scary monsters ~endless halloween night~ 2-4 "sometimes it happens during club"

[mandytl]

 

 

Location: The Other Dimension - Sleepless Castle

Ghost: Eeek! What a bunch of brutes!

Sebek: Hmph. All talk and no action.

Trey: That was amazing, Sebek. You really carried yourself in that battle.

Sebek: Amazing? … Fufufu. Well, well. You’re rather astute for a human. 

Thine magic, while not at the level of Malleus-sama or Lilia-sama’s, was also quite precise. I suppose you’re not a third-year for nothing.

Trey: T-Thine? You speak a lot like Rook in a way.

Oh, yeah, Rook. To continue our discussion from earlier…

You had an inkling of where we were, right? So where’s this place we got blown away to?

Rook: You see…

Ahh, ahh… ahem!

A castle in the fog~ floating in the pale moonlight~. ♪

Trey & Sebek: ?!

Trey: H-He just started singing with the most intense face…

Sebek: What weird sort of human just bursts into song?

Trey: This is hardly the first time I’ve seen him do it. Sometimes it happens during club.

Sebek: How bizarre…

Trey: I doubt he’s the type to just belt out a song in a place we can’t really call safe, though. 

Hey, Rook? What’s going on?

Rook: That drawbridge~ far beyond our reach~. ♪

Is an illusion I saw~ through a rift in my dreams~. ♪

Sebek: That’s—… ?!

Rook: A beautiful château~.  ♪

Sebek: A dubious shadow~.  ♪

Rook: A fallen chapeau~.  ♪

Sebek & Rook: Yes, this is the Underworld~~.  ♪

Trey: S-Sebek?! Now you’re singing? Did you hit your head back there when we were fighting?!

Rook: Why, I see you’re acquainted with this song.

To think, another lover of opera!

Trey: Uh. Opera?

Sebek: That I am. It’s a music number from the opera “Laugh with the Moon in the Dead of Night”. I believe the title was “The Underworld”. 

Trey: Err. The arts aren’t exactly my field of study or anything, but… is this well-known?

Rook: Not at all. Unlike major productions with repeated performances, only a limited few would be aware of this one.

And yet, Monsieur Crocodile, you seem well-informed!

Sebek: I recall seeing it in theaters when visiting my father’s hometown with my family when I was young!

Though I hardly remember the details, having seen it only once.

That song, however, struck terror into my heart as a child.

Trey: Terror…?

Rook: “Laugh with the Moon in the Dead of Night” is a piece where one of the living becomes lost in the Ghost Realm and must find their way home.

It might’ve been a little too thrilling for a child.

Nevertheless, the biggest highlight of this opera was its realism!

Ghosts are cryptic figures shrouded in a veil of mystery… 

Yet the composer still interviewed 999 ghosts and subsequently left behind an equal amount of works depicting them.

Novels, plays, poems… each and every means of artistic expression approaching ever closer to a lifelike depiction of ghosts!

Trey: 999 of them? That’s, uh… some real creative output there.

Rook: Indeed. They then ventured to a certain mansion to cover material for the commemorative 1000th piece… never to return.

Sebek & Trey: Gulp…

Rook: “Laugh with the Moon in the Dead of Night” would be their 13th piece! It has all the spirit of an earlier work of fiction.

Sebek: You’re quite knowledgeable when it comes to theater.

Rook: Theatre-going’s merely a social activity of mine. 

The protagonist in “Laugh with the Moon in the Dead of Night” describes the Ghost Realm as so:

The great silhouette of the full moon attracted me, until all I could sense was the moonlight and the darkness.

In this world devoid of color, I saw a magnificent castle amidst the dense fog.

There were a countless number of bats encircling it, though I couldn’t hear the flapping of their wings.

For those who’d lost their lives, their destiny was to keep wandering in vain through the Ghost Realm…

Trey: A full moon, and a magnificent castle…?

Sebek: Not only that, but the dense fog and bats flying about without a sound. It’s like a scene straight out of that play…

Trey: In other words, we’re in the Ghost Realm…?!

Rook: It certainly seems that way.

Sebek: Hmph. I couldn’t care less about some Ghost Realm. All that matters is my objective remains the same.

Save Malleus-sama. That, and that alone!

Therefore, we need to search for some necessary leads, and… —hm?

There’s something lying on the stone pavement.

Trey: He’s right. It’s a mirror shard, and… some paper?

Rook: No, this is… the very same invitation that was left at Ramshackle Dorm!

Sebek: WHAAAAT?!?!

“I eagerly await your arrival, students of Night Raven College. Let us enjoy this Halloween party together.”

… That utter nonsense of an invitation?!

Trey: You really put that to memory, huh.

Sebek: Even if I wanted to forget, I was seething in too much anger to do so!!!!!!

Rook: … Anyhow. The contents of this invitation differ slightly from the original. Look.

Let us enjoy this Halloween party together.

To that end, I require each attendant to carry a “mirror shard” on their person.

Trey: By ‘mirror shard’, do they mean this thing we found on the ground with the invitation?

So we’ve got to bring this tiny piece of junk with us on top of the dress code? These are some weird conditions.

Rook: Fufufu…. pfh, ahahah! Marvelous. Simply marvelous!

These suspiciously shining puzzle pieces are so fabulous for their imperfections. Here’s where things get interesting.