One benefit of a day off is that I found the stable door in the east wall, mostly overgrown by brush. We cleared it away and had another access point. Before we can open the door we hear what sounds like a fight coming from within, along with the screams of horses. We charge in to find a unicorn and a nightmare locked in combat. We were used to things being not what they seemed in the manor, so we watched for a few moments. Then, however, Qual, Ev, and Alaindra began to change. They grew and their bodies elongated, and before two seconds had passed all three of them had become unicorns. Sorel and I just stand there stupidly and watch as the four unicorns proceed to completely gore the nightmare to death. Its body instantly burned to ash a second after its chest stopped heaving. Gradually, the drawrf and the two amazons morphed back into their usual forms, but the girls were in completely different armor. Now they wore golden plate that was perfectly molded to their bodies (down to their immense bosoms). Atop their shining helms was a unicorn horn on each. Turns out that because they were virgins (ha!) they were rewarded by the gift of lycanthropy, only now they were were-unicorns. They seemed pretty pleased with this. Aleandra whispered something in Ev’s ear and they both started grinning wickedly. I don’t want to think about it. Qual was pretty bummed about things by this point. From his point of view, if he’s going to get changed into a horse, he should at least get something cool out of it. I told him to be patient. He’s going to wind up a bimbo sooner or later. He laughed, but he looked a little worried, too.
Ev and Aleandra seemed to think it was great fun “playing unicorn” with each other. One would transform and give the other a ride, and then later they would switch. Since one wound up carrying both bow and poleaxe, it was growing increasingly difficult to tell them apart. I mean, if I were turned into an exact copy of someone, I would do whatever it took to keep my individual identity—tattoos, a haircut, new clothes, whatever. But Aleandra has been training with a bow and Ev has been sparring with the poleaxe. They always dress alike. It’s as if they want to forge a single identity between them. On the plus side, they seem to have an almost psychic link in battle, and the two of them are far more lethal together than they would be separately. On the down side, Ev has started to cop Aleandra’s belligerent attitude towards anything with a penis. And those are increasingly hard to find in our party, so I take the brunt of it.
Our path took us north through the carriage house, where a ghostly procession stormed past us. These apparitions are horrible for my nerves. I get all ready for a fight, only to have the threat disappear. It’s almost as if the house is mocking us.
We found some stairs going up. We seemed to think it was important to clear the upper levels before everything else, so we decided to explore above. We entered a dining room that had a mummy in the middle of cooking something in a pot. He ignored us for a while while he finished his stew. Then he tried to drink it. That’s when we decided to attack (see what I mean about this place getting to you? It’s next to impossible to know when an encounter is dangerous and when it’s just a bizarre event). Ev and I took a beating, but we avoided contracting mummy rot, so I score it a victory.
The next room had one of those freaky apparitions, a ghostly woman who accused us of killing her son. Nothing lootworthy. The next room, though, was some kind of prison where a half-man, half-bear was chained to the wall, dying before our eyes. Suddenly the chains in the room sprang to life (and there were a lot of chains in the room. They were too slow to grab the Amazons, Sorel, or me, but they grabbed Qual and lashed him to the wall. The chains put a bear-shaped helmet on his head. We cut him down before they could do further damage, or so we thought. Qual took of the helm and smashed it to bits. It should have occurred to us at the time that this was an unusual display of temper for the Dwarf.
We found stairs going up, but it was immediately apparent that a secret door concealed half the level from our sight. Even without Ev’s elven eyes, we found it without too much trouble. There was a library, full of magical books. Sorel, to her credit, did not rush inside. There was a stuffed sabre-toothed tiger in the room which *surprise!* came to life just as we decided to hack it to pieces in order to prevent it from coming to life. As usual, it was a straight up fight, and that brought out the best in us. We all knew our roles and set to work…and then Qual turned into a bear. In a way, I guess he got his wish to turn into something cool. But unlike the girls, who seemed to keep control of their wits when they became unicorns, Qual just went completely berserk when he transformed. He ripped the tiger apart (after I had already done a lot of damage, mind you). Then he turned on me and nearly mauled me to death before we could calm him down again. We were both freaked out by that little episode. Qual wanted to rid himself of that curse, while I saw certain advantages in his condition, if only he could control it.
Beyond the library lay an artist’s studio, a room I wish I had never visited. There was a huge lump of clay, roughly human sized and shaped but without features on one side of the room, while on the other, a skeleton appeared to be painting a portrait of it. It threw a canvas over its work before we could see it. Naturally we tried to smash the skeleton, but it kept reforming and trying to shoo us out. I took the canvas off the painting, and the skeleton crumbled to dust.
That’s when things got weird. The clay thing animated and picked up the palette and brushes and gave them to me. Then it blocked the door until I started to paint. I was at a loss as to what to do, until I saw Sorel. The light coming through the window made Sorel look sexy and angelic at the same time. Inspired, I started to sketch her form. Somehow, the brush knew what to do. I’m no artist, but each stroke of the brush made the painting into an exact likeness of Sorel, almost as if I were looking at a reflection of her in the mirror. She seemed happy to pose for me, but the others were on guard in case any threat should materialize. Then, in less than ten minutes, I was done. No painter had ever captured such loveliness with such precision. I turned the portrait around so that Sorel could see it, and that’s when the clay thing changed until it became an exact duplicate of Sorel, wings and all.
Well, Qual wants to cut it in half right off the bat. It panics and runs behind me, seeking protection. That’s when Sorel gets pissed off and wants to kill it also. But it doesn’t do anything to threaten us. Instead, it seems perfectly happy to follow me around, smiling at me with Sorel’s angelic face if I so much as look at her. So, over the objections of Qual and Sorel, we decide to allow her to tag along. After all, we decide, she might be important later. And the Second Sorel seemed perfectly content to carry things for us, though she apparently knew none of Sorel’s magic and she seemed incapable of speech.
Aleandra said something like “Well, Quinn, at least you have a Sorel who will play with you now.” Sorel got unbelievably pissed at that, and from where I sat, it was a pretty rude thing to say, and I said so. We decided to call the fake Sorel something else and cut her hair, to keep them distinct. So fake Sorel became “Golem,” and it was a shame to lose that sexy long blonde hair, but I figure it was for the best.
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