[AutoExam] Hollandaise

[The Semblance of Unity]

THE EXAM: HOUSE OF HORRORS (Y1 > Y2)

Each student ready to move from the first year to the second would find a nice, neatly printed letter taped to their door inviting them to participate in a "Non-Mandatory-But-Highly-Recommended-Anyway Test" (or NMBHRAT for short). A location was provided at the bottom of the note (a section of the grounds, just near the forest), and beneath that the words "Come at anytime."

Upon arrival, you would first notice that a peculiar house has been erected. It's not large enough to overshadow any of the dorms by any means; in fact, it seems rather tiny and shabby in comparison, with the door half stripped of its paint, the windows cracked and smeared with dust, and everything looks as though the merest touch will make it collapse.

At first you wonder if you're in the right place at all, but then you notice a little box sitting just outside of the house. Closer examination would reveal a note, written in a loopy handwriting perhaps familiar to some:

Welcome welcome to the House
Please be quiet as a mouse
The House will tell if you are good
The House will tell if you are bad

Think you're up to face the thing?
If you pass it, all will sing
Do your best, oh fair student
I hope your deaths you do circumvent

THE EXAM

THE HOUSE OF HORRORS

The smell is what gets your attention first; like smoke and old wood, it wafts across the air towards you, enticing you onward, pulling you forward, and you reach the little shabby house and the door half hanging off its hinges, practically begging you to come inside.

A sign posted outside reads "Welcome to the House."

At first, you're mildly concerned but upon knocking stepping inside, you realize that the house in question appears deserted.

Well, that's just creepy. But trying to go backwards only results in failure - the door has locked behind you. You're trapped inside, and now you must figure out how to get through the house in order to continue on your quest.


--------------------------------------------


TO GET THROUGH THE HOUSE:

There are THREE MAJOR ROOMS to the House of Horrors. In order to successfully pass through the House and receive your exam credit, you must navigate through all three rooms until you reach the exit, located after the very last room:

• Cutthroat Kitchen
  
  To get through the Cutthroat Kitchen, you need 10 steps. Roll 1d4 and add up the amount of steps you take (i.e. you roll a 3, that's 3 steps forward). You must get at least 10 steps. If you go over ten, that's fine, as long as it's at least 10.
  
  Each number of steps rolled has it's own consequence:
  1 - You open a door in the kitchen looking for the exit and promptly find yourself dunked by a bucket of icy water. Who left that there?
  2 - You trip and fall into a vat of what looks like melted chocolate.
  3 - You step in a pile of what looks like sticky glue on the floor and therefore get it stuck on the bottom of your foot/shoe for the rest of your trek through the House.
  4 - For some reason, there is an entire bin of tiny bones that you somehow manage to knock over, which, of course, makes a terribly loud sound.
  
  
  
• Lurking Library
  
  In order to get through the Library, you'll have to find the right combination of books in order to find the combination. Roll 3d6, and follow the guidelines below:
  
  - 1,1 OR 2,2 as two of the numbers - Looks like you've found some sort of...oops better put that back quickly before a certain cranky Librarian sees you looking at por - (try again)
  - 3,3 OR 4,4 OR 5,5 OR 6,6 as two of the numbers - You pull out a book, and then another, and to your relief you see that the door beyond swings open for you to slip through! (success)
  - 1,2,3 (doesn't have to be in order) - Somehow you get entangled in what looks like a long rope made of paper and spend several moments trying to break your way free, when you notice that in the process you've actually fallen out the door into the next room. How convenient! (success)
  - 6,6,6 Is that a giant spi - quick run for it - (start back in the first room)
  - 1,1,1 You try climbing a bookshelf, rather than pull books trying to find the secret switch, and wind up tumbling over the side rather ungracefully. But hey, look, the...nope, just a shadow (try again)
  
  
  
• Bloodcurdling Bedroom
  
  The Bloodcurdling Bedroom requires only one thing - picking the lock successfully to get through the door on the other side. Roll 1d100. You must get above a 65 to have successfully picked the lock. If you roll below, then your attempts were unsuccessful and you have to keep on truckin'.

Upon their exit from the house, a certain mischievous Trick or Treater can be found lounging in a tree on the other side, looking as happy as a pig in mud. He smiles down at you, his grin terribly self-satisfied, and tosses you a rolled up piece of parchment. Opening it, you see a certificate of Exam Completion.

"Congratulations," he says brightly, and flashes you a wink. "You're now a Knob."  

[The Semblance of Unity]

Hollandaise traced the neat print that marched uniformly across the letter. A test. She swallowed nervously. There was only one test that mattered, she reminded herself, and this was not it. This was nothing, mere formalities. She felt the remaining years stretch in front of her. There was no time, not enough of it left for her to be enough. She folded the letter carefully and set it in her desk drawer, next to the last (and only) missive from the Elders.

----

There was a small house, one she did not recognize, and it stood near the woods and from the woods. It was old but it did not feel old, not in the way that trees felt old when their trunks grew so wide she could no longer hug them. There was a box and curious (of course), she touched it (of course), running her thin fingers under the lid and around the note therein. Hollandaise's eyes widened as she read it, lips slowly mouthing out each word. Not because it helped her read, but because that was a thing that must be done with mysterious notes. And this note was indeed mysterious.

Think you're up to face the thing?

"I do not think so," she said softly. Then she carefully refolded the note and closed the box. Ready or not.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

{Cutthroat Kitchen - 2 - You trip and fall into a vat of what looks like melted chocolate.}

W E L C O M E T O T H E H O U S E

As if that wasn't ominous. Hollandaise pushed open the door jsut enough for her slight form to slide through. The thought of knocking never occured to her - she had spent far too many time invading other people's space. It was not a good habit to cultivate, but hardly anyone had told her to cease. All the wood in this house was old and creaked and she felt her bones sing in response. It was charmingly morbid - that she now moved through a corpse. It would be more beautiful if she could put fresh flowers on a table, a flowerbox in the window, decorate this corpese with its dying neighbors.

She stumbled in the near darkness, toes catching on some nail jutting out of rotted wood. With a creak of dismay, she fell, arms splayed wide. Splish. Her hand went into something warm and smooth and it splashed up onto her dress. Hollandaise reeled back, scrambling upright. Her back slammed against a wall and, with a click, there was light. A rich brown streaked on her arms and splattered the skirt of her dress. She was lucky, she thought, that her dress was alreayd some non-descript shade between brown and green. Blinking, she licked her thumb. Chocolate?  

[The Semblance of Unity]

{Cutthroat Kitchen - 4 - For some reason, there is an entire bin of tiny bones that you somehow manage to knock over, which, of course, makes a terribly loud sound.}

She moved almost warily forward, skirting the bin of chocolate. This was clearly a kitchen, now that Hollandaise could see, but it seemed strange, disused. Reaching out a hand, she trailed it along a line of hanging spatulas, giggling at the hollow metal clang. Her toes bumped into something that rattled loudly and she crouched, tucking her hair behind her ears.

It was a bin, discards of some odd feast, perhaps. Tiny bones, scraps of things she could not begin to guess the nature of. Hollandaise blinked and stood up. Nothing was living, nothing was plant - the bin did not matter.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

{Cutthroat Kitchen - 1 - You open a door in the kitchen looking for the exit and promptly find yourself dunked by a bucket of icy water. Who left that there?}

The kitchen was interesting, but not interesting enough. Hollandaise looked around, dress swirling as she moved. She felt vaguely sticky and wondered when the actual test would begin. Hollandaise stretched her arms above her head andbegan to sing softly as she moved about.

Tili-tili-bom.
Ty slyshish', kto-to ryadom?
Pritailsya za uglom,
I pronzayet vzglyadom.
Tili-tili-bom.
Vse skroyet noch' nemaya.
Za toboy kradetsya on,
I vot-vot poymayet.
Tili-tili-bom~

On the last, creaking note, she placed her hand on a door and pushed. Hollandaise yelped, the sound like branches snapping, as icy water soaked her thin dress and drenched her hair.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

{Cutthroat Kitchen - 4 - For some reason, there is an entire bin of tiny bones that you somehow manage to knock over, which, of course, makes a terribly loud sound.}


Cold, cold, cold, cold. Her breath shuddered out of her mouth and she stumbled backwards. Hollandaise's feet hit the small box again, finally knocking it completely over. Small bones tumbled out and rolled across the kitchen's floor. Birds' skulls, spines of rats, tiny ribcages of unidentifiable creatures - they rolled and rolled and rolled until they stopped. Stopped near a door.

Hollandaise had not seen this door before. It was heavy and covered in ornate scrollwork. Wringing out her dress, she hestitantly walked to it. Her fingers itched to touch and she indulged herself, running thin digits over each dip. She hummed as she touched, eyes wide and bright. Finally, she pushed it open and went through.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

{Lurking Library - nothing you try works.}


Corpses, useful, drying corpses all around her. Hollandaise loved the green and growing things, the way plants fought to spring up between rocks and wrapped around man-made building and crumpled them with age and pratience as though they were tissue paper. But, she thought, it was enough to be a corpse. To be useful. If she could die, she could become a book and her story would be over but someone else's words could be writ across her death. Her toes wriggled as she stroked the spines of them. A cough from some spectral librarian reminded her that she should move, look to exit the room. She sighed and touched a gilded spine, the title gleaming faintly. The Woods Are Dark and Deep.

Hollandaise wanted to be a romance.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

{Lurking Library - 3,3 OR 4,4 OR 5,5 OR 6,6 as two of the numbers - You pull out a book, and then another, and to your relief you see that the door beyond swings open for you to slip through!}


Hollandaise hummed softly, the sound a bare whisper in deference to the library. Her bare feet moved silently among the stacks. There was, of course, another large door that loomed, beckoning her. She hoped, for one brief moment, that she might linger among the books and breathe in the smell of drying pages and old ink. But her fingerschose books of their own accord, pulling at spines. Suddenly, the door opened. With one last, lingering look, Hollandaise moved on.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

{Bloodcurdling Bedroom - You must get above a 65 to have successfully picked the lock.}

There was something horribly, horribly unnerving about this room. It felt as though memories hung in the room, silent screams or some sort of terrible happenings. There was a bed, hung all around with deep purple curtains. Hollandaise did not dare to open them, sure she would see some sort of terrible secret. Instead, she moved quickly, barking one shin against a well-worn vanity. She glanced away from it, seeing things in the mirror that were not there.

The door.

Her hands fumbled with the door, the lock clicking. Hollandaise crouched, feeling as though soemthing was watching her. She tried to pick the lock, something she had done so, so many times, but it broke.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

{Bloodcurdling Bedroom - You must get above a 65 to have successfully picked the lock.}

Breathe. Slow, be as slow as trees' growth, as still as the winter lull where all plants sleep until they find the sun in spring. She slowed. Her shaking hands steadied and Hollandaise did one of the few things she was good at: she focused. There was nothing outside of the lock, the knob, the tiny pick that she held in long, thin fingers. It clicked open.  

[The Semblance of Unity]

Her feet sprang up and she banged the door open without thought, certain that whatever room followed would be less unnerving. Hollandaise paused suddenly, blinking in the dappled sunlight that filtered through branches. Outside. A creak drew her attention and she looked up. Green on green on green with a micheivous smile - self-satisfied. She opened her mouth, a multitude of questions springing to her lips, but he grinned harder and tossed down a piece of parchment.

She caught it, barely. Hollandaise unrolled it and read. Oh, oh. She had passed. She wad succeeded in something. Her mouth opened in a soft 'oh' of surprise and pleasure.

"Congratulations," he said brightly, and flashed Hollandaise a wink. "You're now a Knob."

SUCCESS!