There are rumors, stories that mothers tell their children before bed as they are gathered around the hearth. Legends about the cast-off place that lies beyond the low stone wall which snakes over the rolling pastures and the man who lives there. He is ancient, they say, wizened from centuries living in seclusion and learning powerful magics. Others say that he sold his soul for knowledge and riches that no mortal has any right to possess. The parents of those children were told such things when they were children, and before that there are not many who remember for certain whether the rumors have any grain of truth to them or not.

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The house is quiet and still unlike the meadow in which it sits, alive with the hush of the wind and the calls of night things. The pebbled path to the door is lit with starlight as well as the barest sliver of silvery moon. Sturdy brick walls laced with ivy house tall leaded window panes. It is not large, but neither is it a small house, and its well kept despite its apparent age. To the rear, where the garden would lie, the roof of a greenhouse can just be seen. In the daylight it must be charming, though it has entertained no visitors in a great while.

Houses like this are rare now, secluded and pastoral. So great is the confidence of the occupants that no one will disturb them that the windows have been left open to welcome the night breeze, their diaphanous curtains billowing lazily now and again. Somewhere within, a mantle clock chimes.

For a house rumored to be owned by an ancient, all powerful wizard, the place sure seemed abandoned.

At least that was Elise's professional assessment of the property. She had heard the legends as a child, but those that new her well knew fear was not in her vocabulary. She had been a child, and now a young woman, driven by curiosity and adventure, and this strange house sparked nothing but curiosity within her. Dressed in a black skirt, white leggings and white blouse, her chin length, fiery red hair swaying in the breeze, Elise debated how to make her entrance. She believed the Ancient Magus to be little more than superstitious nonsense, but as she also believed, most superstitious started somewhat founded in fact. Whatever was in here, Elise was ready to make a quick escape from it.

Elise drops from the tree branch she had been hiding out in, slowly making her way to the house, more specifically the window. The very locked window.

Not that that is a huge issue.

With a slight smug grin, Elise puts her hand on the window, her hand glowing a slight purple as she heard metal lock on the other side of the window wither away. She was no magic expert, but practical magics such as this were child's play. Taking pleasure in just how easy entering was, Elise opens the window, vaults inside, and slowly shuts the window behind her.

The steady tick of the mantle clock greeted the intruder but otherwise all was silent. Inside the home was old but just as well kept as the outside, its furnishings tidy and comfortable. The living room where the window led was carpeted with a thick woolen rug, at one time richly dyed, and good for quieting the footfalls of both tenant and thief alike. Shelves of books lined two walls behind a sitting area, dimly outlined in the small amount of light filtering through the windows. Beyond it, the doorway leading to the hall.
In the hush of the sleeping house, the ticking from the mantle seemed to grow to fill the room. The whir of the clock’s mechanism growing like a cicada’s buzz behind the rhythmic beat that propelled the hands around the face. Those ticks seemed to lengthen unnaturally, extending well beyond the seconds they were intended to mark.

And then it stopped.

In the corners of the room the gathered shadows began to expand, bleeding into the starlight-brightened areas like ink will spread in water. Oily, unnatural tendrils extended outward to creep along the worn carpet toward where the intruder stood. A shadow filled the doorway where there was none before.

“What business do you have in my house?”