UStuck RP: The Dark Arts and Crafts

"Oof," Greg winced. "Leto's Joker was not even one of the good things about Suicide Squad. Have you tried to tell him he needs to broaden his Joker consumption before he can make that claim? Maybe that could score you some of Christopher Nolan's trilogy, which was superior to Suicide Squad. And Batman V Superman. And Man of Steel. If he wants tasteful design, the Avatar movie is tasteful. Plot isn't the best, Disney did it better, but it's cinematicaly beautiful."

He started to follow Kitty, trying to make sure he didn't lose her. Like last year. Although she was probably going to stay on the continent this time, since she got grounded until Thanksgiving last year for that stunt.

 

"Dude lives in a house covered in gargoyles with its own bell tower. 'Tasteful' flew out the window with the bats."

"The Duke's manor is in South Side, you jerk."

Lorcan stopped. "What the hell, Aislin," he hissed at his sister. "I thought you said you were going to stop eavesdropping on me and Greg."

Aislin's magic could only carry her voice to him, but he swore he could feel her roll her eyes. "And I thought you said you would stop badmouthing the casual fling of my life, Lorcan. Look, I don't expect you to like the Duke, but you could at least stop acting like a petulant child when I invite him over. Anyways, I wasn't eavesdropping. I put some feelers out in case you started saying shit, and it's good I did because you're nowhere near his manor, which is in South Side."

"You're sure about that?" Lorcan asked.

"Seeing as I am currently in South Side, in his manor, curled up on his chaise while the two of us watch Suicide Squad on my laptop in front of a roaring fire reminiscent of the movie's central theme of the inevitable self-destruction inherent in living by the laws of passion? I'm fairly certain, yes."

"Have fun with that, Harley Quinn." And somewhere in South Side, Aislin was flipping him off. "Also fuuuuuuuuck I've gotta go."

Lorcan wheeled up to Greg. "Okay, turns out this mansion may be actually haunted by worse than fake Europeans," he said. "We've got to get the kids."

 

Because of course it was. Greg groaned, before hurrying up to try and reach Kitty before she entered the actual haunted house. Seriously, one accidental ghost incident per year should be the max.

And maybe he was a little worried about Kitty. She didn't tend to take things like this seriously. And while Aki could probably protect her, Greg was an overprotective older brother at heart.

Lorcan would probably also be helpful, when he wasn't accidentally aging ghosts.

 

The house on the hill looked condemned. Trick knew what that word was because the maintenance man had said that about his dad's apartment one time and Dad told the things to act spooky until the man went away. So Trick figured he had this covered.

The house was a lot bigger than Lorcan's apartment, sure, a two-story sprawling manor with a big slanted roof. And Lorcan's place was usually well-lit since so many of Trick's siblings were lamps. This place had boards covering every window--even in the daytime, the house would be shadowed and dreary. Now, at night and with the weather magicked to have clouds blocking the moon at super eerie spots, the best sources of light were the glowing bracelets of Aki's costume.

Trick glanced over at Aki. Aki was a grownup, like Lorcan, but fun, like Trick's older brother Vulk. Trick was glad there was a grownup here. It meant there was someone else to take the blame if something went wrong. No one was gonna blame Trick. He was the baby of the group.

Even Kitty was a few years older than him (in human years, anyways), plus this whole thing was her idea. She was dressed as a goatherd, Trick believed, though he had no idea why that involved singing about building snowmen. She wasn't nearly as cute as Trick was, no matter what she said. Trick had it on authority from no less than four grandmas that he was the cutest little thing on the face of the planet, and only one of those grandmas was his.

"So," Trick said, hovering a half inch above the rotted floorboards of the porch. "We gonna ring the doorbell, or what?"

 

After Trick spoke, Kitty pressed the doorbell. Greg clearly suspected that something was happening, and had his annoying older brother face on. So, there was no time to waste.

The doorbell was a little weird. It sounded like a church bell, but there was large breaks between the ringing. Kitty suppressed a shiver. It was a little too chilly now, which was weird, because Dad always made sure it was the perfect weather for Kitty and Greg on Halloween. And Greg didn’t really like strong wind like what was now blowing. Maybe Dad was trying to convince her it was time to go home. Or convince Greg to cut the evening even shorter. It wasn’t going to work.

As they waited, the door creaked open. Kitty couldn’t see anyone, and couldn’t see any candy yet. But there was only one thing to do: go in the house before Greg stopped her.

And possibly formulate her excuse for her parents for this. It wasn’t breaking and entering if the door was open. And the door opened after the doorbell rang. So that was clearly an invitation to go in.

Kitty walked in the door, not bothering to check and see if anyone else followed her.

***

Greg attempted to curse as he watched Kitty walk into the house. He failed miserably, instead singing "And curse you and cheat you/Every one of them's bad".

Oh. Uh oh.

Apparently, the tea had worn off. This was definitely Not Good TM.

 

THUD.

The door slammed back into place behind Aki, Kitty, and Trick as they stepped across the threshold. The vibrations reverberated through the darkness for a second or two before a single torch flared into life ahead of them. Aki blinked away the spots from his vision just as another lit a few yards ahead of the previous one, and then another and another.

Well. If movies had taught Aki anything, it was that there was only one possible course of action. Together, the group moved down the hallway as the torches sputtered out behind them.

 

"Shit!" Lorcan swore all the way up the steps to the door. That ringing had the feel of a doom omen, and Lorcan suspected it summoned worse than crows. "Aislin? Did you hear that?"

No response.

"Your 'duke' is definitely lying about his title," Lorcan announced to the air. "Hasn't it ever seemed weird he can't point to his dukedom on a map?"

Still nothing. She must have started the movie, which would keep her out of reach for the next two hours. Damn Hollywood and its increasingly long blockbuster runtimes. "Crap." Lorcan pulled out his cellphone and started dialing. Time to shake the family phone tree.

"Lorcan?"

"Hey, Op. We've got a problem."

"You're not coming home now, are you?!" Op seemed weirdly panicked by the idea.

"No, we hit a bit of a delay. Trick's in this haunted house--"

"WHAT??"

Lorcan pulled the phone away from his ear. "Ow." Geez, Vulk could yell. "The hell?"

"Whose house?" Vulk asked. "Is it the Jurgensons'? I hate the Jurgensons. Is Trick willing to engage in some sabotage? I think if he just knocks over their fog machine--"

"Wait, what? This isn't some Halloween thing, Vulk, I'm talking about an actual haunted house. Well, maybe not haunted-haunted, but there's definitely something doomy going on," Lorcan told him.

"Oooooooh," the familiar said.

"What's all this about the Jurgensons?"

"Nothing. I didn't say anything. Who are the Jurgensons?"

"Vulk."

"What's that I can't hear you all of a sudden. We are going through a tunnel. Psst, Op help."

For what it was worth, Op's "tunnel noise" was incredibly realistic.

Whatever. Lorcan shook his head. "Just call Mom and the family. I don't have the time to deal with whatever this is."

"Fine, okaaaaay," Vulk drawled. "I never wanted to reveal my dark secret but you have worn me down."

Spirits of Halloween, give Lorcan strength.

"You see, Lorcan, while I appear to be nothing more than a mild-mannered hep cat, on Halloween night I undergo a groovy transformation. I become the sultry vampire V. Drakul, famous throughout the neighborhood for throwing the raddest and sickest of Halloween haunted house parties."

Okay, Lorcan gave up. He pushed the doorbell. Certain doom was better than this. But nothing happened. He tried the door. Very, very locked. Well that definitely the second-worst thing that could happen right now.

"Everyone ponders the secret identity of this mysterious and handsome haunted house organizer," Vulk was saying. "How does he make the furniture move like it's alive? When will he show up to the awards ceremony in person? And why does he keep asking to receive his prize in the form of a Roomba? Nooooobody knows..."

Lorcan cut him off. "If I get home, we're talking about this. Call Mom."

He hung up and turned to Greg, who had been weirdly silent so far. "We're going to have to break in."

 

Shit. Of course the evening couldn’t end without something. When had Halloween ever just ended? Last year Kitty had gone to Hawai’i in an attempt to prolong her night. The year before Kitty had managed to make him think a different kid was her, and he had a fun time in a police station clearing up the accidental attempted kidnapping charge. And two years before she had transported him to Siberia when he told her it was time to head home.

Alright, don’t panic. The door wouldn’t open. Lorcan seemed to be talking to himself, Vulk had apparently been Vulk and would be unhelpful.

Greg fumbled for his sticker tin, which he had placed in a bag to hold excess candy, several ready made meals, his passport, Kitty’s passport, various different forms of currency in coin form as well as bills, a list of numbers for various ‘so you’ve entered this country illegally via accidental magic’ agencies around the world, an inflatable raft, the magical lawyer his family had on stand by, five water bottles, and his mom’s nicest magic blanket that kept you whichever temperature you needed to be.

The tin was at the bottom. He opened it, looking through for something to stick on the door. Apparently Aki had managed to get ahold of his sticker tin again, since there were several new glittery stickers. With googly eyes. Which meant his stickers were probably contaminated, and could just as easily do the opposite of what he intended instead. Or something completely different, only Aki would be able to tell. But…

He was under the Elsa sticker influence. Which in addition to the singing problem, also gave him Elsa’s power over snow and ice. He could take down the door. All he had to do was focus.

And hope that Lorcan didn’t mind the fact that it was going to get a whole lot chillier.

And hope he didn't accidentally make a fortress again.

 

Lorcan wrapped his necromancer's robe around himself a little tighter. It was starting to get chilly. Still, things weren't completely dire. "This door's already pretty old," he announced to Greg, kneeling down. "It shouldn't take much to deal with."

He rummaged through his own tin, pulling out some tools. Many of his supplies had been swapped out due to other...activities Lorcan had been planning to take part in later, but he had enough to pull this off.

Lorcan snapped on a rubber glove and took one of his smaller sponge pieces. They didn't have enough time for him to apply an aging varnish to the door itself, but Lorcan was a clever wizard. No need to take the entire door off its hinges if you could just break the lock. He filled the sponge to capacity with peroxide and vinegar then sprinkled a pinch of salt on top. Lorcan might not have his mother's magic in the kitchen, but there was a lot a person could do with the right ingredients.

Greg was fiddling in his bag when Lorcan started swapping the door's lock with the soaked sponge. The goal was to get the solution all the way into the tumblers, where Lorcan's magic could induce the metal to rust and weaken. Alone, that would still take a while, but since Greg was under the influence of his Elsa sticker and had the power of snow and ice, he could send an icicle into the lock after a few minutes of rusting to finish the job. See, mom, Lorcan thought wryly. He could totally use the power of teamwork or whatever.

"Okay, Greg," Lorcan said. "I just need you to--"

 

Hi, all!

I don't know if anyone's still following this thread, but if you happened to be interested in this story and want to read more, we are reviving this universe as a tumblr blog here at https://dark-arts-and-crafts-universe.tumblr.com/ . There have been a few changes to the canon, but most of what is here will remain the same in the revival as well as much, much more lore. If you are interested, we invite you to check it out!