Post by Sullivan on Nov 2, 2008 11:08:16 GMT -5
Or the Silent Devourer of the Skulltula Mansion.
~~*~~*~~
The moon above shined like an eye peering out from the lid of the thick clouds, full and staring down on everything below, illuminating the secrets of the night with it's subtle glow. A chill ran across the face and down the backs of any who had the misfortune of being out on this most unhallowed of nights, though you wouldn't see a single frown from one figure, who walked down the roads with a confidence befitting no man. Of course, it would be impossible to smile all of the time, so it would be good to note that this one wore a mask of tarnished metal and flesh-like wood, or vice-versa? Whatever the case, he seemed happy enough, and indeed he was with a pocket of forty Rupees. Who would've thought he'd sell out of masks on a single night? Not him, of course, otherwise he'd be less happy and more smug. But we digress. His feet pattered against the ground like a leaf laying upon the grass, and every step managed to avoid the dead leaves that littered the road and path around him, a grace not many possessed. But even as each foot touched the ground in steps even enough to make him appear as a wraith floating across the ground, his ears were not trained on the path his lantern had lit in front of him, but the road behind. He had been hearing the crunch of dead leaves for the past few seconds, but only as a hand grasped his shoulder did he really bother to care... And after a short story and indication of a house he couldn't believe he had not seen, the young man pulled his white hood farther around his head, and ventured to it's doors.
The lids of clouds that formed the eye above him closed, showering him in a darkness that few could see through and fewer ever wanted to experience. His hands wrapped around the cool metal of the doorknob, sending a chill down his two exposed fingers, but without hesitation the young man clicked the knob all of the way back, and peered into the house through the smallest of cracks, observing whatever he could before he devoted something valuable, like his body, to being with the undead that roamed the halls of this old, cold building. He gazed farther in, looking for the light of a Poe's lantern, aside from his own, or the pale, thin body and crimson claws of a Stalchild, but from his vantage point, there was nothing, but darkness, and darkness there would be.
I suppose it's s-
He had not a moment to blink, to look away, before he was peering into what felt like the eye of Death itself. A pit of red ember that nearly blinded him, glowing with hateful intensity that he had seen only once before... And this truly sent a chill down the spine of the young man, even after the eye had left as silently as it came, giving him only the briefest glance of a humanoid easily two feet higher than himself. It took the young man a few moments to gain his composure again and remember that it was his hobby to sneak around with undead. Killing a few spiders in the process shouldnt' be hard, right? ... Well, right?
He pulled upon the one double door he had opened and cursed the groans this old house gave out with every simple movement, realizing that everything he had learned so far about his trade would be put to the test here. His shoes landed upon plush carpet that was actually a welcome change to the hard ground he'd not even realized had ached his feet so much. He raised his lantern high in the room before he had even stepped in, it's sad and flickering flame barely alighting the small foyer. A beautiful house for sure, Zeke was quick to admit, but there would be plenty of time to discuss interior designing with the old man once the house had been cleared of these Golden Skulltula. He could hear the skittering of one at that very moment, but for just a few seconds afterwards, he ignored it, to once again survey the room for anything limb-threatening. Losing a nose, afte all, was bad enough... His eyes glanced from the doorless hallway in front of him to the staircase to his left. Nothing, it seemed, which was a relief at the present moment. He had nowhere to hide, after all. Now, to get back to the business of slaying whatever bug had the misfortune of crossing his path. At first it seemed quite simple; the sound was coming from above him and there wouldn't be much of a place to hide there. He stepped fully into the house and tried to ignore the steady creaking as it closed right in front of him, training his eyes on the spot above... And not really liking what he saw. These Skulltula were smart ones, it seemed, as this one had hid under a coat of arms to protect itself from attack. A clever plan, for an insect.
The young man stared at the coat of arms for a moment, noting with some humour how the Skulltula's legs stuck out from all sides, giving the shield an interesting appearance. He looked away from the shield to his raised lantern, and specifically the spike that hung below it. While not meant to be used as a weapon, he knew it could at least be used as one in a pinch, and so he unhooked it from it's ring with a quick and seamless motion, set it on the ground beside him, and backed away from the door, spike held in between the exposed tips of his index and thumb. He noted with some humour how the spider's legs jutted out from every side of the shield, and chuckled to himself. Such a shame cute creatures like these were what he needed to impale. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his arm back and relaxed his body, aiming carefully at the bottom of the shield... And then threw it like an arrow towards it's bottom curve. When the spike hit, the shield jumped up at least a good two inches off of the wall, and pulled the little Skulltula down with it. Zeke walked over to the now helpless insect and looked down towards it with the faintest of smirks behind that horrid grinning mask.
"It almost makes me sad to do this," Ezekial said as he lifted a single wooden-soled boot high above the insect. "Almost."
One down, nineteen to go. Perhaps stomping the Skulltula wasn't the best idea, but it did give his pants a new golden paintjob on one side.
Ezekial looked down the long hall in front of himself, and immediately felt that unmistakeable chill he got whenever he gazed upon a restless place. It was a feeling he learned to like, but it didn't exactly help his opinion that there was something in this mansion he really did not want to meet. Either way... He had to, so he retrieved his lantern from where he had set it, reaffixed the spike, and continued down the hallway to whatever may await him.
It didn't take long for him to find the next Skulltula, which wasn't as intelligent as it's earlier brother. It had decided to hide behind a painting, and not one that was terribly far off the ground, either. Dispatched as quickly as it took to remove the painting. Not nearly as interactive as the last one, but Zeke had to take some relief in the fact not all of the little buggers would take so much work to remove. With a sigh, as he wiped Skulltula juice from his hand and lantern, he continued a bit farther down the hall to his first turn, and stood dead still as he saw the unmistakeable silhouette of a Stalchild cast by some wayward candle. It didn't seem to be shambling about, more as if it were searching for something. Zeke hoped it was Skulltulas, the same as himself. Anything to make the job easier. It left, and with hesitation, Zeke rounded the corner and was greeted by the dining room. Scuttling immediately filled his ears, but there was no time to search for them at the moment. He dived under the table the moment it began turning, but he managed to avoid being seen by the Poe that passed right above him, or the red one that stood at the old stove, apparently trying to cook... Without heat. Strange, so many ghosts being attracted to a kitchen... He remembered to write it down for future notice.
Zeke waited for the Poe to leave the kitchen, which took about three minutes, give or take. When they did he crawled out from under the table and immediately headed for the stove. He could hear a Skulltula inside, but it was in the smoke stack, which posed an obvious problem.... But then, he had a truly devilish idea. The Skulltula seemed to be below the vent that allowed control of what could get in or out, which was lucky for him, because he needed that as a part of his plan. He reached over and screwed it to a closed position, at the same time reaching down and undoing the latch on the iron stove. Zeke took a piece of tinder from within it and undid the latch to his lantern, immediately placing the end of the tinder into the flame inside. It seemed to squeek in protest, but to no avail, because the tinder still caught fire, and it was good enough to start the stove up. He threw the now severely burning tinder into the stove, and waited... squeals came from the smoke stack, and Zeke could hear it struggling to free itself by climbing higher, but it hit the vent above. To it's insectoid mind, it seemed the only logical place to go was down, but by then the morbid young man had already closed the door on the oven, leaving the Skulltula to run and screetch as it tried to find a way out of the slowly growing fire. Zeke turned to the only other opening in the room, and took a step to leave, when he felt a chill pass through his neck, and saw the faintest of glows out of the corner of his eyes... That red Poe from earlier had come back, and this time there was no place for Zeke to run. He turned, hesitantly, and stared into it's deep, slanted eyes, which stared back with startling intensity.
"Erhm... Hello," Zeke said, hoping to appeal to some human part of the spirit. He looke from it, to the stove, and found that it followed his gaze. "... Yes, I lit the stove for you." The Poe's eyes snapped back to Ezekial, and then to the lantern he was holding. Without a word, it turned completely towards the stove, and began trying to cook again. A little taken-aback, Zeke took a few steps away, and looked back towards the room's exit. The Poe was happy for now, but he didn't know how long that would last. Just as he was about to leave though, he remembered that he heard another scuttling after he entered the room. It was extremely loud, but he had forgotten where it was he heard it.... Then it dawned on him. It was on the underside of the table. That one didn't take much looking at all, just a quick glance for confirmation, and then a very heavy thwack with an equally large lantern. Three down so far.
After leaving the room down the only way he hadn't been, Zeke took a moment to think about the current situation... What had made him agree to this again? At the time he guessed it was because of the prospect of seeing so many undead in one place, but this seemed like more work than he was willing to do, just for that. His shoes didn't make a sound as he walked across the carpet, and he liked it that way. Looking from his left, to his right, he surveyed the area for signs of anything strange, and found nothing saved for a few lost bits of a Stalchild's hand. Unsurprising. He peered off far in front of himself, trying to stave off pensive thoughts, and perked an eyebrow as he saw a table with a single lit candle set in the middle. This house wasn't very well designed, he decided, noting the poor room arrangement. Oh well, every home had it's faults. He continued towards the room, lantern raised in front of himself.
He heard the skittering first, then the scream, then the low, hungry groan in all of three seconds. Barely even able to turn his head, Zeke didn't have to look any direction to know what his attackers were... ReDeads, and they had been waiting for someone like him to walk through the doorway. His heart started racing as a very small bit of the paralysis wore off, but it didn't help his heart stop trying to tear away from his chest. It's face was barely two feet from his own... Such beautiful creatures ReDeads were, but if there was one way he didn't want to die, it was being eaten alive. He tried calming himself, trying to think of a way out of this situation... But realizing there wasn't one except struggling, made Zeke's heart return to his throat. Grasping, trying to tear away at the hands, Zeke had no time to react before pain shot through him like he had never felt before, and if it weren't for the hands grasping his throat like a vice, the old man outside would've heard a scream that chilled him to the very bone. It came out as a tearful wimper that took everything within Zeke's power to supress so he wouldn't collapse into sobbing right there. The ReDead's decaying, jagged teeth were chewing a strip of flesh as large as Zeke's tongue that it had ripped away from his shoulder, with a sickening squelch and a spray of blood that splattered them both in crimson.
Tha paralysis had worn off and his hand immediately reached up to push the ReDead's head away from his already bleeding shoulder, adrenaline fueling his movements and keeping the undead horror from feasting upon him any further, but still it choked him, as hard as it could... Practically crushing his neck. He needed to get out, quickly... Pulling his right arm as far back as he could, he swung the lantern as hard as he could on an arc around himself until it was mere inches from hitting his own head. The ReDead caught it first though, and let go of the young boy. It's first and only mistake, as Zeke wasted no time in turning around to meet his attacker... And noticed as it stook that a Skulltula had taken residence on it's back. Very clever, that one, but that wasn't the point right now. Before the thing could fully stand again, Zeke brought his lantern down in an overhead arc and crashed it into the ReDead's skull, dropping it flat on the floor. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder that seemed to leak liquid fire, he placed a foot over the ReDead's back and stomped, as hard as he could, easily crushing the Skulltula and leaving the ReDead with a broken vertabrae. One more stomp, and in a fit of panic, another, and another, and another, until the ReDead's spine resembled nothing so much as a vertical plane of jagged protrustions. It finally stopped moving, and Zeke sighed in relief, but realized that hurt his shoulder as well... Such a shame, he thought. Ignoring the pain he looked around the living room, noting the fireplace and two cozy chairs that framed the candled table. There was the... Faintest scuttling, but for the life of him he could not place it. Breathing a bit heavily now, he decided to take a short break in the nearest of the two chairs. He walked over, hand clutching his wound, and laid back in the plush armchair like it was the most comfortable thing in existence.
"I've never been bitten before," Zeke said to himself as he moved his gaze to look at the blood trickling from his shoulder as he wiped tears away with his right hand, a river of crimson flowing all across and staining his hood a bright red. It reminded him of that horrible eye he saw in the dark... What must that creature be? Never had he seen something like it, heard of it, especially in such a place.... What then must it be? All questions for another time. For now, he hoped that the wound wasn't deep enough to be a problem. Not only did the thought of patching it sound less than appealing... He had no material he could use. He'd have to trust that it'd stop bleeding on it's own, and soon....
Wait, the skittering was much louder.
Zeke looked around himself frantically for that Skulltula, from the ceilings to it's edges to the underside of the table, they all seemed clear... It dawned on him finally. He stood up and threw back the cushion to reveal that, beneath the cut and punctured netting underneth, a Gold Skulltula had made it's simple little home. A little unsure about how to take it at this angle, Zeke unhooked the spike from his lantern once again and held it between his ring and middle finger, a spike in the middle of his fist. He placed one hand on the dusty armchair and lowered himself to the Skulltula until each grasping tooth was visibe, and then slammed the spike into it's soft abdomen like an arrow. It curled up, and finally, it rotted away into nothingess.
Good, four down... This was going to take longer than he hoped.
He stood from the chair and switched the lantern from his right arm to his left. Until the wound stopped bleeding he would need to keep some pressure on it, and while he applied that, the arm could be of some use and provide a little illumination in this place. When the old man said that his house was filled with the dead, he jested only in understating how many there were. Stepping out of what felt like safety, the candle-light that was now behind him, he stepped into the next hall available to him. Two doors to his left, and a long, dark hallway that seemed to have no end that wasn't engulfed in darkness. He could tell this would be 'fun' the moment he gazed upon it. Trying to console himself, he thought more of the shoulder, and it's new wound. He realized, with little real consolidation, that if it weren't for his leather hood, he probably would have lost an entire chunk of flesh when the ReDead bit down... At least the tears from his eyes stopped, even if the tears of his body hadn't. He stumbled in front of the first door and knocked upon it twice from it's very edge, thankful that the knob was opposite of him. No response, which he was more than thankful for. He opened it slowly and peered inside. Nothing but a closet... Something caught his eye though. He reached down into the depths of the closet, for just a moment close to tears again as his shoulders strained, but he pulled out something that would be immensely useful for the rest of the way, a poker for the fireplace.
He must not use the fireplace much Zeke though in a pitiful attempt to inject humour into the situation. He raised the thing, and swung it around a bit. Not very balanced, but if he hit something in the head with the log-rolling hook, he couldn't imagine it getting back up again. Useful indeed... He kicked the closet door to avoid straining his upper body any more than he needed to, and moved onto the next door. This time with an extra item in his arsenal, Zeke stood a good two feet away from the door before he knocked upon it with the poker, to provoke whatever may be inside into attacking. He could hear that distinctive scratching for sure, but there was something else, a... Barking? That's the only way he could describe it, and he was pretty sure he knew what creature lay behind the door. Slowly, Zeke creeped across the wooden paneling below his feet that would make a crashing groan with every step if not for all of the practice he had with this. Fingers locked upon the cold metal and somehow it sent a tingle through his shoulder that made him wince. He pulled the door open just enough to let out a crack of sight into the room beyond it, but did not dare to look. Instead he held the door there until he felt a thump as if something was trying to push through the crack, but failing utterly even if it was only his fingers keeping it closed. That one moment of pain was all he needed to feel. Grasping the poker in a death grip he aimed the hook towards the door, and opened it full head's width as he pulled his right arm back into a swing, and just as quickly swung it around to crash against the doorframe, and something else just as sturdy that he could not yet see. No longer did that yapping reach his ears, and when he pulled the Poker out of the doorway, sure enough there was a skull impaled upon the hook. Little, pathetic wings flapped helplessly as the Bubble attempted to move again, but Zeke simply flung it back into the room he had come from, and walked into the room for himself.
Well that was just perfect. A bathroom, with a mirror right in front of him to show him just how horrific the wound on his shoulder look. Ter-bloody-rific.
Actually, it was a bit helpful. Once he was done with slaying the Skulltula in this tiny room, he could begin patching up the wound in his arm, albeit crudely. He took a glance around the bathroom... Large, he noticed, with a bath that had a small fireplace for heating water. This certainly was a nice house... Perhaps the old man would let him stay as a tenant after he had cleansed this place. That'd be nice, living in a big house. It fit his large and in charge attitude. That last part was hard to say with a straight face, Zeke had to admit. That was a good sign though. But enough standing around.
It was pretty easy to figure out where the Skulltula was this time. The only trouble was the fact that where it was, wasn't pleasant at all. In the chamber pot on the right side of the room, opposite of the bathtub. He wasn't sure how deep the pit below it went down, but if it was any more than an arm's length with the Poker, the old man would have to wait until he was done using the bath. Crinkling his nose and thinking of just how little he wanted to do this, he walked over to the chamber pot and looked into it'd depths. Oh, thank the Goddess, he thought. It was a bucket emptying type, and the Skulltula was only a couple of feet down... He had to laugh at himself for a moment for being less likely to feel around a chamber pot then creep around with flesh eating, soul stealing monsters, but such was the irony of life. With one well-planned stab the Skulltula was no more, and Zeke set about to something much more important at the moment. Patching up the wound that had already stained a third of his shirt black with blood.
He walked over to the stone basin that jutted from the wall and laid his poker down beside it, and rested his lamp upon the hook. He looked up into the cracked, dusty mirror above it, and reached his fingertips into the basin for no reason than to feel it upon his skin. He splashed a bit into his face and ignored the sting that came with cool liquids contacting very warm flesh. He hadn't realized how much he was sweating until just now. Not too surprising, really. His attention came back to the wound on his left shoulder. It was worse than he first thought, not because of bleeding, but because he hadn't considered the fact that the ReDead literally ripped the piece of flesh away, making a suture difficult enough he didn't think it'd be possible at first. Pushing the idea of doubt out of his head though, he reached down to his lantern and detatched the spike and then pulled one of the spiralling pieces out of the top of the lantern, unsheathing a thin, almost needle-like blade of high quality steel. he screwed it into the fat part of the spike, cut away the fabric along the bite in his hood and shirt, and used the strips of fabric to begin what was bound to be a very painful operation.
~*~*~*~
The young man collapsed against the basin momentarily as he tried desparately to reclaim his breath. Cutting twenty seven holes in his skin and stringing a coarse thread through each and every one, pulling it all together into a single, tight piece, had left him with a single tear forming at the edge of his eye.
"Damn it," he said to himself as he looked up into his reflection. In all honesty he did look better, and with a clean, sutured wound he'd feel even better soon. But for now, it's sting was appropriate for twenty large needles being pushed through the skin. How could he have made such a stupid mistake? He asked as he stared into his reflection and then let his gaze fall to the once pristine, but now blood stained basin below him. He'd have to be more careful from now on. This wasn't an open field and this was much different from the crypts of the Ikanan Graveyard. He had to expect anything at any time, even if that meant taking things a bit more slowly... How much time had passed anyway? It must have been an hour at least. None of that mattered though, at least right now. Ezekial retrieved his poker and lantern, and grasped the cool knob with fingertips... But his fingers froze in place. He slit his eyes and trained his ears on any sound, no matter how slight, that he may find from the outside.
A pitter-patter was all he heard. Slow, slight, each step within two seconds of eachother. His mind raced through all of the possibilities of what it could be. Another ReDead? Possibly, perhaps a Gibdo. It seemed too slow to be anything but... Yet too heavy for the ReDead, and more silent as well. Perhaps it was a Gibdo then... It soon passed the bathroom door and walked on past, whatever it was. Zeke dared to turn the knob the rest of the way and push the door open nary a crack to peer out into the gloom, and nearly gasped when he saw it. Eight feet of lumbering, sinewy flesh that definitely seemed to be ReDead in origin, yet it's blood red colour and sheer size distinguished it, as did elongated arms whos' thin fingers ended in sickle-like claws. It's movements hinted at a grace Zeke knew he'd only see if the creature saw him. The beast stopped, and straightened it's body as if listening for something. Ezekial's eyes widened like they hadn't in years and as quickly and silently as he could he shut the door.
How he knew the creature was going to turn towards the door he did not know, he didn't even truly know if it had, but his confidence in that sharp pang if instinct kept him there, holding the knob like a vice as every part of him tensed, waiting for something, anything. The silence was deafening to him... After what felt like an hour, he heard the creature move again, but which way he couldn't tell at it's first step. He tried to decide between staying still or finding a place to hide. But after the longest two seconds of his life, Zeke heard the creature move forward, away from him and down the hall. Two, four, six... He could no longer hear the creature, and then he realized he had been holding his breath the entire time. He resisted the urge to gasp and steadied his breath again, as he stood in fascination of what he had just witnessed and experienced. Unlike anything he had ever seen... Ezekial had that rare moment of giddiness when he realized there was something totally new for him to study, but this time it conflicted with what felt like instinct. Something about this thing just screamed for him to keep away, and stay away, but he could only hope that his stay in the Spider Mansion would be so simple. Daring to take one more chance, he eased the door open, and peered down the hall into the room beyond. Still as lightless as ever... For all he knew, that thing was waiting in there for something stupid and living to come along. Ezekial was only the latter, so he looked down the way he had come, and decided that he'd try the stairwell he had seen in the very first room.. Perhaps try the door while he was there. No, then again, perhaps not. He didn't need any temptation to leave, he was plenty good enough to do the task assigned to him. He walked down the hallway, and went on to do what he did best.
His hunt continued upstairs, and to his joy there was a Skulltula that had done little to protect itself except hide upon the ceiling, out of reach to anyone who wasn't... The side of whatever that creature slinking around was. It soon learned, however, that some people are very good jumpers, and when it came to people like Ezekial himself... Extremely good stompers as well. Each side of his green pants had been painted gold now, and it had only just dawned on him how much of a disadvantage all of that Gold Powder on his clothing, and he cursed himself for being so visceral with the bugs. No matter, he decided, as he entered the door to his right... And immediately ran back through. He had found the Poe from earlier, the one that had floated above him. Apparently it was hoping to chop something up, because opposite of it's lantern, it held a butcher's knife that leaked black ichor he guessed came from an unlucky ReDead. Not nearly as 'kind' as it's sibling, it rushed him with a cackle unlike that of any Poe he had met before... But it met a rather embarrassing fate. Standing beside the door was Ezekial, and the moment the Poe had crossed that wooden thresh-hold, he brought the poker down light a sledgehammer and knocked the Poe's lantern out of it's grasp and into the ground, shattering it instantly and leaving the Poe with no way to contain it's soul. For a second, Zeke considered adding it to the lantern, but simply stepped over the sad little flame to enter the room behind.
A bedroom, how interesting. The sheets of the canopy bed were stained with more black ichor, but Zeke didn't pay any mind to it. He heard scuttling... A lot of it. His heart jumped for joy and immediately he began searching for every possible bug to slay with his trusty Poker. One, he found, had hid inside of the wardrobe against the left wall. Simple enough, a simple stab and it was no longer of the living. The second, he eventually found, was hiding in the dark drapes above the bed. This one almost landed on his back and pinched him right on the neck, but learning from his earlier mistake, he swung the lantern around and into the Skulltula, impaling it on the lantern's many spines. The last one he heard was terribly puzzling. It seemed to be coming from a vanity in front of the bed, but he had searched everywhere to no avail. He tried looking behind the vanity last... But it was so far against the wall he couldn't see how'd there be space for anything that wasn't flat... Or a hole.
And that's when it hit him. Grasping the edge of the vanity from each side, he easily pushed it out of the way, and revealed... A huge, bloody hole in the wall, stuffed to the brim with some sort of... strange, red and black ooze. The Skulltula's scuttling was louder than ever... He was not looking forward to this. Getting down on all fours, he readied the poker, and ignoring the pain in his left shoulder he stuck it as far through the ooze as he could, until he finally went through something that crunched. He pulled his Poker back, and flung of the corpse of another Gold Skulltula.
Zeke exited the room with a relieved sigh, and looked to the door at the end of the short hallway, right before the turn. He eased the door open, and everything that happened after this point became, quite literally, a blur for Ezekial. His body never stopped moving as he rushed from room to room, trying to slink through the shadows to wherever the Skulltula lay, but every moment he slayed one, another creature seemed to take notice of Ezekial. In the first room, he managed to slay another three that hid amongst the crates of bones and avoided the eyes of a Garo, but as he left the room he realized that there was a new guest that had joined in on the fun... A gargantuan, ghoulish rat that he had roused from deep sleep with the smell of his bleeding flesh. It had attempted to turn Zeke into yet another corpse for the undead to feast upon, but he managed to trap it in a crate long enough to escape the room and move onto the next. His right leg now sported it's own missing piece of flesh, to parallel the left shoulder. How unamusing and ironic, Zeke thought to himself.
The next room, was perhaps even more horrible. A room of... Nothing but mannequins wrapped from head to toe in blood-stained bandages. He knew what sort of things must lay in the room and creeped around as silent as death itself, trying to pick Gibdo from Mannequin and failing more than once. He managed to pick out two of the Skulltula that had made their homes inside the bandages of the dummies, but as he readied to impale the last one, he found that it was indeed a real Gibdo. He did not slay the beast, but used a bit of bandage from another dummy to catch the Gibdo ablaze, and in the process kill the Skulltula attached to it. He escaped the room, and as he exited, the familiar pitter-patter reached his ears... There were no more Gold Skulltula on this level as far as he could tell, so Zeke left down the stairs to continue to the room he had not examined earlier, a room that had been magically enchanted to be cold. It held the mansion's perishables, especially it's meat, and as he destroyed two more Skulltula feasting upon the meat, Zeke felt the entire house tremble.
From a the chain-covered ceiling, a gargantuan Gold Skulltula dropped, more akin to the size of a horse than a dog like previous specimens. He couldn't believe the sight that lay before him... Never had he seen a spider so huge. It clacked it's fangs and threw it's threats of horrid death at Zeke, fangs dripping an acidic venom that ate into the floor. Zeke had no clue if he could stand his ground against the thing, but he knew that he had to try, and he would... But then, a hole was torn in the ceiling, and that horrific creature that had stalked the mansion this entire time, the creature of hateful eyes and sickle-claws, dropped down upon the back of the King Skulltula and ripped it's skull-shell in half, slicing through bone and delicate meat alike as if it were made of the same mortal flesh of any piece of meat hanging around them. For a single moment a thousand possibilities ran through Zeke's head, but he knew that only two of them would be true for the beast that lay before him, the beast that turned and looked at him with the face of his dead friend, the friend he killed. Either it would join Death again, or Zeke would taste it for himself.
The Stalker stared into Zeke's soul with it's hateful eyes, the features of his dead friend contorted into anguish, and absolute loathing. His teeth... They had been pulled into needles. His eyes were no longer there. Was this truly the spirit of his dead friend? Zeke thought in panic and guilt. Had he really come back to teach him a lesson of loss...? No, no, he tried to tell himself, even as the creature darted towards him with speed Ezekial knew he could just barely outmatch. As Zeke ducked and let it's claws sink into the steel of the cold storage door, he was planning a way to survive, because that's why he was here. He may not've known what he was getting into, but this time, he could prove to his once-friend that he was the better, stronger person. How, though, could he defeat such a huge, strong creature? He looked up, through the hole the creature had dug for itself through the attic and then the second floor, and a plan formed in his mind. They danced around eachother in a macabre choreography, the Stalker trying to catch Zeke in it's claws and Zeke dodging every move by a hair's width, grabbing chains and weaving them into a complex pattern. Suddenly, as if in a random move to throw the creature off, he ran out through the door and cut through the house with his angry once-friend just behind him, until they once again met in the attic. It seemed almost trivial at the time that he had brought a meat hook on a chain with him.
Zeke took a single moment to reflect on everything that had been happening to him in this hellish place, weaving chains calmly into the hands of three suits of armour before the Stalker showed it's abyssal, ember eyes once again, locked for Zeke as if it's only purpose now was to kill him. He turned to the creature, and smiled as he affixed the meat hook into a tight loop, secured so that there was no possibility of it loosening. The stalker wasted no time at all in charging Zeke down, ready to rip him apart. Just as it's claws were naught but an inch from Zeke's face, he fell backwards, and the creature dived down with him... Zeke tried to ignore the pain as his body also pulled the hands, and weapons, off of the three suits of armour. For three seconds he and the creature stared eachother in the face. Zeke hit the net of chains he wove, then the Stalker. It opened it's maw, about to devour Zeke's face... When a sword impaled it through the head, stopping as it hit the iron grin of Zeke's mask. Another sword fell into it's arm, pinning it in the chains, and the final sword buried itself through the creature's spine, ultimately killing it, and the Skulltula that had taken residence inside of it's body. Zeke lay there, almost paralyzed, as it slumped over and almost seemed to... Hug him, in death.
~~*~~*~~
The moon above shined like an eye peering out from the lid of the thick clouds, full and staring down on everything below, illuminating the secrets of the night with it's subtle glow. A chill ran across the face and down the backs of any who had the misfortune of being out on this most unhallowed of nights, though you wouldn't see a single frown from one figure, who walked down the roads with a confidence befitting no man. Of course, it would be impossible to smile all of the time, so it would be good to note that this one wore a mask of tarnished metal and flesh-like wood, or vice-versa? Whatever the case, he seemed happy enough, and indeed he was with a pocket of forty Rupees. Who would've thought he'd sell out of masks on a single night? Not him, of course, otherwise he'd be less happy and more smug. But we digress. His feet pattered against the ground like a leaf laying upon the grass, and every step managed to avoid the dead leaves that littered the road and path around him, a grace not many possessed. But even as each foot touched the ground in steps even enough to make him appear as a wraith floating across the ground, his ears were not trained on the path his lantern had lit in front of him, but the road behind. He had been hearing the crunch of dead leaves for the past few seconds, but only as a hand grasped his shoulder did he really bother to care... And after a short story and indication of a house he couldn't believe he had not seen, the young man pulled his white hood farther around his head, and ventured to it's doors.
The lids of clouds that formed the eye above him closed, showering him in a darkness that few could see through and fewer ever wanted to experience. His hands wrapped around the cool metal of the doorknob, sending a chill down his two exposed fingers, but without hesitation the young man clicked the knob all of the way back, and peered into the house through the smallest of cracks, observing whatever he could before he devoted something valuable, like his body, to being with the undead that roamed the halls of this old, cold building. He gazed farther in, looking for the light of a Poe's lantern, aside from his own, or the pale, thin body and crimson claws of a Stalchild, but from his vantage point, there was nothing, but darkness, and darkness there would be.
I suppose it's s-
He had not a moment to blink, to look away, before he was peering into what felt like the eye of Death itself. A pit of red ember that nearly blinded him, glowing with hateful intensity that he had seen only once before... And this truly sent a chill down the spine of the young man, even after the eye had left as silently as it came, giving him only the briefest glance of a humanoid easily two feet higher than himself. It took the young man a few moments to gain his composure again and remember that it was his hobby to sneak around with undead. Killing a few spiders in the process shouldnt' be hard, right? ... Well, right?
He pulled upon the one double door he had opened and cursed the groans this old house gave out with every simple movement, realizing that everything he had learned so far about his trade would be put to the test here. His shoes landed upon plush carpet that was actually a welcome change to the hard ground he'd not even realized had ached his feet so much. He raised his lantern high in the room before he had even stepped in, it's sad and flickering flame barely alighting the small foyer. A beautiful house for sure, Zeke was quick to admit, but there would be plenty of time to discuss interior designing with the old man once the house had been cleared of these Golden Skulltula. He could hear the skittering of one at that very moment, but for just a few seconds afterwards, he ignored it, to once again survey the room for anything limb-threatening. Losing a nose, afte all, was bad enough... His eyes glanced from the doorless hallway in front of him to the staircase to his left. Nothing, it seemed, which was a relief at the present moment. He had nowhere to hide, after all. Now, to get back to the business of slaying whatever bug had the misfortune of crossing his path. At first it seemed quite simple; the sound was coming from above him and there wouldn't be much of a place to hide there. He stepped fully into the house and tried to ignore the steady creaking as it closed right in front of him, training his eyes on the spot above... And not really liking what he saw. These Skulltula were smart ones, it seemed, as this one had hid under a coat of arms to protect itself from attack. A clever plan, for an insect.
The young man stared at the coat of arms for a moment, noting with some humour how the Skulltula's legs stuck out from all sides, giving the shield an interesting appearance. He looked away from the shield to his raised lantern, and specifically the spike that hung below it. While not meant to be used as a weapon, he knew it could at least be used as one in a pinch, and so he unhooked it from it's ring with a quick and seamless motion, set it on the ground beside him, and backed away from the door, spike held in between the exposed tips of his index and thumb. He noted with some humour how the spider's legs jutted out from every side of the shield, and chuckled to himself. Such a shame cute creatures like these were what he needed to impale. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his arm back and relaxed his body, aiming carefully at the bottom of the shield... And then threw it like an arrow towards it's bottom curve. When the spike hit, the shield jumped up at least a good two inches off of the wall, and pulled the little Skulltula down with it. Zeke walked over to the now helpless insect and looked down towards it with the faintest of smirks behind that horrid grinning mask.
"It almost makes me sad to do this," Ezekial said as he lifted a single wooden-soled boot high above the insect. "Almost."
One down, nineteen to go. Perhaps stomping the Skulltula wasn't the best idea, but it did give his pants a new golden paintjob on one side.
Ezekial looked down the long hall in front of himself, and immediately felt that unmistakeable chill he got whenever he gazed upon a restless place. It was a feeling he learned to like, but it didn't exactly help his opinion that there was something in this mansion he really did not want to meet. Either way... He had to, so he retrieved his lantern from where he had set it, reaffixed the spike, and continued down the hallway to whatever may await him.
It didn't take long for him to find the next Skulltula, which wasn't as intelligent as it's earlier brother. It had decided to hide behind a painting, and not one that was terribly far off the ground, either. Dispatched as quickly as it took to remove the painting. Not nearly as interactive as the last one, but Zeke had to take some relief in the fact not all of the little buggers would take so much work to remove. With a sigh, as he wiped Skulltula juice from his hand and lantern, he continued a bit farther down the hall to his first turn, and stood dead still as he saw the unmistakeable silhouette of a Stalchild cast by some wayward candle. It didn't seem to be shambling about, more as if it were searching for something. Zeke hoped it was Skulltulas, the same as himself. Anything to make the job easier. It left, and with hesitation, Zeke rounded the corner and was greeted by the dining room. Scuttling immediately filled his ears, but there was no time to search for them at the moment. He dived under the table the moment it began turning, but he managed to avoid being seen by the Poe that passed right above him, or the red one that stood at the old stove, apparently trying to cook... Without heat. Strange, so many ghosts being attracted to a kitchen... He remembered to write it down for future notice.
Zeke waited for the Poe to leave the kitchen, which took about three minutes, give or take. When they did he crawled out from under the table and immediately headed for the stove. He could hear a Skulltula inside, but it was in the smoke stack, which posed an obvious problem.... But then, he had a truly devilish idea. The Skulltula seemed to be below the vent that allowed control of what could get in or out, which was lucky for him, because he needed that as a part of his plan. He reached over and screwed it to a closed position, at the same time reaching down and undoing the latch on the iron stove. Zeke took a piece of tinder from within it and undid the latch to his lantern, immediately placing the end of the tinder into the flame inside. It seemed to squeek in protest, but to no avail, because the tinder still caught fire, and it was good enough to start the stove up. He threw the now severely burning tinder into the stove, and waited... squeals came from the smoke stack, and Zeke could hear it struggling to free itself by climbing higher, but it hit the vent above. To it's insectoid mind, it seemed the only logical place to go was down, but by then the morbid young man had already closed the door on the oven, leaving the Skulltula to run and screetch as it tried to find a way out of the slowly growing fire. Zeke turned to the only other opening in the room, and took a step to leave, when he felt a chill pass through his neck, and saw the faintest of glows out of the corner of his eyes... That red Poe from earlier had come back, and this time there was no place for Zeke to run. He turned, hesitantly, and stared into it's deep, slanted eyes, which stared back with startling intensity.
"Erhm... Hello," Zeke said, hoping to appeal to some human part of the spirit. He looke from it, to the stove, and found that it followed his gaze. "... Yes, I lit the stove for you." The Poe's eyes snapped back to Ezekial, and then to the lantern he was holding. Without a word, it turned completely towards the stove, and began trying to cook again. A little taken-aback, Zeke took a few steps away, and looked back towards the room's exit. The Poe was happy for now, but he didn't know how long that would last. Just as he was about to leave though, he remembered that he heard another scuttling after he entered the room. It was extremely loud, but he had forgotten where it was he heard it.... Then it dawned on him. It was on the underside of the table. That one didn't take much looking at all, just a quick glance for confirmation, and then a very heavy thwack with an equally large lantern. Three down so far.
After leaving the room down the only way he hadn't been, Zeke took a moment to think about the current situation... What had made him agree to this again? At the time he guessed it was because of the prospect of seeing so many undead in one place, but this seemed like more work than he was willing to do, just for that. His shoes didn't make a sound as he walked across the carpet, and he liked it that way. Looking from his left, to his right, he surveyed the area for signs of anything strange, and found nothing saved for a few lost bits of a Stalchild's hand. Unsurprising. He peered off far in front of himself, trying to stave off pensive thoughts, and perked an eyebrow as he saw a table with a single lit candle set in the middle. This house wasn't very well designed, he decided, noting the poor room arrangement. Oh well, every home had it's faults. He continued towards the room, lantern raised in front of himself.
He heard the skittering first, then the scream, then the low, hungry groan in all of three seconds. Barely even able to turn his head, Zeke didn't have to look any direction to know what his attackers were... ReDeads, and they had been waiting for someone like him to walk through the doorway. His heart started racing as a very small bit of the paralysis wore off, but it didn't help his heart stop trying to tear away from his chest. It's face was barely two feet from his own... Such beautiful creatures ReDeads were, but if there was one way he didn't want to die, it was being eaten alive. He tried calming himself, trying to think of a way out of this situation... But realizing there wasn't one except struggling, made Zeke's heart return to his throat. Grasping, trying to tear away at the hands, Zeke had no time to react before pain shot through him like he had never felt before, and if it weren't for the hands grasping his throat like a vice, the old man outside would've heard a scream that chilled him to the very bone. It came out as a tearful wimper that took everything within Zeke's power to supress so he wouldn't collapse into sobbing right there. The ReDead's decaying, jagged teeth were chewing a strip of flesh as large as Zeke's tongue that it had ripped away from his shoulder, with a sickening squelch and a spray of blood that splattered them both in crimson.
Tha paralysis had worn off and his hand immediately reached up to push the ReDead's head away from his already bleeding shoulder, adrenaline fueling his movements and keeping the undead horror from feasting upon him any further, but still it choked him, as hard as it could... Practically crushing his neck. He needed to get out, quickly... Pulling his right arm as far back as he could, he swung the lantern as hard as he could on an arc around himself until it was mere inches from hitting his own head. The ReDead caught it first though, and let go of the young boy. It's first and only mistake, as Zeke wasted no time in turning around to meet his attacker... And noticed as it stook that a Skulltula had taken residence on it's back. Very clever, that one, but that wasn't the point right now. Before the thing could fully stand again, Zeke brought his lantern down in an overhead arc and crashed it into the ReDead's skull, dropping it flat on the floor. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder that seemed to leak liquid fire, he placed a foot over the ReDead's back and stomped, as hard as he could, easily crushing the Skulltula and leaving the ReDead with a broken vertabrae. One more stomp, and in a fit of panic, another, and another, and another, until the ReDead's spine resembled nothing so much as a vertical plane of jagged protrustions. It finally stopped moving, and Zeke sighed in relief, but realized that hurt his shoulder as well... Such a shame, he thought. Ignoring the pain he looked around the living room, noting the fireplace and two cozy chairs that framed the candled table. There was the... Faintest scuttling, but for the life of him he could not place it. Breathing a bit heavily now, he decided to take a short break in the nearest of the two chairs. He walked over, hand clutching his wound, and laid back in the plush armchair like it was the most comfortable thing in existence.
"I've never been bitten before," Zeke said to himself as he moved his gaze to look at the blood trickling from his shoulder as he wiped tears away with his right hand, a river of crimson flowing all across and staining his hood a bright red. It reminded him of that horrible eye he saw in the dark... What must that creature be? Never had he seen something like it, heard of it, especially in such a place.... What then must it be? All questions for another time. For now, he hoped that the wound wasn't deep enough to be a problem. Not only did the thought of patching it sound less than appealing... He had no material he could use. He'd have to trust that it'd stop bleeding on it's own, and soon....
Wait, the skittering was much louder.
Zeke looked around himself frantically for that Skulltula, from the ceilings to it's edges to the underside of the table, they all seemed clear... It dawned on him finally. He stood up and threw back the cushion to reveal that, beneath the cut and punctured netting underneth, a Gold Skulltula had made it's simple little home. A little unsure about how to take it at this angle, Zeke unhooked the spike from his lantern once again and held it between his ring and middle finger, a spike in the middle of his fist. He placed one hand on the dusty armchair and lowered himself to the Skulltula until each grasping tooth was visibe, and then slammed the spike into it's soft abdomen like an arrow. It curled up, and finally, it rotted away into nothingess.
Good, four down... This was going to take longer than he hoped.
He stood from the chair and switched the lantern from his right arm to his left. Until the wound stopped bleeding he would need to keep some pressure on it, and while he applied that, the arm could be of some use and provide a little illumination in this place. When the old man said that his house was filled with the dead, he jested only in understating how many there were. Stepping out of what felt like safety, the candle-light that was now behind him, he stepped into the next hall available to him. Two doors to his left, and a long, dark hallway that seemed to have no end that wasn't engulfed in darkness. He could tell this would be 'fun' the moment he gazed upon it. Trying to console himself, he thought more of the shoulder, and it's new wound. He realized, with little real consolidation, that if it weren't for his leather hood, he probably would have lost an entire chunk of flesh when the ReDead bit down... At least the tears from his eyes stopped, even if the tears of his body hadn't. He stumbled in front of the first door and knocked upon it twice from it's very edge, thankful that the knob was opposite of him. No response, which he was more than thankful for. He opened it slowly and peered inside. Nothing but a closet... Something caught his eye though. He reached down into the depths of the closet, for just a moment close to tears again as his shoulders strained, but he pulled out something that would be immensely useful for the rest of the way, a poker for the fireplace.
He must not use the fireplace much Zeke though in a pitiful attempt to inject humour into the situation. He raised the thing, and swung it around a bit. Not very balanced, but if he hit something in the head with the log-rolling hook, he couldn't imagine it getting back up again. Useful indeed... He kicked the closet door to avoid straining his upper body any more than he needed to, and moved onto the next door. This time with an extra item in his arsenal, Zeke stood a good two feet away from the door before he knocked upon it with the poker, to provoke whatever may be inside into attacking. He could hear that distinctive scratching for sure, but there was something else, a... Barking? That's the only way he could describe it, and he was pretty sure he knew what creature lay behind the door. Slowly, Zeke creeped across the wooden paneling below his feet that would make a crashing groan with every step if not for all of the practice he had with this. Fingers locked upon the cold metal and somehow it sent a tingle through his shoulder that made him wince. He pulled the door open just enough to let out a crack of sight into the room beyond it, but did not dare to look. Instead he held the door there until he felt a thump as if something was trying to push through the crack, but failing utterly even if it was only his fingers keeping it closed. That one moment of pain was all he needed to feel. Grasping the poker in a death grip he aimed the hook towards the door, and opened it full head's width as he pulled his right arm back into a swing, and just as quickly swung it around to crash against the doorframe, and something else just as sturdy that he could not yet see. No longer did that yapping reach his ears, and when he pulled the Poker out of the doorway, sure enough there was a skull impaled upon the hook. Little, pathetic wings flapped helplessly as the Bubble attempted to move again, but Zeke simply flung it back into the room he had come from, and walked into the room for himself.
Well that was just perfect. A bathroom, with a mirror right in front of him to show him just how horrific the wound on his shoulder look. Ter-bloody-rific.
Actually, it was a bit helpful. Once he was done with slaying the Skulltula in this tiny room, he could begin patching up the wound in his arm, albeit crudely. He took a glance around the bathroom... Large, he noticed, with a bath that had a small fireplace for heating water. This certainly was a nice house... Perhaps the old man would let him stay as a tenant after he had cleansed this place. That'd be nice, living in a big house. It fit his large and in charge attitude. That last part was hard to say with a straight face, Zeke had to admit. That was a good sign though. But enough standing around.
It was pretty easy to figure out where the Skulltula was this time. The only trouble was the fact that where it was, wasn't pleasant at all. In the chamber pot on the right side of the room, opposite of the bathtub. He wasn't sure how deep the pit below it went down, but if it was any more than an arm's length with the Poker, the old man would have to wait until he was done using the bath. Crinkling his nose and thinking of just how little he wanted to do this, he walked over to the chamber pot and looked into it'd depths. Oh, thank the Goddess, he thought. It was a bucket emptying type, and the Skulltula was only a couple of feet down... He had to laugh at himself for a moment for being less likely to feel around a chamber pot then creep around with flesh eating, soul stealing monsters, but such was the irony of life. With one well-planned stab the Skulltula was no more, and Zeke set about to something much more important at the moment. Patching up the wound that had already stained a third of his shirt black with blood.
He walked over to the stone basin that jutted from the wall and laid his poker down beside it, and rested his lamp upon the hook. He looked up into the cracked, dusty mirror above it, and reached his fingertips into the basin for no reason than to feel it upon his skin. He splashed a bit into his face and ignored the sting that came with cool liquids contacting very warm flesh. He hadn't realized how much he was sweating until just now. Not too surprising, really. His attention came back to the wound on his left shoulder. It was worse than he first thought, not because of bleeding, but because he hadn't considered the fact that the ReDead literally ripped the piece of flesh away, making a suture difficult enough he didn't think it'd be possible at first. Pushing the idea of doubt out of his head though, he reached down to his lantern and detatched the spike and then pulled one of the spiralling pieces out of the top of the lantern, unsheathing a thin, almost needle-like blade of high quality steel. he screwed it into the fat part of the spike, cut away the fabric along the bite in his hood and shirt, and used the strips of fabric to begin what was bound to be a very painful operation.
~*~*~*~
The young man collapsed against the basin momentarily as he tried desparately to reclaim his breath. Cutting twenty seven holes in his skin and stringing a coarse thread through each and every one, pulling it all together into a single, tight piece, had left him with a single tear forming at the edge of his eye.
"Damn it," he said to himself as he looked up into his reflection. In all honesty he did look better, and with a clean, sutured wound he'd feel even better soon. But for now, it's sting was appropriate for twenty large needles being pushed through the skin. How could he have made such a stupid mistake? He asked as he stared into his reflection and then let his gaze fall to the once pristine, but now blood stained basin below him. He'd have to be more careful from now on. This wasn't an open field and this was much different from the crypts of the Ikanan Graveyard. He had to expect anything at any time, even if that meant taking things a bit more slowly... How much time had passed anyway? It must have been an hour at least. None of that mattered though, at least right now. Ezekial retrieved his poker and lantern, and grasped the cool knob with fingertips... But his fingers froze in place. He slit his eyes and trained his ears on any sound, no matter how slight, that he may find from the outside.
A pitter-patter was all he heard. Slow, slight, each step within two seconds of eachother. His mind raced through all of the possibilities of what it could be. Another ReDead? Possibly, perhaps a Gibdo. It seemed too slow to be anything but... Yet too heavy for the ReDead, and more silent as well. Perhaps it was a Gibdo then... It soon passed the bathroom door and walked on past, whatever it was. Zeke dared to turn the knob the rest of the way and push the door open nary a crack to peer out into the gloom, and nearly gasped when he saw it. Eight feet of lumbering, sinewy flesh that definitely seemed to be ReDead in origin, yet it's blood red colour and sheer size distinguished it, as did elongated arms whos' thin fingers ended in sickle-like claws. It's movements hinted at a grace Zeke knew he'd only see if the creature saw him. The beast stopped, and straightened it's body as if listening for something. Ezekial's eyes widened like they hadn't in years and as quickly and silently as he could he shut the door.
How he knew the creature was going to turn towards the door he did not know, he didn't even truly know if it had, but his confidence in that sharp pang if instinct kept him there, holding the knob like a vice as every part of him tensed, waiting for something, anything. The silence was deafening to him... After what felt like an hour, he heard the creature move again, but which way he couldn't tell at it's first step. He tried to decide between staying still or finding a place to hide. But after the longest two seconds of his life, Zeke heard the creature move forward, away from him and down the hall. Two, four, six... He could no longer hear the creature, and then he realized he had been holding his breath the entire time. He resisted the urge to gasp and steadied his breath again, as he stood in fascination of what he had just witnessed and experienced. Unlike anything he had ever seen... Ezekial had that rare moment of giddiness when he realized there was something totally new for him to study, but this time it conflicted with what felt like instinct. Something about this thing just screamed for him to keep away, and stay away, but he could only hope that his stay in the Spider Mansion would be so simple. Daring to take one more chance, he eased the door open, and peered down the hall into the room beyond. Still as lightless as ever... For all he knew, that thing was waiting in there for something stupid and living to come along. Ezekial was only the latter, so he looked down the way he had come, and decided that he'd try the stairwell he had seen in the very first room.. Perhaps try the door while he was there. No, then again, perhaps not. He didn't need any temptation to leave, he was plenty good enough to do the task assigned to him. He walked down the hallway, and went on to do what he did best.
His hunt continued upstairs, and to his joy there was a Skulltula that had done little to protect itself except hide upon the ceiling, out of reach to anyone who wasn't... The side of whatever that creature slinking around was. It soon learned, however, that some people are very good jumpers, and when it came to people like Ezekial himself... Extremely good stompers as well. Each side of his green pants had been painted gold now, and it had only just dawned on him how much of a disadvantage all of that Gold Powder on his clothing, and he cursed himself for being so visceral with the bugs. No matter, he decided, as he entered the door to his right... And immediately ran back through. He had found the Poe from earlier, the one that had floated above him. Apparently it was hoping to chop something up, because opposite of it's lantern, it held a butcher's knife that leaked black ichor he guessed came from an unlucky ReDead. Not nearly as 'kind' as it's sibling, it rushed him with a cackle unlike that of any Poe he had met before... But it met a rather embarrassing fate. Standing beside the door was Ezekial, and the moment the Poe had crossed that wooden thresh-hold, he brought the poker down light a sledgehammer and knocked the Poe's lantern out of it's grasp and into the ground, shattering it instantly and leaving the Poe with no way to contain it's soul. For a second, Zeke considered adding it to the lantern, but simply stepped over the sad little flame to enter the room behind.
A bedroom, how interesting. The sheets of the canopy bed were stained with more black ichor, but Zeke didn't pay any mind to it. He heard scuttling... A lot of it. His heart jumped for joy and immediately he began searching for every possible bug to slay with his trusty Poker. One, he found, had hid inside of the wardrobe against the left wall. Simple enough, a simple stab and it was no longer of the living. The second, he eventually found, was hiding in the dark drapes above the bed. This one almost landed on his back and pinched him right on the neck, but learning from his earlier mistake, he swung the lantern around and into the Skulltula, impaling it on the lantern's many spines. The last one he heard was terribly puzzling. It seemed to be coming from a vanity in front of the bed, but he had searched everywhere to no avail. He tried looking behind the vanity last... But it was so far against the wall he couldn't see how'd there be space for anything that wasn't flat... Or a hole.
And that's when it hit him. Grasping the edge of the vanity from each side, he easily pushed it out of the way, and revealed... A huge, bloody hole in the wall, stuffed to the brim with some sort of... strange, red and black ooze. The Skulltula's scuttling was louder than ever... He was not looking forward to this. Getting down on all fours, he readied the poker, and ignoring the pain in his left shoulder he stuck it as far through the ooze as he could, until he finally went through something that crunched. He pulled his Poker back, and flung of the corpse of another Gold Skulltula.
Zeke exited the room with a relieved sigh, and looked to the door at the end of the short hallway, right before the turn. He eased the door open, and everything that happened after this point became, quite literally, a blur for Ezekial. His body never stopped moving as he rushed from room to room, trying to slink through the shadows to wherever the Skulltula lay, but every moment he slayed one, another creature seemed to take notice of Ezekial. In the first room, he managed to slay another three that hid amongst the crates of bones and avoided the eyes of a Garo, but as he left the room he realized that there was a new guest that had joined in on the fun... A gargantuan, ghoulish rat that he had roused from deep sleep with the smell of his bleeding flesh. It had attempted to turn Zeke into yet another corpse for the undead to feast upon, but he managed to trap it in a crate long enough to escape the room and move onto the next. His right leg now sported it's own missing piece of flesh, to parallel the left shoulder. How unamusing and ironic, Zeke thought to himself.
The next room, was perhaps even more horrible. A room of... Nothing but mannequins wrapped from head to toe in blood-stained bandages. He knew what sort of things must lay in the room and creeped around as silent as death itself, trying to pick Gibdo from Mannequin and failing more than once. He managed to pick out two of the Skulltula that had made their homes inside the bandages of the dummies, but as he readied to impale the last one, he found that it was indeed a real Gibdo. He did not slay the beast, but used a bit of bandage from another dummy to catch the Gibdo ablaze, and in the process kill the Skulltula attached to it. He escaped the room, and as he exited, the familiar pitter-patter reached his ears... There were no more Gold Skulltula on this level as far as he could tell, so Zeke left down the stairs to continue to the room he had not examined earlier, a room that had been magically enchanted to be cold. It held the mansion's perishables, especially it's meat, and as he destroyed two more Skulltula feasting upon the meat, Zeke felt the entire house tremble.
From a the chain-covered ceiling, a gargantuan Gold Skulltula dropped, more akin to the size of a horse than a dog like previous specimens. He couldn't believe the sight that lay before him... Never had he seen a spider so huge. It clacked it's fangs and threw it's threats of horrid death at Zeke, fangs dripping an acidic venom that ate into the floor. Zeke had no clue if he could stand his ground against the thing, but he knew that he had to try, and he would... But then, a hole was torn in the ceiling, and that horrific creature that had stalked the mansion this entire time, the creature of hateful eyes and sickle-claws, dropped down upon the back of the King Skulltula and ripped it's skull-shell in half, slicing through bone and delicate meat alike as if it were made of the same mortal flesh of any piece of meat hanging around them. For a single moment a thousand possibilities ran through Zeke's head, but he knew that only two of them would be true for the beast that lay before him, the beast that turned and looked at him with the face of his dead friend, the friend he killed. Either it would join Death again, or Zeke would taste it for himself.
The Stalker stared into Zeke's soul with it's hateful eyes, the features of his dead friend contorted into anguish, and absolute loathing. His teeth... They had been pulled into needles. His eyes were no longer there. Was this truly the spirit of his dead friend? Zeke thought in panic and guilt. Had he really come back to teach him a lesson of loss...? No, no, he tried to tell himself, even as the creature darted towards him with speed Ezekial knew he could just barely outmatch. As Zeke ducked and let it's claws sink into the steel of the cold storage door, he was planning a way to survive, because that's why he was here. He may not've known what he was getting into, but this time, he could prove to his once-friend that he was the better, stronger person. How, though, could he defeat such a huge, strong creature? He looked up, through the hole the creature had dug for itself through the attic and then the second floor, and a plan formed in his mind. They danced around eachother in a macabre choreography, the Stalker trying to catch Zeke in it's claws and Zeke dodging every move by a hair's width, grabbing chains and weaving them into a complex pattern. Suddenly, as if in a random move to throw the creature off, he ran out through the door and cut through the house with his angry once-friend just behind him, until they once again met in the attic. It seemed almost trivial at the time that he had brought a meat hook on a chain with him.
Zeke took a single moment to reflect on everything that had been happening to him in this hellish place, weaving chains calmly into the hands of three suits of armour before the Stalker showed it's abyssal, ember eyes once again, locked for Zeke as if it's only purpose now was to kill him. He turned to the creature, and smiled as he affixed the meat hook into a tight loop, secured so that there was no possibility of it loosening. The stalker wasted no time at all in charging Zeke down, ready to rip him apart. Just as it's claws were naught but an inch from Zeke's face, he fell backwards, and the creature dived down with him... Zeke tried to ignore the pain as his body also pulled the hands, and weapons, off of the three suits of armour. For three seconds he and the creature stared eachother in the face. Zeke hit the net of chains he wove, then the Stalker. It opened it's maw, about to devour Zeke's face... When a sword impaled it through the head, stopping as it hit the iron grin of Zeke's mask. Another sword fell into it's arm, pinning it in the chains, and the final sword buried itself through the creature's spine, ultimately killing it, and the Skulltula that had taken residence inside of it's body. Zeke lay there, almost paralyzed, as it slumped over and almost seemed to... Hug him, in death.