The Twelve Chimes of Maligna Manor

Riddles in the Parlor

Ben spent more time than he probably should have sitting by his sister hoping she would come too. He was still in a bad way himself. Even with the time spent in the milder heat near the bottom of the stairs the effects of the cold still lingered in his extremities.

But he was at least conscious, and Sara was not.

Ben didn't know what to do. A door had opened downstairs, and he felt that this was likely the place that they were meant to go next but he was anxious about doing so. They had only just gotten through this room, well Sara had, and now anything could be happening in the next.

What even was this place? Ben knew the answer but that didn't help. Ghost, Hauntings and Magic. What did that mean? It meant anything. Ben was always a little afraid that anything might happen and now that anything was even more anything.

But worst of all Ben knew that there was nothing he could do. Sara was on the floor and the only open door was to the next room. He could stay on the stairs. Sara might wake up and take charge. But then she might not and then he still had to make the choice just in a worse position. There was no trick, no puzzle that Ben could find a clever solution for, nothing but the option to move forward or not. And no matter how long he didn't, moving forward would remain the only real option.

And so, Ben found some kind of resolve. To call it determination would have been giving it too much credit. It would be better to call it acceptance. Ben had spent his young life worrying that the worst was going to happen, and he would be hard pressed to think of worse than this. It was time to stop worrying.

Even after coming to this conclusion, it was not an easy trek. Knowing you have to do something and doing it are two different things and the weight of his sister did little to improve his resolve.

And yet despite all that the trip into the room felt too short. Before he was really aware of it Ben had crossed the threshold and felt entirely unprepared.

The room seemed to be some kind of parlour. Seemed to be because Ben had never actually seen a Parlour in his life. He remembered characters using them in old books and it seemed to fit the description. It was a well-decorated room with a sort of pinkish-red colour to the walls and dark red carpet. There was a small bookcase, but the majority of the room was set up with oaken tables and plush chairs which all bore some version of the Raven crest of the Malignas. The air carried the scent of burned logs which could be traced to the absurdly large Fireplace that stood at the far end of the room. You could have stacked three Bens on top of each other, and they would still have fit inside. They might even have done so if they had been standing beside each other.

Ben took all of this in but the thing that caught his attention most was the table just beyond the door which had a single seat and a pitcher of water atop it.

Paranoia set in quickly. It was too perfect. Maligna had set a trap to kill them off there was no doubt about it.

As concerned as Ben was, however, he was equally concerned by the fact he would almost certainly drop his sister if he didn't put her down somewhere soon. Sara would need water too and even if this felt too good to be true it was all Ben could get.

After a careful approach, and a quick check making sure it didn't have a spike or something, Ben helped Sara into the chair. So far, so good. Then came the pitcher of water. This seemed really suspicious. It was exactly what Sara would need after the havoc that had been played on her in the last game. It would be the perfect opportunity to hurt her.

The water was clear. But there were poisons that were invisible. Or was that just something Ben had read in a book? He sniffed it. It didn't smell of anything in particular. It could be odourless. Or Magic. There was always magic. How were you even supposed to deal with magic? It just didn't seem fair.