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Silently, he prayed that Luigi was alright: that he was still free and that, by some miracle, he would escape this place.
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As soon as she got through the door, Comet had sprinted away from the guard room, leaving the “ghosts,” the courtyard, the white orbs, everything behind. Adrenaline hummed in her head as she tore through the passages, heading straight for the front of the mansion. Nothing had challenged her, not even the little colorful ghosts who had made themselves such a nuisance before.
Once Comet began to feel more safe, her breakneck pace had slowed, though she kept her weapon out and the lantern high. She saw few ghosts of any kind. Rare sets of glinting eyes peered from the shadows, but they always skittered away, going about their own business. After a while, even these encounters stopped. For the first time in this wild midnight waltz, the castle actually seemed dead.
Comet stalked deeper into the halls, going straight as much as possible. When the path diverged too much for her liking, she tried the doors lining the walls. When none would open, she forced them, but an unlocked passage almost always led the way she wanted to go.
As time dragged on, however, her confidence began to shake.
All the rooms she entered looked bare, featureless, and almost identical. Under her feet, the carpet changed erratically between red and green. Despite the lack of ghosts, Comet’s eyes flicked across the walls and lingered over the darkest shadows. Her mind wandered back to the soldiers and she clenched her weapon until her knuckles went white. Gradually, her pace picked up again until she all but ran down the passage.
Eventually, her wandering brought her to a hall of bare wood planks—something she had never encountered before. Her stride petered as the boards wobbled beneath her weight. For the first time in a while, she actually stopped and took stock of the passage around her.
The roof here hung low and slanted at an odd angle. Water dripped from above, collecting in little puddles before seeping down through the boards. As she tried to continue, the floor bowed under her feet, each step sounding concerningly hollow. Cautiously, she retreated to the more stable edges of the passage and crept forward along the wall.
As she pushed further down the hall, the air became increasingly cold and damp, carried back to her by a stiff draft. Soon, she escaped the narrow confines of the passage, stepping out into a long, narrow chamber. A massive window made up almost the whole of one wall, its dim, cracked glass suspended in decorative metal lattice. Wind howled outside, rattling the loose glass and bringing with it the strangely distant roar of trees. Rain pattered against the panels, trickling through every crack to feed the moss growing on the sill.
Something seemed wrong.
Feeling her way over the unstable planks, Comet edged across to the window then stared down in disbelief. Far below, the forest of dead trees rocked in the wind like a sea of swaying, reaching fingers. This wasn’t possible. How had she… She stared across the distant wave of trees, mind grasping for solutions. She hadn’t taken one set of stairs, not one ramp, and definitely nothing that should put her here, at the very top of the castle. Gritting her teeth, she rounded on the passage and stormed back the way she had come.
Comet had no idea which door she’d used to get here. When she reached roughly the right passages, she began jacking on handles until one of them proved loose. She slammed it open then thrust her lantern through the doorway, revealing a small studio of canvases.
A troop of easels stood across the floor, adorned with half-finished oils. More paintings hung on the walls: portraits, landscapes, and still-lifes painted in fat, gloppy strokes. A semicircle of workbenches wrapped around the near side of the chamber, covered in tubs of paint, brushes, and a few half-finished stone busts. The drip, drip, drip of water echoed in the room as it fell through the roof into an array of buckets splayed over the floor. In the far corner, another door hung slightly ajar, creaking listlessly.
Comet jerked back as something hissed in the wake of her light. A few bright forms darted between the paintings and slithered through the wall. Her face screwed into a snarl, and she stood ready, but the ghosts didn’t re-appear. Cautiously, she entered the room, running her eyes across the tools, the paintings, the sculptures.
What looked like a crown lay on the workbench nearest her, a massive purple gem set in its center. Comet stared, brow furrowed. A faint, almost pink light radiated from inside it, twisting out through its many facets. The shattered remains of another, red gem lay around it, dark and dead. Brow still furrowed, she turned away, looking to more important things.
A jagged, black hole punched through the floor into the chamber below. Two woefully inadequate boards lay across it, attempting to bridge the gap. Comet knelt by the hole, shining her light into the lower chamber to see a sparse bedroom a good twelve feet below: much too far to jump. That idea dashed, she stood and eyed the listless door beyond. After a moment of consideration, she paced to the wall and carefully sidled across the hole’s ragged edge.
With a last glance around the room, Comet pulled open the loose door. She peered inside to see a forest of empty easels and canvases stacked almost to the roof. Against the near wall stood a wardrobe-workbench hybrid, covered with pots of pigments and oils. Layers of bright paint splattered its surface and ran down onto the floor, mixing brilliantly into the water of an overflowing leak-bucket. A dead end.
Comet sighed in disgust and turned back, then froze. Voices mumbled up from the hallway, one raspy and inhuman, the other hollow and almost nasally. A slash of light crept up the passages with them, leaking in through the partially open door. From somewhere in the room came the yelp of a smaller ghost, and it flashed upward in a shot of blue, escaping through the ceiling.
Comet’s stomach dropped and she lurched back into the storeroom, flicking off the lantern. She pulled the door shut behind her only to realise it didn’t latch. Gritting her teeth, she propped it as close to closed as it went and inched backward between the easels, weapon gripped in her hands.
The two distorted voices continued to mumble, and the flick of light washed under the storeroom door in shuffling patches of green and brilliant white. As they drew closer, Comet found herself able to follow the conversation.
“...Yes,” drolled the raspy voice “Apparently he encountered one of our ‘guests’ earlier this evening. It would have been unfortunate if the situation resulted in a casualty. That butler may cause you trouble after tonight.”
“He could,” responded the second voice.
The raspy voice hummed.
“I’m sure we can come to some arrangement. He could be of use to me in future, and he’d certainly appreciate it more than a prolonged existence here. With luck, I will entice him to accompany me when I leave.”
“That’d be a good turn. I’d gladly be rid of that certifiable devil.”
A pause ensued and the white light swayed, shifting away from the door.
“You’ve begun repairs on your studio, I see.”
“And I’m near fed up with it,” growled the second voice. “They let it go to heck. And the damp—” A long, sour pause. “All my work, left here to rot...”
“A pitiful waste.” The white light shifted again, trickling in under the store room door. “I look forward to seeing how you turn your artistic touch to refurbishing the castle.”
“I’ll start by repainting the dance hall, I think. Been a while since I did murals.
The raspy voice hummed again.
“I may commision you to do so for my own home. I know several walls that would benefit very well from your unique touch.”
“—I’d do it, I’m sure. They do take some time...”
“You’ll have all the time in the world very soon.”
The voices fell into silence, and the light again shifted away from the door. Comet inched forward, peering through the cracks into the chamber beyond, expression set. Green and white lit up the room, casting a shivering twist of shadows between the easils. Two figures hung near the back wall, one of them humanoid, observing the rows of paintings mounted there.
Despite seeing what she expected, Comet’s chest seized. Her face twisted in a snarl and she sank lower to the ground, eyes locked on the humanoid ghost.
He was skinny and scruffy, with large white eyebrows, a mustache, and a bushy beard. Impressive white side-burns framed his dark eyes and bulbous nose. On his head sat a slouching, rather flat red hat, covering most of his balding crown.
The second ghost was much larger, perfectly round with a wispy tail and nubby arms—a massive version of the creatures Comet had seen in the courtyard. After a long moment, it turned away from the paintings, and its large red eyes swept over the studio.
“How has my crown come along? Finished, I hope.”
The green ghost turned, almost snapping to attention.
“Yes, I replaced the gem,” he said smarly, then drifted to the crown on the edge of the work bench. With a nod almost like a bow, he presented it to the white ghost.
The white ghost watched with a haughty, pleased expression as the artist rotated it this way and that for him to inspect. Its large purple stone glimmered in his white glow, casting the light back in odd angles and colors.
“Excellent.” He mumbled softly. “An exquisite set.”
The red in the ghost’s eyes sharpened, and a tinted pink glow took the whole crown. Slowly, shakily, it rose into the air before coming gently to rest on the round ghost’s head. A shudder ran through him, and he closed his eyes, his white aura intensifying. When he opened them again, they seemed more purple than before.
With a small nod and a clatter of metal, the green ghost sorted his tools into a collection of tins on the workbench. Then he swept his hand across the red gem shards, sliding them toward the ghost with the crown.
“Keep them,” said the round ghost. They’re drained now, but they’ll recharge easily enough. Use them to sate your more troublesome tenants when I’m gone.
The green ghost nodded again and swept them roughly into another tin.
“Thank you kindly.”
“Your assistance is most appreciated, and your company delightful,” said the white ghost. “However, we must discuss a more serious topic before I take my leave.”
“What would that be?”
“It seems, in wake of our previous inconveniences, the professor has finally returned.”
A nasty scoul clouded the artist’s expression.
“Good,” he said, voice thick. “You’ll have him soon enough, and good riddance.”
“Unfortunately,” said the white ghost, tone stern at the interruption, “the situation did not pan out as intended. It seems he’s snared himself a partner. A younger, more able-bodied man to do his dirty work for him.”
The artist’s bushy eyebrows shot up.
“He’s never worked with an assistant before.”
“It appears he’s changed his ways.”
The green ghost’s color flushed impressively and he snarled under his breath.
“The old, cowardly, crawling, welsh—”
“Calm yourself. Nothing has truly changed.”
“What? You think if you dust off this wretch the professor will come in here after him? Well he won’t. He’ll never set foot in here again—!”
“It does pose significant issue. The professor likely won’t enter the mansion of his own accord.” The white ghost raised one, stubby paw when the artist opened his mouth to rave again. “However, he is still here somewhere, relaying instructions and emptying the ‘poltergust.’ What I need from you, Van Gore, is to know what location he would operate from.”
“The assistant has that infernal machine!?”
“He does.”
Van Gore took a few sharp breaths through his nose, his colors growing even sharper.
“I can’t say. I guessed he had some rat-hole close by, but I never looked in earnest. It has to be on the grounds or just beyond.”
The white ghost sighed heavily.
“Unfortunate. I had hoped you knew more. But no matter. He is here, and he will not be leaving again. We can starve him out if need be. In the meantime, this ‘assistant’ has proved more dangerous than I anticipated. The sooner he’s contained, the better.
“And what exactly do you plan to do? He’s got that darned machine...”
“As troublesome as he may be, the assistant is still mortal. He will tire eventually. However, the… how shall we call them? The ‘common’ ghosts have grown skittish. How are your replacements progressing?”
“Fine enough. I can pull multiple from the same canvas now. I’ll mob that goon with ghosts until he can’t even think.”
“Good.”
Van Gore shifted, his snarl growing uneasy.
“Has this ‘assistant’ taken anyone yet?”
For the first time in the conversation, the white ghost’s expression soured as well.
“I don’t know how many ghosts he has encountered so far. There is no doubt that Linda, Nevil, Chancy, and one of my own are gone. But don’t worry yourself; I will have them back. And I do hold some… significant leverage over him.”
“The other ‘guests.’”
“One in particular, yes. Though he’s proven himself particularly slippery. I must apply myself to finding a more secure cage. On that note, I must cut our engagement short and attend to him. His current position is far from a permanent solution...”
The white ghost turned to leave, then froze as Van Gore mumbled something into his workbench.
“Pardon?”
“Then give ‘em a taste of his own medicine.”
The king raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“You left the infernal machine alive in the lab, didn’t you?”
“...The portrait device?”
“Pretty fitting, if you ask me.” The artist said, a vicious grin peaking through his snarl.
The white ghost hung in the doorway and pondered.
“The poeticness of it does appeal. But the lethality is rather permanent for my plans.”
“Can’t see why it’d be lethal. The professor pressed mice alright; I can’t think he’d go backwards after all these years.
The white ghost hummed again.
“Good evening to you,” He said finally. “I’ll keep you informed as events unfold.”
Van Gore gave a deep bob of his head. With a widening grin, the white ghost descended through the floor.
Comet pressed against the ground in an army crawl behind the storeroom door, staring dead-eyed at the grain of the wood. The yell in the halls, the trashed parlor... it seemed like days ago that those things happened. And now she understood. The thoughts that she was in over her head rolled over her again and again. She had to get out of here. She had to get herself and Novi out now before they became tangled in... whatever she had just witnessed.
Van Gore’s glow drifted back and forth beyond the door, casting Comet’s face in green light through the cracks. She swallowed and peered into the studio again, watching and waiting, but this ghost didn’t seem to want to leave. After a while of pacing and muttering, he clattered among the tools on the workbench, opening what seemed to be a pot of paint then barking out a nasty word as a tin of brushes fell to the floor.
Stiffly, the ghost retrieved the cup and collected its content onto his workspace. With something like a groan he stretched his high, tense shoulders and pressed his thumbs into the corners of his eyes, misaughing the bridge of his nose. With a drawn out sigh, he picked a paintbrush from the pile, dipped it in the paint, and made a long sweep across one of the half-finished canvases, leaving a trail of luminescent purple.
Comet watched him tensley, the pressure to move chewing through her. She watched in turmoil as the shape of one of the purple ghosts took form on the canvas, then seized up when Van Gore set down his brush and drifted toward her hiding spot.
With a pounding heart and grit teeth, she retreated under the sea of easels. The door creaked softly as the ghost pushed inside, lighting the chamber up in his off-green color. With hardly a glance over the room, he turned to the paint-slicked dresser, where he began fooling with the mess of pigments and oils.
Silently, Comet snagged the dark lantern from the floor and slithered around a pile of moldering canvases, lining herself up until she had a straight shot for the open door. With a last tense glance at the ghost, she bolted.
Van Gore turned as she launched by, roaring in surprise. The paint he had mixed dropped to the ground, splattering all over the walls and floor in a wash of luminous purple. Comet didn’t turn back. With a burst of speed, she leapt clean over the gap in the floor then shouted as her foot went through the boards on the other side. The whole studio shook as she smacked against the ground. She scrabbled at the floor as she began slipping into the hole. The ghost hung stunned in the doorway, hands clapped to his face in an expression of horror.
Comet managed to stop her slide, and with a desperate heave, dragged herself up and barreled for the hallway. For a half moment Van Gore remined, eyes wide in shock and hands still to his face. Then he recovered himself, bellowing after her as she slammed the door: “Get out! You’re not welcome here! Get out!”
Comet crashed into the wall of the hallway. From inside the studio, she heard the ghost heave a shaky breath and mumble to himself, but didn’t try to follow. Nonetheless, she didn’t stick around. Comet bolted down the dilapidated passage, jacking on handles again as she got farther away. Finally, one opened into another long corridor. She plunged through and slammed the door.
Stable, green-carpeted floor met her, and the roof arched far over head, leak free. Despite the blood pounding in her ears, she froze. Slowly, Comet turned to the door she had come through and twisted the handle. The leaky passage was gone, replaced by a hall almost identical to the one she found herself in now.
She shut the door again, mind in turmoil.
“Lass?”
Comet went rigid, hardly believing her ears.
“I thought I’d never catch up to you again! You have any idea how close that was? That king was right there in the hall!”
Comet’s face lit up in a savage snarl and she rounded on the voice, weapon leveled.
Atlas, for indeed it was, quailed instantly.
“Whao, hold on there, just wait,” he said, raising his hands in a non-threatening way. “I’m not trying to jump ya.”
“Get out of here,” She barked. “Leave!”
Atlis’s expression pinched.
“Now just wait a second.”
The snarl on Comet’s face deepened. Atlas’s color dimmed significantly as he backed away. “Look, I’m trying to help you, alright? That’s it, no tricks.”
“Why should I trust you?” She swung the lantern forward and started to advance.
Atlas winced at the light as he continued to retreat.
“Just hear me out for a second, okay?” He said, starting to sound desperate “I don’t know what’s happened, but things have gotten a lot worse.” He slowed to a stop, hands in a defensive position. “I’ll take you right to the front of this place, no tricks, nothing funny. I know you don’t want my help, but I know someone you’ll like better!” Comet slowed as she drew closer, expression as hard as before. Atlas’s voice dropped low and he hissed almost frantically: “There's another place just outside, and I’m pretty sure the professor is there. He’s like you—alive I mean. I’ll take you there, ‘n’ you’ll get the professor's help ‘n’ everything’ll be fine.”
Comet stopped just a few feet in front of him and he tensed. He looked like he wanted to bolt, but he stayed, holding his hands away from the blade still leveled at him. They stood there in tense silence, Comet studying his hardly visible, anxious face. Her mind worked furiously behind her hard eyes.
Finely, ever so slowly, she lowered her weapon.
“Which way to the exit?”
Atlas let out a shaky breath then glanced around the passage.
“This way?” He said, gesturing up the hall.
“Then move,” she said, her tone still dangerous.
For an instant, Atlas looked like he would speak, but decided better of it. He turned and drifted down the hall at a brisk pace, head half-tuned to see if she followed. Comet straightened her shoulders and did.
• • •
Ice hung from the roof in long shards, glittering in the faint blue light of the freezer, the breeze of the cooling elements humming between them.
Mario huddled on the frozen ground below, curled under a metallic tarp. His footprints wandered the frost coated floor, like tracks in snow. A swath of bare stone circled the base of the door where he had pawed away the ice in search of cracks. The circular, ship-like hatch in the center of the door lay clean, rubbed free of frost as he had tried to twist it until his hands went numb. Beside the door lay a dented metal canister: his old battering ram.
From there the tracks stumbled away, dragging towards the ransacked boxes at the back of the chamber. Shards of crates littered the floor where he had pulled them apart for fuel. Their contents lay scattered over the white ground: jars of colored goo full of floating bits Mario didn’t dare identify.
In the center of the chamber lay a pile of icy, splintered wood, smoldering feebly. That’s where Mario sat now, shivering, cold, and miserable.
A thin twist of smoke rose from the makeshift fire before him, drifting toward the little rattling fan in the ceiling. He pulled the metallic tarp tighter around his shoulders and leaned almost into the flames, catching what little heat it gave. He was so tired…
No matter how he tried to avoid it, his eyes kept drifting to the large chunk of ice in the corner. It crept down from a leaky pipe on the wall, a dark mass suspended in its center. A pair of eyes seemed to peer at him from its depths.
He tried not to think about what would happen when the king found him like this. If he came back at all. Mario shuddered and shook his head, clearing away his thoughts. For now, he was coping. He would hold out.
A clang echoed from behind him, and Mario jolted to look at it, shivering harder. Slowly, the hatch on the freezer turned with a low screech. Tarp still pulled around his shoulders, Mario struggled to his feet. Boos wouldn't bother with the door, would they? Tensely, he waited.
With a final clang, the door flew open, slamming into the wall. Mario tried to duck away, but not fast enough. A blast of magic clipped him and he staggered back, tripping over his pile of broken crates and crashing to the ground.
He gasped as a dead, numb feeling spread from the magic’s point of impact, turning his nerves to static. Teeth grit, he forced himself into his hands and knees, only to take another shot to the side. He yelled out, black rings edging in on his vision as he crumpled, a useless red rag across the icy floor.
Somewhere outside his blurred vision, he heard the king’s voice:
“He’s quite harmless now. Bring him.”
Mario’s heart pounded as two boos floated into view, hesitant as first, then more confident as they saw him for themselves. He tried to move, to shout, anything as they grabbed him, but he only managed an incoherent groan. They dragged his limp form backward toward the hall, leaving a wake in the frost.
He jolted painfully as he hit the uneven dungeon floor. The boos hauled him roughly across the rubble and stones, back toward the lab. Mario’s mind raced in a sticky haze. What were they doing?
He jarred again as they dragged him over the mess on the lab floor, straight to clearing around the massive, silver machine. Unceremoniously, they pulled him up and turned him around, propping him on his knees. Mario’s eyes flicked over the crowd of boos waiting there, hanging around him in a cloud of eager grins. He tried to move his hands, his mouth—to say something, yell at them, anything—but nothing came.
King Boo hung in the middle of the crowd, looking smug. His smile stretched huge as he saw Mario’s eyes: wide, alert, and darting.
“Ah, Mario. I’ve found a suitable solution for our little game of tag,” he said, drifting forward.
Mario’s breath hitched, and the king laughed. He looked Mario up and down, appraising him with his head cocked. Mario flinched horribly as the king reached one delicate paw toward him. Gently, the king removed the bandage from his shoulder and nodded, ignoring his prisoner’s increasingly raggad breath.
“Yes, this will do quite nicely.” He turned to his cloud of giggling subjects. “Load him in.”
Again, the boos dragged Mario forwarded, toward the machine. More boos joined until they had him completely off the ground. Mario got a glimpse of a gaping black tunnel behind him as they lay him on the machine’s conveyor, arranging him there with all the care and grace of a funeral bier.
The machine rumbled gently, its black entrance looming just behind him, ready to swallow him head-first. Him lay in silent panic as boos adjusted switches on its side. With a delicate whine and a grinding whir, the machine came to life. Mario clamped his eyes shut as he moved backwards along the belt.
Silently, he prayed that Luigi was alright: that he was still free and that, by some miracle, he would escape this place.
Notes:
Aaaaand there he goes. Are you really surprised, though? This is Luigi’s Mansion, after all.
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