The weather was dreadful over the Kingswood on that fateful night he found the manor.

As the lightning flashed across the sky and the thunder quaked the earth, a man ran through the torrential downpour. His boots sloshed through the mud, kicking droplets of earthen muck onto his boots and cloak; he was drenched from head to toe; shivering in the whipping gale of the squall.

What was he doing in the Kingswood, you might ask?

It's hard to say for certain; perhaps he was looking for something or perhaps he had lost his way; but nonetheless, he was there: a victim to the elements of Avasha's wrath. The tall, withering branches of the forest of the Kingswood creaked as the wind whistled through their boughs; the cold, thrashing rain were like knives against his skin in the autumn chill as he fought to conquer the tempest— to find shelter— somewhere, anywhere, to wait out the storm.

And, by sheer luck, whether good or bad... he found it.

Amongst the warbling shadows of the trees in the Kingswood the man saw a single light; a lantern flickering from a perch in the darkness. Shivering, miserable, and helpless in the torrent, he was drawn to it like a moth to the flame; the potential promise of a shack, a shed, or even a stable far out in the Kingswood gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, he could find somewhere dry to rest.

As he approached, however, he realized... it was no shack, no shed, or even a stable: no, in fact... it was a manor. Although it was tall and grand, it was withered like the trees around it. Nature had tried to reclaim that place; thick flora clung to every inch of its frame, seeping into the interior; branching like the veins to a hulking beast. The grated shutters on the window-frames thrummed mercilessly against the panes— defenseless victims of the wind. The manor groaned with the tempest; and rain poured from its angled roof in thin streams.

The silhouettes of the manor became outlined in shadow as lightning illuminated the sky behind it; the thunder followed, and the man began to run. The old wood of the manor's stairs creaked as he sprinted up the steps to the door. He passed through the thin curtains of rain beneath its porch, shivering as he reached out to knock on the ancient door to the long-forgotten place; but before his knuckles could touch it, the door began to creak open.

The man hesitated as the interior— covered in shadow, dust, and white sheets upon furniture— crept slowly into view.

He quivered out in the cold, soaked to his bones. But there was a single lantern in the window, and he hoped for any generosity the patron of the home might be able to give a miserable, weary traveler. He did not think, in that moment, that the manor could be a sign of trouble: no, in that moment, it was a miracle.

He only thought that perhaps he may trouble the homeowners: because surely, they were here somewhere if the lantern was lit.

"H-hello?" the man called with a shaking voice into the shaded, empty interior of the manor. The entryway was lit only by a single warm lantern from an adjacent room; the shadows flickered, as though they were living, but he barely acknowledged them in his miserable state. "I'm sorry— sorry to intrude. I saw your lantern in the window; is anyone here?"

Uninvited, he hesitantly stepped through the thresh-hold of the door; water pooled around his feet as, shuddering, he stops just inside the entry.

As the man stood inside the door, his rain soaked clothing dripping onto the dusty floor, the door behind him suddenly slammed shut with a loud creak and a bang just behind him. He let out a very manly scream as he jumped from the sudden noise. It gave him quite the fright, but it had probably just been the wind. The winds outside were strong.

There was no response from anyone inside the manor. No voice called out to welcome the guest or turn them away. The manor was silent. The man could not wait inside the doorway for an answer forever. He eventually started moving farther into the shadowy interior of the empty home to find a place to wait out the storm and dry off, their boots squelching with each step and leaving a trail of water in their wake.

The storm outside was fierce and the wind howled through the trees outside. The sound was muffled by the grated wooden shutters and cracked glass panes in the windows, making the inside of the manor eerily quiet as the man entered the room where the flickering lantern light was emanating from.

The floor creaked underfoot as the man stepped into the room.

Despite the warm glow of the lantern, the room was cold and empty; dust, like specks of sand, floated in tiny glimmers as he passed through the ancient door-frame. The room he'd stepped into was a grand living area; a dusty, ornate rug spread across the oaken floor was unlike anything he had ever seen before. A rocking chair was snug against the far wall, near an old bookshelf with a white sheet cast over it, covering the contents of the home's library.

In the corner of the room, the man spotted a grand, old piano; a beautiful piece cast of redwood, with keys of ebony and ivory; but much like everything else in the room... it too was covered in a thin layer of dust. What relieved him the most in this room, however, was the fireplace directly across the entrance-way.

"Hello?" he called again— but again, there was no reply.

He found this quite odd.

Although there was a lantern lit in the window of the home; gleaming like a beacon to the lost; there was no one inside... not a single fingerprint had disturbed the layers of dust upon the furniture... Like it had been untouched for years. His mind went back to the door closing behind him earlier, but he shrugs it aside with a shake of his head. The wind... He told himself again; it was the answer that most comforted him. The home owners must... be gone. Maybe they forgot to turn out the lantern.

In his time of desperation, he thought it made perfect sense: and the dust that had been untouched for this long? Well, perhaps they were renovating upstairs— or, they had left a window open! He told himself all sorts of excuses as he moved into the living room, heading towards the fireplace, in the hopes that he might be able to start a fire to dry himself off...

As he headed toward the fireplace, leaving footprints behind in the dust on the floor, there was suddenly a loud noise from the corner. Discordant keys of the piano as if someone had just started smashing them at random. The sound filled the room for a moment before it stopped and the house was near silent once more, the sound of the whipping wind outside the only noise to hear.

The man approached the piano cautiously and noticed the keys had been wiped clean of the thick layer of dust by whoever had been playing it just now. No, pit didn't seem like the right phrase for the man, experienced in music. Or not experienced in music, maybe, it just didn't sound good enough to be called playing. That's right.

As he stared at the piano, he was startled as another sound came from behind him. A cacophony of metal clashing together, clanging and falling, scraping against the wooden floor. He turned around to see the fireplace tools were gone. The poker, tongs, shovel and dustpan had simply vanished.

He could feel his heart pounding in his ears and a cold sweat on the back of his neck. He was looking at the empty space near the fireplace; he could have sworn the fireplace's dusty, old tools had been there moments before... right? He looked left and right; his eyes lingered on the clean keys of the piano; the piano, which... no one had been sitting at...

The man began to laugh nervously. It's just your imagination! He tried to tell himself as he hesitantly began to step towards the fireplace. Maybe there weren't even tools here before! Just a trick of the eye, right? Shadows from the lamp.

But, as the man approached the fireplace, he realized there had in fact, been tools there at some point. Much like the piano, the tools left clean imprints in the thin layer of dust that covered the old, fancy manor. Those clean imprints? They signified that something had once been there, but was not any longer.

The man felt a chill run down his spine at the realization; and at the same time, a crack of thunder resounded through the deep of the Kingswood. The man, already unnerved by the events in the living room, yelped; his knees shook as the sound faded, replaced once more by the natural creak and moan of the old manor. Quickly, the man departed from near the fireplace; he grabbed the lantern closest to the window, and took a deep breath to steel himself.

It's fine! He told himself, It's fine! Just... Until the storm passes, and then I'll leave.

He looked out the window, watching the way the wind bent the branches of the trees outside; the storm showed no signs of stopping. The man looked back towards the living area, and slowly began to back out, the lantern in hand. Never once did he turn his back on the old fireplace; afraid that something might happen in front of him, if he did; so he moved slowly, heading back out towards the hall, towards the room across the hall.

There, in the middle of the hallway, the man suddenly stopped and started breathing heavily in fear. What was that? He thought he had just heard a small voice behind him, like someone had just whispered something unintelligible in his ear. That had to have just been his imagination, right? It was nothing. A trick of the wind. He stood in the hallway as his knees shook, afraid to turn around.

But, as he stood there, not taking his eyes off of the fireplace he could still see through the open door. A flash of lightning lit the room for a moment and he saw something. A tiny, dark figure standing in the middle of the room, staring directly back at him. It was only there for the brief flash of light, and then it was gone, like it had never been there. He had no time to take in any of the details. Was that some kind of demon?

As their thoughts raced in a panic, the door right in front of him suddenly slammed shut. He fell back, onto the floor in surprise and heard all the doors in the hallway slamming shut, one by one.

The man cried out sharply. As he fell, the lantern slipped from his hands. The doors slammed violently all around him; and though he covered his ears with both hands in an attempt to mute the dreadful onslaught; he could not rid himself of what he had seen. In the room in front of him, something had been silhouetted in a flash of lightning; a tiny beast, with eyes that gleamed maliciously in the darkness, and a sharp-toothed grin.

He shuddered, choking on a whimper in his throat, and scrambled up to his feet.

The image of that little demon was burned into the darkness behind his eyelids; but the storm was raging outside, and the doors were pounding inside. The man was overwhelmed with what he had seen, and so he took up the lantern and dashed up the dusty stairs of the manner.

Crrreak! Crriiick! Crrraack!

The stairs groaned as he bounded up them two at a time; he was desperate to escape whatever he had seen downstairs in the light of the storm, but not yet willing to face the elements again. He could still hear the doors thrumming against their frames as he sharply turned the corner, and fled into the nearest open room; a bedroom. He gasped, fighting to catch his breath, and coughing on dust that he had kicked up in his desperate escape.

Once the dust had settled and the man had regained his breath, he looked around the room and took in the sight before him.

The bedroom was full of old furniture, though this furniture was not covered in white sheets as the furniture downstairs had been. The furniture in this room was quite beautiful. An ornate desk stood in the corner with a chair, but several of the drawers pulled out and left on the floor. A luxurious wardrobe was open in the opposite corner, but it was empty of any of the exquisite clothing that might have been inside. In the middle of the room was a lavish bed with a canopy overhead supported by four decoratively carved wooden posts. A rug of intricate red, gold, and black designs filled the space between the bed and the door.

It was such a welcoming sight after the fright the man had experienced that they almost forgot about the terror lurking in the home. He took one step forward onto the rug and found himself falling straight down through a hole in the floor beneath it, straight back down to the lair of whatever fiend called this place its home.

He never saw it coming; the man yelped as he slipped through the hole in the floor; and the rug fell with him. It folded, cocooning him in dust and stiff fibres as he fell. 

THMP!

As the man slammed into the ground on his back, the rug released him; and he laid there for a moment, dazed by the fall. Uncertain where he had ended up. Slowly, the man rose to sit with a low groan. "Ugh..." he mumbled. He sneezed a cloud of dust, trembling where he sat; but after a moment, he realized something... strange was happening in front of him. The man paled, for the lantern had broken.

By all accounts, the lantern's flame should have been burning against the rug; but instead, the man spotted the flame... warbling in the air? He blinked, shaking his head; and although his vision steadied, he was still watching the flame rise higher and higher into the air; the colours shifted and flickered blue... and then, the embers disappeared with a shower of harmless sparks.

The man watched a few sparks flutter to the ground in front of him— and they disappeared against the dusty ornate rug unfolded beneath him.

He got to his feet, rubbing his aching back from the fall. This place was getting stranger and scarier by the minute. He thought about all of the different occurrences that had happened here in such a short time and froze as he remembered.

This was the room he saw the tiny devil in. Had it been angered by him running away and drew him right back in? Was there no escape from the room, from that monster? Had this house just been some kind of trap all along? They had to get out of there, right that moment!

He ran to the door again and tried to open it with all his great might. Surely it was locked, there was no escape! But he managed to rip the door open as if it hadn't even been locked. There would be no stopping him! He ran toward the door to the house, the rain be damned. They could handle a little rain if it meant survival.

The demon appeared between him and the doorway to stop him, but he would not succumb to the evil creature. With a mighty swing of his guit- I mean a mighty kick, he flung the beast away. It crashed to the ground and burst into flame, just as the lantern had, before disappearing. He tore open the definitely locked door and ran into the night, to freedom, the devil howling in the house behind him.

---

"Is that it?"

The howl of the demon, the screaming wind, and the creak of the old manor fades away; before the red tiefling, a campfire pops and crackles in the hush of the night, casting long shadows across the dark, swaying fields of the King's Valley. The stars glimmer up above; and the moon is bright and full tonight. The weather is perfect.

Cantio blinks at the offender, brows furrowing slightly beneath his mask. He clears his throat, unraveling himself from a classic spooky story gesture, and crossing his arms over his chest. "Well I'm not... done... What do you mean, is that it?"

A woman clad in armour looks at him, bored, from over the licking flames of the fire. She's sitting on a fallen log, a mug of lukewarm coffee in-between her gloved hands. "I mean what I said, bard: is that it? You hyped this story up like it was going to be scary." Cantio would look offended if it weren't for the mask obscuring most of his expression; the way his voice pitches gives way to the offense, instead.

"It was scary!" he huffs.

"It wasn't scary at all! A haunted house, really? Where'd you even get this story from?"

"A... friend; it was a personal story he told me."

"It was okay at first, but..." A man sitting diagonal from the woman, cross-legged in the grass, remarks. He rubs his chin thoughtfully, then looks at Cantio quizzically. "Why did he run upstairs at the end; he was in the entrance hallway, wasn't he? Why didn't he just... y'know, run outside? He could've avoided all of that if he just left."

"Well..."

"What kind of idiot is your friend to run upstairs in a haunted house?"

A deep flush spreads across the red tiefling's face as a chorus of laughter erupts from the men and women around the campfire. It... it was very scary! He wasn't thinking straight when he'd bolted upstairs, really! Who could think straight when they had that thing looking right at them from the darkness!? He crosses his arms over his chest, flipping out his fan with a flick of his wrist, and idly fanning himself to cool his head from the teasing.

Numerous jokes and subtle insults are made at his expense, even if they don't know it.

"Alright, alright." After setting her cup in the grass, the woman claps her hands over her knees aggressively as she stands. "Move over, minstrel; I'll show you how to tell a real scary story."

Cantio looks at her from where he's standing and takes a deep breath to calm himself. He smiles spitefully, gesturing for her to take his place. "Of course." he agrees as he steps back from the fire to make room for her. "Go right ahead."

As he moves around the fireplace to take the woman's spot on the log, an oil lamp swings from the belt on his hips; the flame inside glows a ghastly blue, flickering as he passes the mercenaries by. He hadn't been able to get into that part of the story, but something had followed the man back from the Kingswood... but, perhaps that was a story for another day.

Truth was, his whole story and experience was only a part of the truth; for something more had happened in that home once he had fled from that old house. Something more lingered than the little fragment that had left with him; and not all was exactly as it had seemed...

As Cantio had fled the building, the mischievous little Fairy that had caused all the man's lay invisible in the shadows, all sound and sight of him erased by his magics. He was rolling on the ground laughing, his hands on his stomach, it hurt from how hard he was cackling at the Tiefling's departure. They had run from the house screaming, slamming into each door before fumbling with the knob and opening them. They hadn't even been locked.

There was a strange occurrence with the lantern that the Fairy didn't remember doing, but otherwise they'd simply used their magics to cause all the man's woes once they had entered the building. Playing the piano, slamming the doors, even conjuring a doorway in the floor beneath the rug while the man coughed up dust. It had been so fun. They'd been a bit worried that they'd been exposed when that lightning suddenly lit the room and dispelled their ability to hide in the darkness, but the Tiefling man had just been even more frightened by seeing the Fairy.

He continued to laugh until he heard floorboards creak nearby. Had the man come back? He looked in the direction of the sound and froze as he saw an enormous figure that seemed to fill the whole room. It looked like it was entirely made of blue flames contained within a black robe that looked like a hole of pure darkness in the air. It had a snout like a goat's with matching ears and a pair of burning deer's antlers. It had deep red eyes that, despite the shadows that should have been hiding all trace of him, were looking directly at the Fairy.

If anyone else had been near the house, they would have seen a strange sight. First, a red Tiefling man running, screaming, from the front door. Then, the window next to the front door's shutters opening and the glass shattering as if something invisible had been thrown out through it. And finally, the house was slowly engulfed in bright blue flames before completely vanishing with no trace of ever having been there at all.