The Old Barnaker House. Every kid has heard about it. Everybody has a different awful story about it. All of them agree it is a very bad place.
But here you are on Halloween Night, all because of that jerk Roger. He dared you and your friends to spend the night there. You couldn’t let him bully you.You will show him who is chicken! Everybody knows that there are no such things as ghosts. Everybody knows that, right?
So get your slingshot and your pocket knife. Grab some candy and ready your Rubik’s Cube. You and your friends are going to go face-to-face with the horrors of the Barnaker House.
Wow! Look at all this stuff-"Shirley is pulling a few items out of the pack while looking through it when Darren pops open the damper and fills the room with ash and dust. Trying not to cough a lung out, she stands and walks toward the door dragging the knapsack with her. Being so close to the fireplace, her white feathers are now blackened as well as wet.
"What did you do that for?" she chides the boy finally noticing the dead animal.
Sanity (65): d%
"I don't know, this doesn't look like the stash of a rich person," she tells Harry looking back into the parlor still wearing a frown on her face.
Notice Stuff (60%): d%
"Hold this," handing Harry the pack she steps back into the room, kneeling by the couch to pull out the strange metal rod.
From under the sofa, Shirley grabs the metal loop and extracts an iron fireplace poker. It's slightly bent. From the doorway she hears, 'Hey, you don't need that, give it to me.'Roger is standing there, another one of his rancid candles burning in his hand.
"I think I need it more than you. How am I supposed to defend myself from the racoons?"Shirley whines dramatically. She didn't really care about the poker, but Roger was already a menace without a sharp, metal rod in his hands, and she really didn't like his habit of destroying everything he could reach.
"We should probably just leave that stuff alone. It obviously belongs to someone," she tells Harry standing up and dusting her knees, luckily her stockings were already black. "Let's see if we can find an actually functioning stove, probably in the kitchen. I don't trust this fireplace not to choke us to death."
Harry nods and puts the pack back where it was found. Maybe it would distract Roger. "The kitchen should be right next to the dining room, which is right across the hall," he says.
Darren's knuckles whiten as he grips tighter on the crowbar, watching Roger. Ready to step in if he made a move against Shirley.He believed that as many of them should be armed in case there was some crazy homeless man lurking in the shadows.
Shirley moves out in the hallway, using the poker as a walking stick, she steps by the stairs towards the room that should be the kitchen, the one on the same side as the dining room.
Louis retrieves his can and puts it on the table next to the rucksack. When Roger isn’t looking he takes the pocket knife from the bag. “It’s just for tonight- I’ll put it back in the morning before we go.” He promises to himself and puts it in his pocket under his bin bag outfit.
Roger stares at Shirley for a while, his fist tensing and then relaxing rhythmically. Eventually he just shrugs and says, 'Whatever Shirley Two Shoes,', putting down his candle and stomping back into the hallway. Shirley follows him out and finds him repeatedly kicking the case of the grandfather clock standing against the east wall. His foot splinters the wood revealing the mechanism inside has been gutted by vandals. 'One O'Clock,'crack, 'Two O'Clock,'smash, 'Three O'Clock,'shatter.
Moving past Roger's gleeful cackling, Shirley reaches the rear of the house. The back entrance is empty except for a few coat hooks holding moth-eaten rags and a pair of stiff moldy boots. The back door is boarded up. Using her poker as a walking stick seems to magnify the creaking and flexing of the floor boards.
The plain wooden door to the room beyond the dining room is closed. Shirley puts her hand on the door handle, pausing for a moment as she thinks she hears a noise beyond, rustling or scurrying. She slowly opens the door which moves heavily on its aged hinges. There's a slightly sour and bitter waft of air but in the darkness she's not able to make out much of the room beyond. It certainly looks like a kitchen, with cupboards, maybe an oven. But beyond that she can't see anything with the boarded up windows, rainclouds outside, and no other source of light.
Shirley can hear the wind whistling through a crack somewhere, the rain outside sounds even heavier, pattering against the walls. A sudden gust rattles the shutters and loose boards, the whole house feels like it shifts slightly.
The knife is a 1d2 (no damage bonus/penalty) if used as a weapon
Kyle picks up the candle Roger has left in the parlour. The flame is low and dim, and there's a nasty acrid smell and quite a sooty black smoke. The candle itself is thick and streaked yellow. The shape is pretty uneven and it looks like it could even be handmade. It's only about six inches long, or less, and Kyle doesn't think it would be useful as any kind of weapon. Not unless he was trying to set fire to someone.
The wax in these candles was probably made from animal fat. It used to be quite common but less so now that mass produced candles are available.
Also test Spooky Stuff and check below if you pass.
You've definitely read about lots of spells from black magic that use candles made from the fat of newborn babies, eugh. Roll Sanity with 0/1 points loss.
"Bring your flashlight over here, Harry,"Shirley calls over her shoulder from the doorway of the kitchen.
When he comes close enough to her, she whispers, trying to make sure Roger doesn't hear her. "Looks like we'll have to find that stupid key Roger hid," she points to the boarded-up backdoor, "I don't like being looked in here."
By the time Harry's in the hallway, Roger seems to have disappeared, leaving the splintered remains of the grandfather clock.
Joining Shirley, he sweeps his flashlight beam across the kitchen. In the new light, he and Shirley see that it's a pretty normal looking kitchen with a very dated set of green laminate cupboards and drawers, and a porcelain sink with rusty taps. Dominating the room is a big double-fronted white-enamel gas oven with a four burners on top.
All garish yellow plastic, there's an old-fashioned wall-mounted telephone beside one of the green cupboards.
The wooden worktops are damp and warped. There's not much left on them except a knifeblock with one handle protruding from it, a battered and misshapen colander, and a little pile of what Harry fears are probably rat droppings.
Louis leaves his kerosene, handle and rags by the rucksack and feels his way down the hallway, stepping over the wreckage of the clock front. He’s relieved to see Harry’s flashlight beam and he joins the others in the kitchen.
“Ugh, looks worse than our kitchen.” He whispers. “Still, they might have a can opener.” He goes to try a drawer.
