Haunting (Open)

Participants: June Moone / Open
Open/Closed: Open
Location(s): An old, remote manor, found in a largely uninhabited forest.
Time of Day: Late evening
Weather: Chill, though the house itself is unseasonably warm.
Summary: The Justice League Dark have sensed the presence of dark forces coalescing about an abandoned manor and agents have been sent to investigate. Feel free to throw anyone into the thread, JLD or otherwise.

The candles in the hallway flickered, their light fast waning. Long shadows cast by their dying glow distorted and merged, twisting and morphing as she passed along the narrow walkway. Wooden floorboards creaked underfoot, as if the house itself were groaning in pain. The air was chill, yet somehow close – a suffocating cold that caused her breath to escape her body as pale and formless phantoms. There was once a time that such surroundings might have inspired a paralysing fear in June Moone, but that time was long past. She had been forcibly imbued with true darkness, and this simply could not compare.

She paused toward the end of the corridor, tilting her head slightly, dyed red hair falling over one shoulder. Then, she waited – allowing the ambient tendrils of magic that ran through the house to tug at her, appealing to the entity that lay trapped within her, guiding her steps. She swayed on the spot for a moment, before continuing on, taking a stairwell to the left, ascending toward the attic, rather than continuing forward to the bedrooms.

With each step she took toward the room located at the top of the house, the stronger the pull she felt in her gut. With each step, the mould and mildew scented air tasted more like brimstone, and all she could hear was an incessant scratching, like the scurrying of rats against wood – hallmarks of dark magic, foreboding sorcery meant to keep those that wished to pry into the strange happenings in the manor at bay.

It was a good effort, but it was not enough. June, and the others that operated under the 'Dark' branch of the Justice League, would not be perturbed by warding hexes and curses.

Finally, June reached a large, oak door. Painted white, it had been splashed with clumsy sigils – eldritch warnings that acted as a barrier, a way of sealing off the space beyond. Those that tried to open the door would experience rather unpleasant consequences, and a worst, a painful end. However, the power within the symbols was not enough to rival hers – or rather, that of the Enchantress.

Taking a deep breath to steady herself, more nervous uttering one word than traversing a cursed residence, June spoke little louder than a breathy whisper, as if telling someone an intimate secret.
“Enchantress...”
About her form, a dark miasma extended, a thick fog that quickly filled the landing and stairwell. For a few moments, the area was totally obscured by a rolling mist, before, almost as quickly as it had formed, the aura faded.

Clad in emerald robes, the Enchantress occupied the space formerly June's. Though similar in some ways, the sorceress' hair was darker, her skin paler, and Moone's kind eyes were replaced with those of a malevolent predator. Cat-like and glowing, exuding a jade glow, they served as a reminder that June's body was not just her own, that she also bore host to a succubus of the Nightshade realm – the Enchantress.

However, the glow was quick to fade, the young parapsychologist suppressing the dark urges of the succubus, enforcing her will upon their bound entities and taking control of the vast power the Enchantress commanded. Extending her hand, the witch made a sweeping motion, and the sigils ahead of her vanished – catching fire and burning with iridescent flames.

Then, stepping forward, her cloak sweeping the floor behind her, Enchantress entered the attic, ready to confront whatever darkness lay beyond.

Gnarled trees screamed in the wind, howling darkness crept across the land, and shadows danced in the night. Something strange was going on... When there’s a chill in the air, dread in the basement, and strange noises in the night... Who really is there to call? Something was going bump in the night, and whatever it was? Doctor Destiny wanted it. Dark magic called to his Materioptikon, like a moth to an open flame. It whispered to him. Told him where to go. The hand of fate beckoning Doctor Destiny in. He braved the open wilderness and hiked unfathomable peaks, fearless of whatever horror lies ahead. Dare I say? He ain’t afraid of no ghost.

Lush and verdant but dead grass danced through John’s shredded toes. Thin bare feet with a sickly green hue felt the tickling dance of grass follicles rub against dry chapped foot soles. Both feet were bandaged up at the center, but left exposed heels and toes. Most of his feet were riddled in cuts scrapes and festering yellow scabs. His toenails were grimy and black, and longer than they ought to be. And one foot had a heel so ripped up that the Achilles’ tendon and bits of yellow bone were exposed to the elements. Wind billowed through a dark blue cloak behind him, exposing the tattered black and white stripes of an Arkham Asylum jumpsuit, inmate A10232 and an ugly medallion with a massive red ruby at the center. The ruby shimmered and gleamed red through jagged uncut angles and whispered sweet nothings into his head.

A leering dilapidated mansion towered overhead, rickety deadwood glaring omnipotently down upon him. Hideous fanged gargoyles and shattered windows snarling at him to stay way. But he persisted. Some horrific writhing force calling for the creature to push forwards. Mangled bare feet marched ahead with dauntless determination. To the gravelly garden of dead bushes with branches which sprawled out like tendrils. He stepped into it, the gravel biting against the pads of his feet like tiny shards of glass. His own face glinted back to him in the reflection of a window. A fanged skeleton leering in, it was a hideous decomposing skull. Ropes of dead flesh dancing across his face and peeling off in the wind. A flap of lower lip drooped loosely tethered only by two fleshy strands of muscle tissue, exposing rotting black gums and skeleton teeth with a vile horrific grin. His nose had all but withered away, leaving only two vacuous black nostrils at the center of the barely fleshy skull. Burnt and peeling skin crawled up to thin straggly black hair, strands of it falling shoulder length and dancing in a brisk gush of wind. His eyes were massive and lidless, bulbous white orbs with glittery red irises, very human eyes inside of a mangled grotesque skull. He pressed a hand to the window’s glass, admiring a figure braving the heights of a stairway, grinning at her. With the magical strum of some otherworldly harp, both of the mansion’s towering double doors creaked open by itself. Destiny’s head slowly turned to the right, as the house itself seemed to beckon him in. Noisy gravel tangoed against his feet as he limped towards it. Wooden steps creaking as he took one, two, three steps to a rickety platform, standing amidst the angled doorframe.

Red eyes ogled the ugly old wood. A pointer finger was extended out, the bone was long and thin, unnaturally thin almost like the thin hair like strand of a harvestman spider’s legs, and then putrid mottled flesh which coiled itself haphazardly around the bone just barely gave the mangled grey digit a bit of girth. The finger limply extended itself out to the grizzled wood, pressing itself lightly against tiny shredded shards of doorframe. The bare print of his index finger pressed firmly against jagged splinters he pushed the finger hard against the surface, rubbing up and down up and down, the noise was like this horrible crinkling of tarp or mettle scratching against a chalkboard. His index finger caressed the side, and he could feel every inch of his print burning painfully as though only that one little oval of his finger had been set on fire with third degree burns shredding through particles of skin. Friction began filing away at his flesh like sandpaper, shredding through skin and thin muscle as his own blood, green and yellow and kind of soapy like pus smeared against the doorframe. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he groaned ”Uuuuungh”

Satisfied with his self harm, the foul little creature stared longingly at the sight of his own mucousy blood smeared across dying wood. Admiring it in a daze like a smitten lover with an indescribable amount of joy caressing his chest and sashaying all across his body. His loving gaze shifted from the smeared wall to his finger, coated in the frothing tar of his own blood his expression shifting to something more akin to apathy. He took his finger and caressed the oily substance against his teeth rubbing it in like toothpaste, he needed to look presentable for the powers which lie ahead after all. He casually crept in, as though he were a sitcom neighbor who’d invaded the home a trillion times prior. The chill autumnal air had dissipated immediately once he’d entered, as though it were insulated with all the proper heating and cooling facilities of a suburban household. His red eyes were cast off into leering darkness which was so warm and inviting. This place certainly had potential. The air felt sickly and pale, like him actually, as though a ghostly leper were constantly heaving a whispy ghoulish miasma around him.

The skeleton’s eyes flickered two beams of light, like twin flashlights beaming out from his skull. They were delighted to mentally undress every iota of detail in the rickety broken structure. Shredded tapestries hung limply over the windows, dismal looking and eaten away by moths and insects. Broken upturned furniture littered the floors, with old antique toys and accessories. A porcelain doll strewn across a tattered rug, and a shattered vase littered the floor. The beam of his eyes trailed up each individual step, then along the walls. He crept forwards, silent as a mouse, climbing up writhing heights. The banister was mostly intact but bits of it had been shredded and fallen to the floor below. Then he looked to the gaudy Victorian wallpaper, his eyes trailing up to an ugly painting of what was perhaps one of many residents here. His eyes caressed the painting up and down, ”Speak, apparition.” Was all he said to it, before continuing his hike. Colorful smog billowed down from above, a chilly haze rustling against his ankles like a loving cat. The light of his eyes glistened two yellow circles into the fog, he followed it up, lurching across the banister as the air sent a monstrous chill trickling down his spine. He could hear the chattering pitter patter of rodent feet and a slight billowing of fire, and then.... The yellow beams of his eyes met the neck of another. Another creature. A few feet away. He tilted his head like a curious child, colorful glitter dancing around his Materioptikon as he only watched.

| June Moone |