House of Cethin: Palace of Darkness

The full moon hung low in the sky on a foggy night. The town was still, and no one was on the streets and no noise shattered the silence save for the ticking of the town’s clock tower. It read 11:58 pm. The mansion in the middle of the graveyard was eerie as ever, but seemed quiet until…

A man came running full speed from the door screaming at the top of his lungs. All that could be heard over what was a maniacal laughter was his screams of “NO!” and girly screaming. Then soon after the man came from the door, a ghost that appeared to be a crazed old lady holding a giant butcher knife high above her head flew out after the man with her maniacal laughter quickly breaking the rare silence of the town. Another man stood on the balcony of the mansion’s third floor, but merely looked liked a silhouette in the night. The crazed ghost had caught her target and slowly, but surely dragged her next victim back into the mansion’s walls, and the figure on the balcony had walked back into its walls. The clock chimed twelve times, indicating midnight. On the twelfth chime, a blood curtailing scream rang out followed by a deafening laughter that echoed and eventually died and all was calm once more.

"Haha. You sure you don't want me to tag along?" The redhead leaned out the driver's window. "No way Minx! I don't believe in these ghosts at all! Besides. I'm tired of you all treating me like a baby!" The younger teen shouted. The driver leaned back, "Well, you got about 6 hours till midnight. I'll see ya in the morning Urbi. Remember, one night. Sweet dreams cuz." And the car drove off. He looked back and looked up at the haunted building. "You didn't have to stay." He said, looking up at the blue haired woman. She starred forward at the building and then looked down at him. They made their way to the front door and stopped. "Well, ladies first." She frowned and stepped back. "Oh fine!" He puffed out his cheeks and opened the door slowly, the creaking sure didn't keep his breath anyway.

He looked around, "Looks like how'd you'd expect. Fancy, broken furniture, dust, spiders, Hoshi put that down." He complained as the woman smashed the spider between her fingers and smiled, wiping a bit on his face. "Ew! Don't! Your scarier then anything in this place!" He complained. Hoshi's fingers moved quickly on a phone pad in her hand and held it to him. "Why don't you come in already then? I'm coming!" Urbi looked back at the setting sun, taking a deep breath and stepped back into the house, shutting the door.

They had both heard of this house on the news and convinced his cousin to take them out of the city and out here. Urbi was going to prove their were no such things as ghosts...but since Hoshi followed him, he was feeling more afraid then ever.

((Anything in italics is what she type on her computer pad.))

"Gee... the authourities finaly took down their caution signs." A young lad in a pair of red shorts said before he rubbed his head. "That mansion sure does look creepy, but the rumors about it seem exagurated a little." He mumbled to himself before he started down the old road up the mansion's door through the graveyard. He evenchually found the duo that was basicly just messing around. "Hello." He said. "May I ask who each of you are? My name's Eon, and do you intend to stay in this mansion as well?" Eon said as he stepped inside.

"You guys are going in too?" a timid voice asked. Standing a few feet away was a blue dressed girl. Shading her eyes was her golden hair. Everyone at school had picked on her for barfing when the news of the mansion came on. If going to the maison itself was what it took to have people leave her alone, then fine.

"Da hell are.." Urbi knelt down slightly, studying Eon and shrugged his shoulder. "Nevermind." Then looked over at Alice. "Yeah. We're heading in right Hoshi." She didn't turn back but gave the two new comers the finger and the redhead rubbed the back of his head, "She was hoping we'd get this place to ourselves. Yeah. I guess you can tag along. I'm Urbi. That's Hoshi. Stay away from her." He glared at Eon as a warning and as a threat. She would probably shave his tail for fun if she got a razor and he didn't want some other guy around his crush.

A ridiculously tall blonde wearing a black shirt and black pants with a red coat walked up to the mansion steps. A different person who was really tall but not freakishly tall, with gray-blue hair, a black shirt and gray pants, walked up beside the blonde. He had a darkish-blue coat tied around his waist.

"I can't believe you dragged me all the way here, brother." the person with the gray-blue hair said. The blonde cut him a sharp look with his black and red eyes.

"Well, if you don't want to be here, go back to the Desert Palace." He said coldly.

"What, and get beaten up by Grandmother again? I'll pass. She's worked me over enough this week." He noticed that his brother wasn't going up the stairs. "Well? This was your idea, so let's go, bristle head." The blonde shrank at the aforementioned "bristle head". He spun around and looked his brother in the face.

"You know I hate that name, Gento."

"Ah, bite me." Gento said, playfully sticking his tongue out of his mouth, careful to not scrape it on his perfectly sharp and jagged teeth. The blonde bared his own set of sharp mandibles.

"Maybe I will!" He said, and went for Gento's throat, but not with his teeth, with his hands. Gento narrowly dodged his brother's massive paw from grabbing around his neck.

"Ohh, Genameeee." Gento dragged on his syllables, making him sound disappointed. "You're so sloooooow. The Desert Village children can fight faster than you." Gento said to Gename. Gename leaped for Gento, but he dodged. "What, have a big meal or something? you know I won't fight you if you have full stomachs." He snapped his fingers and a huge sword appeared in his hands. The blade itself was black with a silverish hilt. There were purple splotches all over it, with two additional purple blades coming off of the end of the sword. There were white things reminiscent of bones sticking out of the side of the sword, and on the hilt, there was an odd carving of two lines and a diamond embedded into it.

"You'd fight me with mother's sword? That's a little low, isn't it?" Gename said as his nails elongated into dangerously sharp points. The two collided their weapons. Gename's nails were sliced off, but not to the point where his fingertips were damaged. They grew back so he could protect himself from another volley of sword strikes.

"Come on Gename, you're better than this! Make our mother proud! Oh wait, you can't!" Gento taunted as Gename's nails struck against the flat of the blade. Suddenly, and without warning, Gename grabbed the sword by the blade and tossed it aside. Somehow, he wasn't sliced open by it. The blade disappeared, and Gename once again dove for Gento. By making a force-field appear behind Gento, he has nowhere to run, and could only wait for his brother to tackle him over. When they hit, the sword randomly disappeared.

The two rolled around in the dirt for a second. Gename was winning the struggle, using his bigger and heavier body to keep Gento pinned to the ground. "What's the matter brother? Are you too light that you can't shake me off? I thought you were supposed to be bigger than your younger brother!" Gename said and then started to punch Gento's face into the ground. He seemed barely affected by the blows. "This is what you get for eating those spiders!" More blows. Gento put a force field up around his face, and Gename hit it, instantly reminding him of the time he accidentally punched a diamond quarry at full power. He leaped back, holding his injured hand. Gento got up and wiped the dirt from his clothing.

"That's all? A few hits to the face? you know that's not my weak point." He walked slowly over to Gename, and grabbed him by the collar. "But I know what your weak spot is!" Right before he was able to knee Gename in his stomachs, a gun fired, and the bullet hit the dirt right near their feet. They both looked over to see a woman, scantily clad, and holding a smoking gun. She didn't blow on the barrel as she walked slowly over to them.

"Well, well. I came to this house lookin' for some treasure, and look at what I find instead! Two men rolling around in the mud. Today's my lucky day." She looked up at Gento's face, as she was too short to see him eye to eye. "Now, I don't know what you two's problem is, and frankly, I don't give two shits. Just leave the noise level down some, ok?" she readied her gun, and there was a familiar clicking sound as the gun loaded again. "I don't miss with this thing unless I give a warning shot."

Gento frowned. "Do you know who I am? I am a god, and I won't take any orders from any female!" He hissed. The woman just stared.

"Honey, you could be a god or Satan incarnate. If you mess with me, I'll shove my gun so far down your throat you'll be shittin' it, you hear me?" She started walking slow circles around Gento. "Your type thinks they're so mighty, but you really ain't. And it's up to me to keep you in your place. That place is kneeling at my feet!" She jumped up and grabbed Gento's collar, the new weight forcing him to bend over. The woman wrapped her legs around Gento's torso and put her face close to his. Then she pointed her gun at him. "I don't take shit from anyone." She said, and then flipped over him, allowing Gento to stand upright, and she landed behind him.

She pointed at her eyepatch. "You want to know how I lost this eye? Well, I've stared Death in the face so many times, he got scared and took it from me!" She twirled her gun around and put it in her holster. "The name's Rachael. Rachael 'The Jaded'. I get that name cause I'm a shapeshifter, you see? I can become anything," She looked harshly into Gento's eyes, "and anyone. A REAL tyrant, they say. But I'm just a woman with a heart of Jade." She laughed at her own terrible joke. "Listen up. I'm not at sea anymore and I need a crew. One of you can be with me, but the other's gotta scram cause I'm not going to listen to yous two bicker."

Gento looked at Gename and slinked off. His pride was wounded enough for one day.

"I like this woman already." Gename said as he walked closer to Rachael. When he was in range, she took his hand and started dragging him along.

"Come on! I heard that there was treasures here, and I intend on leavin' with all of it!" she said. Rachael and Gename wasted no time, and they both ran inside the mansion.

"I'm Alice," she said, bowing a bit. She looked at them and slowly raised a pointed finger. "I'm going inside now." And she simply walked in.
She looked around and sneezed a bit at the rising dust. "Unclean" she muttered. Alicesneezed again, hands flying to her face. She paused like that for a second. The blonde suddenly straightened up and yawned. "Damn this is bbbbooooorrrrriiiinnnngggggg~!" She yawned. Smirking, she jumped onto the railings of the spiral stairs leding to the second floor. "Incredibly boring. Chesire."

"Um.... ok?" Eon said as he stood there before relizing what uribi was getting at. "Oh! I wouldn't dare even think of taking your..." he said before pausing. "How to put this in a way without accidently setting eather of them off..." He thought before thinking of something. "Your special someone." He said after his pause. "If you don't trust me, I'll travel seperatly." He added as some red embers came from his mouth as he spoke.

Alice came running up the Eon, nearly knocking him over. "Truthfully I would stay around this little kid. If we get attack, then you can use him as a meat sheild," Alice stated loudly. Or was it Alice? She seemed completely different from the person they meet eariler.

Urbi looked at Hoshi follow her. "Uh. Hey wait up!!" He ran after, looking back, "If your coming. Let's go." Suddenly the gun shot echoed throughout the house and Urbi grabbed tightly onto Hoshi's black coat. After the noise settled down she petted his head and he pulled back, bright red. "shut up. I wasn't scared." He read her pad and shook his head," No you can't get a gun!" He followed up the stairs close to her. "Great. More people are here now. I just wanted to try and impress Hoshi but now i got competition. Not to mention now theirs some crazy ass person running around with a gun." He mumbled to himself, still slightly holding onto the black coat.

"She's not like that! She's just different from normal people ok. You have to be careful around her. You can come with us. I don't have issues trusting people..I was just looking out for her.." The woman lifted Urbi's hand, biting on a finger slightly and he pulled back. "Stop that! I won't hang on you, I get it." Hoshi was particularity liking this Alice girl.

When the two got inside, Jade climbed up on Gename's back and wrapped her hands around his neck so she could hitch a ride. She buried her face in his hair. "Mmm, your hair is really soft." Gename didn't complain. She was able to get Gento away from him for a little while, and she was giving him attention. He just held her legs and continued walking. He didn't notice anything of interest, but he did notice that there were other people in the mansion, aside from Gento. He decided to say hello.

He walked up to the large group. He noticed that he towered over everyone. "Hello! I'm new here; does anyone have a map of this place?" He asked.

Eon caught himself before falling over, and continued to walk. "Npe. We're on our own." He said before he felt a sneeze coming. "Ah.... ah...ACHOO!" He sneezed and out came a medium sized burst of a mix between blue and red flames that died quickly in the air.

The painting at the end of the main hall was a picture of the mansion on a bright autum day, yet the feel of it gave a stare.

Infront of the painting sat two corpses that appeared to be fairly recent. One's head was missing, and the other's had fang marks all over it's neck. The closer the group got, they could hear sounds of what sounded like an animal eating.

"Sweet. Breathing fire's pretty cool." The group stopped a bit from the picture, weather they were looking at the picture itself, or the bodies under it. "Oh my god." Urbi gasped, covering his mouth and the turned away, throwing off to the side along the wall, leaning against it for support. Hoshi continued forward, just out of Urbi grasp. She took a spear from one of the old looking suits of armor and knelt down feet from it poking the dead corpse to the point the head came rolling off, due to the weakness of the neck being mostly bitten off and it rolled over towards them. She stabbed the spear through it and pulled it closer, poking it's eyeball a bit before driving her finger in deeper, to her disappointment, not much blood came out, and what did, was clotted up.

Urbi's pocket meowed, and he took out his cell phone, flipping it open. "Hoshi says that the bodies been here over 24 hours. All the blood has moved to the lowest parts of the body cause of gravity." The redhead shivered, "I hate that you know so much about that." she lifted the head, tossing it a few times in her hands and listen to the animal noises.

Rachael looked at the bodies. "Well, that's disgusting. I wonder who did it." She said, looking around. Gename sighed.

"Well, these bodies are too long gone for my brother to have done it. I wonder where that animal went." One of his stomachs growled. "Maybe I can eat it..." He said, hanging his head in exhaustion. He started looking around for the animal. The last thing he needed was for it to attack and hurt someone.

Eon saw the bodies, and heard the animal's noises. His ears twitched a bit. "Am I the only one with a bad feeling?" He asked before the doors closed themselves cutting off their only source of light.

But right after the doors slammed shut, lanturns along the wall lit themselves with a purple fire giving off a dim purple coloration.

"G-g-guys?" Eon said before he held his hand up and fire rose from his hand and lit the now very dim mansion a little better.

"This is new." A ghostly voice from the main hall said. "It's rare for us to get visitors" The ghost said. "Then again..." The ghost started to step from the shadows and reveled it was apprently a maid, but she had fine red line along her face and legs. "It's probubly because those who step in, never make it back out!" The ghost hollered before reveling a giant combat knife.

Eon droped his flame and it died making the masion dim once again. "Don't get close to me! I may be pre-cooked, but I don't taste good!" He screamed before he ran into the wall, and knoked a painting off the wall and it landed on his face.

Alice's eyes grew wide. "Not now," she muttered. "Not now. PLEASE queen, not now!" But she came anyways. Alice stumbled and grabed her forehead. She caught herself and glared at the maid. She smirked.
"Well well we're your guest," Alice said, having the demeanor of a cool and wicked adult. "You should at least-" She jumped and grabbed the rod holding the curtians on the windows. She made a wide slash to slip the ratty shears off it and pointed it at the maid like a spear. "-give us a fighting chance."

Hoshi smiled slightly. yep. She liked this Alice, and it was rare for her to like other people. But I guess to insane people would get along. She grabbed the head she was tossing and threw it towards the ghost, knocking the knife, which was real from her hands. She ran through the ghost, freezing up slightly at the though that she did that and grabbed the knife, turning it in her hands and held it up.

Urbi however, was already feeling his fear creep on him more and more. He walked over and helped the picture from Eon's head, trying hard not to cry. "There's no such things as ghost ad demons, Ra be my eyes there's no such thing." he said, kneeling down, eyes shut tight. His phone rang agian and he opened it. "No. I don't know how to kill a ghost. With a vaccum? And extrosist! Light?! I don't know!"

A rat ran by throughout the hullabulo.

"Now look what you did!" The maid said. "No wonder Lady Cethin kills you people when you tred on her land." She added angirly before trotting off into the walls.

"...T-Thanks." Eon said before he got up and brushed the back of his shorts off.

The animal noises seemed to be very close by when a skull rolled down the staircase. half of the meat was still on it, but then a large blue flame that stood from the tail of a fox appeared. "New prey already? I gotta tell Sensei!" The fox said before running down the left hall.

Alice blinked. She squeled and dropped the rod. Bowing furiously, she mustered out, "I'm so sorry, I did it again, didn't I? Did I hurt anyone? Oh man!"

Gename blinked. "What was that thing? " he asked. He was completely unaffected by the appearance of the ghost or her large knife. He did make a mental note to attack it the next time he saw it, as it threatened the lives of the people around him. Jade hopped off of Gename's back.

"Tch. Guns don't work on no ghost. Guess it's left to my blood now." She said. "But first, let's look for more treasure..."

Somewhere farther away in the mansion away from the group the fox dashed into a large room that led to a back balcony. In that room sat a ghost in the form of an old woman who was knitting. She had a bloody butcher knife sitting on a small table next to her rocking chair. On the otherside of the table there was a large comfy chair next to a fire place where a ghost that resembled a rather strong-looking elderly man who was reading the paper. On the otherside of the room a kid looknig about the same age as Eon was sitting on the floor playing a game of chess with a embery fox-like spirit. Then on the back balcony stood a young adult who appeared about seventeen. He just stood there looking off the balcony in his hakama, and robe-like coat that was nearly hidden by his hair on the top half.

"Sensei! Sensei!" The fox blurted as it dashed through the room. "Their's already new meat in the house!" It blurted before it reached the balcony.

All the ghosts had looked at the fox with an interested look.

"Already? That was quick." The man on the balcony said with a deep voice.

"They're getting desperate it seems!" The old man said before letting out a hardy laugh. "I Suppose I'll go give our guests a nice little house warming gift." It added.

"Are you sure you should go dear? Maybe I should." The old woman said.

"No mother, let father go first." The man on the balcony said. "He deserves some fun." He added.

"Ho ho! I'll be sure to have a jolly good time!" The ghostly old man said before he rose from his chair, folded his paper, and tossed it onto the chair and waltzed off from the room.

"Aw... I wanted to go!" The younger lad said before moving a chess piece. "Check mate!" He added.

"Well I'll be damned... taht's the thirty-second time you've won in a row." The embery whisp said in a very fadded echoy voice.

"Relax Dear, I'm sure you'll have your turn to play someday." The old lady said.

"No. No ones hurt really. Treasure? Are you guys theives? Looters? I dought you could get anything for this junk." Urbi walked over, brushing himself off and stood beside Hoshi looking up at the tall guy, "You act like you've never seen a ghost before. That was a ghost. But they arn't real." Urbi lied to his own face, trying to calm himself down.

Hoshi however was sad she didn't get to cut the ghost, seen the skull roll slightly into view and chucked the knife, missing everyone and it jabbed right into it. She took out her pad and typed on it, the meow ringtone coming througn agian. "The animals nosies stopped. Yeah I noticed. I wanna ditch these people. We can't go through ehre by ourselves! I like Alice. She should come with us. I said we arn't seperating. Scared princess? No! stop calling me that." She pushed him into a wall slightly and turned to go through the door of the wall the ghost went in. "Wait for me!"

Alice looked up. "That's good," she said whissfully. "But Miss Hoshi, please wait!" and dashed after her.

Inside the kitchen where the maid had gone showed an older style of something that looked like the early 1900s kitchen would've looked.

There was a table in the center, and a man that appeared like a sorcerer was sitting there with a small glass on a small plate. He was reading a very large book that sat infront of him. He heard the sound of the door's creeking and looked up to see Hoshi and Alice. "Maryann, I thought this mansion stilled belonged to my parents." He said in a rather formal sounding voice.

"It does. These are jsut some people who let themselves in." The maid named Maryann said as she came in the side door holding a key on a string. "I found that old key to second floor though." She added before she set the key on the table.

"Thank you." The man said. "I'm sure you've heard the rumors about this house. The Cethin faimly was known for it's mischeviousness, but there were-err.... are a few that aren't. Take myself for example; I'm nothing more then a wandering sorcerer who was in town and decided to visit my parents and kids." He said before closing his book and rising from his seat. "Here. Take this key and figure out what door it goes to. It's been five years since I was here last, so I can't imagen where it would go, so maybe it'll be of more use to you, but be careful. For my mother doesn't take uninvited guests lightly." He added before walking off out of the kitchen.

Alice timdly grabbed the key. "I thought he was a ghost," she stated quietly.