August Mini Event - House Calls

[pumpkinhollow]

Pumpkin Hollow Community Bulletin

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This Place is Not a Place of Honor

“The house does not just come up out of the ground, it has roots, but not that kind, roots to its surroundings and its past as another form. As with our skin and our DNA it came from a past that will always be embedded into it.”
-Tori Hamatani, “Body-House Analogy”

Janine and Thacker Treadwell were not among the first to come to Marrow Island, but they were early enough to be established when the island’s weirdness made itself known. Janine had come with her parents as a young woman, her father looking for suitable matches for his quiet, thoughtful daughter. Thacker had arrived on his own, a young man seeking his fortune. They met, fell in love, and built a home together, as so many couples did. They had children, Elva and Kip. And, also like many families around them, they suffered and died as the curse of Marrow Island settled in around Pumpkin Hollow like a heavy fog.

This story both is and isn’t about them.

Really, it’s about their house, the last one on the end of its tucked away street, which sits somehow looking like the stray dog in a shelter that has given up completely. Paint on the outside has faded from a daring peacock blue to a washed-too-many-times denim, with pied patches of mold and shutters hanging haphazardly off a few of the windows. The once-vivid garden tended by Janine became an overgrown tangle. It was, in a word, a mess.

Children, however, love a mess, and when teenagers discovered the house hidden behind foliage during flood cleanup in the springtime, several made a point of sneaking in to see what was inside. It wasn’t particularly hard to get in.

The trouble was that the house didn’t want to let them go.

And so notices have been posted on the bulletin board, helpfully warning people not to go inside, and asking people to go inside. Or rather, asking adventurers to go inside. They’re not really people, are they? Death will not stop them from continuing to live and to adventure, will it?

No Highly-Esteemed Deed is Commemorated Here

While those who choose to enter have been warned of the possibility of a ghost, the only haunt happening here is a house that was loved dearly, one whose walls sang with laughter until it did not. Janine was not a mage in the formal sense, but she practiced Practical Magic in her kitchen, where recipe cards for potions are in the same box as recipes for sticky buns and cabbage soup with goat broth. It is perhaps her little hearth workings that began to seep into the foundation of the house, awakening it and making it such a protective and lively home.

Thacker, meanwhile, was no mage, but a woodcarver. His work is throughout the entire house, from a rocking horse in the sitting room to the banisters on the staircase being carved with nature motifs like pinecones and acorns. The house has some control of these; the horse might rock itself, making creaking sounds one can hear down a hallway. A door might slam itself, leading to a loud noise.

As for the children, they were eleven and seven, when they died. Elva was a voracious reader and an avid artist. A sickly child from the beginning, most of her time was spent at home. Art supplies litter her room, but they also spill out into the common areas; be careful you don’t step on stray pencils and fall. Kip, meanwhile, was adventurous and bold. One of Elva’s drawings shows them with a cast and crutches. They had collections of shiny rocks and colorful feathers and other childhood treasures aplenty.

Nothing Valued is Here

The layout of the house is simple. Sitting room, kitchen, parlor and a half-bathroom on the first floor. Upstairs, there’s a master bedroom, one bedroom for each child and two full bathrooms. This space is open for exploration–though that certainly doesn’t mean it’s entirely safe.

Do not concern yourself with being accurate to the other threads that take place in the house. If there are differences, perhaps part of it is that the house itself struggles to remember exactly how it was, when it was a home; exactly who its people were, when it had a family. Please do not feel like you need to reach out for every detail to accurately run your own threads. This is a sandbox.

The house is both mad at people intruding and looking at the wreckage of what-once-was and incredibly lonely, desperate not to be left alone and empty again. This leads to conflicting behaviors, where it might seem to attack or attempt to frighten those exploring, but also prevent them from leaving. While it cannot speak in words directly, it can do things like:

• Manifest hot/cold spots
• Create phantom smells, both pleasant (baked goods, flowers) and unpleasant (mildew, meat)
• Control doors, windows, and anything inside that is carved from wood (many of which will create sounds like slams or creaks)
• Light candles that were left in the rooms

The basement and attic are areas specifically to be explored in threads directly with the house, and will have a few extra interesting frights and goodies to discover. I will only do one thread per player with the house at a time. If you want to toss multiple characters off it, you'll need to finish the first thread before you start the second, for my sanity and bandwidth. I am also setting a loose endpoint of September 9th for starting any new threads with the house.

[ This month's mini event is brought to you by the lovely and incredibly talented Solstice! For any questions, clarifications, or words of enthusiasm, we'll leave the floor open for them. Thank you for putting this together! 🎃🧡 ]

Comments

[lofi_charm]

"Sshhhhit oh no," Martin despairs. "Oh that was so stupid. Oh my god. I'm an idiot. Okay, ahhh..."

There is a feeble attempt made to right the door as guilt pools in Martin's stomach. He's not even really sure why. No one even lives here. Part of it certainly is that he is a person who struggles with guilt very much, having lived the life that he has. Just another blunder on the endless list of Martin Blackwood's ill-conceived ideas. But there's something else to it, anxiety pooling in his gut like someone is going to yell at him. Or worse.

"Ooooh no no no, I didn't mean to--- I didn't think it would---" There is nothing that can be done for the door. He sets it aside, fretting, staring at the darkened interior of the house and trying to decide how to proceed.

[hallwaysempty]

All the other doors in the house suddenly slam shut, a cacophonous banging sound that echoes down the hallways. It sounds almost like an admonishment. But even with the doors closed, the hallways of the house stretch eagerly before him.

[lofi_charm]

Admonishment is not something that Martin handles well, even if he doesn't completely understand that's what it is. He wrings his hands, but carefully steps inside. With the door broken, he supposes that at least there's no way to trap him here.

"Ah--- Hello?" Martin makes his way in slowly, watching every step carefully. "I'm--- sorry about the door. I really didn't mean to break anything, I just wanted to come in! If you're, um. Listening." The uneasiness is eating him alive. "Listen, I came because I want to help! Whoever you are, I can feel how lonely you are. That's- that's what I do, that's what I am. I felt it, and I came to help. Will you... let me try, at least?"

[hallwaysempty]

I can feel how lonely you are. It could sound like a platitude, in someone else's mouth, but somehow Martin is believable when he states that outright, so simply. Down at the very end of the hallway on the first floor, in the depths of the dark abode, a door creaks open.

The sound is not entirely unlike the plaintive mewl of an abandoned kitten.

[lofi_charm]

There's an immediate wave of relief when the door opens. Maybe it's a trap, but... Martin has the distinct feeling that it's not.

At least, he hopes it's not.

Tentative, Martin makes his way to the open door, seeing himself in. What could be behind door number one?