//------------------------------// // Haunted House Adventure Playset, part 3 // Story: The Adventuring Type // by Cold in Gardez //------------------------------// Veils of dust drifted down from the ruined ceiling like ancient snow. Rainbow Dash cupped her wings over her head in a feathery umbrella, coughed as quietly as she could to clear her lungs, and glared at Starlight Glimmer. “This is your fault!” she hissed. “No, I—” Starlight bit back the exclamation and continued in a much quieter voice. “I told you, I’m not doing this! This house really is haunted!” “Yes, and it’s your fault that we’re in it!” “Ladies,” Nutmeg offered in gentle, calming tones, “Perhaps we can discuss the blame later, and just focus on getting out?” “Right, that’s easy. Gather up.” Starlight’s horn burned with a brilliant indigo light. The drifting dust reflected it back like a million tiny stars, and an electric hum filled the air. Nutmeg and Rainbow squeezed up against Starlight’s side as the glow from her horn reached a brilliant crescendo, and the world around them vanished. Replaced, a moment later, by an identical world. The same cloying scent of forgotten dust stung Rainbow’s nose; the same gritty, splintered floorboards scratched the soles of her hooves. She spun around, blinking away the afterimages left from the teleportation spell, and frowned at Starlight. “We’re still here,” she said. Starlight shook her head. “No, it just looks that way. Apparently I managed to teleport us to an identical-seeming house, probably still in Groveport. That’s why it smells and feels the same, too. Now, let’s just catch our breath and—” The house shifted again. The long floorboards beneath their hooves crawled out of alignment, their edges twisting and sliding against each other with an ugly rasp. Above, on the second floor, a low, ringing wail rose like an ocean swell, washing over the three of them, drowning them and deafening them to all other thought and sound. It ebbed slowly, fading back into the darkness, hanging on the edge of their hearing. Lurking on the border of silence. It was a long minute before any of them spoke. “Starlight…” Nutmeg began. The sorceress didn’t bother to respond. Her horn glowed again, faster this time, brighter, and after only a second Dash felt the weird, disconcerting snap of a teleportation spell. She opened her eyes, already knowing what she would see. The same room stared back. The empty fireplace leered at them. A covey of spiders, disturbed by the shaking of the house, trembled in their webs. “Alright, fine. Fine.” Starlight turned to the bricked-up window and set her hooves. A beam of violet light poured out of her horn, striking the bricks with a tremendous crash, and suddenly the whole room was filled with disintegrated clay and gritty fragments of rotting mortar. They coughed and hacked and wiped their eyes all over again, and as one they stumbled toward the opening. On the other side was another room, occupied by a broken banquet table and smoking fragments of bricks. Tattered drapes hung motionless from the walls, concealing more bricked-up windows. A wide doorway opened out into a black hall on the far side of the table. Starlight stared through the shattered wall, eyes wide, face expressionless. She let Nutmeg pull her back into the room without protest, and they huddled near the fireplace, where a bit of lingering warmth from the dead fire still seeped into the air. They crouched down, resting on their bellies, and stuck their muzzles together. “Seriously, what’s going on?” Dash whispered. “As amazing as it seems, Starlight might be correct,” Nutmeg said. “This house is haunted.” “Wait, why is that amazing?” Starlight fired back. “I’m right all the time!” “Apologies. I meant, it’s amazing that this house really is haunted.” “Hey, don’t apologize!” Dash hissed. “It’s her fault we’re here, remember!” They both tilted their heads toward Starlight, who managed to look a bit sheepish. “That’s not one hundred percent wrong,” she mumbled. Something thudded on the floor above them, followed by the musical tinkle of shattering glass. Dash held her breath, every muscle and feather frozen, until the sound faded away. Nutmeg nibbled on his lip. “We seem to be in a bit of a jam,” Nutmeg said. “Ideas?” “We could just hide until sunrise,” Starlight said. “This is probably a midnight-to-dawn ghost? If we can survive that long we’ll be fine.” Hide? Dash’s feathers fluffed out in irritation. The mere idea of cowering in this decaying, decrepit ruin got her hackles up. Hiding was for foals afraid of bullies. She was an airship crewmare; she didn’t know how to hide! She stamped her hooves, raising little puffs of stale dust from the floorboards, and stuck out her chest. “Better idea,” she said. “We search the house for clues to this haunting, solve whatever stupid mystery is behind it, and put the ghost to rest. Or maybe we just kick its ass, I haven’t decided yet.” Starlight rolled her eyes. “Okay, first off, you can’t kick a ghost’s ass, because it doesn’t have one. Second, it’s clear that this house has some sort of twisted, non-Pony Euclidean geometry* that loops its halls and rooms together in a maddening labyrinth that would drive a pony insane to try and understand. We don’t even know where to start—” A loud screech of ancient, rusted metal cut her off as the manor’s front door swung inward. Rather than revealing the desert town outside, or another ruined room cast in shadows, beyond it lay a clean, candlelit parlour, similar in dimensions to their own. In fact, as Dash peered closer, she saw the same fireplace in its wall, plush upholstered chairs, and an upright, unbroken liquor cabinet filled with dozens of crystal bottles. The scent of polished wood and velvet poured out, welcoming them. “See? Told you. Haunted houses are easy.” Dash brushed past Starlight and through the doorway. The chill of the airy desert manor vanished, replaced by a cozy, Summery warmth. She looked toward the window reflexively, but it only offered a rippled reflection of the room, as though the night outside were so utter and complete that nothing of it could shine through to their side of the glass. She fought down the urge to run over and pry it open – probably if she did that it would break the rules and all sorts of eldritch horrors like werebats and giant spiders and air dolphins would come pouring in, and then they’d have even more problems than before. Better to just solve this haunted house the right way, like Daring Do would.  “This is… nicer,” Nutmeg said. He crept through the door after Dash, nosing curiously at the immaculate furnishings and spending a moment in contemplation of the liquor cabinet. “How it all looked when Lady Miller was still alive, I assume?” “Probably how she still imagines it. Most ghosts don’t realize they’re dead” Starlight said. She paused in the doorway, halfway between the ruined manor and the time-lost splendour of the ghost’s memory. Her steps left dusty hoofprints of plaster and mold on the deep pile Prench carpets. “Okay, so, this is pretty standard for ghosts, the kind of stuff they cover in Paranormal 101 courses at Canterlot U. Just keep your hooves to yourself, look for clues, and we’ll find our way out in no time.” “See? That’s what I’m talking about,” Dash said. She hopped into the air and floated across the room, coming to rest by the hallway leading deeper into the manor. Flickering gas lamps, mounted on the walls at regular intervals, filled the space with a gentle yellow light. From deeper in came the scent of tobacco and nuts. She paused at the threshold and licked her lips. “What would you consider a clue?” Nutmeg asked. “I mean, it could be anything.” Starlight picked her way around the room, examining the furnishings and drapes closely. “Probably obvious, though. Ghosts aren’t exactly subtle.” “How about a doll?” Rainbow asked. “Like, if it was just sitting in the hallway, staring at us?” Starlight said nothing. She trotted over and stopped by Rainbow’s side, staring down at the antique porcelain filly standing about knee-high on the hallway carpet. It was fully dressed in a miniature turn-of-the-century businessmare’s outfit, complete with golden monocle and tophat, with a little cane about the size of a toothpick stitched into its upraised hoof. Green seaglass eyes watching them silently. Finally, “Okay, that’s creepy.” Nutmeg came up alongside them and lowered his head down to the doll’s level. His feathers fluffed out, and he snorted quietly. “Lovely. Young Lady Miller’s, I presume?” “Almost certainly.” Starlight let out a long, shaking breath. “Ugh, that’s probably the last thing you see, right? That doll chasing you before it all goes black! And then a little doll version of you gets added to some playpen upstairs, Lady Miller’s guests for all eternity, and you’re never seen again. Haunted houses love themes like that. I’d bet my left hoof there’s all sorts of doll paraphernalia hiding in oh my Celestia why are you picking it up?!” Dash hefted the doll in her forelegs. It was lighter than it looked, its porcelain head hollow and the rest of its body just corded fabric stuff with cotton and draped in well-stitched clothes. She gave its little nose a tap with the tip of her hoof, and in the back of her mind thought she heard something squeak. “Relax, it’s just a doll. And it’s a clue, too, right?” She twisted her torso and set the doll on her back, like she was giving a very little sister a ride. And was it her imagination, or was it holding her mane to keep from falling off? Imagination, yeah. She gave her wings a little flap to make sure they had play in case she needed to fly.  “If you want to hold all the clues we find, Miss Dash, I won’t object,” Nutmeg said. The hallway led deeper into the manor, or perhaps deeper back into Lady Miller’s memories. They passed rooms decorated in various styles, some of which clearly belong to other houses – Dash recognized the look of a Manehattan penthouse, with wide windows and gilded wallpaper, and the airy, communal dormitory of a filly’s boarding school. Nothing in them screamed “clue!” but nothing else came screaming out of the darkness at them, which suggested to Dash that they were on the right path. Or at least not on the one that ended with them turned into dolls. In the vestibule they passed a wide, curving stair that led up to the second floor, guarded by a wide wood balustrade whose pillars were carved with pecans, walnuts, chestnuts, buckeyes, and a dozen other nut-shaped reliefs. Above, the empty darkness of the overlook chittered and whispered quiet suggestions in Dash’s ears, half-remembered secrets about small-town desert life. The doll riding on Dash’s back held on a bit tighter. “Let’s not go up there,” Starlight whispered. “Yep. Deal.” Dash floated across the vestibule on the tips of her hooves. Starlight and Nutmeg weren’t so silent, setting the floorboards creaking with their steps, but the darkness stayed up on the second floor and didn’t come down to join them. Beyond the vestibule lay the library, a huge octagonal parlour paneled in high bookshelves that seemed to lean forward over the room, as if they were moments away from tipping over and spilling their contents onto whatever unfortunate pony happened to be reading from them. A collection of farmer’s almanacs butted up against a century-old encyclopedia that warred for space with a wagonload of account books, the kind Nutmeg kept in his cabin to track the Orithyia’s operating expenses. The higher shelves were given over to knick-knacks and gewgaws, the sentimental detritus that always seemed to accumulate in earth pony towns, where everything was heartfelt and precious and a keepsake from great-granpappy So-and-so who did something with the farm. Rainbow took it all in with a single glance and promptly bumped into Starlight on her way back out. “Nothing in there,” she said. “Just books.” “That could be important!” Starlight brushed past her into the room. Nutmeg followed, and Rainbow turned back with a suppressed groan. They spent the next half of forever reading books. Or, Nutmeg and Starlight did, while Rainbow Dash stood guard at the door, which mostly consisted of peeking out into the hallway from time to time while wishing they would read faster. A pile of discarded books grew in the center of the library, heaped there carelessly whenever Starlight decided a particular book held nothing of importance. Hopefully the ghost of Lady Miller didn’t love books as much as Twilight Sparkle did, or they were in real trouble. Maybe they should reshelve them when they were done? There were probably a hundred or more books in the pile by now, she guessed. Nah, no need to reshelve them. This was all just some ghost’s memory, anyway. Probably it could just remember them back on the shelves and save them all some trouble. “Huh,” Nutmeg said, breaking the boring silence. He held a slim, colorful volume in his hooves. A foal’s book, deeply out of place in a businessmare’s library. “Huh, what?” Starlight said. She trotted closer, her horn glowing as she flipped another book into the pile. “A foal’s book,” he said. “The Dollhouse.” “Ugh.” Starlight sniffed at the book and wrinkled her muzzle. “See? I told you. Dolls everywhere. It’s a theme.” Nutmeg flipped back to the first page. Rainbow crowded up behind him and squeezed her chin over his shoulder to see. It was a picture book, mostly, illustrated with charcoals and a few spots of watercolor, telling the story of a poor young filly who discovered a magical world hidden in an antique dollhouse she discovered in the attic of her grandmother’s house, ending with a lesson about resilience and magic or something like that. Dash never got much beyond the illustrations, which included a huge cast of walking, talking dolls, including one that dressed as a businessmare with a tophat and monocle. “Another clue?” Dash asked. “Want me to hold it?” “I’ve never heard of a book murdering somepony, so I’ll keep this one.” Nutmeg closed the book and tucked it under one wing for safekeeping. “One more, right? These things always come in threes.” “They always do for Daring Do,” Dash said. They trotted out into the hallway. The path back toward the vestibule was dark; weak gas lamps lighted the path further west. “And what do you mean, murdering somepony? Have you ever heard of a doll doing that?” “No, but a doll could murder somepony,” Starlight said. She gave the doll riding on Dash’s back a squinty glance. “I mean, in theory. It has hooves, so it could garrote you with your own mane or stab you or something.” “Yeah, uh, I’ll keep that in mind.” Dash peered over her shoulder at the doll. It didn’t look like a killer. Besides, it was just a doll. Dolls were no bigger than a baby, and she could beat up a baby no problem. She gave it a little nod, to make sure it knew she was watching, and turned back to the hallway. Closed doors flanked their path. Dash gave one handle a little rattle, but it was solid as stone. Not a part of this memory, apparently. Ahead, at the end of the hall, a rectangle of light shone through the crack around a terminal door. Its surface was rough, aged, and not at all in style with the rest of the manor – cheap wood planks given a poor sanding and a coat of white paint. She pressed her hoof against the latch and gave it a little shove. The door swung open soundlessly, revealing a foal’s room. Gypsum walls, coated in playful, fraying wallpaper, held crayon drawings and posters of ancient musicals. A frilly little bed occupied a corner beneath the window. And the dollhouse? No dollhouse. No toys at all, actually. She let out a little breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “End of the line, I’m guessing,” Nutmeg said. He peered around the room and peeked under the bed. Nothing grabbed him. “I bet this is where she grew up,” Starlight said. “Looks like a farmhouse. Wasn’t rich back then.” Not much room in here for clues, Rainbow decided. She glanced back at the doll to make sure it wasn’t getting any ideas, then began snuffling around the room, pulling open the drawers and nosing under the bed linens. It was all standard little-filly stuff until she got to the dresser – it was a few inches out from the wall, with no obvious reason for the gap. She pressed her face against the cheap wallpaper and peered behind it. Yup. “Hey, Starlight, there’s something back here. Think you can magic it out?” “Thinking is how we do magic,” Starlight said. Her horn glowed, and the entire dresser wobbled as she walked it away from the wall. A moment later a black square, about the size of a book, floated out from where it had fallen. Not a book, though. A picture frame. Dash and Nutmeg squeezed close to Starlight to see. The black-and-white picture showed an earth pony family, assembled outside a small clapboard rowhouse astride a barn and orchard. Neat stacks of moving boxes were piled around them, all beside a wagon half-loaded with more boxes. The parents were busy loading the wagon, while the filly alone stared at the camera. She clutched a little doll in her arms, a pale porcelain thing dressed in a businessmare’s outfit. Behind them, in the barn, basket upon basket of nuts waited for delivery. “Her parents were farmers?” Nutmeg wondered. He flipped the frame over, but the back was blank. No more clues there. “Nut farmers, probably. Itinerant workers, travelling from farm to farm, helping with the nut harvest.” Starlight sighed. “I bet she didn’t have many friends growing up, moving so often.” “Then she moved to Groveport and struck it rich with nuts,” Rainbow mused. She glanced over her shoulder again at the doll. “And then she died.” Silence. The others glanced at her. “I mean, that’s what happens to everypony eventually, right?” Dash continued. “Probably a bunch of stuff happened in between too.” “Straight to death, again,” Starlight grumbled. She pulled the picture out of the frame and tucked it into her mane. “I suppose I’ll take this one. Anyway, mystery solved, I guess? She was haunted by loneliness, tormented by the nuts that defined both her childhood and her adulthood, and now she haunts the ruins of her desert manor, turning her victims into dolls to keep her company for all time. Pretty standard stuff.” “Seems like a bit of a reach?” Nutmeg said. “There’s plenty of lonely ponies who don’t turn into vengeful spirits upon death.” “It’s not physics, Nutmeg, it’s psychology. You can’t apply the same level of rigor.” Starlight squared off against the door and huffed. “Alright, we’re ready. Let’s go confront a ghost.” Back out in the hallway, the lamps had all changed. Now they lit the way back to the foyer, and as they approached Rainbow saw a radiant glow pouring down from the second floor, where before there had been only darkness. Hoofsteps sounded from on high, and they assembled at the base of the stairs to await Lady Miller’s arrival. The doll on Rainbow Dash’s back seemed to squeeze its little legs tighter around her barrel. And there she was. With a final crash of cymbals and swell of drums, Lady Miller appeared. Gaunt, almost skeletal, the color washed out of her dusty and ragged coat. Empty eyes stared down at them from a face frozen in a rictus, revealing rows of preternaturally sharp teeth. Trails of smoke drifted from charred nostrils. She seemed to float down the stairs, each hoofstep reverberating in Rainbow Dash’s mind like a cannon— “Stop!” Starlight cried. She jumped forward to the base of the stairs, just steps from Lady Miller, and pointed an accusing hoof. “That’s far enough, imposter!” Everypony froze. Even Lady Miller seemed taken aback, her hoof held inches above the final step. Her lidless eyes blinked at Starlight, the coals within flickering uncertainly. “Uh, Miss Glimmer...” Nutmeg said. Starlight chuckled. “Oh, you thought you were so clever, didn’t you? Such an elaborate scheme! A deserted house, built entirely within a working, modular manor able to shift its hallways and rooms!” “Wait, what?” Rainbow said. She spun in a circle, peering at the foyer. “Don’t you get it?” Starlight said. She turned, waving a hoof at the walls. “Those tremendous crashes we felt earlier? That was the house being rearranged by a complex series of mechanical actuators, turning around rooms and connecting them with different passages! The noises and the magic dampening fields, all just elaborate parlour tricks by some cheap magician hired by our host here! You see, just like this whole house is fake, so is Lady Miller! There never was any such pony! It’s all an act staged by the town, to scare away visitors before they discover the secret behind Groveport’s bountiful nut harvests! And all of it orchestrated by none other than the mayor! Now, off with the mask, Oaky Wedge!” Starlight’s horn glowed, and a violet light surrounded Lady Miller’s face. She grunted and twisted, trying to escape its grasp. Starlight scowled and poured more power into her magic, panting with effort, and finally she hopped up on her rear legs, grabbed Lady Miller’s face with her hooves, and began to tug with all her might. “Come on, just a little more…” Starlight grunted. She heaved and twisted, digging the edges of her hooves under the skin of Lady Miller’s jaw. “Oof, this is really glued on well… Aha!” With a final, victorious shout shout, Starlight wretched the mask away, revealing a polished white skull and ember-lit eyes beneath. The front door banged open, and Oaky Wedge tromped in, a basket of assorted nuts balanced on her back. “Good morning, ya’ll!” she shouted. “I figured you might want some nuts for breakfast, so—oh my, that’s a frightful looking demonic ghoul you’ve got there, yessir it is.” “Right, right.” Starlight looked down at the crumpled face held in her hooves, and gently laid it back on Lady Miller’s head. She tucked the forehead under the bangs, gently tapping it into place with her hooves, and folded the flaccid cheeks into the wide spaces between her jaw and muzzle bones. The whole affair sagged rather precariously, and Starlight spent a moment trying to slide it into a more stable configuration, less threatened by gravity. “There, that’s fine, just like before. Now RUN! GO GO GO! TOSS THE DOLL AT HER, DASH! TOSS THE DOLL!” * * * Later, on the Orithyia as it sped away from Groveport, Rainbow Dash, Nutmeg and Starlight Glimmer huddled by the wheel. They were high enough now to soar above the clouds rolling in from the east, and the mid-morning sun painted the cottony tufts below them a brilliant white. Sitting there, squeezed between her friends and swaddled in their warmth, Rainbow Dash began to relax. “Nopony’s hurt?” Nutmeg asked. “I’m good,” Dash said. “Starlight?” “Never better.” She exhaled a trembling breath. “So that was… a thing.” “Yup.” “It certainly was.” “And the iceberg was delivered, as promised.” “It was,” Nutmeg said. “Our record is still good on that account.” “Great, great,” she said. She let out another breath and leaned against Dash’s shoulder. For several minutes all three were silent as the clouds sped by beneath them. “Now kiss,” Starlight whispered. They left her at the first railroad junction they could find.