NARES - Chapter 12

Chapter 12 – Curiouser and Curiouser!

[11:17 - Dining Room]

Jeffrey ran past Plum, putting some distance between him and Kazbar.

Plum: You okay, man?

Jeffrey: Yeah!

Plum: Great!

As Kazbar stepped into the room, Plum sneaked under the table - the long tablecloth helped to cover him. Caught by surprise, Jeffrey wasn’t sure whether to follow him or not. But he didn’t get to think for long, as Kazbar charged onto him. Jeffrey quickly dashed away as Kazbar lifted a dining chair and smashed it. The chair broke, sending splitters flying. He took another chair and chased Jeffrey.

The long dinner table was standing between them. When Kazbar moved to catch Jeffrey, he mirrored Kazbar’s movement, keeping the distance constant. Kazbar threw the chair. Jeffrey ducked and the chair didn’t even touch his hair.

Kazbar: Hmph. Stop running. It’s useless anyway.

Plum: Not if I can help it!

Plum leaped from underneath the table. The two struggled, a blur of kicks and punches knocked down the nearby chairs as Kazbar tried to break free. Plum held onto him with all his strength as Jeffrey went around the table. Neither side could spend a second to take out their respective weapons – a golden sword and a hairdryer for Plum; a letter opener and a hairdryer for Kazbar – as they could only rely on their own physical strength.

Jeffrey snatched a candelabrum sitting on the table and bashed Kazbar’s head. His struggle became wilder and wilder, but Plum managed to hold him down thanks to the power of FRIENDSHIP. Blood splattered onto both Plum and Jeffrey. Kazbar’s blood.

Jeffrey cleaned his hands with a napkin on the table. The ivory-colored cloth turned scarlet with blood.

Jeffrey: I didn’t like it.

Plum: …I’d be scared if you enjoyed it. But it couldn’t be helped.

Jeffrey took the letter opener from Kazbar. He took a better look at it. It was unusually sharp for a letter opener. Come to think of it, the candelabrum was pretty heavy. It was as if the items inside the mansion were designed with something else in mind.

Jeffrey had finished coating the letter opener with poison when he noticed Plum checking Kazbar’s body. Plum was poking Kazbar’s face with his finger.

Jeffrey: What are you doing, dude? That’s gross.

Plum: No, it’s just…his face feels weird. It’s like…latex?

Jeffrey touched Kazbar’s cold face out of curiosity and indeed, it felt artificial. He moved his hand down onto Kazbar’s neck. His fingers felt a slight difference – the unmistakable difference of human skin and latex. He put his fingers underneath the latex and rolled the mask open.

Underneath the Kazbar mask was Edwardsdv, his eyes were open with dead emptiness.

Plum: Whoa. The hell?
===
[11:07 – Grand Foyer]

XIII_rocks ran across the Grand Foyer, the knife held out in his hand, chasing after GenesisSaga. She was much too fast for him to catch up, but he entered the parlor just as the door leading to the living room closed. With a crazed expression on his face, XIII_rocks continued his chase.
===
[11:07 – Living Room]

Resistance_pro and muddersmilk had been pondering the nicknames given to them – a sheet of paper they found in one of the drawers was filled with the nicknames of everyone they saw that night. No common bond had been able to be deduced nor do initials spell anything.

Milk: Dammit, I thought we were getting closer to something.

Resistance: Yeah. Well, Resistance thinks that—

The door opened. Resistance and Milk immediately jumped to their feet. GenesisSaga looked awkwardly at them but immediately took off towards the dining room. Before she left, she shouted a warning to them.

Genesis: Be wary of XIII! He’s dangerous!

Milk: What was th—

Once again, the door slammed open.

XIII: Heeeeere’s Johnny!

XIII looked wildly at the two men inside the room, and both of them were still petrified by shock to look away. XIII’s black eyes were filled with madness. But he only grinned and continued onto the dining room. Milk and Resistance were left speechless.

Milk: What the f*** was that?!

Resistance: Resistance proposes that we pretend that we didn’t see anything.

Milk: …it’s for the best. No use getting in trouble.

The men sat down and looked at the paper in front of them once again.

Resistance: Wait a second. This sounds a bit crazy, but don’t you think these names sound like they could be usernames?

Milk: Resistance…I think that’s it! But still, I don’t think I’ve ever made a username ‘muddersmilk’, I always go by Maniac64.

Resistance: Resistance’s the same. But if it’s not our usernames, then whose usernames are they?

===
[11:12 – Hallway in front of Raka’s room]

Pirateking2000 dragged his feet towards jdizzy’s body and lifted it. It had gone cold, but thankfully rigor mortis hadn’t set out, making the body somewhat easy to lift – still, it took him some effort due to his condition.
After holding the body as a meat shield and nearly tripping himself on jdizzy’s dangling feet, Pirate arrived in front of the white-colored door. He carefully opened it, putting jdizzy’s body in first, preparing for arrows or whatever trap Raka might have set. But there was nothing and Pirate stepped in.

The room was perfectly white. Even the furniture, a set of table with two chairs in the middle of the room and a medium-sized dresser next to it, were wholly white. It was almost dizzying. The only spot in the otherwise uniformly colored room were pictures scattered about the room or posted on the wall. They looked like as if they were drawn by a child using crayons. People and sceneries were depicted in rough but colorful lines.

Pirate dropped jdizzy’s body as there didn’t seem like there was any danger. He walked across the room and checked the dresser. There was nothing in most of the drawers, but in the uppermost drawer he found two things. The first one was a small glass bottle filled with green liquid, labeled ‘DRINK ME’. The other one was a small cookie, labeled ‘EAT ME’.

Pirate had a nagging feeling that he had read about something like this before, but didn’t have much time to recall little details. Therefore, he took them out and laid them on the table.
===
[11:09 – Woman’s Bathroom, 1F]

GenesisSaga closed the door behind her. She faced towards the door and held the replica katana outward. She tried to control her breath, as all the running around had begun to take a toll on her stamina – and it was nearing the midnight. She would’ve taken a nap earlier in the day if she had known she’d have to fight for her life.

She listened to any sound from outside, but the bathroom was soundproof. She waited and waited and waited – sweat trickled down her forehead in anticipation. Minutes went by, yet nobody came in – unsurprising, considering Nio was the only other girl than her.

Genesis warily opened the door…

She couldn’t open it all the way because something was blocking it. It was XIII’s unconscious body. The man had tried to open the door, but the electric-base trap was set off.

Genesis: Ha…hahaha….got you!
===
!Dead!:
21st: Catastrophy – Blown up from a bomb-book while being drunk.
20th: jdizzy – Shot in the forehead by a samurai
19th: bbbtime – Couldn’t bear being suffocated with a giant teddy bear
18th: Orochimaru_Fan – Got caught in a trap that flung him into a coffin and covered him in hot wax.
17th: metalsluggg – Bashed in the head with a blunt weapon, then had his neck slashed
16th: Mega Mana – Stabbed through the chest with Edward’s sword, then eaten alive by a tiger.
15th: Natwaf_akidna – Bashed in the head with a candelabrum
14th: Kirbydamasta – Acid to the face
13th: Emporer_Kazbar – Sword strike followed by a stab with a letter-opener
12th: Cody11533 – Death by strangulation
11th: Bigwig_rah – Tiger food
10th: Niorapth – Clubbed all night long
9th: ImTheMacheteGuy – Literally stabbed in the back. Metaphorically too.
8th: Edwardsdv – Defeated by the power of FRIENDSHIP *sparkles*

Status:
Pirateking2000 – Stung by a scorpion. Not fatal, but his left leg is paralyzed.
Jeffrey – Bleeding right hand (bandaged)
Plum – Broken right hand

.
Healthy:
Everybody else.

Whereabouts:
masterplum, Jeffrey_Raze: Dining Room, 1F
resistance_pro, muddersmilk: Living Room, 1F
XIII_rocks: In front of Woman’s Restroom, 1F
GenesisSaga: Woman’s Restroom, 1F
Pirateking2000: White V.I.P. Room, 2F