“Shiny, shine soulstones…”

The curiosity on the chambermaid’s petrified expression seemed to turn cold and lacklustre as the grubby hand snatched the floating rock at her chest. “Shine, shine away, for me, for me,” hissed the voice, stuffing the pebble into a small pouch. As the drawstrings opened, the pinkish shafts of light left a rosy glow across the laundry room for the briefest of moments until the newest addition to the intruder’s collection was safely stashed away. The room seemed much darker and more ominous as the faintest specks of light from a faraway window in the corridor caught on the stony faces in the gloom; all of the statues within seemed artificial and deadened without their souls. They stared accusingly at the intruder’s back as it left them in the dark, bare feet slapping on the stone slabs which covered the floor.

The intruder moved with an irregular gait, shuffling then sprinting and always hesitating before every corner. It crept from the servant's house and slinked through the greenery towards an open window to the main mansion. The stone slabs of the windowsill were replaced with highly polished hardwood. The filthy toes wiggled under the shift in texture as the figure squatted down and explored the floorboards with its calloused palms. Two sharp sniffs of air swept through its nostrils as it stood once more. “Dead…” it exhaled quietly, gazing over to an opulent stairway and the sprawling ornate rugs decorating it.

It did not take the stairs but instead took a running leap and skirted along the banister, effortlessly avoiding the hidden alarm sigils in the intricate patterns of the rug. The daylight shining through the windows on the floor above illuminated the faintest inlaid sigils, sigils of an unknown nature to the intruder, sigils which needed to be avoided at all costs. The intruder hopped and skipped past the circular patterns and ducked to avoid the target areas of other sigils. Its movements were as fluid as water, the footfalls nigh-indiscernible save for the faint clicks of its overgrown toenails. It pitched and reeled back and forth, twisting and turning, the sharp grey-green eyes sweeping across the corridor every time it touched the ground again. Once it landed, a fistful of dirt left a murky cloud of dust as it collided with the offending sigils, breaking the lines and rendering them inert. “Too many guards, too many walls. Cages within cages. What are you hiding, grand den? What’s with...the sigils?” crooned the voice in the darkness.

It turned a corner, leaving a filthy hallway in its wake. Then it wheeled around, pressing its back to the wallpaper, inhaling sharply - heavy footfalls echoed down the adjacent corridor and a pair of flickering lights were slowly approaching the intruder’s location. The intruder’s head swished back and forth, looking for hiding places. With a slow sigh it swept a finger down its chest, thumbing the bony ribcage. The skin seemed to crackle and singe at the edges, burning from the inside out and turning the intruder completely transparent. Roy clunked to the end of the corridor, turned and walked right past it, so close that if Roy swung its arms any further the robot would have brushed against the intruder’s ragged clothes. There was a long pause.

Once the intruder felt it safe to move on it loped into the Ballroom, still invisible. A single man was frozen on-stage and the intruder skipped merrily towards him, wrenching the pale soulstone away and tossing it into the little pouch. Moments later, there was a distortion - a puddle seemed to materialise in the midst of the ballroom. The intruder gazed at it, entranced. Then another man stepped out of it and the intruder ducked behind the statue, nearly choking on its own saliva with shock...this man was not made out of stone.

“The people that enter this room through his portal are guests of Vincent DeMoore of House DeMoore, and are allowed to come and go as they please.”

There was a loud clatter as the statue of the man fell off the stage, crashing against the floor and ripping through the sombre silence that hung over the ballroom. The boom of stone on the polished tiles reverberated around the sprawling room, providing quite the distraction for the intruder to dash from the sharp light of the stained glass window into the darkness of the shadows. Whilst it was transparent, there were some telltale signs, perhaps unnoticeable unless specifically sought after. The faint distortion, the way the light seemed to shift as it filtered through the sprinting figure...indeed, the group would have spotted the movement from the corner of their vision but the intruder was fast, very fast, and relied on the shock of the falling statue to grab the attention of the other humans whilst it retreated into the darkness. The consequences were fatal, though, as the survivors of Periphery were now painfully aware that they were not alone within the mansion.

As the intruder dove through an archway leading towards the kitchens, its face split into a wide manic grin. The game was afoot, and the hunt began.