- Job:
Job Title:
The Decrepit Mansion
Rank:
S
Player Requirements:
At least 2 A-ranks or 1 S-rank.
Job Requirements:
Minimum 20,250 Words.
Job Location:
Pergrande Kingdom
Job Description:
Any wizard in their right mind knows to avoid the country of Pergrande at all costs, as the nation is beyond just anti-magic. They will persecute and attack magic-users, but such a client is not afraid to take that risk. The client is a small community on a rather desolate street, and at the end of the road there lies a Decrepit Mansion.
The giant house appeared old, broken, and worn, decaying in all aspects. Around it lies mist and an aura of gloom. Despite the weather being moderate upon arrival, as soon as you walk into the yard, the sky appears to be white and vacant, with clouds and fog shrouding out the brightness of the sun. Word has it that once somebody walks in, they cease to come out. On a few occasions, people have returned, but something about them has dramatically changed. Regardless, the people are frightened, and find themselves unable to demolish the ancient and rotted structure. They go against the laws of their land to send out a job flier to all magical guilds, dark or legal, and allow even guildless mages to assist.
If you dare to enter the Decrepit Mansion, you will notice that on the interior, it is not old and worn at all; it appears as though it was recently refurbished. The lighting is dim, and there are candles and fireplaces lit. The air is empty and still, and the space is as silent as the grave. As you keep going, you will find that the mansion goes on seemingly forever, as if it is its own world and nation. The windows are too foggy to see through, but you can no longer sense the realm of Pergrande or Earthland around you. The doors and windows are shut and locked. There is no way out. Walls and furniture are unable to be destroyed, and do not act as any sort of shield for you.
As you venture onward, trying to solve this mysterious case or find an exit, a strange event will take place, and you will be condemned to follow the rules of the Mansion. Enemies will try to get in your way and thwart you. Stay in their domain too long and you will soon join them. Who makes the laws and restrictions of their world? You had better find out and stop them, or else become a part of their Decrepit Mansion.
Mysterious Events:
After you have entered the Decrepit Mansion, you must pick from the six options below to use for the time you spend IC in the mansion. You may either roll one of these, or pick which will best fit the story you have in mind.
one --
If you choose or roll Number One, you will die on the spot. Your HP will reach zero, and you don't go unconscious; you will be killed. You may either consider your mission a failure, and go to the Sacred Shrine, or you may use any other death revive option you might have with an ability or lineage. Your other choice is to give up your physical body and continue on through the Decrepit Mansion as a spirit. You cannot use items or weapons, and your physical strength will drop to zero. However, you may still use magic and can fly at will. Upon exiting the mansion, your physical self will be revived, as well as your equipment.
two --
If you choose or roll Number Two, your magic's effectiveness will drop. You will only have 50% MP to use as a base, and cannot regenerate magic power. Along with this, your magic damage, range, and effects are -50% less effective. Upon exiting the Decrepit Mansion, this will be undone.
three --
If you choose or roll Number Three, you will experience your magic take the element and effects of the opposite. If you have fire, you will use ice or water. If you have air, you will use earth. If you have shadow, you will use light. If your magic is unique in element, please make up an opposite. Not only has your element swapped, however, but your personality has as well. You are now the complete opposite of yourself- if you were good, you are now evil, and so on.
four --
If you choose or roll Number Four, you have the worst fate ahead of you. You have become a puppet of the boss, and are either consciously or unconsciously working against your allies. As the thread progresses you may start to turn on them completely, and in the end will assist the boss and the enemies in destroying the strangers of the Decrepit Mansion. Upon leaving the place or defeating the boss, you will come back to your senses.
five --
If you choose or roll Number Five, nothing happens. Only one person out of the entire party is permitted to select this option. If you absolutely want to add something, why not genderbend? However, if a five is chosen, the enemy has decided to leave you alone... for now.
six --
If you choose or roll Number Six, you will be changed into another creature. This can be a smaller mythical creature or any natural animal. You will remain in this form throughout your time in the Decrepit Mansion, and will be unable to handle any equipment, which mysteriously disappeared. You can still use your magic, and will regain your original form and equipment once you have left the Mansion.
Enemies:
Weak:
10x lost souls --
Those who went missing in the Decrepit Mansion and have survived so far now have lost their minds. They may mistake you for a spirit, and try to attack you, or will go after you regardless from spirits possessing them. You can choose to save them, knock them out, or kill them. They take 5 S rank hits to take down, and deal A rank damage.
Normal:
3x vengeful psyche --
Having been bound to the Decrepit Mansion for so long, these angry spirits who can take any form seek to destroy anything in their midst. They are mindless, tortured individuals who have lost their reasoning, and only want revenge. They are immune to physical attacks and take 10 S rank hits to take down each, and deal S rank damage.
Strong:
2x spirits --
These spirits are not like any other spirits. They are unique beings who can shapeshift, possess, mind control, and try to trick you. You can try to reason with them to get their help, but it is ultimately up to them. To gain their 'help', you must convince them that you are more entertaining alive than screaming out as they slowly torture and kill you. They take 20 S rank hits to take down, and deal H rank damage.
Boss:
silica --
The current Queen of the Decrepit Mansion, even if she was not so originally. She is a childlike spirit who is able to control any kind of magic she wishes, or you wish to give her. She moves very swiftly, and deals H rank damage per strike. She takes 30 S rank hits to take down, and can attempt to possess or mind control a single person at a time to turn against the others.
If you defeat and spare the Queen, she will allow you to leave the Decrepit Mansion along with anyone else who is trapped.
If you kill the Queen, the power holding the endless Decrepit Mansion together will dissolve, and the structure will begin collapsing. The openings are unlocked, however, so you may try to escape if you are fast enough. Most likely, those left behind will be killed in the destruction.
Reward:
-- Double EXP
-- 50,000 Jewels
-- If you spared Queen Silica, you get the thanks and renown from the people in that small Pergrande Community for saving their friends and family.
-- Credit to Izayuki
Any mage. That was who could take this job; any mage.
The girl balked at that for a moment before she actually considered what it meant. Dark mages could theoretically come on this same mission with her, and she would be forced to work with them. Killers and liars and sinners, the female had no desire at all to associate with people she considered to be the lowest of the low. Of course, this in itself showed just how much of a hypocrite the redhead was... having claimed so many lives and flashed gold to get her way. Don't even mention that when tested her maximum time for going without a single lie out of her mouth was twenty two hours, and that was because she was unconscious the entire time. But to a certain Leahndr Aspont, the world was made up of good and bad people. Aware as she was of others' sins, she knew her own just as well, down to each and every falsity that sprang from her lips. But a sin could hardly render another obsolete. So here she was, tearing the slip of paper from the mission board in the Golden Phoenix's guild hall, teeth clenched stubbornly together and eyes set hard like emerald flint stones (was that a thing? No, but let's keep going). The pay was good: fifty thousand jewels. She would bite and ignore whoever she had to work with unless circumstances deemed that not a possibility. First of all, though... was that a dirty table over there in the corner? The mage's fingers twitched as the OCD itch in her was inflamed, and before she even hardly knew what was happening there was a dish cloth in her hand and it was warm and soapy with water. Although the girl snorted at the idea of her being a common maid or cabin girl, everyone who knew of her insane penchant for organizing things wherever she went (unless she could somehow escape and kill everyone who claimed she had left without fixing the place) would say that Leahndr Aspont would fit the bill perfectly for either. She was indeed a mage, though, no matter what those demands for a bucket of pine sol (crack goes the fourth wall...) and sponges might make one so inclined to believe. And the redhead liked to think she was a decent one as well. A mage, silly, not a decent sponge. She actually recoiled from water like a cat.
In fact, she even had the battle scars to prove it. Across her left eye (or was it her right? I switch it every thread, I swear and pfft there goes the fourth wall again) was an almost vertical scar, just slanted enough to look like it could be from a stray blade and not a cut that someone made in an attempt to look cool. And now the table was clean, and she was tossing that rag across the room towards the sink behind the bar. Of course the emerald eyed girl missed; we can't make things easy on our protagonists now can we, and she reluctantly tripped over to the miniature kitchen and snatched the rag off of the place where it had landed, draping it over the center divider of the sink. As she was about to leave, the bartender shot her a dirty look, but the mage was already on it. That smear left from the wet towel on the pristine counter top was... not exactly encouraging. If that made any sense. Since I doubt it did, just roll with it. Anyways she was going along and re wiping down the stone surface, moaning and groaning to herself the entire time. Really, if anybody was to blame it was only Leah, and no, she couldn't pass it off to whoever hadn't cleaned up that table in the corner in the first place. And God didn't count either, for giving her freakish compulsiveness when it came to things being in order. Everything currently going on honestly should hardly have taken place, because why would a ReQuip mage who was based around throwing knives and daggers all over around her, misplace an easy shot that was barely six or seven meters away? Who knew, but at least the task was over and she was rushing out the door before anything else could catch her notice and require being patched up in some way or another.
The trip out of the guild hall was just as boring as usual; not only did the portal take an exceedingly short amount of indescribable time to move her from the underground city located somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, to a mountain top in the Phoenix Isles, but Leah also did absolutely nothing during the ride. If one could dub the teleportation as a ride, which is a doubtful course of action but it's too late to turn back now! (Ignore that back space key right there and oh what was that sound of glass breaking once more? The fourth wall needs to be fixed again? See, this is why the insurance company makes me pay such high premiums.) So the redhead's route was direct enough that she managed to get to the summit of the mountain without difficulty, and the trip down was easy as well. Basically, it consisted of jumping off the side of the nearest precipice and hoping that one of the lovely nixy birds that tended to fly around the area (thus hence the name) would catch her and spirit her away to the main land, where she could begin the actual journey to the Pergrande Kingdom. That in itself would require quite a bit of work, since mages were so unwelcome in the greyed out and mechanical nation that she might need to do some deceiving. Of course, that was the female's specialty. She did have to survive the fall first, and as it turned out the cute nixy birds weren't exactly in the mood to be catching idiotic mages on that day (actually, they loved all the Golden Phoenix people to heart but for the purpose of this thread... yeah. You know the drill by now). This fact was made clear by how they staunchly ignored the falling redhead, and she ended up having to be saved by a certain speckled appaloosa pegasus by the name of Ilosa, an irritable mare who was in this case puzzled by her rider's odd attempt to kill herself. At least, that's how the flying horse saw it; the emerald eyed female was still only a bit miffed that her trust in the fiery nixy birds had been misplaced (oh don't give me that look, canon, I know they're actually lovely guardian creatures). The black and white animal let her off with a whinny of warning that any more suicidal thoughts would be met with an abrupt twenty year sentence in the Animal Kingdom's prison without parole, and Leah was very tired of talking to her by the time the horse agreed to leave. Some people just refused to believe what was right in front of their eyes. Jumping off a cliff hardly constituted trying to kill one's self, alright?
Now safely on the ground, the mage was free to wander around and waste more of the word count (I mean, what??) until she got to the shore of the island that the Golden Phoenix guild entrance was on. Thankfully, a small spot of luck ensured that a ferry was running and just about to depart when she came rushing onto the docks, bypassing all security and therefore the required toll (this is why you be a mage, suckers). It wasn't actually much in the way of luck; the boats ran on the half hour, and it was precisely 4:30 in the morning. Actually, why the hell would the crafts be running now? Hold on back it up a second- nevermind, too much effort to rewrite, let's just make an exception about working and travel hours. The main land was barely ten minutes' worth of a ride, and after that period of time (during which the redhead was graced with the most extraordinary view of heart clenching, pulse stopping open water, being deathly afraid of such), she was dropped off at the docks of the small port town that the ferry traveled from to the isles. Now, for the Pergrande Kingdom... oh wait, she probably should stock up on food first, yes? That meant heading to the market, so the female happily strolled across the town, taking her sweet time until it was at least 5am in the morning when she arrived. Of course, there was nobody there yet; nice one, making it super early so you can't spend more time describing the market place, well anyways the mage continued on her journey with a slightly disgruntled expression remaining on her face for the rest of the post (I mean, what??). It turned out that fortunately for Leah, trains were running to the outskirts of Fiore, where she might be able to catch passage to the Pergrande Kingdom through a series of uses of non magical transportation, such as more trains, taxies, car rides, hitchhiking, walking, boats, and so much more. In order to get to the station that would be able to travel all the way to the border of the nation, though, the mage first had to find a more major city. Despite the fact that it wasn't the nearest, Oshibana was well known for its numerous rail roads, so the girl decided to travel there.
Hello four more days of walking.
Just kidding, she used Ilosa, I mean she borrowed Ilosa, I mean, Ilosa helped the incompetent mage teleport through shadow travel to the Oshibana station. Why didn't the pegasus just go straight to the Pergrande Kingdom? Well, because neither the redhead nor the horse felt like being gutted as soon as they magically entered the country full of haters. The station was good enough, and in fact the ride only took a mere... uh, insert some reasonable time for a train ride to the edges of Fiore here and then add a measure of time, which pleased Leah a great deal. Next the step was to catch another train across the small strip of Seven, into Bosco, and from there through Stella, Joya, Desierto, Bellum, and finally into the Pergrande Kingdom. Or, she could cut across Iceberg from Stella, but that would be too much effort, she detested the cold. Sailing across the small inlet of water and skipping over Desierto was an option too, but the sun wasn't bad... of course, maybe she could just go with the boat idea and hitch a ride on a mercantile ship heading straight from Fiore to the Pergrande Kingdom? Yeah, that sounded reasonable. Slinking into the nearest warehouse, the mage buried herself in a box of plastic peanuts and cast some random charm that she had learned somewhere (don't question it) in order to be able to breathe if the cargo was sealed. Then she waited and... and fervently hoped that the one she had chosen at random would actually make it to the Pergrande Kingdom. What were the odds? Actually pretty good, because this is a thread that I control and I don't want her sold in slavery to Bosco, so there! Ha!
1900/10,125 Words.