Adventure Gamers - Forums

>open cabinet
It takes some grumbling and some tugging and finally a good, sharp yank, but the cabinet finally pops open.

>l in cabinet
There’s about two dozen fuses lined up in there, the old-fashioned kind that look like round, glass plugs. Every last one of them is blown.

Well, it IS an adventure game, so let’s get the useless fuses, maybe they will be of some use eventually.

>take fuses
>s

>take fuses
You pull one of the fuses out and try to rub some of the grime off. Sure enough, the little metal strip inside is melted to a black, twisted cinder. With a sigh, you plug it back into its socket.

>s

Storage
Old crates and boxes piled high against the walls make this room seem even smaller and dingier than it actually is, which is saying a lot. A doorway lies north; the other walls contain nothing but shadows and dirt-filled corners.

>x crates
The accumulated junk of almost four centuries’ worth of one family’s strangeness. Most of it is old linens, moth-eaten clothes, newspaper clippings—exciting stuff like that. There’s far more here than you could ever go through, even if you had the inclination to.

>n

Cellar
The old, flagstone walls gleam with unwholesome-smelling moisture, and the sagging timbers creak uneasily above your head. Ancient, frayed wiring festoons the ceiling like some strange species of clinging vine. Portions of the cellar extend south and east into the clammy darkness, though you could always beat a hasty retreat up the stairs to the north.

One largish bundle of wires leads down to a rusty old fuse cabinet bolted to the far wall.

>e

Wine Cellar
This wing of the cellar is even older than the rest, with walls of piled, unmortared stone. The entire room is filled with wine racks. They cover every wall except for one spot to the west, where an exit leads back to the main cellar.

All of the racks are dust-covered and empty except for one against the north wall, which contains some forty or fifty dark bottles.

You are reminded of something Michael told you during the long drive up: about how when the police arrived after the shooting, they found the wine cellar in a shambles—nearly every bottle thrown to the floor and shattered, and the whole place reeking of rotted grapes. All except the bottles in the north rack. None of those had been touched. No one could posit a motive for it.

You smile a bit, recalling your husband’s ability to turn a piece of insignificant trivia into a compelling story. Still, though, now that you’re actually standing here… it all seems very strange.

>x rack
These racks must have at one time contained hundreds upon hundreds of wine bottles. Idly, you wonder which member of the family developed such a taste for what would have been, for the first few generations at least, a sinful vice of the basest kind.

>x bottles
Row after row of smooth, dust-covered glass. The wine inside is dark and murky, reminding you, somewhat irrationally, of blood.

>get bottle
>open bottle
>taste wine (how bloody is it really?)
>move rack

>get bottle
Strange; the bottles all seem to be fixed in place. They won’t come out of the rack no matter how you tug at them.

>open bottle
Strange; the bottles all seem to be fixed in place. They won’t come out of the rack no matter how you tug at them.

>smell bottle
You smell nothing unexpected.

>drink bottle
Strange; the bottles all seem to be fixed in place. They won’t come out of the rack no matter how you tug at them.

>move rack
The wine racks won’t budge.

Nope, forget it. For now. 

Cellar

>u
Gratefully, you leave the clammy confines of the cellar behind.

Pantry
The pantry is empty save for a layer of dust on the shelves. A door to the south leads down to the cellar, or you can return to the kitchen to the southeast.

The cellar door stands open, revealing dark stairs leading down.

>se

Kitchen
Where once pots and skillets and various utensils hung in profusion, the kitchen walls are now merely ranks of dusty cabinets and a forest of empty hooks. Doorways lead east and south, a small pantry lies to the northwest, and the back door to the north leads out of the house.

>turn off flashlight
You switch the flashlight off.

>n
(opening the back door first)
It seems to be locked.

>unlock door with house key
You unlock the back door.

>n
(opening the back door first)

Path Behind the House
A gravel path starts here at the back door of the house, and marks a trail nearly overgrown by weeds and briars. It disappears into the undergrowth to the northwest, framed by crooked trees with overhanging branches that seem to form a stunted, jagged archway into the dim recesses of the forest.

>x trees
The woods are ancient, thick with undergrowth and full of shadows. Branches creak, leaves rustle beneath unseen, half-imagined footsteps, and strange birdcalls echo through the trees.

>nw (assuming the undergrowth is not that bad)

>nw
Stooping to avoid the sharp, bare twigs that snag your clothes and seem to reach greedily for your eyes, you pick your way through the undergrowth to a small clearing.

Family Plot
Old, moss-slimed tombstones, many broken off and leaning crazily like an old man’s teeth, poke up from the soft, mulchy earth. In their midst stands an ancient marble crypt, its heavy iron door nearly obscured by thick draperies of ivy. The trees press close around this quiet enclave of death, leaning together over your head as if sharing secrets. A gap in the undergrowth to the southeast reveals a narrow gravel path.

>x crypt
Grimly carved letters over the door spell out a single name: “VERLAC”.

A flurry of dead leaves goes skittering along the ground, swirling past you in the wind.

>x door
Grimly carved letters over the door spell out a single name: “VERLAC”.

>x ivy
The lush, greenish-black ivy seems to thrive with an unwholesome vitality, as though its roots were drawing some gruesome nourishment from beneath the soil.

>open door

We are in a horror game after all!

Ah, but it is not that easy.

>open door
It seems to be locked.

>unlock door
You go through all the keys on your keyring, trying each one in turn, but none of the keys seem to fit.

A flurry of dead leaves goes skittering along the ground, swirling past you in the wind.