pozzo-1667246839.pozzo paranormal investigation club TITLE the Paranormal Investigation Club modular ghost story FAID 49623071 | Home | EquiBooru (2024)

the Paranormal Investigation Club (modular ghost story) by Pozzo

Author's page: https://www.furaffinity.net/user/pozzo/
Picture page: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/49623071/ (EBFAID49623071EB)

Tags: Modular, OC, Ghost, Halloween, Headless, Detachable, NBM, Brain, Eyeballs, Cat, Tanuki, Bunny, Mouse, Hyper

Category: Story | Theme: All | Rating: Adult

Published: 2022-10-31 20:07:19

A group of friends and amateur ghosthunters make their way to a local haunted house to prove the existence of the paranormal. What could go wrong!

A Halloween treat for you all.

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The house stood a little out of town, on top of a hill. It didn’t overlook the town as you might expect; it faced outwards, at the forests beyond, as though it was on watch. The locals called it Lookout Hill as a result. The old house on top had been abandoned for some time, and had since gained a sort of notoriety as a ghost house. It would have been a tourist attraction if this town had been big or interesting enough to attract tourists. As it was, it was just a curiosity, something to frighten the children with. Now and then, teenagers would go and hang out nearby, as it was a secluded area with a nice view and no nosy neighbours. Most people just avoided it altogether though. It radiated what those same teenagers would describe as bad vibes, with its 19th century stylings that made it looked like a scaled down, low-budget Southern Gothic house. There were more than a few stories about the house…

“I heard that the ghost of an old lady screams at you if you look in a mirror,” said Summer, as she parked the car out front. She poked her head out the window, her bunny ears sticking up beyond the roof as she looked at the house. “And blood-red footsteps follow you around.”

“My research doesn’t say anything about… bloody footprints…” said Izumi behind her, who had taken her phone out and began scrolling through it. “Let me check my memos…” As she did so, beside her, a tanuki girl crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

“You going on wikipedia to check that, are you?”

“No, Hana, I am checking my own independent research, built on town records and interviews.” The mouse girl put her phone away. “There’s definitely something going on up here, Hana, you have to admit.”

“Yeah, and I bet you 50 bucks we find absolutely nothing here.” She leaned back in her seat, legs spread apart. The fanny pack she always wore when out and about, for reasons her friends understood, stood out prominently between her legs.

“I don’t take gambles, Hana, I make calculations.” replied Izumi, as Summer turned the engine off and turned around to face the girls in the back.

“Sounds like you just don’t wanna put your money where your mouth is.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to take your money. We’ll find something, I promise.” To Izumi’s right, a black cat dressed in what could only be described as full witch regalia nodded her head.

“You know there’s something there when me and Izumi are actually agreeing,” she said, smiling. “I could practically feel the bad spiritual energy pressing down on me as we were driving up the hill. Couldn’t you?” Her fingers went to the crystal necklace she had around her neck. This just made Hana’s eyes do another clockwise spin.

“Naomi, I don’t believe Izumi but at least she insists on using, like, some kind of scientific method. I did not, in fact, detect spiritual pressure. I did not pick up the ghost’s power levels on my scanner.”

“Oh bite me. Why are you even in this club if you don’t believe in the supernatural?”

“Well, I don’t 100% believe in that stuff either,” added Summer with a shrug. “Everyone just chill, OK? Let’s have fun proving or disproving whatever.” The other members of the Paranormal Investigations Club looked around and nodded. Hana unfolded her arms.

“OK, fine, sorry if I’m being grumpy. I had a pretty crappy day. What are we actually looking for, then?” she asked Izumi. The mouse took her phone out again.

“Reports that the last living person in this house, which would have been I think 80 years ago, still manifests as a vengeful spirit. I looked into the history, and the last story relevant to that was that someone died in an accident here around that time period, and the first stories of hauntings appeared the next decade.”

“In other words, the spirit is trapped for whatever reason and can’t move on,” explained Naomi, as though this was common sense. “Either they have unfinished business in this world, or they’re under a curse.”

“Uh-huh”

“Sounds like they need help either way!” Summer said. She opened the door. “But I think step one is like, just trying to determine if there’s actually anyone there. Naomi and Izzy both have their ways of ghost-detecting, Hana and I are to support them. Is that right?”

“In a nutshell,” nodded Izumi. “Hana, you can come with me, since you seem slightly less of a bitch about my methods.”

“It’s true, I am.”

“And that leaves Summer with Naomi. I suggest you search one floor and we’ll search the other, and then swap so that we do a full sweep of the house.”

“Logical as ever,” says Naomi. They all climbed out, the cool night air a welcome reprieve from the stuffy car. Summer opened the trunk, and the two lead investigators pulled out a rucksack each. Izumi’s was noticeably heavier and clunkier, and was promptly passed to Hana, who silently took it without complaining despite temptation. Naomi gave hers to Summer before stepping towards the door. Her black robes billowed slightly in the wind, as did her pointed witch hat. Her green, slitted eyes glinted in the darkness, like they were floating. “Well, good luck. Do we all still have our walky-talkies?”she asked..

“Sure do,” said Hana. “Are you sure you’ll need one, or will you send a raven to communicate instead?”

“Har har,” she said, giving Hana’s fannypack a gentle slap that caused the tanuki to wince a little. The four investigators stopped outside the double doors of the house, the white paint long-since flaking off. Hana stepped forward and pulled on the door. It didn’t budge.

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve come prepared,” said Summer, stepping forward with a hairpin she had somehow summoned into her hand. She kneeled down in front of the door. No sooner had she raised her hand to the lock, the door let out a creak and swung open backwards. “Wow. That was so easy I didn’t even have to… er, touch it.” The four of them exchanged looks.

“... Door was probably just jammed a little, not locked,” said Hana. “We doing this?” Slowly, the four of them entered. The interior was about as welcoming as the outside. Each club member had brought flashlights with them as well, which were put to use right away. They could make out modest furnishing around the place, with bare shelves save for the accumulated dust of forgotten decades.

“This place feels very empty,” said Hana, quietly.

“On the contrary,” said Naomi,” I can feel something already.” She turned to Summer. “We’ll search downstairs.”

“Got it. I wonder what sort of rooms they have in a place like this. Do you think they’d have a big spooky piano?”

“It’s possible.” The bunny and cat both disappeared through a door to the right, leaving Hana and Izumi contemplating the staircase in front of them.

“Well, shall we?” Izumi said, putting her foot down on the first wooden step. It creaked loudly, causing Hana to flinch ever so slightly. “Oh settle down, it’s just wood. Wood can’t hurt you.”

“It can definitely hurt you. You can get a splinter.”

“Ok, yes.”

“You can fall down the stairs.”

“Yes, point made. Although technically gravity would be doing most of the work there.” They both ascended the creaking staircase, continuing to argue the danger of wood until their voices were no longer audible to their partners downstairs.

==========================================================

The dining room seemed bigger than it actually was, on account of the oversized table taking up most of the centre, and yet at the same time had a claustrophobic feel. Long and rectangular, it made the actual act of navigating around the room somewhat tedious, like a ship having to circumnavigate the horn of Africa to get from Europe to Asia. The fact that it was dark didn’t help of course. Two torch beams did their best to pierce the blackness around Summer and Naomi as they inspected the place.

“The kitchen is just back there, I imagine,” said Naomi, pointing to a door over on the left. “It’s not unusual to hear of ghost activity around where they once ate. It can be a place of strong memories.”

“Memories of amazing food,” Summer nodded.

“Well, this was a long time ago, remember. Meals were a social event. A communal event.”

“Before us kids were on our gosh darn phones all the time, is that what you mean?” Summer stuck her tongue out as she opened a drawer, which was empty. A quick examination of the drawer set yielded similar results. “Was this place ransacked?”

“Probably. No one ever bought this house again for whatever reason, so if stuff’s missing it must have just been stolen. Kind of sad, isn’t it?” Naomi found herself looking at an old, sepia-toned photograph that must have survived said ransackings. She held her torch to it. “Summer, come here. This could be important.”

When Summer hurried over, the two of them looked down at the framed photo. It showed a very stern looking family of foxes; two parents and a daughter, who looked to be in her teens.

“Think it was the last family who lived here?”

“It’s very possible. This is a very old photograph; it could easily be from back in the thirties, which was when the last occupant passed away.”

“So… if there is a ghost, this could be them?” The weight of Summer’s question seemed to hang over the both of them, particularly Naomi. She examined the picture closely- not so much trying to look at it but to feel it. She clutched her necklace, closing her eyes suddenly and thinking hard.

“Are you with us?” she asked softly, her tail standing on end and her ears perked, straining to feel the presence of a supernatural spirit. “Give us a sign…”

There was nothing. Summer, sensing the exact moment the earnest silence grew awkward, turned around. Her ears waggled. “Uhhh.”

“Hmm? A sign?!” Naomi opened her eyes excitedly. The black cat tried to turn her head but for some reason her neck felt… stiff? No, not quite. Numb? No, not that either… she looked down. Everything looked a little smaller. “What…” Her hand went up to her neck, feeling around the smooth, featureless stump.

The stump…

Summer took a step back as she watched her friend’s now headless body feeling its neck, the head floating two feet above it. She brought her torchlight up to see Naomi’s face, a lock of shock as she realised what was, somehow, happening. Then, the body exploded backwards, fur and tail standing up.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

======================================================================

Hana looked around the bedroom, lip curling. Everything was just so… boring. There were no posters (had posters even been invented back then?), there weren’t even any creepy paintings either. There was a wooden horse on a drawer as the only thing resembling a toy. The bed was frumpy without looking comfortable, somehow. The tanuki put her hands on her hips and sighed.

“Find anything yet?”

“I’m still setting up,” replied Izumi calmly, placing a camera in one corner of the room and looking through the lens. “Stand to the side, please. Actually do me a favour.” She reached into her bag and pulled out another device. “This is a thermometer. Keep an eye on the number while we’re in here and tell me if it goes down.”

“This is the most boring thing I’ve ever been asked to do.”

“You should hope it stays that way,” said Izumi, still looking through the camera lens. “If we do find a ghost, there’s no telling how it will react to intruders. It might be territorial.”

“So? I’ve seen Scooby Doo. Ghosts don’t scare me.”

“Scooby Doo isn’t real.”

“And neither are g-g-g-g-ghosts!”

Even with the night-vision setting turned on, Izumi could see the tanuki’s face change from derision to genuine worry as she looked through the lens. It wasn’t like Hana at all. Either this was a bad attempt at a prank, or…

“Hana, did the temperature drop?” she asked. Hana’s eyes quickly looked downwards before looking back up. Way up, clearly pointing above Izumi’s head. She tilted her head upwards and somewhat looked like a round circle- perhaps a bowl- with a dark-red tint to it.

Then, Izumi noticed the black hair flowing down the outside Hair that looked a lot like her own. She raised a hand up to where her hair should have been. She felt something warm and spongy instead.

“Grk,” she said, involuntarily. The bowl moved over to the dressing room table, and lowered itself down. At this point, as the strange bowl sat down on the table, a pair of round grey ears became visible on the ‘bottom’ of it, and it became unavoidably obvious as to what it actually was. Izumi stared at it, a look of dawning horror on her face as she realised what the spongy object she’d felt was.

“Th-that’s my…?” Before she could finish the thought however, there was a tugging at the base of her skull, followed by a small popping sound, and a sudden feeling of lightheadedness. As Hana watched the mouse in shock, Izumi’s brain levitated out of her head, throbbing gently as it floated in midair. Izumi, her body trembling, raised her hand to her forehead again and gingerly patted around her empty skull cavity before looking up at her disembodied mind.

“Wha…?” Her voice was unusually quiet for a moment before the significance of what she was looking at really sank in.

“My brain! G-give it back!” The mouse girl started to grab at her floating greymatter, which continually floated just out of reach no matter how far she stretched or jumped for it. Hana, still stunned, could only watch in disbelief as Izumi’s brain began to zip about the room as if taunting its owner, before flying out the open door.

“Ah! No! Come back! I need that!” Izumi raced out of the room, all of her usual composure last for the moment, leaving Hana all by herself. She stood for a few seconds like she had run out of batteries, the sound of footsteps and shouting getting quieter.

“... I think ghosts might actually be real.” she said at last. Her brain took this conclusion and followed it up with the logical next step. “Holy crap, ghosts are real!” Hana ran out of the room, trying to follow the screaming.

===============================================================

Summer had gotten herself lost. She’d tried to chase after the floating head of her friend, but some unseen force had whisked it away, Naomi’s body seemed fine, and had been blindly feeling around the dining room area looking for her head when Summer had last seen her.

Now Summer seemed to have been led into some kind study room, with stacked bookcases and an old mahogany desk right in the centre. There was not a black cat’s head anywhere to be seen though. She’d been given the slip. The bunny’s ears flopped down as she sighed, and she chewed the tip of one absent-mindedly as she considered her next move. This helped calm her down a little too, after the shock of the earlier events.

“What to do…” she said to herself quietly, her voice muffled by her own ear. She’d tried to follow the sounds of Naomi’s head calling for help, but now that she listened, there were clearly multiple screams echoing around the house. Assuming this was a ghost- and even as someone who was only half paying attention during club meeting, Summer had to assume that this was the case here- there wasn’t a whole lot she could do, other than find Naomi’s head and get out of the house in one piece.

Then she had an even better idea.

“I should totally tweet about this.”

Summer went over and pulled the chair out from the desk and sat on it, bringing her sandal-clad feet up to lay on the desk itself as she got her phone out and brought up social media. Summer wasn’t exactly a girl who cared about followers numbers, but doing a thread in the middle of a live, actual haunting? That sounded way cool. Her hands worked the screen quickly as she dashed off a quick message:

“Me and my pals went to a spooky house and uhhhh I think it is actually haunted fr???”

Summer then grabbed her torchlight with her free hand to illuminate her face before taking a quick selfie to go with the tweet. The good thing about the haunting being real was that her worried face was only slightly exaggerated.

Before sending out the tweet, Summer brought the photo up to see if it was a good one and if the lighting was OK. She was definitely amused with the face she was pulling, and the spooky effect of the flashlight under her chin.

Then Summer saw the face in the background behind her, floating just over her shoulder.

“Aaaaa!”

She looked around, dropping her phone. There was no one there. Then she felt something cold grabbing her ankles, and there was a popping sound. Summer snapped her head back around again. Her legs, which had been propped up on the study desk, now ended just above the ankle, as her bunny paws- and the sandals they were in- floated away out the door. She scrambled to get out of the chair and immediately fell over with no feet to stand on. “Hey, stop doing that! I need those!” she called out, crawling on her hands and knees after her own extremities. The sandals fell off, cladding to the floor. “Not those, I can get those on Amazon! Give me back my feet!”

Summer crawled off as fast as she could, leaving her phone lying face-up on the floor, showing the transparent shape of a vixen’s face staring quisitively at the camera, squinting slightly.

===========================================================

Hana found herself back by the entrance, pausing to look at the front door for a moment before shaking her head and turning around, her round ears perked. She could hear unsteady footsteps nearby, and went to investigate.

“Summer? Naomi? Are you he- oh geez!”

Naomi was walking around with her arms outstretched, like a zombie flick, and most notably, no head. Hana wasn’t sure whether to avoid the body or go and reassure it, and ultimately chose to go over and give it a tap on the shoulder. This made the cat jump backwards, directly into the stool of a nearby piano that had been sitting innocuously in the corner. The hands reached out to steady itself and began to play, by complete coincidence, the notes for Chopin’s Funeral March, before the music descended into atonal discordant anarchy. None of this helped Hana’s frayed nerves much, even if it was good to see that Naomi did not seem in any actual immediate danger despite missing her head.

“I suppose if Izumi could run around with her brain, then a missing head is fine too?” she said to herself, over the “music” Naomi was playing. “Is that a thing ghosts can do? This is ridiculous. I’m so incredibly annoyed that you and Izumi were coincidentally correct about the whole ghost thing.” she said to the headless body. Naomi finally stopped playing, and tried to stand up. “Yeah, maybe try again when you have a head,” said Hana. “Man I bet that made all kinds of a racket- hey!”

She stopped mid-speech as she felt a tugging at the pouch she had been wearing. She desperately grabbed a hold of it, the tugging intensifying in response. “No, not that! Uh, you don’t understand, I’ve got something in there-”

With a pop, the pouch was torn from Hana’s grip, floating off in the air and turning around, clearly being inspected. Hana’s hands instinctively dropped around her crotch to cover it, as with the fanny pack gone, it was clear that there was an open hole in her pants where it had once been.

But there was nothing to cover.

The fanny pack was unzipped, and out sprung a large, hardening tanuki co*ck. The whole package jumped in the air for a moment, before the fabric was torn off completely to reveal the massive pair of balls that had also somehow been squeezed inside. The hyper set now spun eerily in the air as Hana found herself flat on her butt, staring up. In her imagination, she had to assume that the ghost was now leering at her exposed bits. Maybe it hadn’t seen a hyper before, or maybe it was just taking the time to appreciate it. EIther way, Hana blushed, and was just grateful that Naomi was missing her head right now.

“You better not be thinking of running off with that, ghost,” she said, staring just above her floating dick to where she thought the ghost must be. The kidnapped penis started to advance menacingly towards the prone tanuki, who braced herself, unsure if directly calling out the ghost was such a good idea after all. Her dick stood above her, now fully erect, a fact Hana put down to the fact that it was technically getting handled.

Quick as a flash, Hana was booped on the snoot by her own co*ck, and then it raced off behind her.

“Oh, that is it. I am exorcising the sh*t out of you now,” she said, springing up to her feet and chasing off after it. No sooner had she rushed back into the main entrance hall, however, that Hana ran almost face-first into Izumi. The two girls crashed into each other, disorienting Hana and causing her to land on her butt again. She looked around but her co*ck had now disappeared from sight. “Damn!”

“Hana? Are you alright?” asked Izumi. Hana stared at her.

“Are you? You look so weird like that.”

“Hmm? Ah yes. I can’t find my brain anywhere,” said Izumi sadly, shaking her empty head. “None of this makes logical sense. I need brain to think good, but I still good think do.”

“What.”

“I said… oh, darn, it definitely is a little harder to think straight like this.” The mouse gripped the rim of her open skull and shook her head around in frustration. “We need to regroup and come with a plan to get our parts back. Even if me not help good.” Every misspoken word caused Izumi’s eye to twitch.

“Oh, well, most of Naomi is back there,” said Hana, pointing a thumb back the way. Izumi wasn’t looking at her thumb though, her eyes trailing downwards. Hana realised what she was staring at, or more accurately, what was not there to stare at. “Yes, yes, I know. Ghost took that too.”

“Heh…” Izumi’s smirk soon faded. “I feel like there’s a witty joke to be made but I can’t think of one.”

“Good. I think I might like you better this way. Oh hey, Naomi’s come to join us.” Hana turned aside as the headless cat body wandered into the entrance lobby, hands out in front of it as she advanced towards Izumi. The rat gasped.

“Her whole head? And I thought I had it bad.”

“Yeah, found her like this. No sign of Summer.”

“Well it’s Autumn.”

“Wh- no, our friend.”

“Ooooh, sorry. I…” Izumi watched as the headless body walked straight up to her, hands grasping her chest. Izumi, who lacked much of a chest to begin with, was unamused, glaring at a chuckling Hana. “Grow up.”

“Yeah yeah, hollow-head. Now we just need to find-”

“Girls!” called out a voice behind them all. From the opposite side of the door to the dining room area crawled Summer herself, panting and looking visibly tired. For a moment Hana thought Summer might have been badly hurt, before seeing exactly why she was crawling around exhausted. “Your feet are gone? That’s something from all of us then…”

“Ah, you’re right,” nodded Izumi, gently brushing Naomi aside and walking around to try and think as best she could minus a brain. “Perhaps… uh…” She paused. “Hana, what do you think?”

“Maybe it’s satisfied. We’ve been standing around here chatting for a while now and it’s not coming back.”

“Can I get a chair?” asked Summer, laying on her stomach. “My knees are killing me.” She looked around and saw Izumi without the top of her head, and Naomi without a head. “OK yeah you guys kind of have it worse than me, I’ll admit.” Then she looked over at Hana. “Pffft.

“Go to hell! We’re not leaving here until we find my junk,” declared Hana, starting to fume again. She looked up the staircase… then paused as she heard a strange noise. Almost like a rattling. The girls all looked up, except for Naomi, who was only not wandering off because Hana had hooked a hand around her tail. “The ghost?”

“Tell it to stop being such a jerk!” Said Summer, turning around so that she was on her back. “Also can it give me my phone back? I don’t think I hit send on that tweet.”

“...You were tweeting-”

At that point, a black cat’s head dropped out of an overhead vent and fell right into her own cleavage, causing the other three to let out short yelps and screams before they saw what had happened. Naomi’s hands lifted her head up into the air.

“Success! I knew to trust the spirits…”

“Naomi! How did you get back?” asked Izumi. “Did the ghost return you?” The head looked around, quickly assessing the situation.

“Ah, yes, so you’ve all experienced the ghost yourself… no, I made my own way back. I was dropped near a ventilation shaft, and was able to roll my way to freedom. We must retreat and come back with stronger spiritual weapons.”

“I agree,” nodded her mouse friend. “I will construct some devices to contain it.”

“No, no science!” hissed the cat. “Give me a week to prepare, that’s all-” The head was snatched out of Naomi’s hands by Hana, who glared at her.

“I’m not going a whole week without my dick!”

“Yeah, and I can’t exactly walk without feet!” added Summer. “I’m not even sure I can legally drive like this…”

“But we must!” insisted Naomi. “We…” She stopped suddenly, her body’s tail going straight as her ears perked up. “I sense it. We’re too late…”

The heavy front doors rattled ominously, like a strong breeze had just blown through the entire house. Hana looked around at all of her friends - Izumi staring vacantly at nothing, the wind making a whistling noise as the wind blew into her big mouse ears and through her empty head. Summer on the floor, tugging her ears nervously, her leg stumps drawn up closer to her body. Finally she looked at Naomi, who had put her head back onto her neck -and then grinned as it stuck back in place.

“Hey, we can reattach ourselves if we- aaaa!” Naomi’s triumph turned into a frightened scream as she looked at Hana. Hana turned her head to see why, only for her vision to remain locked firmly on her friend’s visage.

Then her vision spun, and Hana saw herself, two empty sockets where her eyeballs used to be. She had just enough time to let out a scream herself before her eyes were tossed very high into the air . As her vision spun, Hana made out signs of absolute bodypart anarchy below, with body parts being popped off and scattered around the room. She felt her own body start to be rapidly disassembled- she even got to see her own hips getting pulled right off her body like a piece from a jenga tower, before the room started spinning again. Eventually her eyeballs landed in something like a bony bowl, and she noted that there were three other sets of eyeballs in there as well- brown, blue and a pair of cat's eyes.

No one spoke outside of panicked yells and yelps until the tornado of invisible fury subsided. When everyone was able to take stock of the situation again, they found themselves laying outside the mansion in a huge heap of detached body parts, shivering both with the cold and from shot nerves.

“Are we all… good?” asked Summer. “Maybe not the right word, but you know… “

“My hand is laying on something very soft, “ said Naomi. “I can only pray it is my own butt.” There was a muffled sound from underneath the pile of body parts, which Hana deduced must be Izumi. The four of them all stared at each other’s eyes, not that they had any choice.

“Well… I can still feel my hands,” said Hana, flexing her fingers in a way that caused Summer to giggle. “Anyone else?” The others all quickly learned that they could. “OK. Let’s take this slow. If we’re lucky the ghost will leave us alone now and let us reassemble ourselves in peace.”

“We have been like, incredibly owned,” said Summer.

“We’ve lost the battle, Summer, but not the war,” countered Naomi. “Now someone tell me what I’m squeezing.” There was a high pitched sound from under the pile. “Oh, probably shouldn’t touch that then. “ The eyeless tanuki head beside her sighed.

“This is gonna take all night, isn’t it….”

==============================================================

Up in the attic, secluded from view, and illuminated only by a few lit candles, lay the night’s claimed treasures. A pair of bunny feet lay on an old grey carpet, one upside down, soft and padded. Beside it lay a gently throbbing pink brain, dripping fresh brain juices in a little puddle. Next there was a pair of black-furred bare breasts, far too large to fully cup with one hand, shivering slightly in the cold air of the attic. And finally there was the biggest of the prizes- a tanuki’s heavy, fuzzy brown balls, with a co*ck as big as an arm to match.

A spectral hand traced a finger up the side of the latter prize, causing a glob of pre to appear at the tip. Unseen to anyone on this mortal plane, a vixen in a black dress grinned. Mabel had died a long time ago, and getting visitors of any kind - let alone ones as interesting as that- was an absolute delight. Yes, truly this was the most fun she had had in decades.

As she settled down for a long, well-earned night with her new toys, Mabel hoped that gang of mortals took the bait and came back for another round.

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