Night of the Living Dead (Umbralume)

**Kodos** · 01-11-2012, 08:57 PM

The trip to burnside manor was fortunately uneventful by Umbralume standards - only a few dozen Zombies, Wolves, and Zombie Wolves to fight or evade on the way over, and most of the Zombies in the town were easily avoided. The trip took two days, both nights of which some of the group may have been able to hear the otherwise fierce Drider woman softly crying in her sleep.

***

The mansion itself was thankfully gated and somewhat away from the rest of the town. With the gates closed behind them and the distance between the mansion and the town proper, it would probably be many hours, if not a day or two, before the zombies outside the gates managed to stumble their way inside, thankfully. Granted, it was probable there were already zombies within the mansion and ground, and given the late Lord Burnside's hobbies, quite probable the interior of the mansion might have other, nastier, things waiting.

The mansion itself was a fancy, two story, affair and largely intact - there were no obvious broken windows or walls and other than general neglect, no signs to show that the mansion, like the town, had recently suffered a zombie apocalypse.

The apparent points of ingress for the group were the large double doors in front, which may or may not have been locked or barred from within, and a few large windows for dynamic entry.

**Regantor** · 01-15-2012, 12:52 AM

Mishkala approached the double doors quite hastily, lithe body swift and low to the ground. She had barely said anything to the group during the journey, mostly just giving them ambivilent looks. Now that it was actually time for some action, she wasn't going to be content with wasting the slightest second.

Her clawed arm pressed heavily against the thick doors, giving them a decent ammount of pressure, but also doing her best not to set anything off. They were locked anyway, probally barricaded from the inside.

"We should-..." She gave them a weird look for a second, glancing at their stumbling little humanoid legs, then sighing heavily. "...I'm going to see if I can get inside on the second floor, then I'll come back and see if I can unlock this from within." There was no time wasted indeed. Not leaving them the smallest space to object, the drider just went right up the side of the stonework, spindily legs hooking effortlessly into the gaps between each eroded brick. "Please try and keep the noise down, this is not one of your sloppy little human inns..."

Rapidly approaching the second story, she just sought out the closest window she'd be able to actually fit through, then gave the handles a hefty nudge.

{Edit break}

The small window directly above the door was practically opaque with dirt, but Mishkala could at least just about make out the floor below, her blood red irises cutting through the resounding darkness clear as day. It didn't look like it was supposed to open, either, but none of the other windows ran directly into the main promonade beyond...

Slowly, carefully, she dug her unholy arm through the glass, seeking to make as little noise as possible. Several dull crunches followed by a few stray clattering fragments. Nothing too bad. Now, the window itself, which Mishkala had to painfully twist her way through in order to get all of her legs inside, along with that momentous ass...

It was pure silence within. Furniture was huriedly stacked up against the doorway, but all signs of a struggle were long since gone. Now, all that remained was the small dunes of dust piling in the corners, and enough cobwebs knited around that the gloomy alcoves that it looked more than a little like a hanging fog.

Wasting no time, Mishkala just began to haul the furniture out of the way, one eye perminantly remaining on the supposedly empty doorway behind her.

Nothing game. Three or four minutes later, she briskly opened the door and ushered the others inside.

"Well, you three look like you're having fun..."

**Evil_Cake** · 01-18-2012, 09:07 PM

Titian didn't want to be the first to enter the house with Mishkala. There could still be some unsprung booby traps... "Uh! After you, ma'ams.." He bowed at Lucy and Lucia, while waving his arms towards the door.

**Delphinus** · 01-19-2012, 10:47 AM

Really, Titian? Are you so lacking in masculinity that you'd send us in ahead of you? I thought you would show a little more gumption in such a situation.

Lucy hobbled in after Mishkala, pulling her cloak tighter around her to stave off the biting cold. The manor was at least dry, and even homely if you were accustomed to decaying aristocratic homes.

**Evil_Cake** · 01-19-2012, 03:58 PM

As Lucy entered the building, Titian realized something terrible. What if there are a bunch of monsters out here, waiting for all of us but one to go inside? He spun and jumped towards the door, smacking Lucia with his backpack in the process.

**Superdooperphailmachine** · 01-19-2012, 06:31 PM

Lucia headed in with the rest of the gang keeping her distance from the monster with a spider ass.

**Regantor** · 01-20-2012, 08:19 PM

Mishkala took a moment to examine the inner doors.

SPOILER! :

"...Don't think there is anything perticularly deadly on the other side... Should be safe... for, erm?..."

She looked at each of her fellows in turn now, making her thought process pretty blantly obvious. ...Lucy?... Too damn sickly... Titian?... I don't even know who the hell he belongs to. Do they really let their males run around like that?...

"Lucia. Can you be a darling and take point, please? I know I look fearsome and all that, but..." The drider actually looked a little flustered, but if that was just acting or not was anyone's guess. "...I'm not exactly... what I was..."

**Superdooperphailmachine** · 01-25-2012, 05:27 PM

"If you insist on being spineless"
Lucia drew her mace and opened the doors

**Kodos** · 01-25-2012, 06:35 PM

Fortunately for Lucia, Mishkala's assessment was right and the door was not trapped.

The main hall was once quite grand, clearly, although the years of disuse had not been kind to the dust and web caked chamber. There were no horrors to be had here, although the group could hear the faint moaning and shuffling of zombies elsewhere in the manor.

There were two doors, one to the left of the group, and one in front of them. A staircase led up to an indoor balcony of sorts and several more rooms.

The arrow is the staircase going up. The black bits are wall. The thicker lines are doors - in case it's not clear there's one door to the left and one up in the north. The room to the south is where you came from.