[[musics...]]

Staring about at the heights, Jake notices the young, sickly-looking Dust Adder (Percy, was it?) walking away from the library into the room beside the alcove stair, several spiders and a faint trembling of the unlit chandelier high overhead. His ears tell him that if there's anything besides the folk in the kitchen talking in his immediiate area, it moves too softly to be heard.

Beads of sweat formed on the widower's brow. The quiet and the darkness cause Jake to be cautious, his eyes scanned the area about him as his ears strained to pickup anything that could be movement. He slowly began moving towards areas of the house were there weren't as many people, something in him told him this was foolish but another portion told him to keep moving, focus on the task and see what was on the other side of all the craziness going on around him.

Dave gives Jake a very odd look as the man sidles away, but his hand shifts from gun to pocket, whence he drops a clove of garlic on the boards and crushes it under his boot, still watching Jake. As the strange man continues to edge off, Dave retrieves the crushed and reeking clove and goes to see what they've found in the kitchen.

[[Heading for the dining room (nearby, dark, doors open) or the living room/study (door shut, but folk in there recently so probably lit, if devoid of people)?]]

Jake's eyes slowly adjusted to the dim as he moved towards the pitch black of the dining room. His pistol followed his eyes as he moved. Great way to get killed Jake ... just go looking for the thing trying to kill everyone, he thought as he paused at the entry. Tables, chairs, place settings slowly came into a focus as he looked inside.

Nothing appears to be moving in there. The dining furniture has been stood against the window as a barricade, placemats and silverware are scattered over the floor, and a chair lies tipped on its side near the far door back to the foyer. Everything gives an impression of haste and desperation, save for the implacable sideboard looming up the length of the wall to Jake's left.

Jake stepped into the dinning room, filing away the obvious impression of the room. His eyes shifted from each point to the next, then settled the sideboard on his left. "Hmmm... curious," he muttered to himself.

[[you, er, want to go inspect the sideboard/something specific? Or take a general Notice roll, maybe? There's not a great deal to see except dark...here is some <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzQPJD_Fj8I>more music</a>, anyway.]]

Jake moves into the room, distantly hearing the clank patter over to the stairs behind him. Mostly, though, it's just the muted creak of his own steps, and when those stop, the sound of his breath. The storm outside causes the deep shadows beside the barricade to shudder and flicker, not unlike the movement of that hungry, multi-limbed darkness that had 'spoken' to him outside. The rest is silence.

Jake's curiosity got the better of him; he keeled down to inspect the sideboard properly.

OOC: SURE I'm a fan of notice! :)
17:02, Today: Jake Lawrence rolled 4,2 using 1d8,1d6, rerolling max with rolls of 4,2. Notice.
Not overly good in the dark.

Jake inspects the lower parts of the heavy, high-backed sideboard.

[[It looks like <a href=http://www.sellingantiques.co....6946420317.jpg>my grandma's</a>]]

The cupboard nearest Jake proves quite stiff; as he tugs it open, the far cupboard door gapes blackly wide.

*creee<a href=http://youtu.be/rOn8QFxVGBE?t=...;eeeee</a>aaak*

Fumbling around in there, Jake finds what feel like the service plates, a narrow wooden box about 8" long, an intriguing little metal object with some kind of lever incorporated into its design, long smooth things that make an icy clinking when disturbed, four candles, and on the bottom shelf a somewhat greasy bottle and a  round package securely wrapped in a teatowel, greasepaper and string.

[[Jake finds Things!]]

It took a moment but Jake managed to get out a match and light one of the candles, which of course threw his night vision right out the window.

Something soft brushes the back of his neck.

Not one to jump at things in the dark, Jake turned slowly on his heels and kept his pistol level.

Velvet wings batter Jake's face like little kisses as the large black witch moth continues to circle his candle light in fluttery fascination.

[[moth friend!]]

The rather stressed Jake stared at the fluttering creature for a long moment then let out a quick sigh of relief. He set the candle atop the side board as he finished examining the contents of it.

Attended by his curious moth friend, Jake sets the candle in a nearby holder and investigates the rest of the sideboard. Lightning flashes outside, though the thunder can scarcely be heard. Jake becomes aware he's cold. Someone wearing boots walks down the stairs out in the hall and makes for the kitchen.

The metal object he found earlier seems to be some sort of lamp-lighter, the clinking things turn out to be swizzle sticks, and the box a container for dominoes. The round package and the contents of the bottle remain mysterious.

Moving on to the drawers and other cupboards, Jake finds quite a range of specialised silver dining tools, a couple of souvenir spoons, table linen, playing cards, various glassware, a large fruit bowl, a corkscrew, a strange feathered ball on a string attached to a rod, a folding wooden chess-chequers set plus some other boxes marked 'PACHISI', 'The Game of Attack!', 'FULL TAROT' and 'JUMANJI', and a small wooden duck on wheels that looks to be of considerable age.

It occurs to Jake as he examines these things that the quality of light around him seems to have changed - either his candle is brighter or everything else has got darker. His companion moth flits and flutters, making the shadows shiver at the corner of Jake's vision, at once attracted to the light and shy of the heat.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:30, Wed 16 July 2014.

Jake pondered for a moment what to do, last time he'd turned he had been battered by a rather vicious moth what would happen this time. The world wasn't a place where random seemed to happen often, so he knew that caution was the best course. Grabbing his gun from where he'd laid it to examine the side board contents, he spun on his heel and knee to see what could be causing the light to shift around him.

Jake looks out at utter blackness - someone's killed the remaining light in the foyer and the lamps upstairs are suddenly out. There may still be light in the kitchen, but looking out from his suddenly brightly-lit vicinity into the dark Jake's night vision is too hampered to tell. It's like looking out into void.

Lightning throws blue shadows over the floor and is gone. The moth lands on Jake's forehead to drink his glittering sweat.

...then, from the kitchen, the sudden

{{*CRACK*}} {{*CRACK*}}

of rifle fire.