Sorry for disappearing, work has been hectic once again because the new hires aren't doing jack shit, the hours our Dollar General can officially use for part time employees got cut again which has resulted in my boss saying 'f*ck it' and just telling me that as long as I'm working I can stay as long as reasonable… Because I'm effectively the only dedicated stocker at our store. Not to mention our new hires aren't doing jack shit.
So for anyone looking for a new job just remember, if it's a small enough store, you are NOT going to be able to stand at the register all day, when I'm at the register I still have to do whatever stocking I can squeeze in.
And places like Dollar General are your 'Foot in the door jobs', if you get fired in a couple weeks for whatever reason, that is not gonna look good on you.
HOWEVER during these extra work hours I've been having I've still managed to note down some ideas and plans for this story… Which includes cutting a lot of filler missions. Seriously there are a lot of missions that are just mindless padding- Like the mission before the boss in Gloomy Manor, clearing the mansion of SPIDER WEBS.
It's really a mission that is an excuse to fully explore the Gloomy Manor because you get nothing else out of the mission, just vacuuming Spider Webs and admittedly learning how to interact with the larger ones for the next boss battle.
Also just as a quick disclaimer in case I get some information wrong, I do not have Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon (Nor a working 3DS at the moment) so if I mess up some information then I am sorry. I'm following a video walkthrough of the game and unlike the Original Luigi's mansion, I don't have the ingrained knowledge of playing it every Halloween to back up what isn't exactly covered in the walkthrough.
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Ruby stared at the wall the three red ghosts phased through and swallowed fearfully, even though the lights did come back on.
'I'm gonna have to deal with those guys a lot aren't I?' Ruby thought to herself.
(Dark Moon Ost: Dual Scream)
Ruby jumped in surprise as the TS went off in her pocket, quickly fishing the device out and answering the call.
"Dagblasteed ghosts." E. Gadd muttered before he sighed, "I've got some bad news Ruby."
"Aside from the fact the ghost's ripped some gears out of a wall?" Ruby asked, looking at the now damaged mechanism.
"Yes." E. Gadd said, "You see, in this bunker I've developed a device I like to call the Parascope, which allows me to identify surges of ghost energy and where in the Mansion they are located."
Ruby blinked, "You were trying to see if you could find the Dark Moon piece in the Mansion?" Ruby asked, surprised the Professor was taking such an active role in this mission, especially since he could barely help during the Mansion Trap.
"Well this was a research trip Ruby." E. Gadd said, "I've actually taken time to develop equipment for Ghost Research, not solely Ghost Capturing."
Ruby had to admit he had a point.
"Anyway, the Parascope identified a surge of energy in the northern part of the manor, unfortunately, those ghosts just damaged the mechanism needed to safely access that part of the manor." E. Gadd explained.
"Well that's just great." Ruby muttered, "It wasn't a coincidence was it?"
"I… Don't know." E. Gadd admitted.
"Huh?" Ruby asked confused. This resulted in Clairvoya floating on screen to explain.
"On one hand Ruby." Clairvoya said, "The lack of the Dark Moon's power to calm ghosts, and Slammers are the ghosts of people who were more brawn over brains and tended to break things for the heck of it so breaking that mechanism wouldn't be too out of character for them." Clairvoya then sighed, "On the other hand, the Master of the Manor, or even another ghost may be commanding, or even manipulating the Slammers into breaking the mechanism to try and stop you."
"Well that's just great." Ruby sighed as she looked around the room, "So where do I have to go?"
"Don't worry Ruby." E. Gadd said, "I'll check the security camera I've installed and the Parascope to see if I can find them, check the map on the TS to see where they are after I've- Ah ha! There they are! Good luck Ruby."
Ruby nodded and ended the call,then checked the Mansion Map on the TS.
"Okay." Ruby said, looking up, and seeing a door slightly ajar. "That's a trap isn't it?" Ruby muttered as she started charging the flashlight and approaching the door.
As anyone could expect, the door slammed shut quickly followed by a clicking sound coming from the door, the lights cut out again, and Ruby heard a laugh coming from behind her.
Spinning around quickly, Ruby blindly released the Strobulb charge, stunning a Greenie that had appeared and was holding a key.
Ruby made quick work of the singular ghost and took the key from him as the lights came back on once again.
"Phew. Just one." Ruby said, mostly to herself, then turned around and tried to go through the door once more, only to find that it had locked itself. "Of course it did." Ruby muttered and with a sigh, slid the key into place and unlocked the door.
Stepping through into a hallway, Ruby saw two doors in front of her, and a section of wallpaper tore as if it were hiding a path behind it… Quite obviously too.
Curiosity won over and Ruby walked up to that torn wallpaper, tore it down to reveal a door that seemed to be made a scrap pieces of planks, one that opened simply from Ruby pushing on it.
"Huh.. Weird." Ruby muttered, stepping inside the small area, revealing that there was a key in the small room, and a small peephole into another room.
Curiosity once more got the best of Ruby as she peered through the peephole.
In the room she peered through, Ruby saw two identical ghosts. Long, thin and deep blue. One of them was posing, while the other was attempting to paint the posing ghost. These blue ghosts were known as 'Hiders'.
The Hider that was attempting to paint the posing Hider however was growing rather frustrated as the posing ghost was constantly moving.
"That's enough of that." Ruby muttered, stepping away and instead grabbing the key and leaving the alcove, not sure where she would need it, but she knew she would need it eventually.
Deciding to keep things somewhat simple, Ruby investigated the room that was south of the alcove she exited, and upon entering the room, quickly discovered this room had been restructured into a small lab, likely where E. Gadd was conducting his experiments.
"Neat place." Ruby muttered looking around the room, she then noticed something that drew her interest, the chalkboard.
But it wasn't what was written on the chalkboard that had her interest, but rather…
"Hey this is one of those chalkboards you can flip." Ruby said to herself, and with a quick jump, grabbed the top of the board and spun the chalkboard using her falling momentum. Simply, childish fun… Something to help calm her nerves in a haunted mansion.
However it would not last too long as in the middle of the board spinning, a Greenie was revealed to be on the board, his back planted against it as it spun, constantly flipping the Greenie until he was flung forward.
The Greenie on the board seemingly stopped in place and bounced back, revealing that he had slammed into another Greenie, stunning both of them.
Seeing as the two ghosts were stunned, Ruby took a chance and indeed managed to catch the two ghosts in the vortex of the Poltergust's suction.
Not a moment after that did the Slammer appear, getting electrocuted from one of E. Gadd's experiments that was still running.
Deciding she didn't want to see just how much this ghost could hurt her, Ruby took advantage of its distraction and with a quick burst of her semblance got in front of the Slammer and blinded it with a quick burst from the Strobulb, then began to vacuum the ghost away, releasing a Charged Pull when the Poltergust indicated to assist her in the endeavor.
The Slammer was sucked into the Poltergust as one of the gears seemingly popped out of the ghost and onto a table in the corner of the room.
"Okay, that was a lucky break on my part." Ruby admitted to herself, as she was lucky the Slammer was more interested in the electrical experiment than her.
Ruby smiled as she walked over to the gear and picked it up, then frowned.
"Oh…" Ruby groaned as she looked at the gear.
It was bent, not by much as it was difficult to notice from a moderate distance, but this small bend would definitely mean even if she did get all the other gears back the mechanism wouldn't work properly.
Pulling out the TS, Ruby resigned to telling the Professor the bad news.
The Professor appeared on screen, his hand extended toward a button, when he noticed Ruby. "Ah, Ruby, I was just about to call you." His smile shrank a little, "Is something wrong?"
"Yeah, the Slammers kinda… bent one of the gears." Ruby said, turning to one of the cameras and holding up the gear at an angle to show the bend, "Probably all of them too."
"Drat." E. Gadd muttered, "Okay, gather up all the gears and I'll use the Pixelator to bring you back to the lab, I can straighten out the gear easily enough, and add some parts to at least make them fit back in safer and easier."
"Thanks Professor." Ruby said happily, "But, what did you call me about?"
"That desk your next to actually is holding an experimental device that I planned to be part of your flashlight." E. Gadd said, causing Ruby to look at the table and notice a device shaped like a flashlight head attached to it, "It's called the Darklight Device, I had it built with several purposes in mind, go ahead and take it."
Ruby nodded and carefully unscrewed the device as E. Gadd continued.
"First off, I had noticed a while back several objects seemed to vanish- Madame Clairvoya told me ghost's capable of illusions can use something called Spirit Balls to remove something from this plane of existence. The Darklight Device is meant to force the Spirit Balls back into ours, then you use the Poltergust to capture the Spirit Balls, resulting in them dissipating within the Poltergust and allowing the object the affected to stay in this plane of existence." E. Gadd explained.
Ruby nodded, keeping note of the important parts of the lecture as she replaced the head of her flashlight, a click locking the device in place, and noticing the new button on the flashlight head itself, held it down causing a new light to come out from the flashlight, this one a literal rainbow of colors, starting from purple, then going through the rainbow until red.
"The second option is to remove things from Portraits so long as they weren't originally painted on it. Like say a ghost from their painting, or a person should history start to repeat." E. Gadd explained.
"But King Boo is still in his painting right?" Ruby asked, "How could anyone else do something like that?"
E. Gadd sighed, "I'm not sure Ruby, that feature is more of a safety, and emergency, precaution." E. Gadd said, "Not too long before the CCT collapsed I received a signal that my lab was broken into. Thankfully there shouldn't be another mass outbreak of portrait ghosts and I've put several different locks on the Portrificationizer, both physical and digital. But… It's better to be safe than sorry."
"I guess so…" Ruby muttered, lost in thought she did not notice the Darklight Device heating up, "But why would anyone break into your lab? How would they know- YEEOW!" Ruby shouted as the Darklight got too hot to handle, dropping it and turning the light off. "Hot! Hot! Hot!" Ruby cried out as she waved her hand trying to cool it off.
"I don't know Ruby, and that worries me." E. Gadd said as he pulled out a clipboard, "Note, Darklight Device has heating issues."
"So… what are we going to do?" Ruby asked as she looked at her hand, her aura healing her burn so the bright red skin was fading back to its normal color.
"For now, let's finish gathering those gears." E. Gadd said, "There are still three more in the mansion to gather. Once you have them I'll bring you back to the lab so I can fix them."
"Alright." Ruby said stowing the TS away and leaving the small lab. Deciding to continue down the hall she reached the door to the Studio where the two blue ghosts were at.
However when she got to the door and opened it she found she couldn't open the door more than a few centimeters. "Huh?" Ruby muttered as she tried to push the door open again, but all she got was perhaps an extra centimeter, "Somethings probably blocking the door." She grumbled.
Leaving the door in hopes of finding another way, she found one last door in the small hallway, however it was covered thickly by spiderwebs.
"Whoa…" Ruby said as she looked at the absurd amount of webbing on the door, then she noticed a small hole in the wall next to the webbed door and decided to peer through, thankful nothing had decided to look back at her so far.
Looking through the hole, she realized this door led to a library, a relatively small one, but a library none-the-less, but what caught her attention above all else was the fact that MANY books in that library were coated in an amber energy and floating around the room.
Then all the books came to a sudden stop, only a few kept moving, clearing a line of sight from the center of the room directly to Ruby's peephole.
Ruby lurched away from the hole and slammed her back against the opposite wall, 'I think it noticed me!' Ruby thought, and then proceeded to use her Semblance and speed out of the small hall and back into the Foyer.
Ruby took a deep shaky breath to try and calm down, "Okay… I think I'm safe?" Ruby asked herself and pulled out the TS to check the first floor. The remaining gear on the first floor was thankfully in the Studio, not the library, so she decided to leave the library until later and go explore the second floor.
Ruby began to quickly climb up the stairs, but just before she reached the second floor the stairs seemingly disappeared under her with the lights cutting out at the same time.
"Waa!" Ruby cried out as she fell on the stomach and began to slide down the suddenly slippery slope that used to be the stairs all the way back to the first floor.
Ruby looked back up from where she stopped, only to see a blue Hider slip out from the stair right in front of her face.
"YAAA!" Ruby cried out and rolled to the side and quickly stood up and looked back to where the Hider was, only to find it was gone, then began to look around the room in an attempt to find the ghost.
Out of the corner of her eyes, she spotted a blue tail diving into one of the jars behind the fountain.
'There.' Ruby thought and started charging her flashlight as she approached the jar. Right as she stopped in front of the jar, the Hider burst out from it with it's arms extended.
Ruby jumped, managing to hold in her scream as she released the charge from the flashlight, stunning the ghost and allowing her to capture the ghost, allowing the lights to come back on.
Ruby took a deep breath and clipped her flashlight back onto her belt, "The ghosts don't seem to be as packed in as the Mansion Traps." Ruby muttered as she made her way up the stairs once more. "Then again, Van Gore isn't here making them every moment."
Reaching the top of the stairs, Ruby couldn't help but stop and glance at the fishtank that was for some reason blocking a door, "Probably operated by that mechanism." She muttered, then went to the one door she could access and unlocked it, slipping into another hallway.
One with a LOT more webs.
"Whoa!" Ruby cried out when she saw the excessive amount of webs in the hall, "Okay… Gonna need to talk to Clairvoya about the Master of the Mansion, because this can NOT be a normal amount of webs."
Seeing as she could immediately access two rooms, one of which had a gear holding Slammer in it, the other most likely held a way into the other Room Ruby needed to enter seeing as according to the map there was no door into that room, Ruby opted to leave the webs alone and started with the room at the furthest end of the hall, the parlor.
She never looked up to see a number of red, black and yellow spiders watching her.
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Deep within the Basement of the Gloomy Manor, the only light came from a torch held by armor, and from that light one could see a number of spiders scuttling around the room.
From the back of the room, a small collection of glowing green eyes opened, eight in total and rose up to look at the ceiling while also raising a fair amount off the ground, and near the ground another set of eight eyes opened up.
The two collections of eyes then turned around to look deeper into the cave, where there was a massive bundle of webs, and in the center of that bundle a faint purple glow could be seen.
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Upon entering the Parlor, Ruby noticed it was surprisingly well lit for a room that is supposed to have ghost's in it. As well as an old phonograph playing.
"So where are you hiding?" Ruby muttered as she stepped into the room.
Ruby slowly walked around the room, looking for where the ghosts could be hiding, only for the phonograph to suddenly stop playing right as Ruby walked next to it.
"Hm?" Ruby hummed as she turned to the phonograph, right as the light cut out.
A Greenie burst out from the brass cone of the phonograph right into Ruby's face, letting out a loud 'Woo!' sound.
"WAAAH!" Ruby cried out as she jumped back from the Greenie, who was laughing at Ruby's reaction while another Greenie slipped out from the phonograph with a confused look on his face until he noticed Ruby.
Ruby quickly grabbed her flashlight and blinded both of the ghosts with it before catching both of them at once.
"Those greenies are just like the yellow ghosts back in the old mansion." Ruby muttered to herself seeing how easily the Greenie were caught.
She then heard the phonograph rumble and turned to face it, quickly seeing a pair of ghostly red hands grabbing the edges of the cone and trying to pull itself out of the phonograph.
Seeing as it was stuck, Ruby took advantage of the time she had and prepared her flashlight. The moment the Slammer managed to pop his body out of the phonograph he was blinded, and after charged pulls with the Poltergust he was captured with the second gear bouncing off the nozzle of the poltergust and onto the ground.
"Bent." Ruby muttered, picking up the second gear, before sighing and leaving the room, slipping through the hallway relatively fast to reach the next room, a large, rather empty bedroom.
The only reason Ruby even knew it was a bedroom was because it was labeled as such on the TS.
Looking back at one end of the room, Ruby noticed a door, but hesitated in going toward it.
"Hang on." Ruby muttered, pulling out the TS and showing the map again, "There's not supposed to be a door there according to the map…" Ruby then groaned as she realized, "Fake doors again?"
Deciding her focus would best be left to the rope next to the false door, Ruby walked over to it and pulled it, then jumped to the side as a queen sized bed fell from the wall.
"Well that's one way to move your bed when cleaning." Ruby muttered, a quick glance at her TS did show her the odd shape of the room she needed to get into, and if there is any trope of mansions she knows it's hidden passages. She even had a couple in the mansion E. Gadd built for her (Not that she knew until E. Gadd gave her the key).
Slightly crazy idea in mind, Ruby hopped onto and sat on the bed, mainly just to see how soft it was.
"Huh." Ruby muttered, "This is really-" Ruby cut herself off as the bed began to rattle, "Uh oh."
The bed shot back into its stored away position, launching Ruby into the Study… And face first into the wall.
"Ouch." Ruby muttered as she slid down the wall head first.
After taking a moment to recover, Ruby walked into the main part of the study, and spotted the third gear hidden in an exposed cubby in the wall, which was quickly followed by the lights going out, a painting closing over the wall cubby, and ghostly gates falling down to seal up the painting, the bed's secret path, and the fireplace.
Followed by four Greenies appearing in the room.
"I really need to stop talking!" Ruby yelped as she gave off a quick flash of the Strobulb, stunning only two of the Greenies, then firing off a second flash to blind the remaining two. Ruby attempted to get an angle to catch as many of the ghosts in the suction as possible,but only succeeded in getting two of them caught in the suction. By the time she had managed to catch the two of them, the other two had gotten over their blinding and were making their way toward Ruby once more.
Only to be blinded a second time and this time captured properly.
"Alright, now where is the Slammer?" Ruby muttered looking around the room. Right before feeling a sharp pain in the back of her head and her body getting flung forward.
"Ow…" Ruby hissed as she clutched the back of her head, her Aura may be the only thing that saved her from more serious damage, Turning around Ruby saw the culprit of the attack was indeed the Slammer, who was cracking his knuckles… Or at least making the motions as he lacked bones.
"Now you're gonna get it." Ruby grumbled as she flashed the Strobulb, the Slammer not being the smartest was quickly blinded by the light and just as quickly caught by the Poltergust.
Ruby let out a sigh of relief as the lights in the room came back on, the ghostly gates vanished, and the painting opened back up.
"Ah…" Ruby hissed as she held the back of her head, "Not to self, don't stand around, these guys aren't like the Painted Ghosts and will try to sneak up on me."
Slowly making her way over to the, indeed dented gear, Ruby suddenly felt the floor under the carpet give a little, causing her to lock up.
'Please don't be a trapdoor!' Ruby thought to herself in a panic, instead all that happened was the fireplace going out, the logs rolling away to a hidden compartment within the fireplace. "That… Wasn't what I was expecting." Ruby muttered before quickly grabbing the third gear.
Three gears in hand Ruby made her way to the now empty fireplace, Ruby leaned into the fireplace, and noticed for some reason a vent below where the logs were.
"That is a weird design." Ruby muttered as she stepped into the fireplace, and gave a small hop hoping to loosen the grate.
What she wasn't expecting was for the grate to fall open entirely the moment she put her weight on the device.
"WHOOOA!" Ruby shouted as she tumbled back down to the first floor, into the Studio she couldn't access previously.
And startling the two Hiders that were still painting/posing.
While Ruby was recovering from her tumble, the two hiders took the opportunity to do as their namesake entitled and hid.
Once Ruby stood back up she immediately ducked back down when she saw an orange flying toward her, and one of the Hiders quickly ducking back into the furniture it was hiding in, however it was too late as Ruby had spotted it.
Knowing it's cover was blown it jumped out of the tabe it was hiding in and made a break for it, only to be blinded and caught mid-escape.
The second Hider popped out of the jar it was hiding in, only to notice Ruby was right next to him and looking at him.
The Hider stared at Ruby as she raised her flashlight, with only quick movement, the Hider pulled out a small white flag.
Ruby however reacted to the sudden movement and quickly blinded the ghost, and quickly caught it soon after.
"Okay, now the Slammer." Ruby said with a shaky breath as she slowly began to move around the room.
"Hu hu hu hu hu." Came the deep laugh of the Slammer as it was pointing at the portrait the Hider was painting.
Ruby sighed with relief and quickly caught the Slammer, turning on the lights of the studio and recovering the final gear, which was in much worse shape than the rest.
"Jeeze." Ruby muttered holding up the gear, which was bent at a 90 degree angle, "There is no chance this could work without repair." Pocketing the gear Ruby pulled out the TS, which began to ring in her hand, "Talk about timing." She said answering the call from E. Gadd.
"Wonderful timing Ruby." E. Gadd said, "Head back to the Foyer and I'll use the Pixelator in there to bring you back to the lab, Madame Clairvoya's gotten an ice bag ready for you."
"Thanks, I'll be there soon." Ruby said hanging up the TS then noticed the massive pile of dirt that was blocking the door into the Studio, "That's disgusting." Ruby muttered as she pulled out the Poltergust and began to vacuum up the dirt.
Ruby then made to open the door and leave before she paused and looked back at the portrait the Hider was painting, "What was so funny about that anyway?" Ruby muttered before stepping away from the door and approached the painting, moving to a side she could see the painting from.
"Pffft." Ruby almost managed to contain her laugh at the admittedly childish sight of the painting.
The Hider was admittedly painted perfectly… Save for the fact the artist appeared to have gotten fed up with his subject and had drawn on a black curly mustache out of spite.
Ruby took a deep breath to avoid bursting out laughing at the sight, "I needed that." Ruby said before she left the room to make her way back to E. Gadd's Bunker.
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Professor E. Gadd's Ghost Dossiers.
Subject: Melody Pianissima
Melody Pianissima was once known in the Faunus Community as the Spectral Beauty of the ivory keys, a title given to her due to her paling skin and her piano skill.
Her mother being a Faunus and her father being human did cause her some level of strife during her childhood, and she died fairly young due to Faunus Purist extremists.
During her life she was believed to have been taught by famed Atlesian composer, Adameus Wolfgeist and in turn was also naturally talented, however she held an -at then- odd fascination with video games and could be heard in her home replicating music she had heard in video games on her piano.
Melody died at the young age of 26, and had a fairly difficult time trying to find work outside of Menagerie, with Vacuo and Vale being the only two places her recitals could be found.
Until her initial 'capture' (Which really, was more just a nice chat and agreement to leave), Melody's spirit could be found in Menageries relatively small concert hall, and though many were happy to hear Melody's music, it did scare many people that music was playing itself when no one was around.
Threat Level: None. Minimal if her music is insulted.
Notes-
E. Gadd: Perhaps one day when ghosts can be revealed to the world without causing too much panic we can set up further concerts for Melody.
Furthermore, and not to typecast, but it is unusual that Wolfgeist was happy to teach her to play the piano considering the average temperament of Atlesians toward Faunus. I'll have to look into public records on that one… Or perhaps hope Amadeus refused to pass on to continue to play music.