XXIII. Surprise Room Swap

    The summer month’s trials and tribulations have lasted a long time, but thankfully seem to be coming to a close with the eradication of most of the plant life in the manor. As usual the tenants forge their own path through the weeds. Even the staff have adjusted, with Taylor working overtime by herself and Seth incorporating more vegetarian options in his menu since there is so much plant life available to him.

    However, as the heat dulls down to its usual temperature, you can feel autumn start to creep in and with that, memories of the manor’s past. It is almost as if the old manor knows of what is to come, and is preparing for it already. It creaks so much more in the night and the Crypts, now free of their vegetation armor, are growing more restless and noisy. Woe Manor itself can sense the coming of a new season, and how that season normally affects the tenants. Perhaps it is also pleased at the blood recently spilled, but you could swear the manor never let off such a powerful aura before.

    Despite this, the staff seem much happier this season, busy as bees churning out prized honey for their queen. They occasionally whisper about how they are ‘bringing something back’ and it is ‘going to be even better than the last one a couple of years ago’ as they work, but are not letting any info slip to the tenants. With all the buzz though, you can tell Cass ordering extra supplies from Oasis’s latest harvest combined with Mister’s grumbling and working his maids overtime to keep the manor spotless are not normal behaviors and something afoot is coming soon…

    Until then you are simply stuck to wonder, as Weston gathers everyone in the great foyer for an update on the plant situation and asks that everyone hand in their keys and keeps their doors unlocked so the Unown can clean their rooms en masse as well as perform some basic maintenance tests. However, when you return just before evening to pick up your key, you noticed it looked...different. The usual slightly rusted iron key with an ivory tag and black ink to label the room number it went to was now a sleek black with a red tag that had golden ink in its stead. Weston said he had new keys made for everyone as a celebration for sticking with their constant problems for so long, but he had a playful glint in his eye that was very hard to trust.

    The real problem came when you went to use your key on your room and ended up...somewhere else completely? Whose room is this? It certainly is not yours. You check the door’s label to make sure you got it right, but it is there plain as day. You can almost hear sadistic laughter echoing down the hall as you wander around, dazed and confused, before you realize what is going on: the manor’s magic must have swapped the locations of the rooms without swapping the doors themselves. Much like linked doors, where you can just access another part of the manor entirely, every door now leads to a completely different spot in the tenants areas, not even the same wing for most cases.

    After a night of confusion with various tenants either dying during their search since it lasted longer than nightfall, some lucky breaks where some could find their room, and others who simply roomed together, a group went to complain to Weston and demanded the rooms be changed back to normal. With a rather fake-sounding apology, he explained that the keys were labeled incorrectly, and he would have to swap everyone’s keys back to the old ones one by one manually. With a collective groan the tenants sought to spread the news of how long it would take to procure the right keys, and how you would have to live with the changes for just a little while longer.

Welcome to the Surprise Room Swap event! I hope no one tampers with my stuff...

This event will be active from September 1st to September 30th!

All art submissions must include at least one lined(or lineless) halfbody, with either color or shading to be counted for the prompt bonuses.

All literature submissions must include at least 750 words to be counted for the prompt bonuses.

Each piece can only complete one prompt!

Make sure to tell us what prompt you are completing in the description of your art or literature so we can reward you correctly!  

Prompts

And with that all said... have fun in PKMN-WOE and beware The Watcher...