Brain Eating Zombies [Event]

It was Halloween, one of the few holidays that Saiko tolerated. This year everyone was setting up haunted houses and she had been excited to help out. Unfortunately the boring people in charge had said that real ghosts and brain eating zombies had been “too dangerous” for visitors. Boring. Unable to participate behind the scenes, she had found herself shuffled off to visit someone else’s haunted house to see what was appropriate. What could be more appropriate than undead wandering around?

Eventually she arrived at the mansion in question. She wore her normal black with purple dress, holding her doll Suki dressed in the same dress in her arms. The lady in the cheap costume at the door waved her inside with a smile, which Saiko did not return. As she entered, she was handed a slip of paper with a number. Inside were a bunch of doors, each with their own number. It would seem she was supposed to go into whichever door shared her number. Taking a moment, she looked down to see what her paper said.

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The member 'Saiko Akai' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Normal Dice' :

It seemed she had drawn one, which as expected was the first door on the left. Before Saiko could enter the room, a pair of voices came from behind her. She turned, only to stop and have her eyes open as wide as they could go. There was some girl in a weird dinosaur costume, and… a cat dressed as a knight? She would have liked to say it was not the weirdest thing she had ever seen, but she was hard pressed to think of something weirder. Maybe the shimmering skeleton incident.

“...Saiko,” she finally answered when the dinosaur girl offered her own name. It would be rude not to say anything, even if the other girl was clearly a weirdo. The cat seemed alright. While she was not sure how she felt about doing this haunted house alongside them, it was not like she could tell them to go away. This was a public event, and they had just as much right to be here as she did. Giving a very put upon sounding sigh, she walked up to the door that seemed to magically open as she approached with the correctly numbered slip.

Inside Saiko found only a black fog inside, but before she could really study it she found herself transported to a fog-filled forest. Alarmingly there was far to many spirits drifting invisibly around, the whole forest reeked of death. Nearby where she had appeared was a shack. Taking care lest it contained something dangerous, she approached it and opened the door. The insides were sparse, with some partially rotted furniture and some very, very dead corpses. Part of her was tempted to bring the dead back to serve herself, the other part was not sure how the costumed pair would react to her necromancy.

“Seems dangerous…” she said looking at them.

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After the other pair joined her in the shack, she listened to them discuss the body. Naturally she took note of Nymara’s dislike of zombies, though to be fair Saiko mostly agreed. They were occasionally handy, but skeletons were otherwise the superior choice when reanimating the dead. Much less gross. As they moved from the shack, the other two appeared to assume that there was nothing else to this forest, but the teen’s spirit senses were tingling.

Spinning around, she brought her hand up, her doll braced against her side with her other arm, and began drawing upon the shadows around her. A small army of ghostly soldiers began to appear around her, just in time to defend against a Fae creature that appeared. In charge of the ghosts was the spirit of an ancient general, and Saiko decided to leave the fight to him. Turning around she pushed at the costumed girl, urging her to run. “Move.”

As she ran from the creature that seemed intent on capturing them, she reached out again, summoning her undead minions. Skeletons began to crawl their way from the shadows around the forest, but instead of approaching their master, they instead began to spread out. There had to be a door or something hidden somewhere, and a dozen sets of eyes would find it a lot faster than just a trio’s worth. Not long after, she felt a tug from one of her undead. Changing her direction that way, she found herself at another shack.

Unsurprisingly, she found another corpse inside, but this one was carrying some kind of slate covered in runes. It seemed important so she took a few moments to turn the corpse into a skeleton so it could carry it for her. More alerts started to come from her undead, and within minutes there was now a whole group of slate wielding skeletons following Saiko. The spirits had been holding off the fae creature well so far, however she could feel them being sent back one by one.

Eventually her scouts found what they needed. Leading Nymara and Lucky through the trees, they arrived at a magic circle. It took only a quick glance to see the magic circle was incomplete, and the missing spots looked perfectly shaped for the slates her skeletons were carrying. With a shuffle of bone against bone, she arranged her minions in the way that made the most sense, then had them place the slates into their spots.

Activating, the magic circle blew away the dark fog as fairies spewed forth. They flew off to where the fae creature had been, and its death screams could be heard in the distance. Once the forest was silent, the fairies returned and formed a circle, creating a door. The door opened, inviting the three visitors to the forest to leave. Before they stepped through, Saiko turned to the woman and cat. “Next time, your turn.”

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The member 'Saiko Akai' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Normal Dice' :

The member 'Nymara' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Normal Dice' :

Before passing through the fairies’ portal, both Nymara and Lucky made their discomfort about her powers clear. Not that the screaming and nearly setting them on fire before had not already made that clear. It did not bother Saiko though, she was used to being treated as creepy and unwanted. As long as they did not try to burn her at the stake or something, she did not care what they thought about her.

The moment after stepping through the glowing door, all the skeletons she had summoned in the previous room vanished from her senses. Before she could turn to investigate though, the portal closed sealing the trio inside the darkness. Darkness did not scare her, but she definitely found it annoying not being able to see. Reaching out blindly she found, and then latched onto, the soft dinosaur tail ahead of her. This she used to guide her way until they eventually came to a campfire.

There they found another fae, one that seemed to want a story. Dread was Saiko’s only response, her interest in telling a story (and her ability to for that matter) were as close to zero as possible. Thankfully Nymara was doing as promised and telling a story for them. About a minute into the story Saiko found herself drifting off.

“...anguish whenever you use them.”

A small elbow to the stomach woke Saiko up from her sleep, and she groggily looked around, seeing that apparently they had passed the room's trial. Covering a wide yawn with her hand, she got up and walked over to the hole that had appeared. Rubbing one of her eyes with her hand, she looked down at it unhappily. Her options were stay in the dark room forever, or jump into the hole. Neither sounded like a good idea. “This is dumb…” she said to herself, as she was the last one left in the room.

“Go,” said another voice, so with a sigh, she jumped. 

Once the unpleasant feeling of falling faded, she found herself standing next to the older girl and her cat. Surrounded by murder clowns. “Nope,” she said before immediately summoning her undead once more from her shadows. “Not doing this.”

Before she could order the undead to attack, the front most of the murder clowns held out some candy while the rest looked on expectantly. Now unsure exactly what was going on, Saiko turned a confused expression to the others. “...do I kill them?”

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Saiko watched on with only mild annoyance as Nymara stole her piece of candy. Was it wise to take candy from a murder clown? No. Did that change the fact that it was her murder clown candy? Also no. With this in mind, Saiko decided that Nymara now owed her dinner. It only seemed fair, a piece of probably poisoned and not at all safe to eat candy in exchange for the most expensive dinner in the city that Saiko could find.

The planning of her revenge would have to wait though, as the room quickly dissolved into violence as they sprang on the other woman like creepy stabbing machines. At the same time as the clowns began their attack, Saiko began her counter offensive. The clowns closest to Nymara she left alone for now (she seemed fine), instead her undead charged the clowns in the rest of the room. Her skeletons held their own against the clowns, offering her time to begin to summon ghosts to her side. Soon spectral knights, archers, and a general to lead them popped into existence to overwhelm the clowns with their numbers.

Having kept as far away from the creatures, Saiko had only a single undead near her to guard her as the rest fight. It was good that she did though, because she felt that guard send a silent alert as a murder clown managed to sneak up behind them and attempt to stab the necromancer. Instead it found its knife embedded in the thick skin of a demon looking zombie, who then grappled the clown so it could not escape. Spinning around, she cast Rot at the clown hitting it in its ugly painted face. It screamed in pain as its skin began to dissolve and turn into dust, and within moments the clown's bones fell to the ground as the rest of its body disintegrated by the spell.

In the rest of the room, the battle seemed to be coming to a conclusion. The clowns Saiko’s undead had been battling were cut down one after another, their knives ineffective against the ghosts fighting them. As soon as Nymara finished with her batch of the clowns the door to the next room would open, letting them leave the mountain of clown bodies behind. “Next time should kill on sight,” she said grumpily as she passed through the door.

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The member 'Saiko Akai' has done the following action : Dice Rolls

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'Normal Dice' :

For the second time after entering the haunted house, they found themselves sent outside. It was all rather peculiar, not that she was terribly surprised. If magic could bring the dead back to life, or some semblance of it at least, then teleportation and illusions all seemed fairly mundane. The real question was not how it was done, but what annoying thing would they have to deal with next. She was fine with anything, as long as it did not involve another story.

When they arrived at the door, Saiko let Nymara enter the way as a meat sh- er, advanced scout. The fire user seemed useful for that. In the meantime, she hung back with the cat to read the posted note. Simple enough to understand, however much harder to execute. Even someone like her needed to blink occasionally. When Nymara called out to them, the young necromancer saw how much the statues moved in such a short time. Even blinking would be dangerous if they did not solve this challenge quickly enough.

Of course, there was one option that would mitigate most of the danger. Standing behind the other two, the doll in Saiko’s arms opened its usually closed eyes. Red liquid dripped from them down the sides of her cheeks, and her eerily lifelike eyes (that looks identical to Saiko’s) stared forward, unblinking. Closing her own eyes for a moment before reopening them, she saw that the statues did not move. Good, it seemed it did not need to be the eyes of the living to work.

Now that she could take the time to study the statues, she saw they both carried a treat similar to what the murder clowns had been carrying. That had to be the key, somehow. Raising her hand, she drew upon the shadows around her and summoned a pair of ghost knights like she had in the first room. WIth a silent command, she sent them flying forward. Each approached their own statue, and at the same time slashed at the treats in an attempt to knock them from the stone hands. Instead of knocking the treats away, their spectral swords were sent flying backwards as some kind of magical barrier protected them. Seemed it would not be as easy as Saiko had expected.

Stepping a bit closer to Nymara and Lucky, she spoke quietly to them. “Need to destroy barriers. Will attack left, you attack right. Full power.”

Her command given, she brought her hand back up and aimed at her designated target. Then, expecting her fellow mage to keep up, she fired off a Rot spell at the treat. A small orb of darkness flew toward the statue, striking the barrier and eating away at its magic. At the same time the two knights brought their swords down, which was enough to break through the barrier. The Rot spell, no longer blocked from its target, hit the treat, and caused it to begin rotting, turning putrid and then eventually becoming dust that scattered away to nothing.

Nymara did her part, and the way to the exit opened. Saiko and her doll, its eyes once again closed, stepped through and found themselves outside the haunted house. Having completed it, she did not really see the point. Nothing had been scary inside, and some of them had certainly seemed more dangerous than her idea of using real undead had been. She was going to have a talk with the event organizers who had turned her down. Before that there was something more important to deal with.

Turning around, she glared at Nymara with all the fury her fourteen year old self could muster (it was not much). “Owe me candy, stole mine. Expect dinner, fancy.”

Then she covered her mouth as she yawned, the late night clearly getting to her young body. “Later. Need sleep now. Will be back for it.”

With those ominous last words, she turned to leave. As she did the doll might have given a small wave of goodbye, or it could have been a trick of the eyes from Saiko’s movement. Either way, the small girl marched off into the dark, seeming to disappear into the darkness once she left the confines of the streetlights.

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