[center][h3]Dead Zone Hinterlands - Curien Mansion[/h3]
Harry’s [@Eviledd1984]  Amaterasu’s [@DracoLunaris] Chosen Undead’s [@Simple Unicycle] Level 11 Big Band (29/110)
[b]Word Count:[/b] 969[/center]

Though Band had been more machine than man for a long time now, enough of his original self remained that a chill still ran down his spine at the sight of the mannequin. It stood half-visible in the doorway as motionless as a statue, but the bob of its coil betrayed the abrupt cessation of remarkable speed. The metallic twang of its spring, an intensely unnatural sound, did not help matters either. Even a tempered veteran who’d witnessed all manner of human atrocities in the underbelly of New Meridian, who’d fought countless undead abominations during his storied career at the ASG Labs and with the Seekers, could be taken by surprise. Band’s only consolation was the fact that this new aberration had, for some reason, stopped in its tracks the moment he laid eyes on it, frozen like a deer in the headlights. 

Why it didn’t move Band couldn’t say, but the fact that it did gave him a chance to breathe and compose himself. His eyes narrowed and his brows tightened as he assessed the situation. With no time to waste, he had to tackle this problem head-on, and in the best way he knew how: with brute force. “Thought you’d pull one on me, didja?” He threw open his coat, deploying a giant mechanical arm. “AHAAY!” He cannoned forward and drove his [url=https://i.imgur.com/pUV2f8C.png]Brass Knuckles[/url] through the doorframe to hit the still figure center-mass. Wood splintered and flew in all directions, but Band’s momentum stopped cold. Despite his jaw-dropping pneumatic strength, the mannequin did not budge. Only its head moved at all, rocking gently back and forth from the blow, the stare of its eyeless sockets derisive as Band withdrew his fist and confirmed that the only damage he’d done was to himself.

“Hmph!” The detective snorted, stepping back. “Guess it ain’t much of a horror flick if the monster goes down easy, huh?” As he considered his options, he began to edge around the coilhead. It didn’t move until he decided to test it by looking away. Even a quick flick was enough to make it turn toward him, its head bobbing as it froze once more. With that thing in his way, he’d have to go the long way around the huge pit to get where he needed to go. Unless…

Band waltzed up to the coilhead and deployed two halves of a giant brass bell. They [url=https://i.imgur.com/TujTsbp.png]slammed together[/url] around the creature, and with his line of sight cut off, it became mobile again. Unfortunately, it seemed unable to break free of the bell, so after giving the monster a solid ringing for good measure, Band swung the bell out over the pit. The coilhead dropped through the open bottom and disappeared into the darkness below. After putting the bell halves away, Band gave the abyss a curt nod and continued on, not eager to be here when all the other critters that heard his bell’s chime showed up.

After exiting the room with the pit, he passed through a T-shaped junction with a handful of padlocked cabinets, past a bathroom with candles arranged around an eerie portrait, and into a multi-story living room with a confusing, U-shaped layout. It occurred to Band while stomping up and then down the stairs that at no point could this mansion have ever been a livable space; it seemed more like a dolled-up maze than anything, and unfortunately for him, the labyrinth had served its purpose. He was lost, with no clue which direction would lead him closer to his allies. Spotting something, he quieted his breathing and pulled to the side to let a six-legged, stitched-together [url=https://i.imgur.com/isItdvL.png]homunculus[/url] crawl past, then pushed through the door it came through as stealthily as he could.

On the other side lay a small square courtyard, with an empty chicken coop, a tree, and a couple gravestones, hemmed in by stone walls on all sides. Overhead hung the starry night sky, which was damning evidence for this mansion being its own magical space, but the bigger surprise was the presence of another humanoid right in front of him. “Gah!” Only after readying himself for combat did the surprised detective realize that the knight he was looking at was Kit. “Oh, it’s you!” A sigh of relief issued from him. “There y’are, I been lookin’ all over. Where’s the wolf?”

As it turned out, unfortunately, Kit and Amaterasu had been separated, and without the wolf’s nose to guide him the warrior had been wandering the mansion as blindly as Band had for the last few minutes. “Well, we got each other at least. Better stick together.” The two went back the way Kit came to try another route. Down a different hallway hung a number of spider webs, as large and thick as blankets, and their owner was on the move. A zombie had wandered into its strands, and the moment it detected a vibration the Bunker Spider pounced. It paralyzed the corpse with its venomous bite, then strung it up in a cocoon, still struggling feebly. Band eyed the least web-strewn passage dubiously. “Our friends coulda gone that way, but I don’t like my chances of squeezin’ through there,” he whispered. He couldn’t see the full spider anymore now that it had crawled up into the rafters, but the tip of one of its legs on a web told him it was still there. “Tell ya what. If ya wanna try fightin’ it, I’ll back ya up. Or, I could try bustin’ through that locked door back in that courtyard. No tellin’ what we’d find though. Or what’d find us.” The choice of how best to proceed was Kit’s. 

Deeper in the mansion, Amaterasu had managed to track Harry down, and though there weren’t any more monsters in the study where the ghost dropped him off, the detective was still in a predicament. Everything he’d stuffed into his pockets and clothes was valuable, but it was also impractically shaped, not to mention fragile. The simple act of moving without breaking anything would be a challenge, and as if his outfit wasn’t loud enough, all the clinking and clacking of his purloined goods would make the man into a walking windchime. Still, he somehow managed to shuffle back up the stairs from the basement study and into the lounge above it with only minor losses, at which point he and Amaterasu were confronted by two doors to choose from.

Amaterasu knew which one to go through to retrace her path, of course, but before she could lead Harry through, a [url=https://i.imgur.com/LPSR8ku.png]squat creature[/url] emerged from a tiny air vent on one wall. With antennae, four wings, and red compound eyes, it was definitely the source of the insect scent she smelled earlier, and it was definitely interested in Harry. It did not attack, but it scuttled around him, fixated on its clothes. The greedy gleam in its eyes suggested that it wanted something, and if not satiated with an offering of loot, the bug would take wing and attack, at which point the detective could definitely bid the rest of his ill-gotten gains goodbye–if not his life alongside them.

That wasn’t all, though. A few moments after the bug’s arrival, the door Amaterasu had been planning to go through creaked open, and through the gap issues a gang of [url=https://i.imgur.com/uoDat1B.png]killer gnomes[/url] to sink their little pickaxes into whatever intruders they could.