Betrayal / Game003

GAMES :: BETRAYAL GAME 3

  1. Missy Dubourde
  2. Peter Akimoto
  3. Professor Longfellow
  4. Ox Bellows
  5. Heather Granville
  1. Ring (Heather)
  2. Crystal Ball (Ox)
  3. Mask (Heather)
  4. Skull (Ox)

This day just couldn't get much worse. It had started out as a simple field trip, Heather and her boyfriend Ox taking their Little Sister and Little Brother Missy and Peter out, with Heather's uncle Professor Longfellow along as chaperone/supervisor. But the only town they'd seen with gas had the prices jacked up so high they'd decided to push on to the next town, only they'd run out of gas before finding one. And of course there wasn't any cell signal. Low on the horizon they had just barely been able to see an old stone house, and they made their way to it. After crossing a bridge over a dry creekbed, they finally got close enough to make out some details, and it didn't look good. The windows were all dark and dusty, and a door at the top of the tower (A tower? Really? Who puts towers on houses anymore??) banged back and forth in the wind. But there was no other building in sight, so their best chance of getting out of here was to look for a working phone inside...

    • Missy boldly reaches forward and tries the doorknob, and is surprised when it turns easily and the door glides open with a gentle push. She looks back at Heather with a mischievous grin and skips forward into the dark house. "Hello! Anybody home?", she calls out. There is no answer that she can hear as she arrives at the bottom of a massive set of stairs leading up into the darkness. Not feeling quite brave enough to go up there alone, she turns to her left and walks through the open doorway there. She feels something crunch under her shoe, then a swarm of buzzing insects rises up around her, battering against her skin and getting caught in her hair and clothes. She frantically jumps and flails about, trying to swat them all off of her. After a few seconds that seems like hours, they're all gone, leaving Missy standing alone in the middle of the room panting heavily.
      • Room :: Patio
      • Event :: Creepy Crawlies: [Sanity 3]=2 -> -1 Sanity
    • Peter immediately runs into the house after Missy and darts off in a different direction. The kids had been bored for far too long, and this was their chance to stretch their legs and cause a little trouble. The room he ducks into is a large one, with a hard tile floor and a few pieces of dusty old furniture scattered around. It doesn't look like much to his young eyes. He freezes as he feels something land on his shoulder and start to crawl around. He carefully moves his eyes as far to the right as he can, and can just barely make out a large spider there. Cool! he thinks to himself. He tries to hold as still has he can, so he doesn't scare it.
      • Room :: Ballroom
      • Event :: Spider; [Sanity 4]=4 -> +1 Sanity;
    • "Guan jus' bugger aff wid ye!" the Professor shouts as the children disappear around the corners, his words echoing throughout the old house. Frustrated, he turns his attention to his niece and her boyfriend. "Haud ma haund grannie, the band's cummin! What have I told ye two about holding hands in public. Get yer mitts aff her, ye big Ox!" the Professor says, quickly pulling the two hands apart. Regaining his composure, he places his hands on Heather's shoulders. "A'm gonna leuk upstairs. If ye wanna follow, gae straecht and than reit," the Professor says. After giving his niece a hug and a peck on the cheek, Professor Longfellow disappears up the large creaky staircase. At the top of the stairs he turns left and disappears through a doorway. A long Creaky Hallway lies before him, with another hallway cutting across it, giving the Professor 3 possible exits to choose from.
      • Room :: Creaky Hallway
    • Ox gives Heather a resigned grin as her uncle forces them apart. Shrugging his shoulders as the old man wanders off, he gives her his trademark phrase, "Me Ox," and strolls through the door next to him. Shining his light around, he sees a room full of shelves full of books. He picks a volume of Voltaire and starts to leaf through it, but pauses, gives a glance back toward the doorway where the others are, picks up a comic book to hide it in before he resumes his light reading. The only thing interrupting him is a steady drip drip drip of water falling into a metal bucket.
      • Room :: Library; Ox gains +1 Knowledge
      • Event :: Drip Drip Drip; Each explorer rolls 1 fewer die (min of 1) on all trait rolls in this room.
    • Heather smiles at Ox as he walks away, then rolls her eyes. He's cute and all, but, really, "Me Ox"? Didn't he ever get tired of that? Sighing, she walks down the hallway in the same direction as her uncle. She goes up the stairs after him, then right, as he said. It's dark up here, so she can't quite see clearly where she's walking. Suddenly, when she takes a step forward, there's nothing under her foot. She cries out as she falls heavily forward into empty space. Grabbing frantically at the loose and weak floorboards in front of her, she can't quite keep her grip and falls into darkness. ... She groans as she wakes up, covered in dirt and dust. There's no way to tell how long she was out for, but this sure isn't the room she walked in to. This room is piled high and deep with all sorts of junk. Rugs on tables on chairs, with boxes and bags and knick knacks shoved into the gaps. Slowly she levers herself upright onto her feet, limping heavily from the damage she took to her leg in the fall. During her fumbling with the furniture to stand upright, she uncovers a shining brass-like ring under a cloth. After she gets herself standing, she picks it up to look at it. It looks like there's some writing on the inside... "Tämän renkaan kanssa te voitte iskeä vihollisianne, mielet." Whatever, it's a nice looking ring.
      • Room :: Collapsed Room; [Speed 4]=4; Failure, falls into a basement room, takes 1 die of Physical damage; [Dmg 1]=2; (-1 Speed, -1 Might)
      • Room :: Junk Room; When exiting, you must attempt a Might roll of 3+. If you fail, lose 1 Speed (but continue moving).
      • Omen :: Ring; If you attack an opponent that has a Sanity trait, you can attack with Sanity instead of Might. (Your opponent then defends with Sanity, and damage is mental instead of physical.)
      • Haunt :: [Haunt 6]=2; Haunt does not begin;
    • Missy practically runs out of the room away from the flying bugs. When she finally stops, she sees she's wound up in a room full of old, dead and very overgrown plants. One whole wall of the room is made up of glass panes. A couple of them are broken, she sees, but nothing big enough for her to slip through. The plants are actually kind of relaxing after her panic attack with the bugs. As she wanders about the room, she sees something metal half hidden behind a dead plant. It looks like a small door, with a dial on it. It's a safe! Missy tries pulling on the handle, but it seems stuck. A few jiggles though, and it pops right open. Inside are only two things: an axe, and a bell. The bell has a nice clear tone to it, and, as she proves on some of the surrounding plants, the axe has a wicked sharp edge.
      • Room :: Conservatory
      • Event :: Locked Safe; [Knowledge 4]=5 -> Success. Get two Item cards and discard the Safe icon.
      • Item :: Axe; Roll 1 additional die (max 8) when making a Might attack with this weapon. You can't use another weapon while you're using this one.
      • Item :: Bell; Gain 1 Sanity now. Lose 1 Sanity if you lose the Bell. Once during your turn after the Haunt is revealed, you can attempt a Sanity roll to use the Bell: 5+ Move any number of unimpeded Heroes 1 space closer to you. 0-4: The traitor can more any number of monsters 1 space closer to you.
    • Peter gently slides the spider off onto the floor and lets it go. He steps over it and out the next door, which leads into a long corridor. All along both walls are lines statues and heads and stuff. Some of them are white stone, some are metal, and that one over there looks like a real woman in an old-time dress, Civil War or something. Peter nearly jumps out of his skin when she raises her arm and beckons him forward. Almost against his will he stumbles forward a couple of steps, before he realizes what's happening. He gives a long shudder and when he opens his eyes again, the woman is gone.
      • Room :: Statuary Corridor
      • Event :: The Lost One; [Knowledge 4]=5-> Gain +1 Knowledge;
    • Hearing the sound of snapping wood, screaming, and boards crashing in a heap, Professor Longfellow rushes to the Upper Landing and peers through the doorway into the Collapsed Room. "Heather! Hou ar ye?" the Professor shouts, coughing and gasping for air as the rising cloud of dust and debris nearly chokes him. "It's gaein be awricht ance the pain has gana awa!" The Professor quickly races down the staircase, almost stumbling down the last few steps into the Foyer. "Doon the pits!" he shouts, looking around for one of the others. "Ox, Peter, Missy! Anyone! Heather has fallen through a hole in the floor! Ah dinnae ken where she went!" He bolts through the door into the Ballroom frantically searching for a way to get to his niece.
    • Ox hears the Professor yelling his gibberish and walks into the next room to see what's going on. The Professor is standing in the middle of the room wheezing. "Heather... *gasp* ... thar ... *gasp*" and points through a doorway. Ox moves quickly through the doorway to see what's gotten the Professor so worked up. The room he walks into is a large empty room, with not much to distract from the large open spaces. There's a small table with a Crystal Ball on it that looks interesting. Ox idly picks up the ball as he walks by and juggles it around in his large hand.
      • Room :: Abandoned Room
      • Omen :: Crystal Ball; Once during your turn after the Haunt is revealed, you can attempt a Knowledge roll to peer into the Crystal Ball: 4+: Search the Item or Event stack for a card of your choice and place it on top of the stack; 1-3: Lose 1 Sanity; 0: Lose 2 Sanity;
      • [Haunt 6]=4; Haunt doesn't begin;
    • Heather climbs over a pile of junk toward one of the doors. There's a brief moment of worry when her shirt snags on an edge and threatens to pull a pile down on top of her, but she manages to disentangle herself safely. The next room is an old Kitchen. None of the appliances seem to be on, and the fridge is empty. In one of the drawers she finds a domino mask made of black silk. A single ribbon of black silk comes off each side to tie behind the head. Heather holds it up to admire it in the light. It's really quite exquisitely made. And it folds up and fits in her pocket quite nicely too.
      • [Might 3]=3 -> No damage leaving Junk Room;
      • Room :: Kitchen;
      • Omen :: Mask; On your turn, you may make a Sanity roll of 4+ to use the Mask. Put Mask On: +2 Knowledge; -2 Sanity; Take Mask Off: +2 Sanity, -2 Knowledge; Chooses not to put it on;
      • [Haunt 6]=4; Haunt does not begin;
    • Missy runs out of the Conservatory to see what all the yelling is all about, but both doors out of the Patio are closed, and she can't remember which one she came in. After a moment's hesitation she runs through the door straight ahead. She runs into a long Dusty Hallway. Still not certain, she continues running forward through the doorway ahead of her again. This time she knows she went the wrong way, but the room is way too interesting to just turn back from. The room has a large piano-like thing at one end of it, with big pipes leading up to the ceiling. Fascinated, she moves forward to play with it. She presses a few keys, making faint tones rise from the pipes. She pushes a small red button on the front of it, and suddenly the floor falls out from under her, dropping her onto a dirty twisty slide. She shrieks as she whips through the darkness, then lands with a skidding tumble in another room. Coughing slightly, she looks around. This room looks like some sort of Storeroom. Nothing much interesting in her... no, wait - what's that? A music box? Should she open it?
      • Room :: Dusty Hallway;
      • Room :: Organ Room;
      • Event :: Mystic Slide; [Might 3]=3->Uncontrolled slide to basement room; [1 die physical]=0;
      • Room :: Storeroom;
      • Item :: Music Box; May open or close once per turn; If open, any explorer or monster with Sanity that enters or starts its turn in the same room must make a Sanity roll of 4+. Failure ends its turn.
    • Peter heard the shouting behind him, but couldn't understand a word of it. He reaches out with one hand and slowly pulls the door in front of him open. His eyes get very wide as he sees the room, with a very large blood stain all across the floor. "Whoa..." was all he could say. As he steps into the room, he feels his foot kick something. He bends down to look at it and comes up with a white lucky rabbit's foot. Well, it wasn't so lucky for the rabbit, was it? Peter glances back at the blood stain and wonders if maybe that all came from the rabbit...
      • Room :: Bloody Room
      • Item :: Rabbit's Foot, Once during your turn, you can reroll 1 die. You must keep the second roll.
    • Professor Longfellow stands in the room, still wheezing and hacking. He makes his way into the next room and collapses into a chair. After a minute or two his breathing finally eases enough to raise his head and look around. He looks impressed at the scope of the library and grabs the nearest book. Unfortunately, it's the comic book Ox was reading. Fortunately, the book on Voltaire is still underneath it.
      • Room :: Library; Gain +1 Knowledge.
    • Ox looks, but can't tell which way Heather might be, so he just heads left. The room he steps into is a standard Dining Room. A man is seated slumped over at the table in front of a chessboard. Ox steps forward to touch the man on the shoulder and wake him up, but jumps away startled when the man decomposes suddenly into dust at the touch, leaving nothing but his skull behind. Ox looks up as he sees movement out of the corner of his eye. A swirling dark cloud materializes at the other side of the table from him and condenses into the form of a tall thin man in a dark suit, but instead of a head there is nothing but a grinning skull. One hand reaches out, and Ox notices that it's holding a lit cigar between its fingers. It points at the chessboard, and the pieces slide themselves around the board into their starting positions, with the white pieces on Ox's side of the table. "GUYS! GET IN HERE!", Ox yells to the rest of the group.
      • Room :: Dining Room
      • Omen :: Skull; If you take Mental Damage, you may choose to take it all as Physical instead;
      • Haunt :: [Haunt 6]=2; Haunt begins
    • Missy hears Ox bellow and yells "Come on, Heather!! We've got to find a way upstairs!!!!!" She runs to the landing and turns right to see if she can find a staircase. She bursts into a room and stops in her tracks. She's in a room with a giant furnace, and the temperature in the room is staggering. What really surprises her though, is another door in the room opened at the same time, and a raggedly dressed man came in. He stops as he spies Missy and grins a huge grin. "You come to save me! Thank you!" The man drops to his knees and tries to kiss Missy's shoes. He's acting so silly, Missy can't help but laugh at him.
      • Room :: Furnace Room; If you end your turn in here, take 1 point of physical damage. Missy chooses 1 point of Might.
      • Omen :: Madman; Gain 2 Might and lose 1 Sanity immediately. Lose 2 Might and gain 1 Sanity if you ever lose this card. This card can not be dropped, traded or stolen.
    • Peter turns when he hears Ox's yell. "Uh oh," he thinks to himself, "that doesn't sound good." He races back and skids around the corners to find Ox standing in front of a chessboard across from a well-dressed skeleton. The skeleton turns its head to look at Peter, and Peter gulps. Peter rubs the rabbit's foot, and notices the skeleton look down at the pocket where Peter is keeping it, and then back up to Peter's face. He can't tell what the thing is thinking, but he knows the stories, and if any of them are true, they're all in a lot of trouble right now...
    • Professor Longfellow launches himself out of his chair in the Library. That did not sound like the Ox he knew... He hurries in, hot on Peter's heels. He sees the whole scene, and thinks he understands. This isn't anything he'd ever expected to see, really, but now that he does, it makes perfect sense. He was the oldest of everyone here. If anyone should face Death now, it should be him. And he was probably the best suited for it, too. Peter and Heather were bright enough for their ages, but he doubted either of them were chess experts. Neither was he, for that matter, but that was irrelevant. He steps forward and pulls a chair back from the table and sits in it. "Alright, Ol' Bones. What've ye got fer me tonight?"
    • Ox starts backing away from the table. "Yeah... I don't think this is my game." He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the Crystal Ball. He looks at it for a second, then hands it suddenly to Peter. "Hey. If magic stuff is working now, maybe this'll help. I'll go see if I can find the others or something that'll help." He turns and swiftly walks out of the room. He turns left in the next room and opens the door. This room looks interesting. There's a table with a chessboard that gives him a mild panic attack at first, but when nothing happens for a moment he's able to relax. There are several other game boards scattered about, and some animal trophy heads mounted on the walls. He's halfway across the room when he feels Something Slimy wrap around his ankle. Completely startled, Ox leaps 3 feet straight up into the air, and lands roughly on top of a small end table, and smashes it to splinters. "I'm Okay!" he shouts. "I'm okay! Nothing wrong!" He looks around the room to see what grabbed him, but there's nothing he can see that could have done it. "Yeah... I'm okay...," he mutters to himself. As he moves to stand up, he sees something glitter in the rubble beneath him. He picks it up and studies it. It's a white disc with gold symbols and writing in some ancient language on it. It looks like it's designed to be broken, for luck or a blessing, maybe.
      • Room :: Game Room; 1 Holy Seal found. Would you like to try and break it? Sanity roll of 4+ to succeed.
      • Event :: Something Slimy; [Speed 4]=3 = Lose 1 Might;
    • Heather can feel a presence upstairs. It feels ... impressive, compelling somehow. And she knows, somehow, that it's here to challenge everyone in the house. The thought of that presence possibly .. losing, she can't let that happen. The thought of that presence suffering defeat is intolerable. She needs to make sure that doesn't happen, and so turns and goes back to the Junk Room to look for an exit. She steps carefully over the piles of stuff in the room to go through one of the other doors. The room she enters is a small wood-paneled one, with no other way out. She turns to go back, just in time to see the door close behind her. The room jerks around her once, then the door pops open again, revealing the girl Missy and some man in a sweltering hot Furnace Room. Heather steps into the room, feeling the sweat start. "Missy! We have to stop them! We can't let them do this!" The man standing next to Missy jumps a bit in surprise and tries to huddle behind Missy.
      • Junk Room :: [Speed 3]=3 => exits safely
      • Room :: Mystic Elevator; [2 dice]=1 => Lower floor; 5 possible doors to attach, clockwise from top: [1d5]=2 = East door of Furnace Room;
      • Heather attacks Missy with Sanity using the Ring;
        • [Sanity 3 attack]=2
        • [Sanity 2 defend]=1
        • Missy takes 1 Mental damage: lose it from Sanity or Knowledge? (Knowledge)
        • Heather takes 1 Physical damage from Furnace room: lose it from Might or Speed? (Might)
    • Death reaches forward and pushes a piece forward with a bony finger. Professor Longfellow thinks carefully before making a move of his own. After several minutes, Death moves a rook into position. "Check" he intones in a dry whispery voice.
    • Missy is confused by Heather's words and the anger in her voice. She looks up at the man behind her, but he looks just as confused, if not more so, than she is. Missy bursts into tears and runs past Heather through the open door, the strange man following close on her heels. Unable to see clearly through her tears, she bounces off the wall on the other side just as the door closes behind them and the whole room jerks. She nearly falls over, but the Madman's hands catch her and gently set her back on her feet. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand and gives him a game smile. The door opens back up automatically as she does, and she can see through it into another room where Peter and the Professor are at a table with some old bald guy. She doesn't want to talk to anyone right now, so she darts into the game room and out the nearest door before they can notice her. Unfortunately this brings her almost face-to-face with Ox, who is kneeling on the floor trying vainly to put a small table back together. As quick as she can she runs through another door in the room. This leads her into a nice Garden, with some overgrown bushes with pretty flowers on them along a path down the middle. Missy runs off the path and hunkers down behind a bush and sits down in the dirt and cries for a few minutes. After a minute of this, she hears a voice whispering in her ear. Looking up, she can see it's not her Madman. He's mutely staring at a flower on the other side of the room. Straining, she listens for the voice again. "I'm under the floor, buried under the floor..." it says. Curious now, she starts digging at the dirt underneath her. As she gets more into it, she gets up on her knees and starts digging with both hands, until she's practically flinging dirt out to the sides and her clothes and hands are completely filthy. Eventually she has to quit from exhaustion, and sinks limply down to lay on the ground, totally spent.
    • Peter reaches into his pocket and frantically grabs his lucky rabbit's foot out. He thrusts it onto the table in front of the Professor and darts from the room. "I'll be back in a bit!" he hollers over his shoulder as he flees the room. He runs around a few corners until he winds up in the Library. He jumps up on a chair and starts rapidly going through the books. "Chess book... chess book... where's a book on chess strategies?!" After a few minutes of fruitless searching, on the spur of the moment he pulls out the Crystal Ball and peers into it. There's a lot of distorted colors in it, and he stares deeper. A shape starts to form vaguely in it, but then fades before he can see what it is...
      • Library :: +1 Knowledge;
      • Crystal Ball :: [[Knowledge 6]=6; Peter puts the Adrenaline Shot to the top of the Item deck after it is shuffled;
    • "Ye feelin' awrite?" the Professor said staring into the ghastly white face of the nattily dressed figure sitting across the table from him. "Ye leuk a wee pale!" The Professor burst into a deep, loud laughter that echoed throughout the entire house. Leaning back in his chair, he kicked his legs into the air laughing hysterically at his own joke. After several minutes of snorting and slapping the table and nearly falling out of his chair twice, the Professor composed himself and refocused his attention once again on Death. "A'm fair plucked!" said the Professor wheezing and fanning himself with his hand. "Awrite, it's just ye and me then! Let's git oan wid it!"
      • No action
    • Ox looks around. There's one other door in the room, so he heads toward it, watching the floor around him carefully, in case something should try to grab his ankle again. But nothing happens, and he reaches the door unhindered. The room he walks into exudes a feeling of peace. The Chapel is arranged simply, with a few rows of pews, and a podium up front. Behind him, on the wall to one side of the door is a full size mirror. Ox sees himself reflected in the mirror. All looks perfectly normal, until his reflection moves on its own. The reflection pulls an item out of its pocket. It reaches toward the mirror with one finger and writes "This Will Help" backwards on it. Then he reaches through the mirror and drops an item into Ox's numb hand.
      • Room :: Chapel; Gain 1 Sanity if you end your turn in this room.
      • Event :: Image in the Mirror; Draw 1 Item;
      • Item :: Adrenaline Shot;
    • Heather scowls as little Missy slips past her and into the elevator. The little brat took her ride! She can feel the sweat dripping down her back from the furnace, and knows she has to get out of here quick if she doesn't want to bake to death. She strides through the door opposite and back onto the Landing and then straight through the next door. The room here is dark, and creepy. Several coffins and sarcophaguses ... sarcophagi? Whatever. She'd look up the proper word when she got home. The room is dusty, with a bunch of old faded photos and strangely posed figurines and ... is that a death mask? Eww! Heather tiptoes through the room, feeling the need to be quiet for some reason, and she can't quite shake the feeling that someone is watching her... In one of the alcoves she finds a small picture frame, and it catches her eye for some reason. She picks it up and peers closely at it. It... looks like her! It's a picture of her, and it looks like it was taken while she was doing something, not just a posed portrait. But, she can't remember ever doing what this picture is showing. As weird as everything else in this house has been, maybe it's a picture of the future? She scoffs at how ridiculous that sounds, but the idea sticks in her head anyways.
      • Room :: Crypt; Take 1 pt of Mental Damage if you end your turn here; Heather chooses to lose 1 Knowledge;
      • Event :: It Is Meant To Be: Look at the top 3 card or tiles of a pile and put them back in any order -OR- roll 4 dice and save the result to use once instead of making another roll; Heather chooses the roll :: [4 dice]=5; If this is more than the maximum result of the roll being replaced, use the maximum possible result instead;
    • Death studies the board dispassionately, not visibly reacting to the Professor's taunts. They make several more moves, with the Professor managing to avoid several traps or sacrifices, but finally loses a key pawn to Death's machinations. In the Gardens, Missy feels weakened and sleepy, her mind starts to go blank as she drifts off... Her mad companion doesn't seem to notice as her body goes perfectly still.
      • [Death 8]=10; Death cheats and rerolls any 0's from his first roll;
      • [Knowledge 6]=7; Using the Rabbit's Foot to reroll one of the 0's;
        • [Reroll 1]=2; Final score :: 9; Loss by 2; Each Hero loses 1 Sanity;
          • Missy's Sanity drops to 0;
    • Peter sighs with disgust. All these books, and nothing on chess. He hurries out the door and back down the hallway. Down at the end, he sees Ox standing in some church-like room. Maybe that's a good place to find something to beat Death! He runs full speed through the Game Room and slides to a stop on the waxed floor next to Ox. "What is this place?" Ox looks around and shrugs. "Church." Ox fumbles in his pocket and produces the gold and white token. "I found this," he says, and hands it over to Peter. Peter takes it and looks at it. "Funny looking. What's all the symbols mean?" he asks. Ox just shrugs.
      • Peter takes the Token.
      • Room :: Chapel; Peter gains 1 Sanity;
    • Professor Longfellow shifts uncomfortably in his chair as the game goes on. "Ach, quit ye're staring at me! An' wipe tha' smug grin off ye're face while ye're at it too! Ye ain't won yet, boyo. I still got plenty o' game left in me," he says to the apparition across from him. He gives Death a grin and a saucy wink, "Just ask the ladies."
    • Ox says to Peter, "You seen Missy lately? Maybe you can go look for her, make sure she's okay. I gotta go give something to the Professor." He leaves Peter in the Chapel and walks through the hallway and into the room where the Professor is playing chess. He leans over the back of the Professor's chair and stage whispers in the old man's ear. "Here. I .. uh.. was told this would help." And he reaches over and drops the capped syringe into the Professor's lap.
      • Gives Adrenaline Shot to Professor Longfellow
    • Heather turns back and leaves the dank Crypt. She stands in the Landing for a moment, wondering which way would be the best way to go. She doesn't like the idea of going through the Furnace again, so she turns left and goes through the door to the Junk Room. Ugh, so much stuff, piled everywhere. She manages to force her way through a couple of stacks of boxes, over two rolled-up rugs, and narrowly slides between a china cabinet and a table with a bunch of chairs precariously stacked on it. Finally, she slips through to another door and into the next room and shines her light around. It appears to be an old Gymnasium. It's got some old dusty floor-to-ceiling mirrors along one wall, with a stretch bar running the length of it. A few sets of weights are stacked in one corner, and there are a couple of benches scattered haphazardly around the room. Heather is about to turn around and leave the room when she hears a noise in one corner. Turning, she shines her light there, bringing the form of a little girl into view. The girl appears to be about Missy's age, and is filthy, with matted hair, as if she'd been living down here for some time. The girl stares at Heather with enormous sad eyes, then holds out her hand, offering Heather the item she's carrying. It's one of those sports drinks, with all the sugar and salt needed to keep a body going. Heather is still feeling the effects of the Furnace Room, so she gratefully accepts it and takes a drink. The little girl breaks into a great big smile and lunges at Heather, grabbing her leg in a giant hug.
      • Junk Room :: [Might 3]=3; Success - no damage;
      • Room :: Gymnasium; Gain 1 Speed;
      • Omen :: Girl; Gain 1 Knowledge and 1 Sanity;
    • Death and Professor Longfellow continue to wage warfare across the checkered board for some time. Several times pieces are exchanged, paring down both sides equally, until each side is down to about half of their original forces. The Professor starts a complicated offensive on one side of the board, drawing Death's defenses away. As the Professor absently rubs the Rabbit's Foot, he sees an opening left on the other side of the board. 3 moves later and he's punched a hole through Death's line and and starts maneuvering to trap the king. 4 moves later ... Checkmate! Death stares fixedly at its King, then starts crumbling into dust. Death smiles, and you feel your hair turn white. "Until next time," Death responds.
    • "It' over." the Professor said softly taking off his glasses and mopping the pooled sweat from his forehead. "I've cheated death many a time in me life, but this is the first time Death's cheated me. And I still beat the ol' bag o' bones." The Professor pushes his chair back, stands up, and stretches his back. "This brush makes me once again think about the hereafter," the Professor said walking towards the door. He pauses for a moment and glances around the room with a confused expression on his face. "We all wound up in this big spooky mansion," he said scratching his head. "But, what are we here after?"