He woke up feeling relaxed and somehow slightly lighter, he wasn’t sure if that was because of the walking he had been doing lately, but he felt pretty great overall. In fact, his muscles weren’t even sore, but he knew that was because of the bath he had before he went to sleep.

  He had not found any new clothing, or even towels, which was not surprising given how old the mansion would have been. Instead, he used his dirty clothes as best he could to towel himself off and then fell into bed the previous night. Now he was sitting at the edge, blearily looking around to try and figure out where his clothes had gone.

  “Uh…ALICE?” he called out, hoping the ghost could perhaps help him.

  There was silence and then she just drifted through the wall opposite him, not bothering with the door. “You called for me?” she said, noticeably not looking down at his bare chest. He was really hoping that the duvet was hiding everything he needed it to.

  “Are there any clothes I can wear in this place? Mine seem to have gone missing.” He asked, even as she started drifting to one of the closets.

  “Actually, that is something that I can help with. There have been many adventurers in the past that did try to loot the mansion. Their weapons always disappeared, but their equipment stayed.” She said, as she opened a closet, revealing lines of clothing on hangers.

  He bundled the duvet around him, making it trail like an overly long cloak. The closet held everything he had ever imagined a group of adventurers would wear. From tight black clothing that were clearly meant for a petite woman, to long flowing cloaks with actual stars embroidered on them.

  For her part Alice simply went along the wall, opening the other closets, and then phasing through another wall. He waited until he was absolutely sure she was no longer in the room or about to float back through, then started appraising everything he saw. There were many sets of clothing for him to choose from, and he went from being unsure if he could get something to being overwhelmed.

  The cloak he was looking turned out to be a plain wizard’s cloak, literally, that is all the appraisal said. Not listing benefits. He only knew to look for benefits because the small black, skintight suit gave a whole bunch of benefits to whoever could wear it. There were several other, more normal looking cloaks hanging as well, one of these was a plain brown one, made out of a fine material he could not easily identify.

  “Appraise”

  Cloak of the traveller.

  This mysterious cloak was thought to be lost, made out of an unknown material, it helps those who travel have easier burdens. It is known to repair itself.

  Appraise needs to be improved to increase information.

  Experience Gained: 500.

  He read the notification twice over and then pulled the cloak out, laying it on the bed behind him. It would fit him down to below his knees, and despite expecting it to be heavy, it was rather light. He remarked that it would indeed be a nice travel cloak, wondering if it was waterproof.

  In the next closet over he found many shelves, each with a different piece of clothing. From shirts, to underwear, he wasn’t entirely sure if the underwear was fine. But once he picked one up and found that it not only looked clean, but smelled almost daisy fresh.

  As a last ditch effort he used appraise on it. The skill revealed nothing impressive, but did say that it was entirely clean. He checked a few others, and found that everything had that status. While pulling on a pair of underwear to keep his modesty, he appraised the closets themselves.

  Forever Closet

  This closet uses ambient mana to keep clothes fresh, keep out insects, and prevent fibres from aging.

  Automatically cleans all clothes over a 5-hour period once the door is closed.

  He took a deep breath. This world has magic; this has to be normal. Nodding to himself, he started picking out pants, shirts, and even shoes, hoping that they would fit. After a bit of fumbling and appraising more of the items, he found an actual set piece.

  It was not a set of clothes that fit well together; it was actual clothing that was to be worn together. He could not appraise the exact bonuses when worn together, but he had to admit they looked rather fitting altogether anyway.

  The shirt was a deep, dark green, but seemed simple enough, while the pants were what he swore were just normal denim jeans, but felt thicker when he touched them. The shoes he found were leather and had almost no insoles, fortunately he found his own pair that had been placed next to them. He just took out his old insoles and used them in the new pair.

  He knew it was strange that everything fit him so easily, but chose not to overthink it. He also found a jacket and long sleeved button down shirt that he wore over the other shirt. Altogether, he felt ready to go on an adventure through a misty land. Too bad he would be spending the day exploring every room in the mansion.

  He came to that decision while choosing what to wear. After he got dressed, hanging the cloak on hook by the bedroom door, he called the Alice again.

  This time she came floating down the hallway seemingly from the far end. “Do you know what is in every room?” he asked.

  She tilted her head in a way that only a ghost floating in the air could manage, “I know what some of them contain, I have used them to keep lost equipment. But some of the rooms have wards on them that keep any but the living out.”

  He nodded along then asked her to follow him as he went to the end of the hall. “You said you don’t know how you came to be, but what if you were just the ghost of someone that died in here?”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  She shook her head at his claim, “No, I would be a spectre then. They are the soul fragments left behind by those who die.”

  He nodded again, “Sure, that makes sense, I guess.” It didn’t, but then again, this was a world he was visiting with no prior knowledge to what was going on. “So when exactly do you think the last time was you actually saw a human here?”

  This time she went quiet as they walked, they were nearing the end of the hallway and he knew there would be two doors opposite each other, both closed. “I would have to guess well over 400 hundred years ago. They stopped coming not long after the forest went completely dark.”

  Choosing the door on his left, he stopped and stared at Alice the mansion ghost. “So you’ve just been hanging around here, waiting for someone to show up?”

  This time she nodded, “Yes, though time does not flow the same way for me. I kind of go into a trance when there is nothing to attend to. Most of the last few centuries I’ve only really done things when the gardens outside got too unruly.”

  “Huh, strange.” He opened the door to peek inside, it was a bedroom, smaller than his and with two beds next to each other. It was rather plain as well, with neither bed having anything on them. There was a single freestanding closet in the middle of the room. He went to it and opened the doors.

  All it had were the bedding and a few pillows. “well this was disappointing.”

  Alice had followed him in, looking at the room the same way he was. “This room is smaller than the others, we should be on top of the dance hall.” He stepped back out into the hallway and mentally calculated his position; she was right.

  Deciding to figure it out later, he went to the opposite door and found it stuck. With a sigh, he looked at Alice: “Any chance you know what’s inside this one?” She responded with a slight frown and a head shake.

  “Right, since I am now the owner, let’s find out.” He kicked in the door with all of his might, only to be bounced back into the bedroom. Gathering himself up, he took a running leap and smashed both feet into the door near the handle.

  He also lost his footing and fell hard, unable to stop his momentum. He didn’t know if the door had opened, because everything on his right side was protesting at the stupid actions he had just taken. The lightness he had felt only a few minutes ago when waking up was no longer present.

  Rolling onto his back, he took a deep breath and was pleased to know his ribs had not been broken. His muscles were sore, but that was it. As he looked up at the ceiling, Alice came floating over to stare down at him. At this angle, he got a full glimpse of her, and he had to admit, even though she was a ghost, she was kind of cute.

  “Was that normal?” she asked, looking slightly annoyed.

  Slowly gathering himself up, he shook his head, “No, that was not. But then again, if I want to sleep at night, I need to know that the only supernatural thing here is you.”

  He moaned slightly as he got back up to his feet. The door had swung violently open and then hit something, only to be bounced back. Leaving just a slight sliver to see through into the room beyond. Which was pitch black. So he could still see nothing of what it contained; if there was a window like the room, it was covered.

  Sighing he pushed the door open to let in some light. The room was larger than the one opposite it, and he could see feint light coming through covered windows. It was not however, a bedroom. At best he would call it a activities room. He could not see much more than that. Going to the nearest window, he felt around until he grabbed the corner of a drape.

  With a yank it slid open, letting in fresh morning sunlight and revealing everything the room contained. And it contained a lot. From wall to ceiling were wooden boxes, all sealed up, all with scribbles on them. On one side there were racks with weapons and other things for fighting hanging on them.

  And yet, on the far wall from the door he saw easels that would have been used for painting. Even a few toys lay about the floor, like they were played with and then just never got picked back up again. Overall, he guessed that the room was as store room. A shockingly clean store room, with not even a light sheen of dust on the ground or boxes.

  “Well this is unexpected. Any idea what would be in these boxes?” he asked Alice as he went to the nearest one. She had at first stayed at the door, but then slowly floated in, almost as if she was afraid something would block her completely.

  “No, I did not know there were rooms like this at all. Everywhere I go only had beds or desks.” She said, following him to the box.

  He Hmphed at her answer and then started looking at the details on the box. At first he was afraid he would not be able to ready the scribbles, but he was pleased to see he could.

  Fort Nowhere: Supply Box

  Rations for Generals

  He read the words out loud and Alice simple indicated she had no idea what that meant. Pushing on the lid he found it wasn’t entirely sealed, and it slid of quite easily. And what he found inside was so mundane and familiar that he let out a low laugh.

  As the writing said, they were rations. In fact, they seemed to be almost close the military rations he always saw people test out on YouTube. Just they were kept in cloth bags that had been covered with wax to prevent anything from going bad. He used appraise on the rations first and was pleased to see a status that said edible.

  Which did not make any sense if what Alice had said about the age of the mansion was true. But then again, she had said she had no idea what was in the room. Stepping back from the rations he went to the two other windows in the room, pulling the drapes open so he could see clearer.

  He didn’t quite know what he was looking for, but he knew he would know it was suspicious if he could find it. Eventually he looked at the ground and found a strange white line. Following it to the wall he saw the entire room had a circle drawn on it. Quickly he used appraise.

  The everlasting Circle.

  This magical circle can be placed in a sealed, confined space. Everything kept in the space will last until the circle is broken or the space is entered.

  Somehow, he knew this magic was not usual, and he would try to study it when he could. But right now, he decided that he would go to the rooms Alice already knew about. If every room in the mansion that she could not enter was the same, he would ruin a lot of good, sealed food.

  Despite having high hopes for the day, Theodore “Bennie” Poundsworth spend the rest of the day moving ration boxes down to the kitchen. There were pantries that would help keep everything fresh. He did open one of the rations, and was pleased and mildly shocked to find what they contained.

  Several pieces of dried bread, salted meats, what he could only describe as oats, and wax sealed cheese. Overall, it was bland but a tasty meal.

  Of course, he ate quite a few of them as he worked, leaving only one box left in the room. It was labelled “Private” and he chose to move all the rations down before he opened it.

  Alice at stayed in the room, hovering over it at a different angle each time he had returned. She was clearly curious, but unwilling to ask him to hurry up. Though as he saw the sun setting outside he could see a slight frown on her face when he went up for the last time.

  “I’ll open it now, don’t worry.” She didn’t responded, simple tsked at him.

  The lid of this box was actually nailed down, so he grabbed a knife from one of the racks still in the room and started prying it open. He would have preferred a crowbar and knew one of the swords probably would have worked better. But he’d never actually held a sword before and these, even at a glance, looked quite sharp.

  It took about ten minutes of poking and prodding before the lid finally popped open with a low hiss. Like there was no air inside the box at all. He shoved hard and the lid fell off with a loud bang that resounded throughout the empty mansion.

  Inside was a lot of straw, but in the middle were two things. A book that seemed leatherbound, and somehow blue, next to that was a short sword. It had a beautiful brown sheath, with only a small inlaid piece of steel on it that broke the solid colouring.

  Alice was staring at the two intently, like she was willing them to tell her what they were. He picked up the book first. It had a simple title.

  On Surviving The World

  He supposed that is a good title, he didn’t quite flick through it yet, he would have time later. Instead, he set the book back down and picked up the sword. The handle felt like it moulded itself to his hand even before he started unsheathing it. Of course, he used appraise.

  Light Shade

  A true Sword.

  More information will be revealed as appraise improves.

  Experience Gained: 1000.

  You have levelled up.

  Feeling stupid he looked at Alice and simply asked.

  “What the hell is a true sword?”

  As always I have to send love to my Patreons!

  Basic Sock Puppets:

  J.R. Timmerman

  Christo M

  Free Members:

  Scarlett Dawn

  Lisa