Loraena shouldered her way inside before any of them could stop her. Luckily for the rest of them, she didn’t get very far—everyone got stuck on just how much of a mess this place was.
It wasn’t the obvious kind of mess. It was more of an ominous one. From what they could see when they slowly started wandering the rooms, only one painting—of a woman holding a young child, once positioned on top of the fireplace—had fallen. Aside from a few shattered vases, which they took care to step around, the only thing to prove this place’s disuse was the dust and emptiness. No one had walked through these halls or mingled in these rooms for a while.
Lynette had already positioned herself between Ragnis and Regind, who her mind apparently declared the safest, believing that this wouldn’t end well. She had to fight to not turn around and head right back out the door once she heard laughing.
The kind voice that spoke soon after, however, was no more comforting to her. “Did you like that?”
“Mhm! Show me more, please! I want to know how you do it! I want to do it, too!”
“Alright, I’ll show you everything that I know. It’s not that hard, really—I’d love to teach you when you’re a little older.”
“Why can’t I do it now?”
“You need a better understanding of the basics. There’s no need to rush, dear—we have the time.”
Ragnis shivered. “Alright, I may have never met the kid, but I’ve heard the mom before. That woman’s voice was hers. The kid must’ve been Astyu.”
“But the mom’s dead,” Lynette pointed out. “If this place turns out to be haunted, I’m abandoning you. Immediately and without hesitation.”
Regind grinned and asked, “Afraid of ghosts?”
“More like I have the common sense to know when to get the hell out of a place. Trust me, I know how these things play out and they’re never good.”
Loraena wasn’t interested in the others’ half-jokes, it seemed. She rather bluntly stated, “This place isn’t haunted, it never was. This is some kind of illusion.”
“This is one big illusion to keep, though,” Regind remarked with a bit of hesitance.
As she said it, two figures—a woman and her child—wandered into the room. They were blurry but, otherwise, seemed to match their surroundings perfectly. They continued talking, even if their words were ignored, and interacted with the objects around them as if they were real.
Regind broadly gestured to it. “Especially that. Making one visual and auditory illusion? Possible, if it’s only for one person. Two illusions? Slightly more challenging, but not impossible. Two illusions, in front of four onlookers, and presumably the fifth that’s casting it? That’s a lot. I’d almost rather believe that they’re ghosts than someone nearby has that much magic…”
Ragnis shrugged. “I dunno, I’ve heard some pretty extraordinary stories about Queen Zofie. I’m pretty sure she mostly just used Mávri Mageía, but I doubt this would’ve been beyond her.”
“Can’t say if it was just propaganda, but Lady Samone’s said to have a fair bit of talent, too,” Lynette mumbled. “I heard once that she’d casted several memory-based illusions close together before… though I don’t really know what that means or how much I believe it.”
“A memory-based illusion would be like taking your old toy and using magic to see what memories were associated with it,” Loraena muttered as part of a half-explanation. “That’s probably what this is… Either way, this can’t be good for him. Who knows how long he’s been doing this…”
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“It’s all an illusion,” Regind pointed out. “As far as I’m aware, there’s not a very clear way to figure out where the caster is without some significant talent of our own.”
“You’re right, I can’t figure out where he is. I can feel his desires but they’re… faint and all over the place. I can’t tell where they’re coming from.” Loraena cautiously started walking again and started looking around. After a moment, she called into the hallways, “Astyu? Are you here? I promise, we’re not here to hurt you. We were worried—we wanted to check in on you. Are… are you hungry? I brought some food with us. Please, just come out. I’m afraid that you’re going to end up using too much magic…”
Much quieter, as she continued to take in their surroundings, mumbled, “If… you have any control over it at all…”
They traveled together through a few more of the rooms, but there weren’t any signs of Astyu. Only them and the blurry figures of that woman and child—scenes of spending time together, of helping when the other needed it. As heartwarming as they may have been seen as in the past or perhaps just in a different context… witnessing them now just added to the chilling factor of the place. It was becoming apparent that more than one of these memories were playing at a time across the different rooms, which none of the other three seemed to take well. Lynette only half-understood the possible reason and didn’t work up the courage to dare to ask.
Once they’d gone upstairs, they were immediately greeted by a decidedly more chaotic sight. It still had to be an illusion—though it seemed that none of them did a good job at convincing themselves of it.
They watched as, in a blink, the perfectly-arranged hall became the mess they were now trying to navigate. They weren’t comfortable to start with and definitely not after the laughter from before came replaced by crying. Loraena seemed to grow panicked the longer it lasted, but they still never said a word to each other, even as she got further away.
She cautiously opened one of the doors at the end of the hall, then froze at whatever she saw. The rest followed her, though Lynette found she was immediately regretting it.
The woman was kneeling in front of her crying child, trying to assure him as if her appearance didn’t make it clear that something was definitely wrong. They were both blurry—faded, even, and tainted—but that didn’t mean the scene lost its weight.
“It’s okay,” she tried telling him, though it didn’t seem to work. There was hardly a chance that it would, given the state she was in.
“B-but…” he mumbled through tears.
She pulled him into a final hug. “I promise that this isn’t the end for anything—just because we don’t see the solution now doesn’t mean that there isn’t one. So, please, don’t cry. It’s going to be alright so long as you remember everything I told you. Don’t ever make the mistakes I did.”
Then she slowly stood up and, with a surprising steadiness, headed towards the door. “I’ve got to go somewhere that you can’t follow. I don’t want you to get hurt. Just stay here, okay?”
“I don’t want you to go…”
“I know. I don’t want to go, either, but it keeps you safe. Someone else will take care of you, I’m sure of it. It just… can’t be me.”
She passed through the four of them on her way to the door and, once she left, the illusion ended. They were left in silence and completely confused.
“Please tell me I’m not the only one who has no idea what the hell that was,” Lynette said after a moment. The place itself had gone quiet now, as if its illusion of liveliness left with the mother.
“Yeah, you’re definitely not alone…” Ragnis muttered. “I have no idea what that was but I don’t really think we should stay long enough to find out.”
Regind nodded slowly. “If there’s one thing I’m pretty sure of, it’s that some things just aren’t meant to be messed with…”
If Loraena felt the same apprehension they did to continue, she didn’t show it. “No matter what happened, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s still alone here. He can’t keep being alone—then something else is going to happen to him and there won’t even be anyone around to help. We need to do something before it gets to the point where we can’t do anything.”
Ragnis reached out to gently place a hand on her shoulder. “Look, I get that you want to help, but there’s a fine line between helping and just doing something dangerous. From what little we know so far, Astyu has some powerful magic, and it’s pretty likely that he doesn’t really acknowledge how much he’s using. Crossing someone with strong enough Illusion magic to keep this up is one thing, facing one that can’t control it is a whole other. That’s not mentioning whatever state this place might be in.”
“I’ll go alone, if that’s what I have to,” she responded, pushing his hand off. “But I’m not going to leave him here.”
“Then we’re all coming with you,” Regind decided. “We’re definitely not leaving you on your own here. I’m pretty sure we’d all feel bad if we just left you.”