The next morning Bulma was the first one to wake up. She noticed that the maid had been to the room and pulled away the curtains. The clothes were lying on the chair, dry and good as new. The woman went to the window and opened it. She leaned on the sill and looked outside.
All she saw was fog. It was everywhere. The ground was impossible to see, the hills on the distance were nothing but black shadows and she could only hear the lake's waves but didn't see them. It wasn't a regular fog which you can see every evening and morning in the mountains. It was more like a typical nightmare or horror movie fog – thick, white and spooky.
"Have you finally lost it?" Vegeta's voice asked behind her. "You can't just hang around an opened window with only your nightdress on and expect to stay healthy! It's cold, you know! Close that darn window and a bit faster if I may please!"
Trunks woke up and rubbed his eyes. "Keep it down, dad!" he grumbled. Then he saw the window and leaped out of the bed this instance.
"Whoa, check out the fog! Just like in the thrillers! Can I go out and fly around a little? Please?"
Bulma shook her head. "Dream on. I don't want you to get lost. Besides, it's almost time for breakfast."
After getting dressed and washing themselves (the mysterious maid had taken care of the water too) the two families went down the stairs and met Andrew who was waiting for them in the hall.
"This way, please," he said and led them to the dining room. The count was already there and so was his wife, a stout and cheerful old lady with a grey bun and a pair of old-fashioned glasses. Everyone introduced themselves, and then they sat to the table and started eating.
"Goku, please!!!" Chichi hissed. "You're embarrassing us all!"
Goku looked sheepish and promised to behave himself. The other Saiyans gave their best and tried to overcome their not-so-very-civilized table manners. For everyone's great surprise Vegeta turned out to have very good behavior.
"Gosh, Vegeta, I'm really proud!" Bulma whispered when the Darkshores weren't hearing. "Where did you learn that?"
Vegeta frowned a little. "I'm a prince, for crying out loud!" he whispered back. "You don't expect a prince to grow up without any table manners, do you?"
"So how come you're not using them at home?" Trunks interjected.
In the meantime the old countess was talking to Chichi. "I'm glad you like our castle," she said. "We don't get many visitors here… Oh my god, what happened to you, young man?" she suddenly asked Trunks.
"Um, nothing. I'm fine. Nothing to worry about." Trunks growled and touched his fresh bump very carefully.
Goku finished a chicken and said: "The food is just great. Really. Who's your cook?"
The countess was flattered and smiled. "We don't have many servants," she replied. "It's hard to find good people these days. We have only Andrew, and then there are two maids, the groom and the gardener. One of the maids is cleaning the rooms, the other one is cooking. That's more than enough for the two of us."
"You have a gardener?" Gohan asked. "Then where is your garden?"
"To the east side of the castle," the woman said. "It's not big but we like it."
"Do you have any ghosts here?" Goten suddenly asked.
Chichi gave him an angry look but Trunks rushed to help his friend. "Yeah, do you?" he asked. "Goten and I heard strange noises last night."
The count laughed and said. "It was probably just the wind. This old castle has all sorts of small chambers and chimneys in which the wind can play. We hear it all the time."
The answer didn't seem to satisfy Goten but the conversation went already on.
When the breakfast was eaten Bulma thanked the old couple and said that they should get going but the count said that it was a bad idea.
"The fog is very thick as you've probably already noticed," he said. "You would get lost soon. Believe me, there are many legends that talk about people getting lost in these woods here. Stay here for a little while. My wife and I are quite lonely. The servants are very nice, of course, but some company would be really lovely."
Bulma thought for a moment, then she asked: "What do you guys think?"
"Good idea," Goku said. "Still better than sitting home or getting lost in the forest, or what?"
Chichi seemed uncertain. "Well, the boys should learn a lot about history in this place…"
"Whatever," Vegeta grunted.
The three boys were excited. "Oh yeah! Let's stay! This place is cooool! And we're having a school holiday! Please, let's stay!"
So the families decided to stay. The count allowed them to look around the castle and as soon as there was an opportunity Trunks and Goten galloped to the eastern wing of the castle to examine the rooms. They found a lot. There was a big gallery with many portraits hanging on the walls. There was also a little cabinet full of very old books. The boys found an old ballroom with scraped floor and thousands of spider nets; they came upon a lady's boudoir and made faces to the old wavy mirror; they discovered a library and admired the huge shelves that seemed to disappear to the heights.
"I have an idea," Trunks said. "How about bringing Gohan here? There should be tons of cool stories and legends in these books but they're all so hard to read because of those bizarre letters."
"They must be very old," Goten agreed. "I'll go get him."
Gohan was astonished and said that this had got to be one of the oldest libraries on the planet. He wasn't sure if it was okay to read the books but the kids insisted it. "They're just books. All you have to do is hold it and read down the marks on the pages. What's so illegal about that?"
Finally Gohan agreed to read a short story. He took a big tome and flicked it. Then he looked at the title. "Well, what do you know. "The Legends of Darkshore". That book is more than five hundred years old! Let's see…"
The boys sat down on the dusty floor and Gohan started reading the very first legend. It was about a young lady that had lived in the castle. All the animals from the nearby woods had loved her. One day her father told her that she had to marry a cruel duke from the next county. The girl didn't disagree but on her wedding night she just went outside on the balcony, stabbed a dagger into her chest and jumped down, straight into the lake. The waves of the lake had turned dark from the girl's blood and that's why the lake was called Darkshore. The castle and the family were named later.
"Now that was a good spookster!" Trunks said happily when the story was over. "I don't remember hearing such a good horror story for ages!"
Goten nodded. "You said it. I wonder if this really happened. Sounded pretty real to me." Suddenly he goggled. "Hey, look over there. What…what the hell is that?"
The big mirror on the library's wall was covered with dust, it looked like it hadn't been cleaned for years. Right in front of the boys' eyes crooked letters started to form into the dust.
GET OUT! it said.
"I really hope it meant "get out of the library", not "get out of the castle"!" Goten gasped when they were all panting in the huge hall in front of the staircase.
"You wish," Trunks replied. Then he added cheerily: "This place really is haunted. I knew it! I wonder who that was."
"Let's go back and read the legends all through, perhaps we'll find something about an invisible guy writing get-out messages on the mirror," Gohan suggested sarcastically.
In the afternoon there was another incident. Goku and Vegeta were hanging around in the garden which, as the countess had said, was to the east of the castle. The gardener was a thin tough man in the age of fifty with a brown unfriendly face. He didn't talk much so the Saiyans looked around the garden by themselves. And then Vegeta found something.
"Come on here, Kakarot," he called. "There is a shed here."
Goku came closer. "What about it?"
Vegeta was already inside. He sneaked around and discovered a trapdoor. Before Goku could say anything the Saiyan prince was in the basement.
"I didn't know you were such a sneaker," Goku commented, climbing down the ladder.
Vegeta mumbled: "There is something down here. I can feel it. And I'm going to find out what it is… oh, bingo!!" He looked at a basement wall suspiciously, then his arm muscles tensed and he smashed his fist into the wall. The old blocks fell into pieces and the two men saw a small lapse in the wall. And in this lapse…
"Wow! That must be old!" Goku astonished.
Vegeta nodded. "At least fifty or sixty years. Looks like a young woman. A servant, I assume, when looking at the clothes… or whatever is left of them."
There was a skeleton in the lapse. It was chained and it looked like it had been screaming in the moment of death. The clothes were linen and seemed very old-fashioned.
Goku examined the skeleton. "How do you think she died?"
"Choke, I suppose," Vegeta replied. "Must be one of those typical castle intrigues. I think she heard too much about certain things. However, bricking in alive doesn't sound like an easy murder. The killer had to make sure that no one will find the body."
"How do you know so much about those things?" Goku asked.
Vegeta smirked. "I grew up in a palace. „Intrigue" was one of my first words… Hey, now what?"
A sudden breeze whooshed through the basement. The skeleton's eyes started to glow green. Before Vegeta and Goku realized what was happening they were dashed out through the ceiling.
"Looks like somebody doesn't like visitors," Vegeta commented while pulling himself out of a broken greenhouse. "Or what?"
"Ouches," Goku agreed and tried to maneuver out of a very spiky rose bush.