[P%$l&?!a$?y$$!t&$?i%!$m$&&e]
[[]]
"May as well clear out the basement while I'm here." Ruby said to herself as she stepped out of the breaker room and unlocked the door immediately opposite of said room, which led into the storage cellar.
The first thing Ruby found when looking around the room was the fact that there were large shelves filling the room… And the dust was so thick there were actual piles of it filling half the room.
"Sheesh." Ruby said as she aimed the poltergust at the dust, "Why did the ghost's even pile this much dust up here?"
Once the first pile was sucked up, Ruby made her way to the next one, only for a pink ghost to burst out of the pile of dust, though not actually scattering the dust.
This admittedly startled Ruby, but by now she had gotten far too used to the ghost's just popping up out of nowhere and quickly caught the ghost.
Under one of the piles of dust however Ruby found an odd panel on the floor.
"That's… Weird." Ruby muttered as she poked the panel with the Poltergust, then she felt gravity flip and she started falling toward the ceiling.
"WAAH!" Ruby cried out briefly, fortunately she managed to right herself so that she landed on her feet, "I hope there is a way to undo this." Ruby muttered to herself.
Looking around, Ruby located a similar panel on the other side of the room, near a door that Ruby was sure would, eventually, lead her to King Boo. So she made her way there, vacuuming up the dust piles on the ground as she passed them.
Once the last pile of dust was gone, a second pink ghost burst out of a barrel that was once surrounded by piles of dust. Only to pause when it realized no one was in front of it, the ghost scratched it's head in confusion before looking upwards and seeing Ruby standing on the ceiling.
"Uh… Hi." Ruby said, more amused by this ghost if anything.
Said ghost proceeded to facepalm, as it had forgotten about the panels and was quickly caught, thus turning the lights on and causing a chest to appear in the room.
Before Ruby even began to focus on the chest, after she stepped on the panel on the ceiling and correcting gravity for herself of course, she began searching for the Boo in the room, finding it hiding in one of the nearby shelves.
"It is I, fair Booripedes." The Boo announced before dashing toward the wall of the room, only to flatten against the wall.
Despite this, Ruby could not crack a smile. "I don't know what you're punning, but I hate it." Ruby deadpanned and she slammed the nozzle of the Poltergust onto the stunned Boo and caught it before it could even resist.
Once that was done, Ruby popped open the chest and found another key inside, leading to a room behind the Telephone Room she received a call from Luigi in.
"Okay another key to the third floor, anywhere else I can go?" Ruby asked herself as she checked the basement door. Only to find all of them were locked. "Nope." Ruby sighed, "At least the dust in this room is gone."
And with that, Ruby began her trek upstairs.
[]
"It's official." Ruby huffed as she stood on the large Balcony she had fought Boolossus on, "I'm starting to not like stairs." Entering the hallway Ruby quickly proceeded to return to the Telephone Room she had gotten a call from that Luigi guy, and once more found that it was still dark inside, "Okay…" Ruby said looking around, "No ghost's are attacking me out of the blue so they must be hiding, but where?"
It was then Ruby noticed three old wooden trunks in the room, walking over to one of them Ruby kicked it open and a Skeleton ghost rose out of the chest, and while Ruby jump, the fact the Skeleton Ghost didn't try to jump-scare her didn't do much to startle her and she quickly caught the ghost before moving on to another of the chests, inside was yet another SKeleton Ghost, although this one was much more vocal.
"Finally!" The Ghost cried out as it jumped from the chest, before turning to Ruby, "What took ya so long to open this thing!? I heard you up here almost half an hour ago!"
Ruby simply caught the ghost, not bothering to answer it's question. Hey if it was going to be rude she'll respond in kind.
With the ghost caught, the lights in the room turned on, making Ruby smile as a green chest appeared, as at this point she knew it was full of money, or gold.
After squirreling away the treasure in the chest Ruby began looking around the room and found the Boo hiding in the last chest. Said Boo not only popped out of the chest, it launched toward the middle of the room, before spinning and flying right back at Ruby.
"Boomerang, coming at you!" The Boo cheered as it flew at Ruby, who dove out of the way, and thanks to the lesser spirits in the mansion, Boomerang slammed against the wall and actually flattened, "That… hurt…"
Ruby quickly vacuumed the Boo away and did so with extreme prejudice, after all this dumb little ghost has forever sullied the weapon known as the boomerangh forever within Ruby's mind.
Unlocking at entering the room connected to the telephone room, Ruby entered a room filled with old clockwork… clocks.
And three Portrait ghosts.
Ruby had to rub her eyes as she looked at the ghosts, they were a trio of old, wind-up soldiers, one blue, one green, and one red. All three were armed with cork guns and oddly enough had legs.
"What the…" Ruby asked, utterly confused as she stared at the three ghosts… Which all simply stood at attention and stared forward.
Ruby walked up to one of them and pulled out the Dustboy Horror and scanned it's heart.
[Stop staring at me!]
"Yeesh." Ruby muttered looking at the message she was given and backing up, right into a table.
"Oof." Ruby muttered as a clock on the table began to play a slightly haunting melody and a coo coo going off.
Ruby looked at the clock then quickly back at the Ghosts, as usually when she interacted with the environment, the ghost's had a tendency to respond, and they did… Just not a much as Ruby had hoped.
The Clockwork Soldiers were twitching, one an eye, one a hand, and one a foot.
Ruby noticed five more clocks in the room and with a liberal application of her semblance, activated them all.
And thus the soldiers came to life, they quickly moved around, limbering up their stiff (though non-existent)muscles before marching over to Ruby.
After quickly learning the flashlight meant nothing to these three Ruby resorted to a simple game of keep away while she looked for, which was both easier and harder than it needed to be.
Easier because they were as straightforward as level 0 training drones at Beacon, marching straight up to Ruby, pausing to aim their weapon, firing, then pausing to holster their weapon.
Harder because there were three of them and they didn't walk in sync with each other.
It was after dodging an attack from the green one that Ruby noticed something. Each soldier had a key on their back, large, brass, solid.
After baiting all three of them into attacking, Ruby aimed the Poltergust at the key on the back of the Green Soldier and began suction, the key spinning rapidly until it popped off, and almost immediately the Ghost itself was trapped by the suction, it's legs dissolving into a tail as it's mechanical movements became more lively.
Ruby was abusing her Semblance not only to keep the ghost trapped in the suction, but also avoiding the other two soldiers, but soon enough the Green one resisted no more.
With one ghost down the job became much easier and Ruby made quick work of the last two ghosts, by managing to pull out their keys at the same time and catching them together.
The room lit up, but no chest appeared, instead a door on the toy house the Blue Soldier had been standing on opened up, and the Boo Radar going off.
"Okay, that's something I'm going to need to ask E. Gadd about." Ruby muttered, "Because that… made no sense to me."
"It's time for the six o'clock Boos!"
The shout from the Boo caused Ruby to leap up in fright as the Boo laughed at Ruby's reaction.
"Why aren't you hiding!?" Ruby cried out in shock.
The Boo stopped laughing and sighed, "Because unlike the others, I know when I'm beat." The Boo said, "Heck I tried to slip out while you were talking to yourself but that didn't work… And I am not a fighter whatsoever…"
Ruby raised an eyebrow, "Weren't you a knight according to the old legend?" Ruby asked.
The Boo raised an eyebrow and spread it's tiny arms, "Do I LOOK like I can swing a sword! Better yet do you SEE a sword in here?"
"Good point." Ruby deadpanned as she chose to make quick work of the Boo.
With the Boo caught Ruby looked at the dollhouse that opened and noticed a square in the middle of the room.
Leaning into the dollhouse, Ruby looked up and saw a chute going straight up, and light coming from near the top, "Only one way to go and no keys." Ruby muttered as she stepped on to the square, which after a quick jolt, began to lift as if it were an elevator.
After only a couple seconds Ruby stepped out onto the roof of the mansion, with the light she saw earlier being a campfire. Three pairs of the Masked Ghosts dancing around it.
"Wow…" Ruby said as she looked at the ghosts, "Been a while since I saw that." Ruby muttered as she walked up to one of the pairs and, seeing as the masks were physical, grabbed one of them to try and pull it off…
Only for it's partner to try and jab her with it's spear.
"Should have expected that." Ruby muttered as she used the Poltergust to remove the masks, following up with the flashlight and after a minute caught all 3 pairs of ghosts.
After a moment Ruby looked around the roof, "How… Do I know if I caught all the ghosts here?" Ruby muttered.
"BWA-GAAW!" "BWA-GAAW!"
"YEEAH!" Ruby cried out as she leapt over the campfire and saw a pair of pink ghosts, except they were white instead of pink due to their frozen hearts. Then Ruby blinked and looked at the campfire, the ghost doing the same.
"You… really didn't think this out did you?" Ruby asked as a fire spirit rose from the flames and practically dove into the Poltergust, followed by Ruby burning the ghosts out of existence.
When the two ghosts vanished the light from the campfire seemed to double, covering the whole roof.
"Whoa." Ruby said as she looked around the roof, and noticed the two chimney-like structures had ladders on them, and one of them even had a chest on it.
Ruby went to the one with the chest on it first, cracking it open and pulling out a key from it, and checked it to see that it unlocked a door on the third floor.
'Okay.' Ruby thought as she walked back toward the campfire to have a seat and rest a bit, 'There was that sealed room on the second floor that could only be accessed from the roof, maybe the other chimney?'
After a few more minutes of resting, Ruby climbed up the other chimney, and unlike the one with the key that had a grate over it, there was no suck grate on this one.
"Welp." Ruby said, popping the 'P' "Only one way down there."
And with that, Ruby jumped down the chimney.
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Sorry for the long delay guys, but being only one of three people at Dollar General that actually works for our paycheck had some consequences, combine that with the manager taking a vacation (Cutting the actual working down to 2), an audit and someone way up the chain of command coming in to see how things are going…
Yeah I've been called in to work extra for almost a month and a half at this point.
Combined with the summer heat, the fact our stores AC works about as well as a one dollar pair of headphones… I've honestly been too damn tired to do much of anything really.
Hopefully that changes because it's looking like things are winding down so I might actually get a chance to rest and maybe even finish this story real quick.
So I'll see you guys soon.