[NorthernFallout]

Hum, thought no one wanted to play but since you voted... Might as well pick up what I had. Posting B path, then.

I'm gone next week but might get in some posting between mail checking.

Spoiler for Roadside Manor Part 2B:

She decided after some internal debate to head right, through the door. The light was still there, but she couldn’t hear anything inside as she got close to it. Her heart was thumping in her chest. Why she didn’t exactly know. So silly.

She opened the door and peaked in. Though it was a dead-end, it did have some things in it. It looked like a servant’s room. It had a bed, a table next to it and a desk with a chair. A book lay on it. The rest of the room was spartanic to say the least, empty of anything of note.

She walked up to the desk and studied the book without touching it. ‘Anna’s Diary’ it said on the cover. Shrugging, she sat down on the chair and opened it. If Sir Night wouldn’t even to bother to send a servant to fetch her, she would entertain herself in the meanwhile. She didn’t care if it was unethical. Not now.

August 12th, 20XX.

Sir Night was in a terrible mood today. He threw the porcelain into the wall and yelled at me to clean it up. I don’t why he did it, but I did as I was told. I didn’t want to argue with him. It’s useless when he is in those moods. He kept screaming at me even as I cleaned up. I tried to hold my tears back but... It just didn’t work. He only yelled more when he noticed it. I hate that old bastard. I want to get out of here before he hurts me. Or worse. But I can’t go anywhere. I’m trapped here.

Someone save me from this purgatory.

Two days ago this text had been written. This Anna was probably still here judging from the state of the room. The dust had not yet settled on the window frames and the bed was unmade.

Arisa shut the diary, not bothering to read anymore. She felt ill reading it. She had to get out of the room before it suffocated her more.

As she entered the entrance hall again, she turned to the stairs. There weren’t any other route, so she began to climb it.

The staircase creaked for each step, the old wooden structure almost falling apart from underneath her. It was the only thing she could hear in the mansion, apart from her own pounding heart in her chest.

“Hello?” she yelled out every few seconds. She wanted a sign that someone was in the mansion. Anything, except doors that closed by themselves. That wasn’t normal.

She reached the second floor and beckoned down a hallway. Four closed doors were on the sides, two on each. And from somewhere someone was... crying. A female voice, she could discern that much. But she didn’t know where.

She approached the first door on her left and rattled the handle. It was locked so she tried the one opposite to it. That one was locked too. She had two more to go, but she didn’t know from which the crying was coming from.

The hallway was quite dark she now realized. Though there was a window at the end of it, nothing shone through it. It was the same as in the entrance hall. The sun had just disappeared.

She tried the handle on the door on the left at the end of the hall. It was locked too. Which only left the one opposite to it.

She sneaked towards it, sharpening her senses. The crying was still there. It was soft and calm, not hysterical. A wail of pain. Maybe it was Anna, the servant. Arisa hoped it would be, as any human company right now would be nice. Not that she knew that Anna would be human or not...

A sweat broke out over her back and she gripped the handle. Slowly she pushed the door open.

The hinges groaned and she peered into an empty room. It was beautifully adorned with furniture and paintings. A large bed stood in the middle, with white curtains hanging from wooden poles. But the crying hadn’t stopped. It continued, from somewhere else.

She approached the bed and gently pushed aside the curtains. On the bed there was a box. A black box with gold letters written on the cover. Arisa bent closer and tried to read it. It looked like Latin, a language she never learned.

The box felt evil. It felt dark and menacing. But it might have something useful in it. She didn’t know what, but perhaps a key or something other important.

She pondered what to do.

A: Open the box.
B: Ignore the box and keep searching the room.
C: Ignore the box and return to the hallway.