The Curse of Taloncrest Manor

Chapter 28: The Blackout

Having destroyed all of the Songsworn attendees, Octavio was now left without any leads in regards to the whereabouts of Ricardo and his allies. He walked to the first floor lobby in slight regret that he had not saved a single one of those spirits for interrogation. Just then, against the back wall near the stairwell that led to the second floor, he spotted a door labeled "BREAKER ROOM". No..... he thought. Surely the house staff wouldn't be so careless as to leave this unlocked....

Much to the doctor's surprise, the door opened without any resistance. Octavio laughed with glee. "The inhabitants of this place must be more neglectful than I thought.....all the more reason to exterminate every single one of their kind." he said to himself. 

He entered the room, and aside from a huge breaker switch on the opposite wall, a small rectangular desk on the left with a single chair accompanying it, and several barrels of fuel stacked on top of each other on the right, it appeared to be relatively barren. The doctor also noticed a shining golden key on the left desk. "Wait....." he said. "The key to the Breaker Room.....is inside the Breaker Room?! What if the original caretaker locked himself out? Oh, well. I'll steal it just for fun." the doctor remarked as he pocketed the key and continued surveying the place. 

He walked up to the huge breaker switch. "Hahahaha! A manor-wide outage should get the attention of those fools. And better yet, they'll have to find me in order to turn the lights back on! They're going to walk right into my clutches." 

With that, Octavio grabbed the switch and pulled it down. 

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The group entered the Showroom and began searching for any possible transportation to the roof. The area was large and rectangular, and half of it was taken up by a big stage with three small houses on it, along with cardboard cutouts of trees and bushes; it was as if the whole thing were some sort of massive set piece. Other than the stage, two circular tables were set up on the other half of the room, with four chairs around each one. An unlit lantern also sat on one of the tables.

"Anyone see anything worth noting?" Ricardo asked the others. "Nope," James responded. "Nothing yet," Dischord added. 

The vizier turned to Melody, who was not assisting the group. Rather, once she had reached the Showroom with the others, she simply sat down on one of the chairs and put her face down on the table. ".....Were you going to help us, Grand Magistrix?" Dischord asked softly. "Maybe later....." she replied, sniffling. "I need some time....." "Very well....." the vizier said as he returned to his work. 

Suddenly, another ghost came dashing through the door of the Showroom. "MELODY!" she exclaimed. 

It was Cadence. 

"You.....! What are you doing here?" Melody asked, quickly perking up. "Where's Cantrelle and Clarion?" 

"They're.....gone....." Cadence said, her voice breaking. "WHAT?!" Dischord cried in shock.

"What do you mean, 'they're gone'?" the Magistrix inquired. 

"Some weird.....tentacled, android creature devoured them! He wasn't like anything that I---or any of the other ghosts, for that matter---have ever seen before. He definitely did not look like he was a ghost.....but he dispatched Cantrelle and Clarion right before my eyes!" Tears started streaming down the Songsworn cultist's shadowed face. 

Ricardo, Jane, and the boys looked at each other, in wordless agreement. "Octavio," they all said in unison. "Octavio?" Cadence muttered. "Is....that his name?" 

"Yes....." Jane piped up. "My new allies and I have unfortunately already run afoul of him before, although I will admit that I never thought that he would become this powerful." 

"A towering mutant with the ability to see spirits and interact with them without any required action on the spirits' part.....? This is a very dire situation indeed," Dischord mused. "If he can attack ghosts despite not being a ghost himself, then that means that we, too, are in danger!" 

"Please, let me accompany you," Cadence begged the group. She looked at Melody and Dischord. "You two are powerful.....you can protect me, right?" "Of course. Stay with us and we will aid you as best we can," Melody responded. 

"Hey, guys!" Cooper called to the others, while gesturing to a generator on the right wall. "This panel has a red button on it. Should I press it?" 

"Wait, that could be a---" James tried to warn, but unfortunately, his words fell on deaf ears. 

"Too late, I've already decided I'm going to press it!" Cooper said as he did so. 

Much to everyone's surprise, the set of double doors in the middle house on the stage opened up, revealing an elevator. 

"Nice work, Cooper!" Ricardo exclaimed, giving his friend a high-five. "Even if this doesn't take us to the roof, at least we can begin making progress again." 

Ricardo, Cooper, James, Elijah, Melody, Dischord, Jane, and Cadence all boarded the elevator. 

However, as soon as they stepped in, all the lights went out, plunging the manor into darkness.

"What?! What's going on?!" James asked in a panic. Ricardo tried to press the buttons inside the elevator, but they were all unresponsive. The doors were stuck too; they would not close. "Dang it! There must've been an outage." Ricardo muttered. "But there isn't any bad weather outside; how can there be a....." Dischord's eyes widened as he made a sudden realization mid-sentence. "The Breaker Room!" he exclaimed. 

Melody turned to him. "Dischord?" 

"There's a room with a huge breaker switch on the first floor. I came across it long ago, while I was searching for the ideal room to hold meetings for the Songsworn cult. Unfortunately, it was very dusty, so I paid it no mind. Either the generator malfunctioned by itself, or someone got in and sabotaged it. We must go check on it." the vizier informed the others. 

"You're saying.....we have to go all the way from the third floor.....back down to the first floor.....in total darkness?!" Elijah yelped. 

"Not entirely," Melody replied. With a few movements of her hands, she materialized a white light ball which brightened up a lot of the area surrounding the group. Additionally, Jane grabbed the lantern from the round table, and Dischord struck his sword against it to create a spark which lit it up. 

"As if there weren't enough distractions from our main objective already....." Ricardo groaned. "Come on, everyone, let's move out." 

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With the blackout now in full swing, Octavio departed the Breaker Room, having finished the job. Before leaving the lobby entirely, however, he shut the door to the Breaker Room and locked it using the key he found, preventing anyone from entering. 

"Yes.....this manor will be dark forever," the doctor mused. "That is, unless you 'heroes' have the guts to come and face me. If you wish to end this blackout, then COME!"