You look at the house in front of you. It is quite big, so big in fact that calling it a house seems like an understatement. A castle would be more appropriate, but then again the wonky windows, the bare roof and the huge door made of old, dark wood does not seem very castle-like to you.
In fact, you feel intimidated by the structure, but then again it does suit Professor Hellfair.
You step forward towards the door. Now that you are closer to it you start to inspect it. The wood seems to almost fall apart and the hinges are rusted. In the doorway, to your right, is the faded outline of a cross that seems to have been stolen long ago.
There is no doorbell, so you have to bang on the door and hope someone hears you.
You also hope that the door doesn’t disintegrate underneath your fist.

You bang twice. And then you wait.
The doorknob is staring up at you. It has been fashioned into the shape of a human head. An old man with sunken eyes and wrinkles that conceal most of his mouth and chin. He has no hair.
The dead eyes look up at you and you wonder what compelled you to come here.
The letter of Professor Hellfair is still in your hand and you look at it in order to double-check that you truly have to be here.

Dear Jake Mulligan,

I know this letter will seem surprising, seeing as I haven’t contacted you for the last two years, but I must ask you to come to my manor as quickly as possible.

I’m afraid there is some nasty business going down here and I need someone trustworthy to come.
This is URGENT, and I would like you to arrive at the manor on the 12th of November at precisely 7.30 pm.
I know that this is quite abrupt, but I cannot stress enough how important it is that you come.

I shall inform you as to the exact reasons for my calling you when you arrive.
I trust that you will come.

Sincerely

Professor K. Hellfair

Looking at the letter now, you realise that it is mostly curiosity that has swept  you to the lonely marshland that Professor Hellfair lives in. You hope this business doesn’t last too long. The swampy land around you does not feel welcoming and the next proper settlement of civilisation is far away and the carriage that brought you here will only come back next week.
Though you admit some part of you is excited to meet your old professor again. As weird as he was, you can’t deny that he was a very good teacher and in retrospect you did enjoy the few talks you had.

You look at your watch again to make sure you are on time. 7.30 pm exactly.

The door opens with a creek and you nearly fall over as you come face to face with an enormous man.
The man is big, bigger than you thought possible, his stature looming over you. He has a slight hump, which seems to have developed from looking down at people his entire life.
Even with this he is at least a head taller than you, if not more.
His thin black hair has been combed backwards and is now sticking to his skull in long thin strings.
You notice that the dark black creates an unnatural contrast to his white skin.
Together with his black suit, his white gloves and impeccable black leather shoes he seems as though he stepped right out of a black and white picture.

The only distinguishing himself from this, are his surprisingly lively grey eyes which are suspiciously inspecting you from above.

“To whom do we owe this pleasure?”, he asks, every word being cautiously enunciated.
“Jake Mulligan.”, you say, slightly intimated. “I’m here to see Professor Hellfair?”
You hand him the letter, which he accepts using both of his hands.

He first inspects the letter and then eyes you.
“Please come in.”, he finally says and invites you into the manor.

You tentatively follow into the huge building. The entrance hall itself is big enough to fit your apartment in it, but somehow it still feels stuffy.
The place itself seems to have been taken care of quite rigorously and everything shines as though they had been newly bought.
Still, no amount of polish could detract from the age of the furniture. Huge cabinets line the wall, towering over you. They are made from the same old wood as the door.
There are flowers carved into the side in a way that seems eerily real. You can’t help but feel entranced by them.
They look like a kind of orchid, but the stems have thorns that make them look not unlike roses.
You notice a bit of purple paint left on one of the flowers, the rest having been chipped off slowly by ages of cleaning.

“The living room is this way, sir.”, the man tells you and you snap out of your trance.
“They are very beautiful.”, you say, trying to explain your actions.
He nods in response and continues down the room, towards a door at the end.
You notice that his movements are stiff, almost mechanical in their nature.

Weird, you think to yourself.

As you follow him the floor croaks and creaks under your combined footsteps.
Next to the door are two oil paintings.One depicts an angel having been struck by a blood red sword and falling to its doom.
The eyes of the angel stare at you, pleading you to help her.
You slightly shudder.

The other shows a crazy scientist, choking on a purple potion.
The way its drawn make it seem cold, almost calculated, making it the complete opposite to the emotion-filled painting next to it.
Both have a small drawing of a rabbit instead of a signature.

The door leads to a big open room, filled with ancient furniture.
Just like the rest of the house most things are made of an old dark wood. One of the only accents of colour are the masks that have been hung on the wall that are all staring at you.
You have never seen masks like that. They are fashioned out of different materials, ranging from wood to marble to feathers to leather. All are making grotesque expressions, but you are unable to distinguish the emotions they are trying to convey.
It is as though their humanity got lost a long time ago and the only thing left is the shadow of their past self.
“They are from the Professors research.”, the man tells you.

Before you can react, a woman from the middle of the room calls over: “Finally, Roddy! Has the last guest arrived?”
The woman is sitting on a blood-red couch and looking at the butler expectantly, her eyes only glazing over you, before completely focusing on the man beside you, as though you are nothing more than an inconsequential insect.
But that doesn’t stop you from staring at her.

The woman looks stunning, almost angelic. She has blonde, almost white hair, that falls straight unto her shoulders. The dress she is wearing is old-fashioned. Its long and sprinkled with embroidery that looks like cobwebs from the distance.  The colour matches the red of the couch. She sits straight and regal and looks at the man – Roddy, you remember her calling him – with her clear blue eyes. You couldn’t guess her age if you wanted to. Her features look ageless, as though she has already lived for hundreds of years but not aged a day.

“Yes, he is, Lady Maygrove.”, Roddy answers.
“Ah wonderful!”, a man says and stands up from the lonely armchair next to a wall of books.
That is the moment that you notice that there are two more people in the room. The man and a girl who looks around your age.
Your eyes meet and she smiles.
You smile back.

In the meantime, the man has come to you and you get a good look of his face.
The man, probably in his early forties, looks almost average in comparison to Roddy and the woman.
He has brown hair and equally brown eyes, that look at you from beneath big glasses. which he adjusts as he is standing.
His clothing is equally average, as he is sporting a white button-down shirt and some dark blue trousers.

He extends his hand as a welcome and you shake. You notice that he is wearing gloves. A peculiar thing to do inside. “Hello, good sir. I am Professor Vanda, a close friend of Professor Hellfair!”, he tells you.
“Oh- I’m Jake Mulligan, a former student of the Professor. Nice to meet you.”
His eyes lighten up. “Ah a student! Pray tell, in what field did Professor Hellfair teach you in?”

You should have expected such a question, but it startles you anyway. “Oh, it was an elective I took. It was called Practical Alchemy, we mostly dealt with how ancient practices of alchemy impacted our modern view of science.”, you answer.
Vanda laughs. “Such a subject does sound a lot like my dear friend! Always interested in the mystical side of things. I always preferred to err on the more… well scientific part of things.”, he tells you.
You don’t really know how to answer that statement, though the professor doesn’t seem to require one. “Since you’re his student, I suppose you saw him recently at your university. Say where do you study- ”
“Actually, I haven’t.”, you interrupt him. “I took the class two years ago and I haven’t seen him since.”
You look around the room again. One specific thing had struck you as odd when you had entered the room.
The people here – excluding Roddy, of course – seem to be guests like you, but where is the host?

What you said seems to have made an effect on the others, as they have perked up and are now looking at you curiously. “So you haven’t seen him either?”, the girl asks.
“Either?”, you ask.
“None of us have seen him. Not even since we arrived. We were hoping you had some answers.”, professor Vanda explains.
“I’m sorry, what?”, you ask, absolutely astonished.
“Yes, I’ve been here for three days, but I never saw him.”, the girl says.
“But then… Why would he call me here? I came because of this letter he sent me…” You start to take the letter out of your pocket, but Lady Maygrove stops you.
“Don’t bother. We all got them.”

She stands up and walks over to a small table on the side of the room. Another huge painting is hung above. It depicts the last moments of a silver knights before his head is going to be cut off. The knights expression is hidden by his helmet, but somehow you are sure it is melancholic. A banner at the bottom says proditor-salvator.
Translated from latin, the words mean traitor-saviour. A curious and downright morbid painting to hang in ones living room. It too, has the mark of the rabbit on it.

Lady Maygrove holds up a letter that was on the small table. “The only thing our ‘host’ left us. A letter with instructions.” The disdain in her voice when she says host is abundantly clear.
“What does it say?”, you can’t help but ask.

“The letter details the arrival of our dear guests and which rooms I should prepare for you.”, Roddy says.
“Uh- Thank you.”, you say.
“This man has asked us to spend our precious time to come here and the only sign he gives is a letter of instructions to his butler. How very rude, wouldn’t you agree, boy?”, Lady Maygrove says to you.
You can only nod. “I think it to be more mysterious than rude, miss.”, Professor Vanda chimes in. “Personally, I do enjoy a good mystery here and there.”
“Umm.. what do you think of this?”, you ask the girl.
She seems startled that you asked her. “Oh, personally, I’m just baffled.”

An award silence falls into the room, and you stand uncomfortably in its middle. Thankfully, Roddy breaks the silence and asks you and the other guests to make your way to the dining room.

The dining room is through two doors with embedded stained glass windows, detailing a strange pattern which reminds you of a landscape, but impossible to describe.
The room itself is as grand and strange as the rest of the building. The dining table, big enough to comfortably fit ten people, is in the middle of the room. The walls are lined with half filled bookcases of different styles. To the left of the room is a small corridor, which Roddy disappears into. You guess that it leads to the kitchen.
Lady Maygrove, shamelessly makes her way to the top of the table and sits down with an arrogance and a sense of belonging, that make her seem rude and obviously right at the same time. Since there seems to be no given seating order, Professor Vanda takes the liberty to seat himself to her right and the girl to her left.

You decide to sit next to the girl



You decide to sit next to Professor Vanda