A single step into the Rune mansion and the entire party felt a cold chill. Some even sense a spectre passing by their shoulders while others caught a whiff of something rotting. Raven who'd been there before,,, continued carrying the group forward.
Led by Tan at the very front, they were shown to the ballroom, the man halls, and the other facilities all decorated with oil paintings of the goddess and the family as well.
But that wasn't everything the mansion had to offer. While passing by a candle-lit chandelier, the party froze the spot as the glass structure suddenly began to shake above them. Quickly moving out of its way, they expected it to fall, however, surprisingly enough it stopped in an instant–even frozen in the air slightly tilted to the right.
"That can't be normal, right?" Raven asked Tan, but to his surprise it was.
"Stuff like this happens all the time here," shifting his eyes to the demi-girls who'd been let out not moments ago, the raccoon boy added further. "I'm sure anyone with a good sense of smell can already smell something rotting in some corner too."
For a moment none of the monster girls had a clue what he meant, but upon focusing on the sense of smell, a foul taste burned their throats.
"UGhh!" Covering her mouth, Mino folded her hand on her belly and held back the urge to throw up into her mouth.
"W-wh-what is...t-that?!" Ophelia asked, being one of the few who'd been spared the worst of the smell.
"A mouse, a cat, maybe even a dog in some corner, we don't know exactly miss Rudeia was far too fond of animals and adopted exotic breeds every other night," Tan explained before taking the group into a spot where the smell wasn't as rancid.
The smell, however, wasn't the only peculiarity as both Erika and Amedith were suffering from an intense cold gripping their holy hearts. Even Mel wasn't free from such suffering as within those wooden painting frames, the columns, and underneath that carpeted wood floor, she could feel something warping around. But what was it exactly? She couldn't be any more unsure.
"A-as you wish, my lord!" He answered before rushing out to the room to begin the preparation for the burning.
In the meantime, Raven turned to Erika with a request. Still appearing to struggle from a phantom force squeezing heart, she forced a smile on her face as soon as her eyes met Raven's.
"A purification?" Raven suggested, the priestess nodded in response.
The place was haunted beyond reason, and not just by phantoms, but by something far sinister. It was almost as if a horror had created its nest inside the place, yet with no signs of corruption, the only explanation that remained.
"These people were worse than monsters," whispered Liliyana, hiding the fact that she could see the lingering terror of the deceased emanating from every object, and every pillar around her.
'There's people trapped in these walls...' She was the only one who could see it, writhing within each brick were the limbs of Roswalt's victims. Their hands still moving, their eyes still quivering, their minds shattered to mince and yet their consciousness intact still. Their souls had never left them even when they poured into moulds and laid down as bricks into the mansion's walls.
'Should I tell them?' Liliyana wondered, unsure if it would ruin any semblance of joy moving into the castle had left.
Before making her choice, she decided to follow the strongest trail of torment oozing from the ground. It was leaking from underneath the ground floor, and whatever it was Liliyana wanted to know before causing unrest.
'Our party might be fine if I reveal this but...' Shifting her gaze to Rose, Maria, and Aerin's family, Liliyana knew she couldn't do the reveal in front of those four. 'Maybe later tonight I'll tell everyone, but for now.'
Locking her arms with Amedith while the others prepared for the cleansing, the devil fae began looking for a room where the lovers could quietly stay together until night arrives. Left in the dark about the morbid secret, the others did much the same and began settling into their new rooms–completely unaware that the walls confining them were living and breathing just like them.