World Tree MUSH

    Trollskull Manor...
    It's easily the biggest house in Trollskull Alley by far. And that says something considering this area of the city is for the upper middle class. The manor is a huge four story building smack dab in the center of the neighborhood. Which means the party passed a few shops of note... A woodworker shop named The Bent Nail, a blacksmith and weapon forger called Steam and Steel, an apotheacary; Corellon's Crown, a book store, called Book Wyrm's Treasure, and a private detectice agency called The Tiger's Eye.
    Everything looks up and up but Trollskull Manor itself has seen better days.
    Lether is standing, waiting on the porch access to the first floor looking apprehensive.
    "... Never had a house before." She mutters occasionally to herself, futzing with what is very clearly a key in her hands rather than her usual set of lockpicks.

    Dante however HAS. The Sparda estate burned to the ground long ago, so it's not like he can show it off. And plus, there's Devil May Cry but that place isn't exactly much of an improvement over a smoking ruin. Half the time the john doesn't even work right.

    Dante munches on some shortbread cookies while waiting besides Lether for the others. "So...what's the over-under on there bein' monsters inside?"

"It's a little bit of work," Neviah opines from her spot just behind Lether. She looks up at the house critically, one hand on the arch of her hip. Her teeth capture her lower lip for a second before she releases it and lets out a slow sigh.

"He's given us what I believe is called 'a fixer-upper,'" she opines. "We will have to source a couple of good carpenters. I can help you with that, dear."

An aircraft passed overhead, the sleek stealthily angled craft with its rumbling engines skimming through the cloud layer. Joanna checked her HUD, the feed from her modified AS-31 Wraith sat at the corner of her line of sight. Trollskull Manor. 

 Click. Click. Her thumb pressed twice on one of the switches on the stick. 

 She zoomed the camera in further, steadying it on the building proper. It was a mess. Overgrown and clearly not taken care of in a good while but even from up here she had a pretty good idea that the proverbial bones were at least solid. Maybe that guy with the scroll hadn't screwed them over after all? 

 <<Anchordeep Tower, Arclight zero zero one. Request landing clearance at runway zero three left.">>

    "I heard it's haunted." Lether says rather matter of factly to Dante. She shrugs before looking to Neviah.
    "Fixer... Upper... Yeah..."
    The place has seen better days. It's probably going to need roofing re-patched and some serious renovation work in places both inside and out.
    "Well. I've still got the haul from the hag's and a good chunk of the haul from the Zhent warehouse." She does note that Neviah can totally help but it shouldn't hopefully break the bank after the party found those two loot staches.
    The aircraft does a once over of the building from above and that confirms that the roof will need some serious work done on it, but Joanna gets the clearance she needs from Anchordeep's space docks to land.
    Pursing her lips, Lether hesitates briefly before slotting the key into the lock and turning it when a passing Halfling spots the group.
    "Oh! You must be the new owners!"
    He's a stout man with a muttonchop beard and bushy eyebrows.
    "The name's Broxley Fairkettle! I work with The Fellowship of Innkeepers! Inns and taverns are few and far between here in the North Ward-- And this one's haunted indeed. Poor Lif, divines bless his soul. ... Just couldn't let go after he passed on. He was the last barkeep, yanno."
    Lether pauses to blink at the halfling. Sideways.
    "Neat." She says pushing the door open.
    "Iffin' you were thinking of re-opening the place I'd *highly* suggest joining the fellowship!" The halfling calls as the Lizardfolk girl pokes her head in the door.
    The old taproom is... Well it was the old bar portion of the house. Taking up the entire first floor, there are old rotted chairs and tables in disarray strewn about everywhere, the windows are covered in a patina of dust and grime, and the floors could use a really good mopping....

    "Well," Hyouka observes dryly as they step in, "I thought the neighborhood looked a bit too nice for a haunted tavern called 'Trollskull Manor', but this is a lot more like what I was imagining." She's noticeably being careful not to touch... well, just about anything."

    "I couldn't be less surprised if I tried." Dante quips tiredly as he finishes his cookie, offering some to Lether while he gives Neviah a lazy wave, offering her a snack too! And then there's Hyouka! The cyborg gets a fistbump, AND a cookie too. Does she even need to eat?

    Dante notes the shorty and nods, "Most of us are just here as moral support. And mooching." He grins cheekily at the Halfling. "Get the feeling we'll end up meeting the guy ourselves soon, if scuttlebutt's any hint."

    Dante makes his way to the taproom immediately, looking to see just how disused it is. Despite being Dante, he's still alertly checking for signs of spookitude.

A bar of gold from a local noble for slinging a missile at a big flying beastie. Despite all the tree's mysteries, despite the unreal, illogical, almost dreamlike nature of it all, it seemed that she was still never short of work. As far as payment went too, this was a pretty big haul. Sure, gold seemed to be worth a little less around here, they still used it in coinage for starters, but surely one of the many infinite worlds that all branched and wove together in this odd mess would pay a high premium for it. 

 Or, at the very least enough to cover the cost of the weapon. 

 It didn't take Joanna all too long to get from the spaceport down to Trollskull alley then the manor proper. A few minutes tops after changing from her flight suit into something more fitting casual house check-upping. 

 Her ear twitched. She could hear familiar voices inside. 

 "Knock knock." She tapped her knuckles on the door, pausing for a moment when she felt the rot under the boards, though still offering a friendly smile to Lether and co all the same. "All things considered, not bad for a day's work. You did well Lether."

    Lether, now with a cookie clasped in her mouth, waits for her eyes to adjust to the filthy light pouring in through the windows into the even filthier taproom.
    "Definitely a fixer upper." She repeats while munching on cookie before she jabs Dante lightly in the side. "Mooching, my scaly butt." She snorts.
    "Place's closed. Come on in." She calls back to Joanna when the knock comes. "Watch your step, the floor's probably rotted through in places." She does warn Hyouka while stepping in further and--
    To Lether's perception time slows down. Her pupils dilate.
    She registers the plate lifting- and floating on its own- instinctively before intellectually, and nimbly ducks under the plate as it sails clean over her head in a baseball pitch that launches it to shatter against the nearby wall.
    That's when an old flagon floats on its own next... And an invisible force brings the flagon to the barrels behind the counter. The cask pours out a vile and way too old substance that was possibly beer at one point. Four flagons are filled with this and lined up on the counter in sequence, one per person.
    Lether watches in silence as writing starts to show through the grime on the window behind the bar.

    L A S T C A L L

    The lizardfolk girl blinks sideways again, turns her head to look to the others.
    "... Maybe if we ignore the ghost it'll go away."

    Hyouka doesn't need to eat, but she can certainly do so, and enjoy it. She'll take the cookie without skipping a beat, and give Dante a happy grin in return for the treat.

    Then a plate smashes against a wall. Hyouka's head darts around to look at the falling fragments, only to whip around again and watch a phantom bartender fill four flagons with something that is almost assuredly a biohazard, before leaving them a phantom message.

    Her face drops into a scowl. She is most assuredly not going to be ignoring the ghost. Oh no.

    "As a bartender, you should be ashamed of yourself!"

    The faux elf whips around and points a finger at the shattered plate. "That was a perfectly good plate! We could have cleaned that off, you know! Now we're going to have to replace it, and the money for that could have gone to some other repair or expense to fix this place up! And honestly, serving us that swill?" Now, she points at the flagons. "I'll bet you think you're really cheeky with that gunk and your little passive-aggressive threat in the window there, but I'll have you know I've had my life threatened by an oni twice my size, and even HE had the decency to pour me actual booze instead of toxic waste! Honestly, as a host, you should be embarrassed. Don't you take pride in your work?!"

    Dante fistbumps with Hyouka for a moment when he's not in the bar. Then there's a mysterious ghostly bartender. Dante's seen this movie before! "Shouldn't you be at the Overlook, pal?" He says, waving a hand at the ghost bartender in front of his face to try and get its attention, whilst Hyouka provides a formidable display of Karen. She must be a black belt in demanding to see one's manager.

"Closed for a *while* by the looks of it, damn." Joanna took a few steps inside, halting in her tracks when she felt a floorboard that had just a little too much "give" for her liking, taking a much longer and more careful route around that softer patch. "Definitely gonna need to put new flooring in." she said, midway testing each plank in her path with her boot. "If this has spread to the beams under the floor that's going to be a way bigger issue. Speaking off, had a look at the roof on the way over and- whoa!" 

 Jo's fuzz fluffed up, the Jolteon woman eyes and hands instantly crackling with all the arcy sparkies. 

 Wait a second... 

 That was just a plate. Probably fell out of a rack somewhere. 

 "Man, sorry-" she said, lowering her hands and letting her fur slowly settle back into place, it now sitting only halfway spiked up. "-Guess I'm a little jumpyyyy-whaaaat the f-" 

 Jo's eyes tracked the flagons, following each in turn floating by themselves only to be filled with what her nose was telling her probably had hops in it somewhere amidst all that grime and rot. 

 beat 

 She stared at them. 

 Then at the writing. 

 Then back to the flagons, her ears flattening and twitching slightly at Hyouka's shouting. 

 "You really need to do a line clean."

    To her credit for having dodged a plate that almost brained her, Lether is incredibly calm.
    But she has no idea how to exorcise or appease ghosts and the passive aggressive display and message is kind of intimidating.
    But HOLY SHIT, not as intimidating as Hyouka Kiyama is right in this very moment.
    Another flagon lifts on its own and--

    'As a bartender, you should be ashamed of yourself!'

    It seems to *flinch* in the air where it hovers. Lether stares as the mug hovers half-heartedly in the air for a beat longer before it gets set down by a likely very sulky poltergeist.
    "Did..."
    Did Hyouka just berate the ghost into submission?
    For now. ...
    For now.
    "Uh." Lether takes a second to rally.
    "Dante don't rile the ghost." Lether says, but.
    Let's face it, Hyouka nipped that in the bud pretty fast and hard because Lif goes inactive after that.
    "More than a line cleaning, I think the kegs are a bust." Lether mutters, "I'm not drinking that."
    " ... But I can see where I wanna put my projector and screen already. So huh... Let's check out the living arrangements upstaiiiiiirs...?" She suggests.

    The flagon finally sets itself back down, and Hyouka lets out a breath, then crosses her arms, and speaks in a much more conversational tone - still looking in the general direction of the flagon. "Now, most of us are offworlders, but that girl over there, Lether, she's going to be here a while at the very least. You should probably learn to get along with her. And even the rest of us will be in and out of here to help out where we can. So if you work with us, we'll work with you." She unfolds her arms again, then adds, "I don't have much I can offer right away, but at the very least I have a couple bottles of sake back home I'm willing to give up. They'll at least serve until you can get something better."

    Then, Lether gets a little nod. "Might as well see what we're working with, sure."

    Dante shrugs a shoulder at Lether, "Just sayin', this is REALLY familiar for some reason." He only watched The Shining drunk and half-asleep, so he passed out midway through and woke up to Scatman Crothers getting an axe in the chest. Pour one out for him. "Alright, let's go scout out the rest of this place while we're at it." Dante says, hopping off a stool.

"Lether, dear, I think I can handle things down here," comes Neviah's voice from a side door. She's brushing inside with a large sheaf of papers.

She immediately plops a chair down and settles in, crossing a leg over the other and looking towards the hovering mug meaningfully. "Now, then. We have to discuss some manner of leasing agreement, my dear phantasm. Now, as the legal representative of the deeded property owner, that being the Landlady in Good Standing Madame Kairyu de Crocodile the First, heretofore 'Lether,' I am authorized to offer a generous tenancy document. As illustrated in Appendix C of the document - and you will turn to it here, of course - both the interior and the exterior of the dwelling are listed as, and I quote, 'Crocodile Alligator.' The tenancy agreement shall apply to the facilities required by you, the phantasm, to maintain and operate the appropriate vocational facility on site, as well as for upon-request access to space for one suitable entertainment venue of sufficient grade to house equipment not equating to the worth of one Joseph-Felicien Chevrolet timepiece. The tenancy agreement shall be for an initial term of one year, following which security of tenancy shall remain in perpetuity, contingent upon factors such as your four 15s not waking up the neighbours. Under these terms, the rent due shall comprise a percentage of monthly earnings, or a percentage of market rent as of date of signing, pegged to the consumer price index of the Municipality of Anchordeep, whichever is greater...."

Neviah might be awhile.

Joanna actually cracked a smile, though it quickly faded right off of her face when she took a look at the mug's contents. As brief a glance as it was, the stench of rotted out barrel mixed with ale left sitting stagnant for as far as she could tell possibly decades was more than enough to turn most stomachs, even without having a more sensitive snoot than most. "Yeah no. You're absolutely not going to be using those barrels again. Shame really, this'd be a nice place to get trashed if it was cleaned up some." 

 She followed along, her eyes scanning over anything structural she could see, just to check if something major was about to fall in on them, only for her foot to almost crunch right through a weak step, the Jolteon barely managing to catch herself in time. 

 She looked to her left. 

 Then her right. 

 She was pretty sure nobody notice-waaaait a second... 

 "Neviah are you trying to legalese a ghost?"

    Ah there's Neviah.
    And Lether is staring at her as she starts to go into explicit legal detail work.
    "... I'll... We'll... Meet you upstairs."
    That poor ghost. First berated into submission and now about to be very thoroughly briefed in propety law.
    Lether heads up the stairs to the next floor.
    The stairs are creaky and will need fixing too but, the place beyond the taproom is mostly empty, with a common room, a den, and two bedrooms on the second floor.
    The master bedroom and a secondary bedroom with tower access is on the third floor with an empty library on the third floor, and then the attic has another bedroom and a storage room.
    The place is devoid of furniture, but that can be dealt with later as folks move in and customize their rooms as they see fit.
    And it's while the party is exploring the upper floors that a firm knock on the door can be heard...

"Legalese? These are all perfectly cromulent words, I assure you," Neviah remarks smoothly, flipping back a curl.

From above, the group can still hear Neviah talking. "--and finally, provision in the lease will provide for at least four weeks' notice prior to commencement of deathroll proceedings. Your signature can be placed here--"

Knock knock knock.

Neviah is still down there. Contract laid out for the ghost, along with a quill, she sits up in her seat with a little frown. "Now who could that be?" she murmurs. "Excuse me a moment, master phantasm." Pushing her chair back, she whisks towards the door, with a call up towards the second floor.

"Leeetheeer~, someone's at the do~or~" And then she's whisking off to answer.

"Crocoskull Manor, can I help you?"

Joanna's mind was wandering by this point, her thoughts drifting from trying to judge how structurally sound the building was now she was upstairs, to Neviah's legal talk, to ways one could actually make such things stick on a ghost. Was there a ghost court? A ghost legal system? 

 She figured it must have been held in hell, because that way it'd make the commute simpler for all the lawyers. 

 Joanna wasn't scared of hell. She'd eaten at Arby's before. 

 This rather odd train of thought got interrupted, rather rudely by her reckoning, by that knock, the sudden noise making her now nearly flattened-back-to-normal fluff spike right back up again. "You expecting any more people to show up?"

    Dante is stealthily walking away when Neviah is rattling off at the ghost. Yeah, he's not gonnab e any good at this red tape stuff. He does lean over to Lether, "Did you ever bother hiring a lawyer for this whole thing?" He whispers before he hears something or somebody at the door. Neviah's got that, he's gonna amble upstairs with Lether.

    DID Lether ever hirer a lawyer
    That's a good question, Dante.
    "... I think one's appointed herself for me." The Lizardfolk girl replies. The group gets little bit of time to explore before that knock hits, but when it does... "Huh... No, wasn't expecting anyone else." Lether admits to Jo.
    "Might be more Inn guild people?"
    She shrugs as she starts heading back down the stairs.
    That poor ghost has been swindled into signing a contract by the looks of it considering the trembling quill floating on its own over the contract. But that gives Neviah time to open the door.
    And the person on the other side hears the name 'Crocoskull Manor' and blinks at her.
    Sideways.
    The person standing in the door is a young lizardfolk woman, with albino white scales and pink eyes, dressed in a fine white dress with lace and ruffles of someone rather well off if not noble. Unlike Lether, she is *not* a runt, which means she's actually standing at a height of roughly six feet tall.
    "Ah... Crocoskull Manor? Interesting..." She says at first.
    "I just saw people moving in and thought I'd have a peek at the new neighbors." She admits.

    Dante scratches his head. "I don't think that woman's ever been to law school." He says, utterly seriously as he gazes over at Neviah for a moment. But it seems like there's...another ghost?! Dante thinks about drawing his pistols, circling the lizardfolk girl in white. "Uhhh. Mind telling us who you are, lady?"

In fairness to Neviah, the lease isn't /that/ draconian! Or crocodilian. The bar downstairs will no doubt thrive, if one likes ghosts.

Neviah, for her part, makes for an interesting doorperson given that she's in her showy armour-robe ensemble, without gun. As she realizes who's outside, she blinks twice, then cocks her head to one side. "Weren't you just upstairs? When did you change clothing? And put on white makeup? And get six inches ta-" She cuts herself off and pauses for several seconds.

"...Ah, yes, I am being somewhat facetious," she concedes in a more muted tone. "I'm not the deed owner, but I do know her. Perhaps... it would be best if you spoke with her." There's something curious behind her voice, her eyes searching the pale figure intently before she steps back and calls up once more.

"Lether," she calls up, "there is someone here whom you should meet with."

    That certainly is an interesting outfit there, Neviah.
    The albino lizardfolk young lady flusters slightly at how showy it is but. There is a definite resemblance.
    She's not a ghost though as Dante starts to circle her, she turns her head to follow him curiously.
    "My name is Lace. Lace Phylund, of the noble House of Phylund." She introduces herself with a curtsey. "Trollskull Manor is a fixture of Trollskull Alleym and my family had been curious who would take over after Ulkoria Stonemarrow gave up her ownership-- I... I'm sorry did you say 'Lether'?" She has to trail off and blink at that name, JUST as Lether herself emerges in the stairway.
    "Huh?" Lether blurts, completely clueless to what's going on.
    "... Goodness, you are as small as I remember." Lace murmurs, looking like she's seeing a ghost.
    She's not seeing the phantom scribbling the name 'Lif' on the contract over there, though.