The true master of the manor draws near! What will the party do?
This chapter isn't quite as tickle-heavy as the previous ones, sadly - Turindal doesn't even get tickled at all here, I know! - because I had such a good plot going with this commission and wanted to make sure it was solid on its own, but don't worry! I can assure you that the final chapter is going to make up for it and then some. I've also slipped in a little surprise at the very end of this entire story that's already been written a bit in advance, so look forward to that and the rest of the finale tomorrow evening as soon as I'm online!
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A Haunt of a Jaunt
by Skaea
Contains: */M+, M/M, and *M/M tickling and a lot of sexual foreplay and other naughty things. NSFW.
Word count for this chapter: 5,069
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PART 4: DENOUEMENT
The Ballroom
The party was now on an upper balcony overlooking the grand, once-elegant ballroom, one of the mansion’s centerpieces. The tiling that had adorned the floor was faded but still mostly intact, but the same couldn’t be said of the wall decor, with almost all the wallpaper having peeled off to leave exposed wood. A great chandelier illuminated the room, suspended from the ceiling, glowing crystals in place of candles; the gems notably had only a dim glow as opposed to the brilliant radiance they would have had during the manor’s prime. On the other side of the room was a wooden stage for a full orchestra, now decrepit with just a few tarnished instruments lying around at random.
The corridor the boys had just exited had been the only way out of this room from the balcony. But now it was blocked by the twisted creature before them, its noodly body curling and twisting this way and that as it shuffled towards them with a murderous look on its face.
D̴̢̰̲̈̈́̈́͋̈́Ŗ̸͉̘̼̽́̈́R̶̺͖̱̗̕…̵̡̟̅ͅ ̶̻̳͖̀̍́̅D̷̢̓̈̀͠R̸͉̺̠͉͊̉R̵̡͚̳̹͓̈́̿…̸̤̞̑͛̅ ̴͓̻̗͒Ď̷̡̳͖̥̦̇̈Ŗ̷͉͚͍͖̋̆R̶̢̰̗͙̃…̷̨̡̒̅͂̀ ̸̗̇
The droning sound was now almost deafening, and now all three adventurers could almost feel their skulls rattling from its timbre.
Mewling in fear like a newborn kitten, Turindal slid behind his shorter dwarven compatriot, hunkering down and trying not to be noticed.
“Oh shit,” said Fanindra, his voice rising in pitch by the second. “Thirteen… 21, 34… SHIT! It’s a rank 55 bogeyman rogue! We’re fucked, we’re so fucking fucked!”
Morp shrank back slightly, the very word bogeyman making him considerably more apprehensive. “Dudes, what about running, grinding outside, come back?!”
“No time! We can’t escape the house until we deal with this thing! Turindal, what do we—”
“S-save meeee!” the elf whined in pure terror, cowering behind Fanindra who could only glare at him indignantly.
Turning his attention back to the spiral-armed bogeyman, Fanindra tried to analyze their foe for any potential weaknesses, only to glance first at its unkempt but familiar-looking hair and then at the large furry feet on the ends of its legs. Then he noticed the outfit it was still wearing, or what was left of it anyway. “W-wait a second,” he said, a sudden realization leaving him momentarily stupefied. “Is that Pinkerton?”
“Yeah, he stretched out like rubber right in front of me!” Turindal replied in a small voice. “M-my bad, guys — I might have told him that we were trying to save Ravaxidor. Seems like our creepy friend here’s not too fond of him!”
The gang continued backing up towards the door leading to the ballroom. “H-halfings turn to bogeymen? H-how?!” Morp asked in shock and confusion.
“Bogeymen are a specific variety of halfling,” Fanindra stammered, desperately trying to think of a suitable spell to repel the advancing monstrosity. “If halflings tell enough scary stories about a particular creepy character, like the kind made up to scare kids into obedience, that character becomes real like they do — and if these stories are about how a halfling from their cast who went away changed into something scary, guess what happens to that halfling?!”
Morp connected the dots in an instant. “So Pinky missing long enough to go ghost?! What did Kitty Bro’s big boss do?!” he asked in horror.
“Oh, I dunno, abandoned him to this mansion or something?” Turindal replied in anger and fear. “Spread ugly rumors afterward? Fuck, what did Pinkerton ever do to him, anyhow?!”
The bogeyman let out a wordless howl of outrage, and every floor, wall, and ceiling in the mansion rattled dangerously. Pinkerton’s speed picked up, barreling through the hallway towards the group, and Turindal screamed like a little girl and ran for his life.
Fanindra was about to yell at him for abandoning the group like a coward when Pinkerton’s arms both lashed out like living whipcord, delivering two swift, focused jabs at the other two with enough force to send them flying. They sailed into the space above the ballroom floor, the dwarf screaming as he plummeted towards his doom, the orc instinctively swinging his legs towards the chandelier and catching his feet on two of its arms so he was now hanging upside-down from the elaborate metal decoration.
The dwarf was fully prepared to be shattered to bits on the floor until something seized him by the legs, stopping him with his face a mere inch from the faded tiling. He twisted his head up and screamed — for Pinkerton had somehow appeared in the ballroom just in time to grab his ankles and hold him suspended.
“Sycophant of the Blood Drake!” the bogeyman snarled in his terrible double-timbre, glaring down at him and revealing that his left eye was now blazing, bulging, and surrounded by a spiraling black marking that took up a third of his face. “You dare sully these grounds with the presence of one who blindly follows the heartless one’s orders? It is the fault of your kin that we have been trapped here! Let’s see how YOU like it!”
