s posture at the mention of the castle, as he straightens up, shifting his weight. He looks around at the forest around them, before leaning down, speaking in a low voice as if he’s trying not to be heard by unseen ears. Fawkes has to strain to hear what he’s saying over the roar of the rain, leaning forward a little and resting their cheek against the back of Penny’s seat. “Blackwood Castle?” Li glances towards them hesitantly, before he turns back and nods. “Yeah. We’re paranormal investigators. Do you… know anything about the castle?” “Oh, I know a lot about the castle,” the old man says mysteriously. Li nods again, clearing his throat nervously. “Would you—be willing to talk to us about it? On camera?” The old man grunts. “I would… for a price.” “A price?” He shrugs. “I’m runnin’ low on beer.” Li laughs, startled, and Penny and Fawkes follow suit as the old man chuckles with them. The tension that had been pulled taut between the four of them easing, everyone in the car relaxing. There’s still something odd about this man that Fawkes doesn’t care for, but at least he’s not mad at them anymore. “So,” Li starts after the laughter dies down a little. “Is the way to New Haven straight back the other direction, then?” The old man nods. “Yep. Jus’ head straight back the way you came and go past the sign.” “Thanks. We’ll get out of your hair now,” Li says, and the man steps back from the door. “Sorry for the disturbance!” The man just nods, and as they head back up the road finally, Fawkes feels something in their chest unclench. That was a bit too close for comfort, and getting shot at is—definitely not the best sign for things to come. That whole encounter almost felt unreal, and even as they drive back towards New Haven, the shadow of the trees and the rumbles of thunder up above just reinforces the weird feeling in their gut about everything. Hopefully things go better from here. <<set $bobbyfriendship to 2>> [[Continue to New Haven ->F Chapter 1]]

*"[[It’s—broken. ->F-Right 3.2.1]]" *"[[Um... ->F-Right 3.2.2]]" *"[[W-We're here to investigate Blackwood Castle. ->F-Right 3.2.3a]]"

“It’s—broken.” Fawkes has to fight from flinching when the old man’s gaze snaps to their face, suspicion clear on his leathery features. They clear their throat uncomfortably, shifting in their seat, face hot. Running a hand through their hair, their voice shakes as they continue, “The—the sign. The sign’s broken.” “Broken?” the old man rasps. “Y-Yeah. It’s—the arrow pointing towards town is—it’s—broken…” //Oh god//, Fawkes thinks, panic trickling down their spine. //Why am I so bad at this?// “Well,” the man starts, “New Haven is the other way.” “I… yeah. Yeah, it is,” they answer, flinching at their own incoherent answer. What is //wrong// with them today? “Uh, we should… we should get outta here, yeah, guys?” Li and Penny both laugh nervously in response, nodding vigorously and putting on their best attempts at an apologetic smile as the man continues to give them a look. Fawkes swallows thickly, throat suddenly dryer than the desert their first foster family had moved them to for two years when they were 13. They’re really not sure what they were thinking when they tried to speak up, as they’re most certainly not known for being eloquent or even particularly decent at speaking in general. “If you don’t mind,” they distantly hear Li say as their mood spirals from embarrassment, “we’re just gonna turn around here and head back the other way.” “Good,” the man grunts. “Don’t come back.” “Right…” As the man steps back, Li puts the car into reverse, turning to look where he’s going as he backs the car up. He gives Penny and Fawkes a half-reassuring smile as he does, before turning back onto the pavement and taking off back down the road, going a little faster than he normally would in the rain just to get the hell away from that place. The wind picks up, and it sounds almost like the forest itself is laughing at their misfortune as they drive away. //Well…// //That could have gone better.// <<set $bobbyfriendship to 0>> [[Continue to New Haven ->F Chapter 1]]

“Um…” Their voice is barely a murmur, and their cheeks flush with embarrassment when the old man looks up at them, suspicious. They desperately try to think of something to say, but find that their voice has left them, mind blank. After a second, they shake their head and mumble, “Nevermind.” Penny picks up where they left off, squeezing their hand reassuringly. “The—the sign that points towards town is broken,” she says nervously, “and our GPS isn’t working. We flipped a coin and picked a direction, but we obviously picked wrong.” Fawkes frowns. Why is she lying about how they picked the direction? “Obviously.” “R-Right,” Penny laughs as the man just raises an eyebrow at her. “Right. So, you can see that we made an honest mistake, and if you could just tell us how to get to New Haven, we’ll be out of your hair ASAP.” There’s a beat of silence during which the man just stares them all down and Fawkes wonders if he’s really about to decide that he doesn’t care what they’re actually doing there and just shoot them anyway. Penny’s hand tightens on theirs as he rubs at his scruffy chin thoughtfully, and they squeeze back, resting their cheek on the back of her seat. “What are you pokin’ around New Haven for?” the man asks after a moment. Penny, Li, and Fawkes all exchange a look, before Penny clears her throat and says, “Oh, we’re just—working on a documentary.” “Documentary?” “Yeah, just… a student project.” He doesn’t seem like he believes that, but eventually he nods, grunting. “Whatever. New Haven is straight back the way y’all came in, past the sign.” Penny beams at him, smiling so prettily that Fawkes finds themselves a little distracted by it. “Thanks so much!” she giggles. “We’ll just be going now.” “Yeah. Go on. Don’t come back.” “We won’t!” she says brightly. As he steps away and Li goes to turn the car around, she leans back and mumbles, “You can be sure about that,” under her breath. Penny doesn’t let go of Fawkes’ hand until they’ve gotten well away from that scary little house, and they know it’s probably just the anxiety that’s spiked up in their heart, but their stomach turns uncomfortably at the loss anyway. They go back to staring out of the windows as they all try to calm down as they put some distance between them and that man, and they find that the feeling of being trapped beneath all this brown and grey and green has just skyrocketed in response. //I can’t wait to get to our hotel room and out of this stupid car…// <<set $bobbyfriendship to 0>> [[Continue to New Haven ->F Chapter 1]]

“W-We’re here to investigate Blackwood Castle.” The old man looks at them sharply the second they open their mouth, and Fawkes has to fight the urge to flinch under the sudden scrutiny. They can almost feel his contempt for them from here, even though they’re unable to see his eyes in the shadow of his fisherman’s hat as the rain pours down on it. “…//The// Blackwood Castle?” asks the stranger after a moment. Fawkes fidgets under the intensity of his gaze, but they manage to nod hesitantly. “Y-Yeah. We’re paranormal investigators here to investigate the hauntings on the grounds?” The man gets a strange look in his eye, and he shifts his weight, glancing around conspiratorially before he leans down and murmurs, “You’d best be sure to avoid that groundskeeper they got up there.” Li and Penny glance at Fawkes, who fumbles for a second before they ask, “The—The groundskeeper?” He nods, keeping his voice low like he’s worried someone else will hear them. “He knows more’n anyone about the castle—knows every nook ’n cranny of that place. Never seen him take a day off, neither.” Fawkes isn’t sure that’s reason to avoid someone, considering it is his job to live on the property and keep the place from falling apart, but they also get the feeling there’s more to this story than the old man is letting on. Unsure of how they’ve ended up being the one doing the talking, they clear their throat and lean forward a little, smiling hesitantly at the stranger. “Do you—do you know anything else about the castle?” The man snorts. “I know a lotta stuff about the castle.” “Would you be interested in maybe giving an—an interview? For our show?” He frowns, and Fawkes hurries to backpedal. “O-Only if you want!" they add, waving their hands. "We’d just like to know what sorts of stories there are among the locals about the castle—i-if you were willing to share!” He rubs thoughtfully at the scruff on his chin, nodding to himself, and Fawkes’ stomach flips at the sight. Did they really convince him so easily? Since—Since when is Fawkes the smooth one who talks people into giving interviews? “I’ll do it,” he says after a beat, “for a price.” //Oh.// <<set $bobbyfriendship to 2>> [[Continue ->F-Right 3.2.3b]]

Fawkes’ hand grasps desperately at her elbow as the man approaches Li’s door, and Penny reaches back to them, grabbing their hand and holding tight. There’s a slight tremble to their fingers that brings out her Big Sister instincts, and she sets her jaw against the anxiety roiling in her stomach. It’s something she gets from her mother, she thinks, that little anxiety override that turns her into a protector at the drop of a hat. Fawkes has had a tough life, and they’re not as brave facing real life dangers as they are facing ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night. She’s not about to let this strange man hurt them //or// Li—not if she can help it. “There’s a //sign//,” she hears the old man growl. “Now what the //hell// do you want?” *[[Speak up. ->P-Right 3.1]] *[[Let Li handle it. ->P-Right 3.2]]

“We’re just trying to get to New Haven!” <<set $bobbyfriendship to 0>> Li takes a gamble by sticking his hands out of the window, swearing under his breath as he holds his empty hands up in the universal symbol of surrender. Penny and Fawkes are still tense beside him, as Penny reaches out and grabs nervously at his jacket sleeve. He keeps a careful eye on the man in the rearview mirrors, watching the man hesitate, gun barrel drooping a little at the tone of Li’s voice, as he continues. *"[[We're just passing through. ->L-Right 2.1.1a]]" *"[[We're paranormal investigators here for the castle. ->L-Right 2.1.2a]]"

“We took a wrong turn!” <<set $bobbyfriendship to 0>> Li does his best to not flinch at the slight tinge of desperation in his own voice as he shouts out the window to the stranger, holding his hands out the window in a placating gesture. He can feel one of his friends grab at his elbow as he does so, clutching almost as if to pull him back inside at a moments notice. Keeping his eyes on the man in the rearview mirror, he tries to explain a little more. *“[[We’re students! ->L-Right 2.2.1a]]” (//Lie//.) *“[[We’re filming a documentary! ->L-Right 2.2.2a]]” (//Technically the truth//?)

“We’re on our way to Blackwood Castle!” <<set $bobbyfriendship to 2>> Something changes in the entire atmosphere of the situation the second Blackwood Castle leaves Li’s lips. The man’s posture changes, perking up as he lowers the gun, shifting his weight in a way that looks… interested? Surprised? Less angry, at the very least? Li isn’t sure whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing as he watches the man start walking towards them, his footsteps squelching against the mud as he comes around on Li’s side of the car. Li swallows thickly as he smiles up at the man, trying not to look as scared as he feels as he leans one hand on the hood of their car, bracing himself as he leans down and carefully looks each one of them in the eye. After a long, tense few seconds, the man speaks again. “You’re goin’ to //the// Blackwood Castle?” *"[[Uh... yes? ->L-Right 2.3.1a]]" *"[[That's what I said, yeah. ->L-Right 2.3.2a]]"

“A price?” they ask. “Yeah. I’m runnin’ low on beer,” he says with a shrug. “Bring me a case or two and I’ll be happy to tell ya some scary stories about that terrible place.” Fawkes, Li, and Penny all exchange a look, before they shrug, laughing amongst each other. Li is the one that answers him this time, chuckling as he says, “That shouldn’t be a problem. Should we just come back here for that, then?” The man grunts. “Only if you have the beer. Else I might still decide to shoot ya.” The three of them go silent, hearts pounding beneath the heavy downpour of rain, but the old man just laughs, tossing his head back. He slaps the hood of the car and says, “I’m just kiddin’. Y’all get on out of here before the creek gets too high. I ain’t lookin’ for houseguests.” “Right!” Li agrees, and goes to turn around as the man steps away from the car. “Thanks for the directions and sorry again about the trespassing.” “Yeah, yeah,” is all the old man says. “Go on.” Li wastes no time getting them back on the road towards civilization, hands so tight on the wheel that his knuckles are white against his skin. Fawkes, exhausted from the adrenaline that had flooded their system—both from the //gun// and the amount of socializing they just did with a strange, angry man—melts against the backseat with a groan. Penny and Li both chuckle as they turn back to watching the forest beyond the window. //What a trip this is turning out to be, huh?// [[Continue to New Haven ->F Chapter 1]]

*"[[We'll answer you if you put that gun down. ->P-Right 3.1.1a]]" *"[[We're on vacation. ->P-Right 3.1.2]]" (//Lie.//) *"[[We're here to investigate Blackwood Castle. ->P-Right 3.1.3a]]"

Li recovers before Penny can think to say anything—probably for the best, knowing her tendency be a little bit too blunt—putting on a shaky smile as he tries to placate the stranger. She’s actually quite impressed with how relaxed he manages to make his body language as he speaks, leaning back into his seat with his arm propped loosely on the steering wheel. The only thing that betrays his nerves is the slight tremble in his fingers and the shakiness of his voice. “Look, man, there’s no need for that,” he says calmly. “We really did just take a wrong turn. The sign for New Haven is broken, and our GPS isn’t working.” The man isn’t impressed with that answer. “You ain’t from around here, are ya?” //No fucking shit//, Penny thinks, fighting the urge to roll her eyes. They’d probably be where they needed to be by now if they were, now wouldn’t they? “No,” Li says, laughing a little. “We’re not. Would you mind pointing us in the right direction? We’ve got some appointments to keep for our show.” “…your show?” “Ah, yeah.” Li glances at Penny, and all she can do is shrug at him before he turns back to the man. “We’re paranormal investigators here for Blackwood Castle.” The man’s demeanor changes at the mention of the castle, much to her surprise. He straightens up a little, something almost impressed in the face he makes in response. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, stance relaxing as he glances around like he’s looking to make sure there’s no one else watching them. He leans down and murmurs, almost too low for her to catch over the sound of the rain, “You’d best avoid that groundskeeper they got up there. Something off about that guy.” Li glances at her and Fawkes, frowning. He doesn’t look away from them as he asks, “Really? The groundskeeper?” The man grunts. “Knows about as much about the castle as I do, but he ain’t nearly as nice about it.” Penny wonders what world this man lives in where he considers threatening to shoot anyone that accidentally ends up on his doorstep //nice//. [[Continue ->P-Right 3.2.1]]

“We’ll answer you if you put that gun down.” Her gaze is unwavering as she glares him down, voice steady and jaw set determinedly. The strange man blinks at her, frowning deeply. Her stomach turns at the feeling of his eyes trailing down her body and back up, sizing her up, and she’s pretty sure she’s picked the wrong thing to say to this particular man. “You’ve got a lotta nerve tellin’ me what to do, bitch.” Penny blinks, raising her eyebrows. //Oh.// That’s //how it’s going to be?// Penny’s lip curls into a snarl as she crosses her arms, raising an eyebrow at the stranger. “Did you just call me a bitch?” He laughs. Li and Fawkes are both radiating anxiety so thick she could cut the tension with a butter knife. Penny feels like she could leap through Li’s open window and claw this stupid, smug man’s eyes out if she thought she could get away with it. She’s not sure why she’s //surprised// that a hillbilly who lives out by himself in the middle of nowhere is a raging misogynist—maybe she’s been in the city too long—but she is a little bit appalled. “//You fucking—//" “AH! AHAHA!” Li interrupts loudly, laughing uncomfortably and slapping a hand over her mouth. “Nevermind my friend—we’ve had a long day of driving and we’re all tired and moody. If you could just point us in the right direction, we’ll be out of your hair.” The man tries to snap something else at her, but Li forces himself into the man’s line of sight, breaking his eye contact with her as he almost shields her from view. The sight of Li putting himself between them protectively makes her heart flutter a little—but it’s not enough to distract her from the white-hot annoyance pumping through her veins. The stranger may have backed down once Li broke his concentration, but Penny is still ready for a fight. “It’s back the way you came,” she hears the man grumble. “Now get the hell off my property.” “With //pleasure//,” Penny calls over Li’s shoulder, ignoring the look he shoots her. “If y’all ever come back here, that warning shot is going straight between the eyes!” the old man threatens, pointing right at her. “And that goes double for you.” Li starts to speed off before Penny can make this situation any worse, but she can’t help herself as she yells out the window, “Don’t worry—I’d rather //die// than spend another minute talking to you!” “Fuck you!” <<set $bobbyfriendship to -1>> “//[[Fuck you! ->P-Right 3.1.1b]]//”

"We're on vacation." Penny couldn’t tell anyone why she decided that she needed to lie to the man with the gun, honestly. She’s sure it has something to do with the fact that she’s worried he might kill them for suggesting that they have video equipment in the car, that he seems the exact kind of hermit who thinks any form of media is the devil and needs to be destroyed. Maybe it has to do with the old ‘don’t tell strange men where you’re going or what you’re doing or you’re going to get killed’ rule of thumb all women these days know by heart. Either way, he doesn’t do much more than blink at her. “Vacation?” She nods, even as Li and Fawkes look at her confusedly. “Yeah. We thought we’d take a road trip and stay in a cabin for the week. We just took a wrong turn on our way.” She can feel the suspicion rolling off of the stranger in waves, crackling like static as the rain pours down around them. He doesn’t move for a long few seconds, looking at each one of them in turn—taking in Li and Fawkes’ nervous smiles and Penny’s cool expression—before he finally sighs, nodding to himself. “Right,” he says at length, shifting his weight. He steps back and points down the road. “It’s just back the way you came in. Directly away from here.” "Thanks." He doesn’t say anything back, just grunts loud enough for them to hear over the rain. Penny can hear Li taking a deep, tense breath as he turns the car around, letting it out slowly as he turns them back onto the road they’d come in on. Fawkes groans quietly in the backseat, and Penny finds herself making a noise of agreement. This is shaping up to be one hell of a trip. <<set $bobbyfriendship to 0>> [[Continue to New Haven ->P Chapter 1]]

“We’re here to investigate Blackwood Castle.” Penny’s not sure what she’s expecting by dropping the name of the castle—maybe at least some kind of distraction—but she’s not expecting the way the man’s entire countenance shifts at the mention of the castle. His stance relaxes, and he leans forward almost eagerly, though there’s still an air of caution and suspicion about him that makes her uneasy. “//The// Blackwood Castle? She snorts. “There another haunted castle around here?” The man doesn’t laugh. “You’d be surprised.” She tilts her head. “Yeah?” The stranger looks side to side mysteriously before he continues, like he’s expecting someone to pop out of the trees—or maybe just the trees themselves—to attack him for talking to them. It sends a weird sensation crawling up her spine, and for the first time today she’s almost grateful for the low visibility of the fog and the rain. Maybe it’s more of a blessing than she’d originally thought. “I could tell you stories about that place,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially. “For a price, though, because I ain’t got time to be telling ghost stories right now.” Hmm. <<set $bobbyfriendship to 1>> [[No, she’s not into that at all. ->P-Right 3.1.3b]]

Something seems strange about this whole thing, but she’s not sure if that’s just the fact that they’ve had a gun pointed at them, or if this man’s weird, cryptic warning about the person who will be giving them access and locking them inside this castle is making her nervous. Nigel had seemed perfectly pleasant over the phone when she’d been setting up their trip, if a little cold and detached. She’s not sure how him knowing about the castle—which is, you know, his //job//—is cause for concern. “Right…” Li says, nodding. “If you know so much about the castle, do you think you’d be open to giving us an interview? Off camera, if you want. We’re not sure how many of the things we’ve found are true and how many are rumors.” The old man shrugs, apparently distracted from his anger by the mention of the castle. “If you bring me a case or two o’ beer, I might be interested in sharin’.” “That—sounds great,” Li says, voice strained. “New Haven is back the way we came, right?” “Yep.” There’s a moment of silence, before the man steps back and Li turns the car around. She watches the man disappear in the rearview mirror as they drive away, silently thinking to herself that she hoped they never ran into that particular asshole ever again. Or at least, not without a peace offering of cheat beer and cigarettes. She’s just ready to get out of this god-forsaken car. [[Continue to New Haven ->P Chapter 1]]

“//Penny//!” It’s Fawkes’ voice that finally makes her turn around as they hiss her name insistently, grabbing at her shoulders. Their eyes are wide and frightened when she finally turns to look at them, glare still in place on her features. It’s enough to snap her out of it, and she deflates a little as she looks at them. “…sorry,” she mumbles at length. “That… could have gone better.” Li snorts. “It could have gone worse, too.” “No thanks to me?” He rolls his eyes. “Next time we get threatened by a crazy hillbilly in the middle of nowhere, let //me// do the talking, okay?” Penny laughs, shaking her head. “Deal.” [[Continue to New Haven ->P Chapter 1]]

“I think I’ll pass,” she says hesitantly, wrinkling her nose as she lets her gaze run over his skinny frame again. If he’s hitting on her, he’ll have to do much, //much// better than //that//. He raises an eyebrow, looking every bit as unimpressed with her as she is with him. “Don’t flatter yerself, //Princess//. You ain’t my type.” “Thank //god//.” Fawkes coughs, nudging the back of her chair as if to say shut up before you get us all killed—and they certainly have a point. Her smart mouth isn’t quite doing what it usually does, so maybe it’s time to drop it. “What’s your price?” Li finally asks when he can’t stand the glaring anymore. He puts on his most winning smile, and it seems to do the trick as the man deflates before he can try picking another fight. “Y’all bring me a case or two o’ beer an’ I’ll tell you anything you want.” Li blinks, glancing briefly at Fawkes and Penny. “…that’s it?” The man shrugs. “That’s it.” “…huh.” After a very awkward beat of silence, Li clears his throat and nods back towards the way they came. “So, uh… New Haven is back the other way, I take it?” The man snorts. “Yeah. Directly away from here.” “Right. We’ll just, ah… get out of your way, then. Thanks for the directions.” Their new acquaintance doesn’t really respond, shrugging again as he steps back and slings his gun across his shoulders. Li doesn’t waste any time before he’s turning around and pulling back out onto the road, taking the wet pavement and curves a little faster than he normally would. Penny watches the way he grasps tightly at the steering wheel for half a beat, before she smiles a little and says, “Well, that was exciting.” Fawkes and Li laugh in response, and most of the remaining tension in the car dissipates, though they’re all still a bit on edge. Something’s strange about this place, and Penny has a feeling that it’s probably only going to get stranger. [[Continue to New Haven ->P Chapter 1]]

“We’re just passing through.” That should be enough, he thinks, for the man to realize that they aren’t a danger to him and whatever he’s hiding in that messy house of his. The man’s gun droops a little, but he doesn’t lower it all the way, still suspicious of this random SUV that showed up on his property in the middle of the day. Distantly, Li is at least glad for the fact that they showed up in broad daylight. He’d have probably killed them on sight if they’d stumbled upon his property after dark. “Please,” Li tries again. “We really did just get a little turned around, I //swear//.” The man relaxes his stance a bit more, and then he’s walking towards them, something that has Li extremely uncomfortable, glancing at his companions to find them both also looking distraught. He tries to smile for them, but he’s not sure it works, and he doesn’t have a chance to try again before the man is at his window. The stranger props his hand up on the hood of the car, leaning down to look in the window to scrutinize each of them in turn. He doesn’t seem to pay Li much mind, nor does he spare Fawkes more than half a second, but his eyes linger strangely on Penny, narrowing suspiciously in a way that has Li very uncomfortable. [[Continue ->L-Right 2.1.1b]]

“We’re paranormal investigators here for the castle!” <<set $bobbyfriendship to 1>> Li struggles to be heard over the sound of the rain, trying desperately to reason with this man. He can’t really believe that it’s barely noon and they’ve been fucking shot at, but hey, it’s just another wild story to tell their friends when they get home, right? “We’re staying in New Haven while we’re here, and we took a wrong turn at the broken sign.” The man lowers his gun even more at the mention of the castle, tilting his head. “Yer what?” Li flinches at the tone of his voice, biting his lower lip anxiously. “We’re uh… ghost hunters?” He can see the man rolling his eyes dramatically in the rearview mirror, shaking his head. “I know what a paranormal investigator is, dumbass,” he yells, shifting his weight in annoyance. “I was just surprised to hear yer headed for the castle.” “Really?” Li calls back, frowning. “Why?” At that, the man decides to lower the gun fully and close the distance between them, striding up to Li’s side of the car and stopping at his window. He raises an eyebrow, leaning down a little to look in and size them up one by one. He seems to be somewhat satisfied as he leans away again, tilting his head. “That groundskeeper doesn’t like folks pokin’ around his lair normally. Wonder what’s so special about you.” [[Continue ->L-Right 2.1.2b]]

"We're filming a documentary!" Is it the truth? Well, sort of. //Forever Ghostly// could //probably// be classified as a documentary—if you really wanted it to be. They //did// give background on information on the history of the locations they visit, giving accurate information wherever they possibly can on top of the spooks to provide their viewers with as much context as possible. Penny always wanted it to be at least a third about the history of each landmark, because she herself was into true crime when they first conceptualized the show, and she knew that it’d be interesting to the viewers to know what sorts of gruesome things occurred at the haunted attraction they’re investigating each week. Technically telling the truth means that Li doesn’t quite feel like flinching when the old man makes his way up to the side of the car. He’s at least lowered his gun, so he hopes that that means he’s calmed down a bit. The man props his hand up on the hood of the car and leans down, peering in coldly at each of them, before he asks, “What kind of documentary?” *"[[A documentary about New Haven. ->L-Right 2.2.2c]]" *"[[A documentary about the castle. ->L-Right 2.2.2b]]"

“We’re students!” Li’s not sure //what// he thinks he’s doing, or what he thinks he’s saying, but it falls out of his mouth before he really has a chance to think about it. He flinches a little, glad the man can’t see his face as he bites at his lip in regret. Why even lie about what they’re doing here? It’s not like they’re here to cause any problems—there’s no reason for this. “What are you doing?” Fawkes breathes, but Penny answers before he can. “Shh! Just go with it!” she hisses. Li swallows thickly and continues. *"[[Uh... we're just here for spring break. ->L-Right 2.2.1b]]" *"[[We're here to... uh... do some research on the wildlife in the area. ->L-Right 2.2.1c]]"

“Uh… yes?” He’s not sure where this is going or what this man is thinking, but he’s hoping that at least the shift in his mood is a good sign. It feels less hostile than it had a moment ago, even though the man leans even closer in response, and Li does his best to smile at the stranger as he struggles to maintain eye contact. “Hmph. Weird.” Li blinks, glancing over at Penny, who just shrugs at him. Clearing his throat uncomfortably as he turns back to the stranger, he asks, “What’s weird about it?” “That the groundskeeper’s lettin’ y’all poke around at all. He usually ain't the generous sort.” That puts a frown on Li’s face. He’s not usually in charge of actually setting up interviews or booking the chance to film at locations, so he’s not actually sure what the exchange was like when they scheduled this filming opportunity. Penny hadn’t said anything about it, so he assumed it either wasn’t out of the ordinary, or there was nothing wrong, but… Maybe he should ask her about that later. [[Continue ->L-Right 2.3.1b]]

“That’s what I said, yeah.” That sentence comes out much more calm, cool, and collected than he’s feeling in the pit of his stomach, and the man seems to think it’s a little weird, too. He raises an eyebrow at him, narrowing his eyes as he considers Li, who puts on his best attempt at a confident smile in response. There’s a tense beat of silence as they stare each other down, before the man snorts, shaking his head. “In that case, I guess I should be wishing you luck.” Li frowns at that. “Luck?” The man hums. “Mm. Good luck and be careful not to piss off that groundskeeper they’ve got up there. That man’s as territorial as I am, and not nearly as friendly about it.” Somehow, Li doubts that very much. [[Continue ->L-Right 2.3.2b]]

“Uh… we’re just here for spring break.” Hm. //Bad.// The stranger seems entirely unconvinced by this statement, raising an unimpressed eyebrow as Li feels his palms start to sweat. He rubs them on his jeans self consciously, pretending like it’s just to wipe off the rain water as he tries to anticipate what reaction the man is about to give. He’s pretty sure it won’t be anger, but who can really tell just by looking at someone they don’t even know? Certainly not him. Despite the fact that the man clearly does not believe a single word of Li’s explanation, he doesn’t seem to be willing to dig any further—in case it really is just that boring, Li guesses. At length, the man just snorts, shaking his head. “In that case, y’all should go back the way you came,” he says, stepping back from the car. He gestures back towards the road with his shotgun as he adds, “Yer gonna want to book a room at the inn, probably.” Li laughs a little. “We do want to book a room, yeah. Does that mean we’re free to go?” The stranger rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Don’t come back.” “Not going to be a problem,” Li says, grinning as he gets ready to back the car up. //Not going to be a problem at all.// [[Continue to New Haven ->L Chapter 1]]

“We’re here to… uh… do some research on the wildlife in the area.” Hm. //Note to self//, Li thinks, trying not to flinch. //Next time leave the lying to literally anyone else//. The man just grunts, seemingly bored by the idea of that—or at the very least unimpressed by it. He sighs, straightening his back and taking a step back away from their car. Clutching his shotgun with both hands, he nods back towards the road and says, “Yer lookin’ for New Haven, then, I guess. ’S back the way you came. Might wanna stop by the library while yer there.” Li blinks, surprised. Did that… actually work? “I—thank you,” Li stammers, moving to put the car in reverse. “We appreciate your help.” The man grunts again. “Yeah, yeah. Just get offa my property.” “Right. Yes. Of course. He’s never been happier to pull a three point turn in his life, the knot of tension in his chest loosening the second his tires hit wet pavement again. His muscles don’t really relax, but he is able to let out a shaky sigh once they finally turn a corner and the strange little house disappears from view again. Penny and Fawkes also give sighs of relief as they go on their way, slouching in their seats and laughing dryly. What a way to start this weekend. [[Continue to New Haven ->L Chapter 1]]

“A documentary about New Haven.” The fact that he’s technically telling the truth makes him feel much better as he speaks, to the point that he even manages to slouch a little in his seat. It may not be the total picture of ease, but it at least looks less suspicious than he did a moment ago, visibly tense and anxious. He knows the less confident he seems, the more this man will think he’s up to no good most likely, so he does his best to ignore the churning acid in his stomach. "Sounds boring,” he says flatly. Li laughs a little. “Maybe a little, but it’s what we’re being paid for.” “Hmm.” There’s a five second pause, before the man steps away from the car and points back towards the road. “Well, New Haven’s back that way. Just keep goin’ straight and you’ll get there.” Li grins as he puts the car in reverse. “Thank you so much, we really—" “Yeah, yeah. Just don’t come back.” Penny and Fawkes laugh a little with him at that. “No problem. Sorry to bother you.” They don’t hang around long enough for the man to say anything else in response to that, though he doesn’t seem like he had anything to say anyway. Once they hit pavement again, everyone in the car sighs loudly, all of them slouching a little in exhaustion as they turn a corner and the strange man and his weird house disappear from view. Li doesn’t believe in omens, but that can’t have been a very good sign. [[Continue to New Haven ->L Chapter 1]]

“A documentary about the castle.” The man’s entire energy suddenly seems to shift as the words fall from Li’s mouth. At the mention of the castle, the stranger’s eyes light up, and he perks up significantly, leaning forward with interest gleaming in his eyes under his visor. “Oh? Blackwood Castle?” Li smiles, trying to give off an air of ease and confidence despite the nervousness sitting like a rock in his gut. “The very same. You know much about it?” The man grins, revealing yellowed teeth with several gaps in between. “Oh, I know more about it than almost anyone.” Li’s not sure what to make of this, but he tries to keep smiling. “Really? That’s…” “Y’all looking to interview people for your show?” the man asks, leaning forward, still grinning. “You pay well for interviews?” Li bites his lip, shrugging. “Uh, I mean… we don’t really pay at all for interviews, to be honest. We don’t have that much money.” His face falls, and Li can barely keep himself from flinching—apparently that was the wrong thing to say, and their new friend is extremely displeased by that fact. He seems to think for a moment, before he grunts again and says, “I’d give an interview for a couple cases o’ beer, too, if you had it.” “I…” Li doesn’t know how to explain that they aren’t really looking for him to give them an interview, so he just laughs a little. “We can definitely do that,” is what he finally says. “New Haven is back the way we came, right?” The man nods, apparently satisfied with that answer as he steps away from the car. “Yep. Just go straight. Ya can’t miss it.” Li has to fight the urge to remind him that apparently you can miss it because they already had, and manages to just smile and nod. “Thanks.” He can’t get out of this driveway fast enough, he thinks as he turns the car around. Penny and Fawkes are also radiating anxiety as they turn back onto the road and head back the way they came, only relaxing once they turn a corner and the little house disappears from sight. This has already been one of the wildest trips they’ve ever had, and they haven’t even made it into New Haven yet. He has a bad feeling about this. [[Continue to New Haven ->L Chapter 1]]

“Well,” Li manages after a beat, shrugging lightly, “he’s being generous this time, I guess. And we’re supposed to meet him in New Haven.” “Is that so?” Li clears his throat, uneasy with the inflection in this man’s voice. Whether he believes them or not, Li is telling the truth, and they really do need to get to New Haven soon so they can start planning where they want to film and what interviews they want to get before they start their lockdown. “Yes, and we’re running late, so I think we’re going to just… get going now.” The man grunts, stepping back from their car, slinging his shotgun over his shoulder as he points back towards the road. “New Haven’s back the way you came. Straight the other direction.” “Right…” “And if y’all want to learn some things about the castle that you can’t find on the internet… come back with some beer,” he continues, smirking at the three of them. Li isn’t sure what to make of that offer, but there’s something uncomfortable about it that makes his skin crawl. Whatever this man has to say about the castle, he’s pretty sure it’s either not true or not something they should put on their show for the entire internet to see. He’s certainly not planning on coming back here ever if it’s up to him, but he’s not about to say that either as he shoots the man a bright smile. “Thanks so much and sorry for bothering you!” He doesn’t wait for the man to respond a second time, backing the car up and turning back onto the road. The rain is at least somewhat letting up now, so he takes the first turn a little faster than he should just to watch that house disappear from view. The three of them all let out identical sighs once they are on their way, and for once he’s glad to be back on the road, no matter how hard the rain is coming down. They haven’t even gotten to the hotel yet, but Li already has an opinion about this whole trip. //Fuck Blackwood Castle.// [[Continue to New Haven ->L Chapter 1]]

“Um…” he tries after a moment of hesitation, smiling a little. “Thanks for the warning. We really should be going now, though, right guys?” Penny smiles when he shoots her a desperate look, nodding. “Yeah, we have—an appointment to keep this afternoon.” Fawkes perks up a little, nodding vigorously as Li also nods, both of them trying to help speed this exit along. They’ve already spent far more time than any of them are comfortable with out here already, but this man doesn’t seem like he’s quite done talking to them yet. Leaning on his arm, he shifts his weight, getting comfortable like the sky wasn’t still pouring ice cold rain down on his head. “I’ll let ya go in a sec,” he says, grinning at the uncomfortable tension that oozes from the three of them. “I might be tempted to let y’all in on the secrets of ol’ Blackwood Castle myself… for the right price.” Li just wants to //leave//. “Yeah?” he asks, laughing nervously. “What price would that be?” “Two cases o’ beer and I’ll tell you everything.” That’s not the most appealing offer he’s ever heard, truth be told, but he’s desperate to get the fuck out of here, so he just nods. The sooner they can get away from this place, the sooner he never has to think about what it would feel like to get shot in the chest again. “I will definitely keep that in mind,” he says, putting the car in reverse. The man winks as he finally steps back from their car, doing half a salute as a goodbye as they turn back onto the road. As Li is finally rolling up his window, he catches one last warning on the wind. //“Don’t let him find you in the basement!”// Li doesn’t even want to think about what that means, stepping on the gas a little harder to get them the hell out of dodge. He’s already had quite enough of this trip, and they haven’t even gotten to the hotel yet. Great. [[Continue to New Haven ->L Chapter 1]]

There’s something about the way the old man describes the castle as a lair that makes Li’s skin start to crawl, and he can’t quite hold back the shiver that runs up his spine in response. This trip has already gone all kinds of sour before they’ve even gotten to the hotel, and every step closer they get makes the bad feeling in his gut just that much stronger. Still, Li manages to smile politely at the man with the shotgun. “We just have a way with words, I guess.” The man raises an eyebrow at him, apparently unimpressed with that explanation. “Yeah, well,” he says, as water drips off of the brim of his hat, “just don’t say I didn’t warn you. You’d best watch yer back when yer around //him//.” Li looks over at Penny and Fawkes for a second, and both of them look back at him with wide eyes, just as unnerved as he’s feeling. Clearing his throat, he coughs a little and says, “Thank you for the words of wisdom. We’re, uh… we’re just going to get going now, if you don’t mind.” The man snorts. “Yeah, get on outta here. Just know that if you find yourselves wanting to know the truth about that castle, you can bring me some cases of beer and I’ll tell you everything.” That… sounds like a very odd deal, but Li’s not about to scoff at this opportunity to escape the clutches of death. “For sure,” he says, putting the car in reverse in his hurry to get them the hell out of there. The man steps away from the care obligingly, and the knot of anxiety in Li’s chest loosens a little. “Thanks again.” “Sure. Y’all be careful, now.” Li doesn’t say anything in response to that, just smiles confusedly as he rolls up his window and hits the gas to take them back onto the road. This whole day is already way more exciting than he’d ever been expecting, and he can’t believe he can now check ‘Got threatened by a hillbilly with a shotgun’ off of his “Worst Case Scenarios” bucket list. He has a very bad feeling about how the rest of the weekend is going to go. [[Continue to New Haven ->L Chapter 1]]

Li forces himself between the stranger and Penny before she can notice the way he’s looking at her, breaking the eye contact with an innocent smile. With a grumble and a huff, the man pushes himself away from the car again, taking a few swaying steps back. He gestures towards the road with his gun, jerking his chin in the same direction as he says, “New Haven’s the other way.” Nodding vigorously, Li moves to put the car in reverse, voice a little high and tight as he says, “Thank you so much for your help, sir, really, we appreciate it! Sorry for bothering you!” The man just shakes his head and says, “Yeah. Don’t come back—the next warning shot might not be so merciful.” Li can feel himself pale as he pauses, jaw going slack as he looks up at the strange man. Something about the terror in his face must be funny, because the man just laughs and waves a hand at them, shooing them almost. “Go on, get!” Li doesn’t need to be told a third time, shaking his head to clear it and maneuvering them back onto the road. He doesn’t pause to say any more goodbyes to their new ‘friend,’ taking the wet backroads a little faster than is probably safe in his hurry to find civilization again. This trip has already had more than enough excitement in it for his taste, and they haven’t even gotten to the hotel yet. He’d like to think that’s not a sign for things to come, but something in his gut tells him not to get his hopes up. [[Continue to New Haven ->L Chapter 1]]

The Black Forest Inn sits near the middle of town, just above a bar simply called Nyla’s, just across the street from The Black Forest Cafe. It’s a cute name, Fawkes thinks, reminiscent of the Rainforest Cafe—though they wonder distantly why they chose to deviate from Black//wood// for the names of these places. Was it too redundant? Or was it a small act of rebellion? They don’t voice their thoughts to anyone as Li pulls them into a parking space just outside the bar-slash-inn, all of them peering curiously out the window at the old brick building for a beat. <<if $bobby is true>> They’ve already had such a trying day with the whole //incident// with the man in the woods <<else>>They've been driving for so long by now<</if>> that Fawkes can’t bring themselves to actually care about the weird vibes they’re getting from one of the upper bedrooms—they just want to sleep. “Well,” Li sighs, straightening up from where he’d leaned over to look out of Penny’s window, “this is it, right?” Penny hums, opening her phone again to check the map, and Fawkes realizes they must have gotten out of that dead zone once they got out of the thick of the forest and into town. She heaves a sigh as she looks back out of the window, groaning a little at the rain that still falls from the sky, as she says, “Yeah, this is it—and I call first dibs on the shower!” Fawkes and Li both groan loudly at that as they climb out of the car and Penny laughs, bright and full. As they laugh with her and jog to the door, the mood between the three of them seems to lift a little, and they think to themselves that maybe this trip isn’t going to be a //total// bust. Not just yet, anyway. [[Continue ->F New Haven 1]]

The desk clerk is a bubbly young woman named Miriam with short blonde curls that bounce when she moves, framing her freckled cheeks where they fall just below her jawline. There is a gap between her front teeth when she smiles brightly at them, adjusting her round, rose-gold framed glasses on her nose as she welcomes them—and Fawkes’ face feels suspiciously hot as they all approach the desk. It’s a weird reaction, because Fawkes really can’t remember the last time they got flustered because of anyone just because they were cute, but… …she’s //so// cute. They accidentally make eye contact with Penny while she’s chatting her up—because she could have any woman she wants and she knows it—and if they thought their face was hot //before//, it’s nothing compared to what it feels like //now//. They look away as quickly as possible, only to flinch when they realize what they’ve done when Penny laughs a little. …hell. “Say, Miriam—do you know of any spooky shops Fawkes might like? For bonus content, maybe?” Penny asks innocently, just loud enough that Fawkes can hear it. Fawkes wants to tell her to shut up, but by the time they turn their head to open their mouth, Miriam’s face has lit up, and she gasps, clapping her hands together and bouncing a little on her feet. “Ooh, yeah, I do! There’s a magic shop down the street, right next to the antique bookshop! I could show you—I mean,” she cuts herself off, blushing. “I-I mean, you can’t miss it.” Penny looks at Fawkes expectantly, and they realize with dawning horror that everyone is waiting for them to answer. *[[Invite her to the store. ->F New Haven 2.1]] *//[[Panic. ->F New Haven 2.2]]//

The Black Forest Inn sticks out from the surrounding buildings, just a little bigger, a little prettier, a little older than the others. There’s something about it that seems to radiate some kind of strange energy—the kind of //three-inches-to-the-left// sensation that she associates with the supernatural. The entire town, actually, gives off an unreal energy that sends excitement racing through her veins, the thought of catching new and incredible evidence making her restless. She’s ready to get moving, and she’s ready to get moving //now//. Li pulls the car up next to the front entrance, parking in one of the open street spaces by the curb. They all lean over to look out the window and up at the hotel, considering it through the rain and fog. “This the right place?” Li asks after a moment. Penny nods, instinctively looking at her phone to find that they’ve finally gotten signal again. Just to be safe, she checks the address online, making certain they’ve found the correct place before they go flouncing in there and make idiots of themselves. “Yeah, this is it,” she says, shoving her phone back in her pocket. “Let’s go check in—I call first dibs on the shower!” She can’t help but laugh at the groans of defeat her friends give as she hurries out of the car and through the rain. [[Continue ->P New Haven 1]]

The sense of relief he feels when he spots the hotel is almost overwhelming—he cannot //wait// to get out of this goddamn car and lay down on a horizontal surface. His vertebrae are in desperate need of realignment, and his neck and shoulders are aching almost as much as his swollen fingers. He normally doesn’t mind driving, he really doesn’t, but today was a lot more than he’s used to, <<if $bobby is true>>//not// including the crazy, gun-toting hillbilly,<</if>> so he’s looking forward to being able to lie down and not think for a little while. He doesn’t need to ask, because he can see the sign that says The Black Forest Inn quite clearly from the road (somehow, through the fog, it manages to stand out), but he does anyway. He wants to give Penny a chance to redeem herself from the dead zone mishap on the way here—even though that wasn’t her fault, he’s sure she’s been beating herself up about it. <<if $bobby is true>>Especially after what happened, he wants her to feel like an important member of the team.<<else>>They might have managed to find their way without any problems, but that doesn’t mean she’s not still feeling a little down.<</if>> “Is this the right place?” he asks, smiling when Penny looks up at him, surprised. She looks down at her phone then, probably more instinct than anything, but he can see her eyebrows raise in surprise when she can actually pull up the address. She smiles a beat later, laughing as she says, “Yeah, this is the place. Let’s go check in—and I call first dibs on the shower!” He and Fawkes both groan at that, but the delighted peal of laughter that follows more than makes up for the fact that he’ll probably have to wait to wash off the stress. He can just nap until the shower is free, anyway. [[Continue ->L New Haven 1]]

“Uh, I—I’ve got a pretty bad sense of direction,” they say, reaching up to rub nervously at the back of their neck. “While Penny and Li are getting interviews, I usually have nothing to do because I’m not—you know—good at… talking… to people…” Miriam’s smile is so sweet that it takes their breath away a little bit, as she tilts her head and says, “You’re doing fine right now.” //Oh.// “Well, I—I’d… if you were up to it I would—I would like to take a look around the shop,” Fawkes manages, smiling hesitantly. They’re very embarrassed by their stuttering, but Miriam doesn’t seem phased by it. She might just be too nice for it, but either way, they can’t help but be a little excited to have someone to goof off with while their friends are filming. Miriam claps her hands together again, grinning and bouncing a little on her feet like she had earlier, and Fawkes’ stomach flips at the sight. She’s so //cute.// “You’ve got yourself a date,” she laughs, reaching up to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I’m actually really excited. I haven’t gotten to go shopping with anyone in a while.” Fawkes fiddles with the hem of their sweater, feeling bashful as she leans on the counter, propping her chin up with her hand. “Me neither,” they say softly. “It’s—I’m looking forward to it.” Miriam’s smile is blinding as she replies, “Good. Me, too.” [[Continue ->F New Haven 2.1.1]]

The inside of the inn is a bit tacky, old-fashioned patterns she remembers from her grandma’s house growing up covering the rugs and the walls and even some of the furniture in the bar area. It’s also fairly dark once they get inside, but maybe that has less to do with the decor and more to do with the fog and wind and rain still hanging over the town. The front of the inn has big old windows with window seats, letting whatever natural light can be found outside flood in and light the room. “Hi! You’re here to check in, right?” Penny blinks, startled by the bright, bubbly voice that greets them as they step into the building. The woman at the desk smiles brightly at them all, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet, causing the soft blonde curls that frame her cheeks to bob with her. “Uh, yeah,” Penny says, reaching up to grab at her ponytail to wring out a little of the rain. “How’d you know?” The cute clerk giggles in response, pushing her round, rose-gold framed glasses further up her nose. “I—might watch your show,” she says, cheeks red. //Ah//, Penny thinks, smirking. //A fan.// *[[Turn on the charm. ->P New Haven 2.1]] *[[Play it cool. ->P New Haven 2.2]]

The inside of the inn is actually quite cozy, he thinks as they walk in. The whole room is covered in tacky floral patterns—from the carpet to the walls to the couches against the wall. The bar is through a door at the back of the lobby, a neon sign on the windowed wall declaring it open for business. Gloomy, cold grey light from outside floods in through the large windows covering the front of the building—despite that, he can’t help but think the little pillow-covered window seats look like the perfect place to curl up with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate. The girl behind the desk greets them immediately, apparently having recognized them as a fan of the show. Penny turns on the charm a little bit, which makes him shake his head before his gaze catches on a bunch of framed newspapers on the wall. He figures there’s no need for him to pay much attention to what’s going on at the counter, so he drifts to take a look at the newspapers. “MAN SLAUGHTERS DOZENS OF YOUNG WOMEN IN BLACKWOOD CASTLE” reads the first one he sees. It’s dated for the early 1900s, and a skimming of the passage reveals that this is the coverage of the man who killed his maids and bathed in their blood in a secret room that has since been locked away from public view. A few others describe ghostly sightings, vampiric rumors, and signs of cult gatherings on the grounds of the castle. He wonders if there’s a way to use this wall in their episode—if a panning shot of the wall would be enough, or if there’d be a way to turn these into something clearer for the edit as Penny does the voiceover. Maybe he could recreate the clippings if he just—? “I’m sure Li especially appreciates the nicer beds,” Penny says, distracted him from his thoughts. He looks over at her, surprised, only to find her smirking at him, a teasing glint in her eyes. He rolls his eyes at her, shaking his head again, and says, “What can I say? This weather is killing my joints.” The girl behind the desk giggles at that, pulling out the keys from under the desk as she says, “Hey, no shame in that. Nyla has the same complaints. It’s just too bad you guys ended up here during the rainy season.” [[Continue ->L New Haven 2]]

“Yeah?” Penny asks, sidling up to the counter. She leans her arms on the counter, propping her cheek up on her hand, grinning suggestively at the clerk. The girl flushes, giggling, focusing on her blank computer screen to try and calm herself a little. “Are you a big fan? Or is it more like you watch us //sometimes//?” The girl—//Miriam//, her name tag reads—giggles again. “Ohh, I’m—when you called for a reservation, I had to walk it off after we hung up. I’m…” she trails off, shaking her head and letting out a quiet huff. Miriam seems to find the guts to bring her gaze back to Penny’s. “Yeah, you could say I’m a big fan.” Penny tilts her head, still smiling. “What a small world, huh?" Miriam snorts. “No kidding. And it seems very, very small when you live here.” “Does it? Is there anything, you know… //interesting// we should check out while we’re here besides the castle?” Miriam shrugs, typing some things in and reaching under the desk to grab them their keys. “That’s a question that would probably be better answered by Nyla. She owns the bar and has so many stories about things that have happened in this town. Especially if you catch her in a good mood.” Penny laughs, glancing back at her friends to find Li examining the collection of newspaper clippings framed on the wall. Fawkes had been watching her exchange with Miriam—or so she thinks, judging by the way their face goes beet red and they hurry to look out the window instead. When she looks back at Miriam, she finds that Miriam’s also looking at Fawkes, cheeks still lightly flushed, and Penny grins to herself. //What an interesting development.// *[[Ask about Nyla. ->P New Haven 2.1.1a]] *[[Play wingman for Fawkes. ->P New Haven 2.1.2a]]

“Oh! I thought it was a little easy to book the nicer rooms,” Penny says, laughing good-naturedly. The girl behind the desk—Miriam, according to her name tag—blushes in response. “Thanks for that. We really appreciate it—especially Li.” “Oh?” Miriam raises her eyebrows, looking over at Li, who when Penny turns to look at him finds he looks completely and utterly betrayed. She laughs at him as his face goes red, and he crosses his arms, shifting his weight as he huffs in annoyance. “What can I say? My joints are hating this weather,” he says, gesturing towards the rain. Miriam gives a good-natured wince, nodding understandingly. “Nyla has the same complaint. It’s too bad you decided to come during the rainy season.” Li snorts, shaking his head. “Yeah. Too bad.” *“[[Maybe we can use your achey breaky joints to our advantage? ->P New Haven 2.2.1a]]” *“[[At least the room we got has a jacuzzi tub for your aches and pains. ->P New Haven 2.2.2a]]”

Penny decides to let Fawkes live in peace, though it would be fun to tease them for their very obvious crush. She takes the keys Miriam hands her with a smile, sighing for a moment before she asks, “Any tips on getting on Nyla’s good side?” Miriam snorts. “Make sure you buy a drink while you’re there.” Penny laughs, glancing over at Li and Fawkes as she says, “Oh, that won’t be a problem. Not for me, anyway.” “Not a lightweight?” Miriam guesses, leaning on the counter. There’s a contemplative twinkle in her eyes that makes Penny’s stomach flip with excitement. “Nah. Fawkes is our lightest weight in the group—I can drink grown men under the table.” Fawkes gasps in response to that, making them all laugh as they give an indignant little, “Hey! I’m not that bad!” “Fawkes, you got wasted off of a shot of amaretto in Sprite the last time we drank,” Li reminds them, chuckling. They just flush deeper, glaring at both of them as Miriam giggles at their exchange. She seems to find this whole thing endearing, and she’s definitely one of Penny’s favorite people they’ve met on the job so far. <<if $bobby is true>>Especially after what happened earlier today, in the forest when they took that wrong turn. She wonders distantly if Nyla knows anything about that man in the woods—or if he exists completely off the grid from everyone else.<<else>>Maybe they’ll keep in touch with her after they’re done here—Penny can always use more friends after all.<</if>> [[Continue ->P New Haven 2.1.1b]]

Penny smiles thoughtfully, crossing her legs as she looks over at Fawkes. They’re making a show of pretending like they weren’t thinking about how pretty Miriam is, and it’s so cute to see how red their face is even from all the way over here. Fawkes’ blush is so red it might give her brother’s blush a run for its money, actually. Looking back over at Miriam, she asks, “You know of any spooky shops Fawkes might be interested in?” Miriam blinks, surprised, and then lights up. “Do I? There’s this cute little magic shop just down the street, next to the little antique bookstore—ooh, and the cafe across the street has these cute little pastries, you’d all like them probably, I—“ she cuts herself off, blushing and laughing, embarrassed. “Sorry, I’m just a bit—excited.” Penny shakes her head. “It’s alright. Fawkes usually has nothing to do while Li and I are filming interviews, anyway.” Miriam nods, grinning at Fawkes, who seems a bit awestruck by the whole exchange. “I’d be delighted to show you around. I always had some questions about, like—you know, magic and stuff that I wanted to ask you, anyway.” Fawkes looks particularly amazed by that statement. “You—you do?” “Well, yeah? I’m always fascinated by the confidence you have around things in the show because I’m—I mean, I know I live in a bad place for that,” she laughs, “but I’m a bit of a scaredy cat.” Fawkes laughs, fidgeting as they mumble, “That’s okay…” *[[Invite her for drinks tonight. ->P New Haven 2.1.2b]] *[[Ask when she's off next. ->P New Haven 2.1.2c]]

Li snorts. “Nyla owns the bar, doesn’t she?” The girl—looking closer, he finds that her name tag reads ‘Miriam’—nods. “Yeah. She’s a bit prickly, but she knows more stories about this town than anyone. If you can catch her in a good mood, anyway.” “Yeah?” he asks, crossing his arms. “Any tips on how to do that?” “Well, making sure you buy a drink first is generally a good way to start,” Miriam says. “Would be easier to get her to talk when it’s not super busy, probably. Other than that—it’s a lot of luck, I’ll be honest. A lot of people come here and bug her about the Castle, especially when they’re drunk.” Li hums, nodding thoughtfully. That is a problem, and probably a reason why Nyla wouldn’t be the best candidate for an interview—that doesn’t mean they couldn’t get some clues on what sorts of things to be on the lookout for inside the castle. Maybe she’ll have information on which incidents and stories she hears the most, and which ones are probably just a hoax. Blackwood Castle is the biggest location they’ve been to yet, and there’s no way they have enough cameras or enough time to investigate every little claim that exists for each room in the entire building. “We’ll have to keep that in mind when we try to talk to her later,” Penny says, stepping away from counter, bouncing the keys in her hands. “We’re top floor, right?” //Oh.// //[[Goddammit. ->L New Haven 3]]//

He and Fawkes both groan in unison at that, as Penny chuckles at them. His eyes have finally caught on the only set of stairs he can see, and it dawns on him that there’s most definitely no elevator, and that meant they would be lugging //all// their luggage //all// the way up with //all// their equipment, too. “//Why// did you book the top floor, Pen?” Li asks, eyeing the stairs with distaste. She snorts. “Relax, Big Guy. I’ll take care of the extra bags.” He can see the apology in her eyes, but he’s not sure if it’s for the hotel or <<if $bobby is true>>the hillbilly incident earlier<<else>>the trouble with the GPS earlier<</if>>. He sighs a little, raising an eyebrow as she hands him and Fawkes their room keys. “There’s a reason you picked that room, Penny. I’ll figure it out eventually.” “Oh, was it not because that room is our only haunted bedroom?” Miriam asks suddenly. Penny shoots her a look, and Li gasps, somehow both shocked and unsurprised all at once. “//Penny//—" “It’s fine, Li! It’s just a rumor. I picked it because of the extremely large bed and jacuzzi tub,” Penny tries to argue, but he’s not buying it. “I’m sure the rumors of it being haunted were just a bonus, then,” he says dryly. Fawkes laughs into their hand, poorly trying to hide it behind a cough, and Penny rolls her eyes. “Like I said—relax. You worry too much.” //Yeah//, he thinks. //I think maybe sometimes I don’t worry enough.// [[Continue ->L Hotel Room]]

The trek up the stairs leaves him winded, and he unceremoniously dumps his bags just beside the wardrobe as soon as he gets into the room, collapsing onto the bed with a groan of relief. Penny and Fawkes are also both out of breath by the time they join him. He feels the bed sink as one of them sits at the foot of it, but he’s thrown his arm over his eyes and is too busy trying desperately to stop the room from spinning to look and see which one of them it is. The rushing of his heartbeat pounding in his ears and his labored breathing drowns out whatever chatter there is between his friends for a few minutes. He hadn’t realized just how tired he was, but now that he’s lying down, it’s hard to think about getting back up and going out again—especially in all that rain. He grits his teeth as his back aches, spasming a little as his spine realigns itself and he tries desperately to relax the rest of his achy body. “…Li?” “Mm?” He waits for someone to answer him, but when no one does, he pries one eye open, moving his arm just enough to look at who’s talking to him. Penny smiles from where she’s standing by the side of the bed, reaching out to pat his cheek gently. “You feeling alright?” He laughs a little, voice rough with exhaustion. “Yeah. Just tired.” “Well, good thing we don’t really have much to do until this evening,” she says, patting him on the chest as she steps away. “Though, I was kind of hoping to go out and see if we can talk to people before we go looking for interviews tomorrow.” Li hums again, sighing as his back finally stops spasming and he can really, truly sink into the mattress. He has no intention of moving at the moment, and judging by the way he can feel Fawkes crawl up the bed to sink into the pillows beside him, neither does Fawkes. [[Continue ->L Hotel Room 1]]

“Well,” Penny says after a moment, grinning as she starts handing out the keys Miriam had pulled out from under the counter. “We should probably get moving to put our stuff away. We’ve got an appointment to meet someone for dinner tonight. Plus, I’d like to talk to Nyla at some point before we get our investigation started.” Miriam seems a little disappointed by that, but she smiles anyway, nodding. “Of course. You’re right up those stairs behind me—room 404.” //Wait…// “That’s the top floor,” Fawkes says quietly, thinking back to the number of windows they’d when they pulled up. They’re not particularly excited about the idea of walking up all those stairs, but they are interested to see the room. Their sensitivity isn’t extremely specific when they sense things, but that had been approximately where they’d felt the weird presence when they first arrived. Li groans loudly, but Miriam nods, grinning at them. “Yes! 404 is the one room in the building with reports of activity in it,” she explains. “I—thought you’d all decided you wanted that room for that reason.” “Penny, I //swear//—" Li starts, rubbing tiredly at his face. “Relax, Big Guy. It’s also got a giant bed, a couch, and a jacuzzi tub. //Plus//,” she adds, hurrying a little when he opens his mouth to respond, “I’ll carry the extra bags and stuff. It’s the least I can do.” Oh. [[Continue ->F New Haven 2.1.2]]

Fawkes feels kind of bad then, watching Penny avoid both of their gazes, shifting her weight uncomfortably. They exchange a look with Li, and they can tell he’s also feeling a little bad for his outburst about the stairs. Neither of them have ever been mad at Penny about her mishaps with the map in the past—lord knows Fawkes is even worse at directions than she is—but today she seems to be feeling particularly bad about it. <<if $bobby is true>>They’ll have to talk to her later about the fact that the incident with the hillbilly most certainly was not her fault—Fawkes had been the one that picked the right turn, after all.<<else>>No matter how many times they tell her that they don’t mind a little detour, she always feels a little bad when she messes up, even when it’s not even her fault in the slightest. How could she know the GPS would fail, after all?<</if>> “Pen…” Li tries, stepping forward, reaching for her. She shrugs him off, smiling and waving a hand at him. “I’m fine! Let’s go get our luggage and get moving up. The sooner we get our stuff up the stairs, the sooner we can relax for a bit before we meet Andrew tonight.” Li looks at Fawkes for a second with a question in his eyes, and they just shrug in response. She doesn’t want to talk about it right now, obviously, and—well, they’re ready to lay down as much as he is. This is something they can revisit later. [[Continue ->F Hotel Room]]

The hike up to the fourth floor really takes the last of their energy out of them. This whole day has been <<if $bobby is true>>far too much excitement<</if>>far too long for their taste, and this is the final straw as far as their own energy levels go. Being on the road for, like, 8 hours <<if $bobby is true>>followed by getting literally shot at by a crazy hillbilly <</if>>has taken its toll, and they really, really need to lie down for at least a few minutes. The room they’ve booked is much more spacious than they’re expecting, with a big, comfy looking couch in the sitting area, next to the biggest bed they think they’ve ever seen. They’re pretty sure that not only will they, Penny, and Li all fit in that bed without a problem, there will probably still be room to spare even after that. There’s a mountain of pillows piled high on the bed that look extra inviting in the pale sunlight that filters in through the gossamer white curtains across the room—Fawkes can’t blame Li one bit for immediately dropping his bags and throwing himself on the bed with a groan. Outside, the storm they’d driven in with rages on, wind whipping the rain against the glass at random intervals. They sit heavily on the edge of the bed, staring blankly out the window at the ash grey sky, letting their mind wander a bit as they start to take in the room. There’s nothing evil in this building, that they can sense at the moment anyway, but there is—something off about this room. Something is lurking in the corners of the room, hiding in the shadows, though they can feel curiosity radiating from the presence. Whoever they’ll be sharing this room with tonight seems to at least be interested in who they are. Maybe even enough to get some kind of movement or voices later on tonight or over the weekend. [[Continue ->F Hotel Room 1]]

“We should rest a bit,” Fawkes mumbles into their pillow. “Agreed,” Li rasps, still not moving. “At least give us, like, an hour to rest. It’s been a very long day and I’m so fucking sore.” Penny doesn’t answer right away, and he can hear her sighing softly, tapping away on her phone in the quiet hotel room. After another minute of typing, she says, “I’ll take a shower first. After that I’d really like if we could at least talk to Nyla at the bar. I feel like even if she doesn’t want to tell us anything, we can get an idea of who would be good to ask about the castle, you know?” “Yeah,” he sighs, shifting to kick his shoes off and crawl up the bed to lie down next to Fawkes. He chuckles a little when he sees they’ve already taken their glasses off and have their face half buried in the pillow. What a mood. He takes his glasses off as well, standing up for a brief second—wincing at the protesting crack of his joints as he does—to pull the blankets down enough that he can slide beneath them. The world is blurry as he watches Fawkes do the same, crawling under the blankets and sprawling out on their side beside him. Penny laughs, and when he looks at her he finds her blurry form standing at the foot of the bed, both hands propped up on her hips. “You guys are really that tired?” “Yes,” he and Fawkes say in unison, followed by quiet, half delirious giggles. Penny shakes her head. “Alright, well, you have an hour. If we wait longer than that we’ll probably not have time to go see anyone before we go meet Andrew for dinner.” Oh, yeah. He’d almost forgotten Andrew. He doesn’t get a chance to answer Penny before she disappears into the bathroom. For a moment, he debates getting back up and brewing some coffee or something, but the room is nice and quiet, and Fawkes has already started dozing beside him. He’s out before he can even consider getting up again. [[Continue ->L Dream]]

“Wake up, sleepyheads!” Li jerks awake, startled by the sudden loudness of Penny’s voice. She laughs at them and he looks over to find Fawkes with a similarly bleary look on their face, their hair standing up almost completely on one side. He laughs a little at them and they giggle, rubbing at their eyes as they roll over and stretch. He rubs at his eyes, too, trying to wake up a little more. Penny keeps talking as he and Fawkes struggle to return to the land of the living from the dead sleep they’d both slipped into while Penny showered. “I was thinking we could maybe go check out some of the shops down the street and ask around about the castle,” she says, pausing in front of the mirror over the desk to mess with her hair. “Do that to kill time until we need to go meet Andrew. We can talk to Nyla tonight or tomorrow.” He hums softly, trying to find the will to sit up in bed and get moving. Part of him is still exhausted, and the thought of going back out in the rain right now is… not appealing in the slightest, if he’s being honest. Especially since he has the strangest feeling in the pit of his stomach—a feeling he associates with having nightmares. He doesn’t remember dreaming, but… *[[Ask to hang around the hotel until dinner. ->L - Rest.]] *[[Get up and power through. ->L - Explore.]]

With a groan, Li rolls over and buries his face back in the pillow, melting back into the mattress as he does. He lays there for a moment, debating on whether or not he feels up to sitting up and going out—and already he feels like he could fall asleep again in just a few seconds. He sighs again, before mumbling, “I vote we just stay here until dinner.” He expects the scoff Penny gives, but he’s not expecting Fawkes’ quiet response from the other side of the bed. They grumble a quiet, “Seconded,” into their own pillow, apparently also ready to go right back to sleep. He still has that odd feeling in his gut, but it’s fading again as sleep tugs at his limbs. All he wants to do is sleep for another three or four hours—then he’ll be ready to schmooze as much as Penny wants. Li can almost hear Penny rolling her eyes at him, but she doesn’t complain. All she does is sigh, laughing a little, before she says, “Alright, alright. I know when I’ve been outvoted. You guys can stay here for a while longer—I’m probably going to finish getting ready and go downstairs to see if I can talk to Nyla. Okay?” //Sounds great.// All he manages is to weakly give her a thumbs up without looking at her, as Fawkes mumbles something incoherent into their pillow. Penny laughs, probably shaking her head, and says, “Have a good nap, guys. I’ll come get you up about half an hour before dinner.” He’s out again before she can say anything else. [[Continue ->The End?]]

Li doesn’t really want to get up, but he figures Penny is probably right—they’re only going to be here for a few days, so they need to use up as much of their free time as they can investigating. It still takes him a hot minute to convince his body to move, warm and cozy under the fluffy white hotel blankets, but he does manage to push himself into a sitting position. He rubs roughly at his face with a sigh, groaning softly as he works to convince himself that yes, they do need to get moving and no, they don’t have time for another nap. He can sleep later tonight. Plus, he still has that funny feeling in his stomach, and if he //had// been having a bad dream, he doesn’t want to risk continuing it right now. “Do you have a particular shop in mind?” he asks at length, voice still rough from sleep. When he opens his eyes, he can see Penny’s blurry form shrug lightly. “I dunno. There were a couple of interesting looking ones we passed on the way in that looked kind of neat.” “There was one that advertised, like, crystals and stuff,” Fawkes says, though it’s still half mumbled into their pillow. “That sounds fine to me,” he says, smiling at Fawkes’ unmoving form. “We might need to leave Fawkes here, though.” They grumble in protest, rolling over and pushing themselves up, rubbing at their face. “No, I’m fine. I’ll come.” Penny chuckles, leaning on the edge of the desk in the room, as she says, “Okay, sleepyhead. If you say so.” [[Continue ->The End?]]

“Do you ever buy drinks at Nyla’s?” she asks after a beat, smiling sweetly at Miriam. “Maybe you could join us later.” Miriam looks surprised, but her face lights up in response. “Sure! I—I get off around 8 o’clock.” “Excellent. We should be done with dinner with our fill-in tech guy by then.” Miriam grins, leaning on the counter and propping her chin up on her hand. “Sounds great. See you then?” Not for the first time, Penny finds her cheeks feel familiarly hot as warmth blossoms in her chest. Meeting Miriam is definitely the high point of the day, and makes up at least a little for the <<if $bobby is true>>outrageous bullshit that happened earlier<<else>>extremely long day they’ve had<</if>>. She’s really excited to get to walk around and do things finally—sitting in a car for that long makes her antsy. “Well,” Penny says at length, sighing as she pushes away from the counter. She bounces the keys in her hand, listening to them jangle as she eyes the door behind the counter wearily. “We’re on the top floor, right?” She can feel the look Li shoots her the second that sentence leaves her lips. “//Why// would you book the top floor?” he asks, groaning. Penny starts to shrug, but Miriam beats her to answering as she says, “Oh, I thought you guys wanted that room because it had rumors of being haunted…” Li’s gaze turns even more unimpressed somehow, and she laughs a little, rubbing nervously at the back of her neck. “Relax, Big Guy,” she tries, smiling a little. “It’s also got an insanely huge bed and a jacuzzi tub.” That seems to be enough to relax him again, so she keeps going, still feeling a little—bad about what happened earlier. <<if $bobby is true>>Whether he and Fawkes were mad or not, her incompetence had almost gotten them killed, and the least she could do was make the rest of the trip as easy on him as possible.<<else>>Whether they were mad at her or not, the fact that she’d not thought ahead of time about dead zones had caused them extra stress, and it was the least she could do to help make the rest of the trip as easy on him as she could.<</if>> “I’ll also carry the extra bags up,” she says. “Least I could do.” Li makes a face, and reaches for her, but she waves him off. It really is the least she can do—she knows he hurts, and she’s perfectly capable of lugging bags up a few flights of stairs. [[Continue ->P Hotel Room]]

The hike up the four flights of stairs is bad enough when its just one trip with one bag—it’s another thing entirely when you have to carry more than one bag. She’s about two flights up when she starts debating just dropping one bag and coming back for it, but the thought of that is also awful, so she just keeps on walking behind Li and Fawkes and tries not to imagine the already very claustrophobic space between the walls on either side of her getting even closer with each step. …huh. That’s a new one for the list of things that trigger her anxiety. Penny half drags her bags across the floor when they finally get to the top of the stairs, muscles shaking as she gasps for air. She can feel Li looking at her out of the corner of his eye, but she doesn’t care to make eye contact. The sweat pooling under her arms and behind her knees is enough to keep her mind solely focused on the idea of getting in the shower //immediately.// The room is blissfully cool as she follows her friends into room 404, as whoever had been responsible for cleaning that day had left the air conditioning on high. She’s the last one to make it all the way into the room, and she just catches a glimpse of Li throwing himself onto the huge, king-sized bed as she comes around the corner of the entranceway. She laughs a little at the sight, while she drops her own bags somewhere near the dresser like he and Fawkes had already. It’s a large room, just as had been advertised, with a full set of living room furniture and a huge tv near the balcony. The room may have been advertised as haunted, but right now she’s not sensing anything but an empty hotel room, as Fawkes sits on the bed beside Li with a sigh. “You guys alright?” she asks, standing at the foot of the bed with her hands on her hips. Fawkes doesn’t really move from where they’re sitting slouched at the end of the bed, eyes unfocused on a spot on the corner of the dresser. Li hums softly, but also doesn’t move, arm tossed over his eyes, exhaustion clear in every line of his body. [[Continue ->P Hotel Room 1]]

“Do you ever go for drinks at Nyla’s? Maybe you could come with us when we try to talk to her tonight,” Penny says, smiling sweetly. “You can see Fawkes’ extreme lightweight limit in real time.” She can hear Fawkes’ indignant gasp behind her, but she’s more focused on the way Miriam laughs, warm and bright, covering her mouth with her hand as she giggles. She shakes her head as she types something else into the computer, cheeks rosy. She seems like such a sweetheart and she knows that she’s only just met this person, but she could really see Fawkes and Miriam being a cute couple somewhere in the future. Miriam reaches under the desk to pull out a set of keys for them, smiling as she hands them to Penny. “I’d love to. I don’t really get out much anymore since most of my friends moved out of town for school a few years ago.” Penny hums understandingly, bouncing the keys in her hand so that they jingle as she does. She remembers how that had felt after she’d decided that college wasn’t really for her—another thing Miriam has in common with the three of them. “Believe me, we all know what that feels like.” “You do?” Miriam asks, raising her eyebrows. “Mhm. All three of us have been the friend left behind while all the rest of your friends are out getting degrees and whatnot.” Miriam laughs, propping her cheek up on her hand and looking over at Fawkes and Li. “I had no idea I had so much in common with you guys.” Penny looks over at Fawkes, too, smiling at the blush on their face as she says, “It’s wild, sometimes, how much we can have in common with people we’ve never met before.” “Almost like fate,” Miriam sighs dreamily. There’s a beat during which all of them sigh in agreement—there’s been a lot of things that they all have experienced over the past few years filming this show that have certainly felt like fate—before Li clears his throat and asks, “So… what room are we in?” //Oh, boy.// “Uh…” Penny starts, grimacing. “We’re on… the top floor?” The resounding groan from her two friends is enough to let her know that they’re not particularly pleased with that fact. She’ll wait to tell them that it’s also probably slightly haunted. [[Continue ->P Hotel Room]]

“What’s your schedule like? You got any time off while we’re here? Because Fawkes is probably going to have quite a bit of free time tomorrow and it would be nice for them to have someone to hang out with while we’re filming interviews,” Penny says, ignoring Fawkes’ indignant gasp behind her. Miriam’s face lights up, and she nods enthusiastically. “I actually have tomorrow mostly off! I have an evening shift so I can go out during the day for sure.” “You hear that Fawkes? You don’t have to skulk around all alone this time,” Penny says, turning to find Fawkes absolutely beet red, with a very deer-in-the-headlights look on their face. She laughs at the look on their face, shaking her head. “They’re very excited, as you can see.” Miriam—bless her—just smiles and says, “Don’t worry. I don’t bite.” That somehow just makes Fawkes blush more, making Penny laugh just as Li cuts in, “Not to interrupt, but do you think we can take our stuff up to the room now? My back is killing me.” She knows that he’s just doing that for Fawkes’ sake, because he shoots them a wink and a grin when she looks over at him, but it still makes her grimace a little as Miriam answers, “Oh, yeah, for sure. You just go up these stairs behind me. You’re at the very top, end of the hall—can’t miss it.” Penny can //feel// the look Li gives her. “The //very top// of the stairs?” he repeats incredulously. “Penny, can you explain //why// you booked a room on the top floor?” She grimaces again, shrugging apologetically. “It has the biggest bed and the nicest bathtub?” He raises an eyebrow at her, apparently unamused by this, but Miriam comes to her rescue as she adds, “It //is// our nicest room! We also have food service, so you don’t have to worry about walking up and down the stairs too much.” Penny smiles thankfully at her new friend, and turns back to Li to add, “Plus, I’m gonna carry the extra bags this time. My treat—it’s the least I can do." Li looks taken aback by that, face falling as he reaches for her, but she waves him off. It really is the least she can do after messing up with the directions earlier today—plus, it’s not like she can’t handle carrying a few bags up some stairs. She might be a little curvier than most, but she’s certainly not out of shape. It’ll be fine. [[Continue ->P Hotel Room]]

“Maybe we can use your achey breaky joints to our advantage?” Li actually laughs at that, a loud, startled guffaw that has him tossing his head back in mirth. Penny grins at the sound, warmth blossoming in her chest at the sight of his amused smile as he shakes his head, rubbing at his stubble-covered chin. He pulls his glasses off to rub at his eyes as he says, “Okay, I’ll bite—how are we gonna use my joints to our advantage? Penny shrugs, watching as Miriam reaches under the counter to get them their keys. “I dunno. Maybe commiserating with Nyla is the way to go. I know it always seems to make you feel better to have someone to complain with.” When she looks back over at Li, he’s rolling his eyes. “I don’t know that that will be enough to make friends with the barkeep. Especially if she’s stand-offish anyway.” “Can’t hurt to try,” she says, passing out the keys. The wind picks up outside, whipping the rain against the windows as she hands Li his key. “Besides—you’re very charming when you want to be.” His cheeks get a little pink, but he doesn’t do much more than shake his head as he takes the key and mumbles, “You’re something else.” She flinches at that, looking away from him as she says, “Yeah. Definitely something else.” //Wait ’til you find out what floor we’re on.// [[Continue ->P New Haven 2.2.1b]]

“At least the room I got has a jacuzzi tub for your aches and pains.” She know’s she’s got him when his face lights up, eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline as his jaw goes slack. Smirking, she leans on the counter again, waiting for Miriam to finish getting their keys for the room. He crosses his arms as he considers her, raising an eyebrow and leaning on one leg as he asks, “This a bribe, Fisher? Penny laughs, shrugging as Miriam hands her the keys. Bouncing them so they jangle in her hands, she pushes off the desk with all the grace she can muster, giving off an air of carefree ease as she crosses the room to him. She hands him his key as she says, “Dunno. It might be.” Li shakes his head, smirking right back at her as he takes the key she’d offered him. “I feel like I’m waiting for the punchline. What is it?” //Ah.// Of course he saw through that. Wincing a little, Penny shrugs, messing with one of her many earrings as she says, “Uh, well… it’s just that our room is on the top floor.” He looks at her blankly for a second, before it seems to click in his head and he says, “There’s no elevator in this building, is there?” Penny smiles apologetically, and he groans. [[“Ugh, //Penny//.” ->P New Haven 2.2.2b]]

Whatever it is, though, isn’t nearly strong enough to fight off the exhaustion weighing down every inch of Fawkes’ body as they crawl up the bed to collapse on the pillows. They feel suddenly 300 pounds heavier as they sink into the mattress, and they know that there is not a power in this world or any other that could get them to get back up right this moment. Penny’s voice is something they can only half-hear when she starts talking. “I’m gonna jump in the shower,” she says, and they can hear her bustling around as they pull their glasses off and turn onto their side, burying their face in a pillow. “After that, I was hoping maybe we’d get to check out some of the shops in town before we have to meet Andrew for dinner.” Li and Fawkes both give similar muffled responses which are largely incoherent, at least from their point of view. They only open their eyes when they feel Li shift, standing up just for a second to crawl under the blankets, and they end up following suit, burrowing under the fluffy hotel blankets with a great sigh. They don’t even bother to open their eyes when they hear Penny laugh at them. “Are you guys really this tired?” “Yes,” they mumble in unison with Li, followed by both of them giggling softly into their pillows. “Well,” Penny says, and they can picture her shaking her head. “You’ll have about an hour or an hour and a half to rest while I get ready. If we wait much longer than that we won’t have time to do anything before we go meet Andrew for dinner.” Fawkes can’t really find it in them to be properly concerned about not having time to do anything until dinner. In fact, that sounds fantastic, if anything. They don’t actually get around to answering Penny before she disappears into the bathroom. They barely register the sound of the shower running over the sound of the rain hitting the window, before the world fades and they slip into a deep, deep sleep. [[Continue ->F Dream]]

There’s something dripping on their face. It takes them a moment to really stir, frowning in their sleep-addled state as something cold hits the side of their face. //Drip, drip, drip.// They don’t want to wake up just yet, so they reach up and wipe at their face, turning over on their other side in an attempt to get away from it. The bed they’re lying on creaks with their movement, and they’re aware now of jagged springs digging into their body through the mattress, pressing uncomfortably against bone. They’re not really sure how they didn’t notice how uncomfortable this bed was when they went to sleep, but it annoys them enough that they pry their eyes open and... …this isn’t their hotel room. This is... some kind of dank, dark dungeon. Fawkes sits up straight, heart leaping into their throat as ice cold panic trickles down their spine. The world is blurry, and through the darkness it takes them a solid few seconds for them to blindly find their glasses on the bedside table. The clarity they give doesn’t illuminate much about this situation, and no matter how they wrack their brain, they just cannot remember how in the hell they got here. As their eyes adjust, they realize they are in a room with several beds all in a line—a long room of dirty cots and no windows. A candle burns low near one of the beds beside them, radiating strange, cold blue light onto the beds beside it. Most of the beds in the room appear to be empty, but the one beside the candle… There’s someone sleeping in that one. *[[Get closer. ->F Dream 1.1]] *[[Try to leave the room. ->F Dream 1.2]]

//Ohh, no.// //No, no, no.// This is not—they’re not—not //built// for this. This sort of thing is supposed to be Penny’s forte, or even Li’s, not //theirs//. They haven’t had a girlfriend since they were in elementary school, and they most certainly don’t know how to do this. And hadn’t she just been flirting with Penny two seconds ago? Why has this suddenly turned into something focused on them? They hadn’t even //said// anything. Not until Penny brought them into it, anyway... ...they’re going to kill Penny. As they stand there, speechless and red-faced, all they can do is wring their hands and stammer, trying to form a coherent sentence of the pounding of their heart in their ears. “I—I—I’m—Uh, I’m—" they cut themselves off, wincing. “I’m sorry. I’m not—not used to—t-talking, I guess.” Miriam, who Fawkes is coming to believe must be some kind of angel in disguise, does nothing but smile sweetly, understanding clear in her eyes as she tilts her head at them. “That’s alright,” she says. “I can do the talking for both of us, if you need it. I’m quite chatty.” //[[Oh. ->F New Haven 2.3]]

Fawkes really doesn’t know how to process this whole thing. They’re not used to being the center of attention of any kind, except when they’re saying weird things on their show—usually just to get a rise out of Li, if they’re being honest. They don’t generally have many people wanting to see them specifically at meet-and-greets, nor do they have a particularly big fandom of their own, as far as they’re aware. Li and Penny have huge fanbases, people who always want picture or autographs, who like to send them questions and get responses. Compared to their costars, Fawkes has always more or less just been there—and they’d be lying if they said they didn’t sort of like it that way. But, that being said… she //is// really, //really// cute. They’re certainly not opposed to her being //into// them. They’re just—scared. Confused. Out of their element. Not sure about what they’re supposed to do or how they’re supposed to act. What do you even //do// when people try to flirt with you? Thankfully, Penny seems to notice their internal panic and comes to their rescue. “Ahh, you know, we really need to take our stuff up to the room if we’re going to have time to get ready for dinner tonight,” she says, trying to reel the conversation back in. Miriam smiles good-naturedly, nodding as she reaches under the desk and pulls out a set of keys for them. “Of course, of course. Just go right up these stairs behind me—room 404. Can’t miss it.” Fawkes tilts their head, thinking back to the number of windows they’d seen when they pulled up, and as, “Isn’t that the top floor?” Miriam nods excitedly. “It has the double luxury of being both our nicest room and the one that is supposedly haunted!” Li, understandably, is not as thrilled about that as Fawkes and Penny are, because he just groans in annoyance. Penny grimaces in response, reaching up to run a hand through her hair anxiously as she avoids his gaze. She’s got her eyes fixed on the grey world just beyond the windows, fiddling with her necklace as she says, “Don’t worry so much, Li. I’ll carry the extra bags for you. It’s—the least I could do after today.” Ah. [[Continue ->F New Haven 2.1.2]]

When Li next wakes, he’s not sure where he is. The room around him is dark, much darker than he remembered the hotel room being. He supposes for a brief moment that it could be that the sun has finally gone down, but he doesn’t know why Penny wouldn’t have woken him up after her shower—it had been barely two in the afternoon when they got to the hotel, after all. How long had he slept? He reaches for his glasses on the bedside table, bleary, body still heavy with sleep as he works to wake up. The blurriness of the world around him vanishes as he slides his glasses onto his face, but the clarity does nothing for his confusion. In fact, it only makes things worse… ...because he has no idea where he is. Now with his glasses on, he realizes that the room he’s in is much larger and more beautiful—more ornate, more lavish, more expensive—than the hotel room that he’d fallen asleep in. The bed he’s in is covered in soft red sheets, and he’d been sleeping buried under a mountain of fine, heavy blankets. The window to his left is covered by thick, drawn curtains, and he can still hear the soft pattering of rain against the glass behind it. In front of the bed, a few feet away, is a loveseat, sat in front of a roaring fireplace. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, as he stays still, waiting for his sleepy mind to supply him with answers. It’s taking much longer than it normally does—and the longer it takes, the more nervous he gets. Where //is// he? Where are his friends? How did he get here? What—? //Knock, knock, knock.// His thoughts are cut off by the sound of knocking, not on the door, or the walls—but on the window to his left. No light floods in from under the curtain, as his heart leaps into his throat and he sits still as stone, watching the unmoving curtains uneasily. The knocking comes again, in the same, three-beat pattern. It’s a little more urgent this time, and a small part of him wonders if maybe it’s one of his friends, trying to sneak in. Why would they be trying to sneak in? He doesn’t know, but the possibility is enough to get him moving. Just before he reaches the curtain, part of him remembers suddenly that he’s supposed to be on the fourth floor of a building right now, and he hesitates. What if whatever is knocking is something otherworldly, he to prey on his immortal soul? What if it’s just the wind, making a tree branch knock against the window? What if… *[[Open the curtain. ->L Dream 1.1]] *[[Do nothing. ->L Dream 1.2]]

Li reaches for the curtain, despite the little voice in the back of his head shouting for him to stop and think. He has to know what it is before he can figure anything else out—he just has to. His hand grasps the thick, velvet curtain, and he takes a moment to reflect on the weight of it in his palm, before he pulls it back and— //[[Oh. ->L Hotel Room 2]]//

Li steps back from the window, untrusting of anything in this strange room. He still doesn’t have any memory of how he got here, and he doesn’t have any plans to be captured by the local cryptid just because he was stupid enough to investigate strange noises. This is no time to play hero. He goes to turn away to investigate the rest of the room when the knocking returns, louder this time. //[[BANG, BANG, BANG. ->L Hotel Room 2]]//

On cue, Miriam clears her throat to get their attention as she says, “If you guys are all set, your room is at the very top of the stairs behind me. 404 is at the very end of the hall—you can’t miss it.” She hesitates for a beat, before adding, “And if you do miss it, you can just call down and I’ll come up and help you.” Li and Fawkes are both busy groaning to themselves when Penny turns around, an apologetic smile already in place on her lips. “//Why// did you have to book us a room on the top floor, Pen?” Li asks, rubbing at his face, exhaustion clear in the tense line of his shoulders. “Oh, it’s our nicest room,” Miriam says, saving Penny from having to come up with an answer that wasn’t going to make him as upset as, //It’s haunted//, was going to make him. She smiles at them when they both turn to look at her. “It has a king sized bed, a full sitting area, and a jacuzzi tub. It’s worth the climb, in my humble opinion.” “I’ll carry the extra bags,” Penny adds quickly. “It’s the least I could do.” Li’s face falls a little at that, and he goes to reach for her with a murmur of her name, but she waves him off. She knows they’re not upset with her about the problem with the map earlier, <<if $bobby is true>>even after she accidentally led them into the middle of nowhere and got them shot at by a crazy hillbilly,<</if>> but she still feels like she needs to make it up to them both. Plus, she can deadlift 150 on a good day—she can handle carrying a few bags up some stairs. [[Continue ->P Hotel Room]]

“It really is our nicest room!” Miriam says, coming to Penny’s rescue like the sweetheart she is. “The bed is extremely comfortable, there’s a full-size couch and a plasma screen tv—not to mention, the view of the town and the forest beyond is breathtaking.” Li doesn’t look quite convinced, but he’s not the type of guy to make a huge fuss about something like this anyway. The problem is that Penny feels bad already for not being a great navigator, and now she’s forcing him to climb a bunch of stairs while he’s having a bad pain day. She hates that she keeps messing things up for him. As if on cue, the rain outside picks up again, wind whipping the downpour against the glass so hard that they all look over at the windows. Penny winces at the rain, wondering distantly if perhaps she could have planned this for a different time of the year—but then she looks back over at Li to find him looking concernedly at her. She smiles at him apologetically and mouths, “//Sorry//.” Penny’s somehow still surprised when he just smiles crookedly and shrugs, turning to Miriam as he asks, “You guys do room service here?” Miriam laughs a little, nodding. “Even if we didn’t, I’d make an exception for you guys.” //She really is too sweet for words//, Penny thinks. //What an angel.// [[Continue ->P Hotel Room]]

“Are you //really// that tired?” she laughs, nudging his leg with the toe of her shoe. He groans, but she can see him fighting back a smile. “Just a bit,” he mumbles, pulling his hand away just enough to peek at her and grin when she laughs. “Well,” she allows, sighing softly as she turns to start rummaging through her bags. “It’s good that we don’t have much to do until we’re supposed to meet the tech guy for dinner.” She struggles a little to find where she shoved her toiletries and find some clothes as she speaks, digging through the wrong bag until she remembers that she’d changed her normal packing routine at the last second. “I did want to get out and try talking to people before we go looking for interviews tomorrow, though.” Li and Fawkes both give mumbles of agreement from the bed, and she has to smile a little as she shakes her head, listening to the rustling of the blankets that suggests they’ve both moved to slide under the blankets. She’s definitely not getting either of them to move now—not by a long shot. But, that’s alright. After the day they had, <<if $bobby is true>>after all the excitement with the man in the woods,<</if>> after the long drive and the climb up the stairs to their room, the least she can do is let them nap to their hearts’ content. Besides, she just desperately wants a shower. [[Continue ->P Hotel Room 2]]

Thank you for playing my demo! More will (hopefully) be coming in the near future! Please feel free to click [[here ->Continue]] to return to the beginning and try another route!

It’s truly something decadent, when she steps into the bathroom. The mirrors are large and clear, the lights warm and bright, and there’s a separate bathtub and shower in the room. She eyes the jacuzzi tub thoughtfully, debating for a long moment just taking a long hot bath—but that would just make her sleepy, and the last thing they need is for all three of them to be dead on their feet. She told them she’d give them an hour to rest, but it will probably end up being more like an hour and thirty minutes, she thinks as she turns the water on and lets it run to warm up. She doesn’t plan on rushing herself at all, taking her sweet time as she plans to let the heat sink deep into her muscles. The room begins to fill with steam almost immediately after a minute of the water running, and she takes a deep, slow breath, letting the warmth fill her lungs. The knot of stress that had been sitting in her gut starts to loosen as the steam billows out from the shower, fogging up the mirror and the glass door on the shower. Penny doesn’t waste another moment after that, stripping off her clothes, still cold and damp from the rain, and jumping into the shower. She sighs loudly as the hot water washes over her, chasing away the chill of the rain and pulling the stress of the day from her muscles. This is //exactly// what she needed. This is— Her thoughts screech to a halt when she hears the doorknob turn. “[[Hello? ->P Hotel Room 3]]”

The sound stops at the sound of her voice, and she frowns to herself. She can’t see anything through the snowy glass of the shower, though that doesn’t stop her from looking for anything out of place. For a moment, she thinks maybe it’s one of her friends—she and Fawkes have lived together for a while now, and it’s not exactly out of the ordinary for them to walk in to use the bathroom while she’s taking a shower if it’s an emergency. She’d think that was the answer if the doorknob hadn’t stopped moving the second she spoke. It’s strange that no one answered her, but oh well, she supposes. The discomfort in her gut fades as she turns her attention back to her shower, letting her mind wander again. It hasn’t even been five minutes when the doorknob starts to jiggle again, more insistently this time. She pokes her head out this time, suspicious now, and manages to catch the tail end of the knob moving before everything goes still again. She glares at the door, wondering what the hell her friends think they’re playing at—but then she realizes she hadn’t even locked the door. So why…? *[[Investigate. ->P Spooky 1]] *[[Ignore it. ->P Spooky 2]]

Okay, that’s it. Penny shakes her head, reaching for the towel she’d hung off the towel rack before she got in, stepping out onto the towel she’d laid on the floor and wrapping it around herself. She creeps over to the door, eyeing the knob suspiciously as she approaches. She pauses when she reaches it, almost waiting for it to move again, but nothing seems to be happening. Curious, she puts her ear to the door first, seeing if she can hear something on the other side. Nothing. There’s nothing. It’s so strange, as she quietly turns the knob and pokes her head around the side of the door. There’s no one standing outside, and from what she can see, both of her friends haven’t moved from where she left them to nap. She waits for a beat, but they don’t move an inch, and so she retreats back into the bathroom, returning to her warm shower. Huh… [[Continue ->P Hotel Room 4]]

Though she is curious, she figures it must either be one of her friends playing a prank on her—unlikely—or maybe one of them was going to the bathroom and changed their minds about barging in on her. She supposes it could also be possible that it’s //the ghost// that lives in 404, but she’s also pretty sure that those particular rumors were more of a hoax than anything that held any kind of value. Blackwood is a spooky place, with an aura of mystery about it. She wouldn’t be surprised if people’s imaginations ran a little wild when they came to visit. Whatever it was, she’s not concerned for now, and goes back to her shower, unbothered. [[Continue ->P Hotel Room 4]]

When she comes out of the bathroom, it’s been a little longer than she’d told them. She’d decided to take her time drying her hair and redoing her makeup, letting her friends rest a little more. The jiggling doorknob hadn’t happened again while she’d showered, and it was something she was willing to ignore for the time being. If anything, she might mention it to Miriam on the way out later. She laughs a little to herself when she finds her friends still passed out, apparently having not even moved in their sleep. Penny almost hates to wake them, but they really should… …well, she should at least try to see if they’ll go with her to talk to people. “Wake up, sleepyheads!” Penny uses her annoying ‘younger sister’ voice followed by a few claps of her hands—and Li and Fawkes both jerk awake, blearily looking around for the source of the noise. Fawkes’ hair stands on end on one side of their head as they squint up at her, and Li is busy rubbing at his face when she looks over at him. She starts talking without waiting for them to respond, tidying up a little as she does so. “I was thinking that we could go take a look in some of the shops we passed on the way in, see if any of the employees know of anyone who would be particularly prudent to interview. Just to kill time before we need to meet Andrew for dinner, you know?” When she looks back over at her friends, Fawkes has appeared to fall back to sleep, and Li is just lying on his back rubbing at his eyes. *[[Stay here and let them rest. ->P Stay.]] *[[Insist on going out and exploring. They can stay if they want. ->P Explore.]]

Penny chews on her lower lip, considering her sleepy friends for a moment. Even though she’s still itching to move, she realizes that they’re both exhausted. Li especially is probably in a lot of pain, and Fawkes hadn’t slept well the night before. Maybe it would be better for them if they just stayed and rested for now—to catch up on their rest before they have to pull an all-nighter in the castle. “Actually,” she says quietly, sitting at the desk with a sigh. Li is the only one awake enough to look at her, a fact that makes her smile a little. “Why don’t we just rest until dinner? There’s no rush.” Li laughs quietly, voice low and rough with sleep, dropping his head back onto the pillow. “That sounds fucking fantastic to me.” She snorts. “Good. Go back to sleep.” He hums, already halfway there despite the fact that he’s still trying to talk. “What ‘bout you?” he slurs. Penny shakes her head, digging through her bag for her laptop. “It’s alright. I’ll hang out here and work on some of the script. Maybe I’ll go downstairs for a bit or something.” Li hums again, but she can tell from the sound of it he didn’t hear a word she said. Smiling a little, she shakes her head and sets up her laptop. //Sleep well, Big Guy.// [[Continue ->The End?]]

She watches her friends slumber on for a moment, pursing her lips as she considers them. Fawkes looks like they’ve gone back to sleep already, but Li does seem to be trying to wake up. She knows he’s probably aching, but—well, they’re only here for so many days. “I know you’re tired,” she starts gently, “so it’s okay if you want to just stay here, but I’m too full of energy to sit around until dinner. I think I’m gonna try looking around in the shops nearby, see if I can get anything from the locals about the castle.” “You have a particular shop in mind?” Li asks, voice still low and rough with sleep. Penny shrugs lightly, pulling her phone out to check out what’s around here. “I dunno. There were a fair few on the way in that looked interesting.” “There was the one with the crystals,” comes Fawkes’ voice, mumbled into their pillow. They don’t make any move to sit up, which makes Penny grin, but they are right—that shop had been the one that she was really thinking about hitting up. “That sounds fine to me,” Li says, pushing himself into a sitting position. He rubs at his eyes for a moment, before he looks over at Fawkes’ unmoving form and smirks. “Might need to leave Fawkes here, though.” That gets their attention, as they push themselves up suddenly, trying very hard to appear awake. “No! I’m fine. I’ll come.” Penny laughs, shaking her head. “Okay, sleepyhead. Whatever you want.” [[Continue ->The End?]]

They can feel their heart pounding in their chest as they slide carefully out of bed. This is probably a very bad idea that their friends would both yell at them for, but what other choice do they have? They don’t know where they are, and they don’t want to be—alone. Besides, what if it is one of their friends? Shouldn’t they wake them up so they can find their way out together? Wouldn’t that be the best decision? They try not to think too hard about that, stepping carefully across the cold, stone floor towards the occupied bed—they wince at the touch of the icy stone, wondering where their socks went while they slept. The form on the bed doesn’t seem to notice their quiet footsteps as they approach, slumbering on (or so they hope) as they tiptoe closer. They creep around the side of the bed, tugging their sleeves down over their hands to fight off the chill of the room as they come to a stop just beside the bed and the candle. Whoever it is has the blanket pulled up over their head, and they can’t tell in the flickering blue candlelight whether the person is actually breathing—or if that’s just an illusion. *[[Pull back the blanket. ->F Dream 2.1]] *[[Leave them be. ->F Dream 2.2]]

Fawkes has a bad feeling about this whole thing, and the bad feeling just gets worse every time their eyes catch on the unmoving form on the other bed. Something about it just seems //wrong//—and they can’t tell if it’s just because of the blue candle or the whole situation, but whatever it is, they’re not interested in waking the dead at the moment. They take another long look around the room, finding they can only barely make out the shapes of some old, musty furniture around the sides of the room. Nothing looks particularly interesting, and they have no plans to root around in drawers and risk waking whoever is slumbering on unaware of their presence a few beds over. Though they can’t make out much past the end of where the candlelight touches, they’re pretty sure there’s a doorway on the other side of the room—judging by the way the blue flame flickers and dances every now and then. There’s a breeze coming in from somewhere over there, and a breeze means the possibility of escape. Slipping out of bed, they wince at the touch of the icy stone on their bare feet, padding silently past each tiny bed towards the front of the room. They hesitate briefly at the foot of the occupied bed, eying the unmoving mass suspiciously, almost waiting for it to pop up and attack them, before they move on towards the other end of the room. The door is large, heavy looking wood, with a wrought iron handle on one side. It sits ajar somehow, and upon closer inspection, Fawkes finds that it’s been propped up by a large stone wedged beneath the bottom of the door. *[[Peer through the opening. ->F Dream 2.3]] *[[Just go—there’s no time to waste. ->F Dream 2.4]]

There’s a weird feeling in the pit of their stomach as they eye the mass beneath the sheets. Whoever it is appears to be lying on their side facing them, meaning there will be nowhere fo Fawkes to hide once the blanket’s been moved. They bounce a little on the balls of their feet, shifting their weight, anxious at the thought of who or what might be waiting just under that blanket. Their fingers tingle with something like static electricity as they think of pulling back the sheets, and they can’t tell whether that’s an anxiousness to get it over with—or a warning. *[[Go ahead. ->F Dream 2.1.1]] *[[Nevermind—just find a way out of here. ->F Dream 2.1.2]]

There’s something dark settling into the pit of their stomach as they watch the flickering blue light play on the dirty sheets. Something about the shape in the bed is all wrong—misshapen, maybe, though that could be just a trick of the light. It makes them nervous just to look at, and somehow a part of them has this nagging //feeling//… …that’s not either of their friends. And it’s not something they should bother. It’s times like this they think that maybe they should think more like Li would, and if Li were here, they’re pretty sure he’d tell them to leave that bed the hell alone and get the hell out of here. //Li…// [[Continue ->F Dream 2.2a]]

With Li’s voice echoing in their mind, telling them to //Be careful, please,// Fawkes decides to err on the side of caution as they approach the partially opened door. First they listen, pausing with their ear near the opening, waiting for any sign of movement just outside. When they’re satisfied that no one is waiting outside for them, waiting to kill them and eat their liver, they carefully reach for the edge of the door, peering out into the next room curiously. There’s not much more light out there, unfortunately. There are no windows beyond this room either, and from the chill, Fawkes gathers that maybe they’re in some kind of basement. But what basement could they possibly be in? And how did they get here? [[Keep moving. ->F Dream 2.3a]]

They don’t hesitate like maybe they should have, too much in a hurry to get the hell out of here. Panic rises in their throat like bile as they slip through the open door, and they do their best to be quiet in spite of not being able to see a goddamn thing. The passageway beyond the room they’d woken in is pitch black, as just like the room before it this hallway has no windows. Fawkes tries to move as quietly as they can, heart pounding in their chest as they stumble through the dark, one hand clutching desperately at the cold stone wall on their right. They’re not normally afraid of the dark, or afraid of being alone in scary places, but… …they have no idea where they are, or where their friends are. This isn’t what filming //Forever Ghostly// is like—this isn’t safe and fun. This is a nightmare. [[Continue ->F Dream 2.4a]]

Fawkes has to psyche themself up to even touch the moldy looking sheet, seeing as the longer they look at it, the more dark, suspicious stains they can see on the fabric. It’s concerning, and the bad feeling in their gut becomes something akin to nausea as they imagine all the horrible things that could be waiting for them under there. They really should leave it be, should just try and figure out where they are and how to get home, but… But they’ve always been too curious for their own good. They feel like they’re moving in slow motion as they reach forward and hover hesitantly over the unknown figure’s shoulder. A chill seems to radiate from their body, rather than warmth, which creates a sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach. Carefully, ever so carefully, they grasp the sheet and peel it back— //[[Oh god. ->F Hotel Room 2]]//

A voice in the back of their head that sounds strangely like Li pipes up as they hover indecisively next to the bed. //Are you insane? Don’t touch that!// That does sound like a good idea, as the longer they stand here, the worse they feel about whatever is lying under the sheets. There’s also some strange stains on the blanket the longer they stare, and though they’ve been staring for a moment, they think they might be growing with each remaining flicker of the candle. Not inviting, to say the least. Fawkes steps back from the bed, stumbling a little when their eyes play a trick on them and make the blankets appear to move. Holding their breath, they tiptoe away, keeping their eyes fixed on the strange form as long as they can, feeling their way towards the end of the room through the darkness. They’re not sure what feeling it is that washes over them when their fingers find the cold, iron handle on the door—part of it is relief, certainly, but who knows what’s waiting for them out there? They don’t even know where they are. But, that being said, they know they can’t just sit here in this room with that thing. They have to try and find their way out. With a final, deep breath, they pull on the heavy wooden door and slip out into the darkness. [[Continue ->F Hotel Room 2]]

"Wake up, sleepyheads!" Fawkes jerks awake with a snort that hurts their throat a little, mumbling incoherently as they rise and look for the source of the disturbance. The thankfully familiar surroundings of their hotel room greet them, as does Li’s equally confused, half-asleep face from the other side of the bed. A sense of relief washes over them, even though the details of the strange dream they’d had are already slipping through their fingers like water, and they drop their head back onto the pillow with a sigh. Their stomach turns with lingering anxiety as they drift a little, unable to really process anything Penny is saying as they struggle to return to the land of the living from the dead sleep they and Li had fallen into. They have a feeling that whatever the dream was that they’d been having, it wasn’t a good one—and whatever it is that haunts this room feels oddly… surprised by this. Hmm. “…was thinking about going out and taking a look around some of the shops we passed on the way in,” Penny’s saying as they come to a little more. “Talk to some of the locals and see what we can find out before we go for interviews to kill time before we have to go to dinner.” “Did you have a particular shop in mind?” Li asks around a yawn. Fawkes hasn’t quite gotten the strength back in their limbs to sit up or even turn over, but they do remember the shop they’d wanted to check out on the way in. “There’s that one with the crystals and stuff,” they mumble into their pillow. “Might be good for… ghostly rumors.” “Sounds good to me,” Li agrees. There’s a pause, before he says, with a smile in his voice, “We might need to leave Fawkes here, though.” *“[[No! I’m fine. I’ll go. ->F Explore.]]” *“[[…yeah, maybe. ->F Stay.]]”

Fawkes’ eyes begin to burn as their throat starts to close, and they clasp their hands tightly as they turn back towards where they assume the door is. They can’t make out much through the darkness, but suddenly all they can think about is getting out of here and finding their friends again. They don’t want to be alone anymore—they //can’t// be alone anymore—they… Making their way as quietly as they can towards the other side of the room, they continue to fight off the urge to sob, feeling their way towards the door as their vision blurs with tears. The panic pumping through their veins is almost too much to bear, and for a brief moment, their knees nearly buckle under them as they lean against the wall and take a few shaky, ragged breaths. They count backwards from 10, closing their eyes and pretending like they’re somewhere—//anywhere//—else. 10. //We’re fine. Everything is fine.// 9. //It might not even be real.// 8. //This could easily be some kind of nightmare.// 7. //Just a bad dream.// 6. //We have to calm down. Anxiety does nothing but hinder.// 5. //Stop being a baby.// 4. //Where are Li and Penny?// 3. //What if they… What if they left me here?// 2. //What then?// 1. They try not to think anymore as they open their eyes and lurch for the door. What happened to their friends is a worry for later—right now all they need to do is pull the door open and… [[Continue ->F Hotel Room 2]]

Fawkes creeps out into the passageway, keeping one hand on the wall beside them as they do. The door stays open behind them, still propped open by the stone that had been holding it in place, as they start off feeling towards the right. They can feel the faintest breeze throughout the dark corridor, coming from the direction they’re walking, so they must be making some kind of progress. They keep going, sliding with their back to the wall, one foot in front of the other, until they realize start to notice moonlight filtering through the floorboards up above them. Someone begins pacing as soon as they step into a ray of moonlight, blocking the light as they go. The footsteps seem to be the clipped, precise footsteps of a man in dress shoes, and as they go still below him, they realize he’s speaking to someone. The words are too muffled for anything specific, but they continue to creep down the corridor, towards a set of stairs their eyes catch on as they go—until they accidentally kick a broken piece of stone on the ground, and it goes echoing down the hall. //[[“What was that?” ->F Hotel Room 2]]//

Fawkes slows their steps as moonlight begins to shine through the boards overhead of them, shining down and lighting their way a little. They take it one step at a time now, eyes locked on the light above, following the passageway and hoping to find a door or some stairs or something— —only to come to a half when the sound of footsteps above them rings out through the passage. A man’s voice, muffled and incoherent, joins the sounds of the footsteps as they walk this way, and Fawkes finds themselves pressing up against the wall, trying to stay out of the light just—just in case maybe whoever it is decides to look down. They know they’re probably not visible from up there, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be cautious anyway. They cover their mouth after another second, trying to muffle their ragged breathing as whoever it is up above starts to pace. The footsteps cross over the boards above their head, blocking out the moonlight as whoever it is passes overhead, and a shower of dust rains down over their head. "[[ACHOO! ->F Hotel Room 2]]"

“No!” they grumble, forcing themself up into a sitting position and rubbing at their eyes. “I’m fine. I’ll go.” Li and Penny both laugh at them, and despite the way their ears burn with embarrassment, they can’t help but grin as they rub sleep from their eyes. It is kind of funny that, especially seeing as how they’re usually the one that never sleeps, they’re finding it so difficult to wake up after a short nap. They wonder absently if that’s something to do with the presence hovering around the edges of their consciousness in the corner of the room. “Okay, sleepyhead,” Penny says, smiling at them when they manage to open their eyes and look up at her. Her red hair glows in a halo around her head from the lamp behind her as she tilts her head at them, looking radiant. “If you say so.” They laugh a little, pressing at their eyes with the heels of their hands. “I’ll be fine in a few minutes. It’s fine.” [[Continue ->The End?]]

“…yeah, maybe.” They hate to admit it, but they really are so tired that they’re worried they might get sick if they try to get up and wander around now. Their whole body is shaking, and their stomach turns as they turn onto their back. But… they don’t want to be alone either. “Do you guys… I mean… would it be okay if… maybe… you stayed here with me?” they ask, grimacing a little with embarrassment as they peek at their friends. Li and Penny exchange a brief, concerned look, before Li says, “Yeah, of course.” He makes a show out of yawning and snuggling back down into the blankets, sighing contentedly. “I could use more sleep anyway.” “Yeah, that’s fine,” Penny says, shrugging. “I might go downstairs and talk to Nyla or something instead. There’s no rush.” “You guys…” they breathe, feeling touched. Their friends really are so wonderful. [[Continue ->The End?]]