It was a beautiful day today. The sun was shining brightly upon the vibrant forest below, trees were towering over everything, birds chirping in their boughs. Rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, all were going searching for food, whilst predators like bears, foxes, and coyotes hunted. Flowers were blooming, and the smell and sound of nature was all around. Among all this, in a modest clearing, was a camp. Three tents circled a firepit, and sitting upon various makeshift seats were three men.

One had pale skin, crew cut blonde hair, blue eyes, and a large scar just over his lip.

One had tanned skin, long, black hair with dyed dark blue fringes, and green eyes.

The last had pale blonde, almost silver hair, deep turquoise eyes, and red-highlights at the tips of his bangs.

The man with the scar quietly tore off a chunk of meat from a rabbit’s leg, before swallowing it.

“So, what are our plans for today?” He tore off another piece and chewed before swallowing. “Fishing?”

“I’m fine with it. Not sure if Nox is though, considering how terrible he is at it,” the tanned man said with a mischievous grin.

The silvery blonde growled in mock-anger, “Hey, up yours, asshole! At least I can skin and gut a rabbit without puking my guts out like you!”

“Well excuse me for not being used to killing a cute little animal!” the tanned man rebutted.

“This coming from the guy who works in a butcher shop,” the scarred man replied with a grin.

“I only just started!” the tanned man shot back. He kept his scowl for a good while, before they all erupted in laughter.

“Ahh, why are we laughing again?” Nox asked abruptly, stopping mid-laugh as he was wont to do.

“Because we’re all insane,” the scarred man explained helpfully.“But seriously, what should we do?”

“Well, we could explore that dusty old mansion on the other side of the lake,” the tanned man suggested.

“If you're game for it, Perry, than I am,” the scarred man agreed, before turning to the other among their number. “What about you, Nox?”

“Hmm, let me think: Go into a dusty, rickety-ass old mansion that could possibly fall apart right beneath my feet, thus resulting in me falling to a potentially gory and agonizing death? Sure, sounds like fun!” Nox replied sarcastically, though the look in his eyes easily conveyed that he was really saying, ‘Eh, fuck it, why not?’

“Alright, it’s settled then! To the haunted manor we boldly go!” The scarred man said theatrically, even going so far as to pose.

“After breakfast, Uriel,” Perry, the tanned man, admonished jokingly.

“Yeah, sit the fuck down, dude. You’re embarrassing yourself,” Nox dryly remarked, rolling his eyes at his friend’s antics.

“Fine...Killjoys…” Uriel muttered. The other two laughed briefly before they all resumed eating. In little more than ten minutes, they were finished and packing a few things for their little adventure. Mainly just flashlights, some food, their knives, all the essentials. Perry then noticed Uriel take a swig of a bottle of Sunny D.

“Dude, that’s like, the seventieth bottle you’ve had today! Where in the hell are you getting them all from!?” Perry wondered.

“Don’t ask me—” Uriel began.

“Oh God, not this again…” Perry groaned, before Uriel did a yawning gesture, stretching his arms and back out.

“—Ask the sun!” he finished.

“...Sometimes I wonder if he legitimately has a fetish for the sun. I’m almost expecting him to say ‘PRAISE THE SUN’ since he loves it so fuckin’ much,” Nox sighed and shook his head, having long-since resigned himself to enduring Uriel’s antics.

“Maybe I do~” Uriel said, waggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“...You are fucking weird, Uriel,” Nox deadpanned and flicked the man in the forehead, not amused by his companion’s response. “Now, we going to this damn mansion or what?”

“Yeah, let’s go already!” Perry urged.

“Well excuse me for wanting to add some dramatic flair to this adventure,” Uriel pouted.

“Whatever man, let’s just get going!”” Perry said impatiently. And so they set off for the mansion. It was but a short hike up the hill towards the lake, and after renting a rowboat to get across from a kind old man, they made it to the rusting iron gates of the mansion. Perry walked up and tried to open them, only to find them locked tight.

“Well shit. Now what do we do?” Perry questioned.

“Simple, we do this,” Uriel said before kicking the rusted lock right off, causing the gates to open as well.

“Make sure you didn’t get anything lodged in your shoes, otherwise you’d better hope that you’re up to date on your tetanus immunity,” Nox quipped as he cautiously stepped through the now-gaping gateway.

“Pfft, I’ll be fine. Steel toe boots, remember?” Uriel said, waving off his friends worries.

“Nevermind that, look at this place! Have you ever seen this much brass before?” Perry asked, gesturing to the rows upon rows of brass statues, all of robed men carrying hourglasses and holding fingers to their lips in a silencing gesture. Patina covered a fair amount of them, and in the midst of the courtyard lay a brass fountain, though it was dented and the water no longer flowed. Withered ash trees dotted the spaces between the statues, along with many blackberry bushes, now wildly out of control. There were even stone benches and gazebos, all outlined and inlaid with brass.

“Wow, someone really likes brass. And what's with the creepy shushing those statues are doing?” Uriel queried.

“If they start moving around when we’re not looking while shushing us, I’m just gonna start calling them ‘Weeping Librarians’ and run in the opposite fucking direction, you guys’ safety be damned,” Nox deadpanned as he stayed as far away as possible from the statues, essentially sticking to the dead center of the ‘path’ the three friends were walking on.

“Love you too, Noxy,” Uriel chirped. Perry chuckled and shook his head with mirth. As the friends walked down the ‘path’, they took no notice of how the patina on the brass statues seemed to grow. After a short walk, they made it to the front doors, which were, like the rest of the area, lined with brass. The only difference seemed to be that they had strange blue moss covering them.

“Okay, now this is just getting weird. I mean, since when has blue moss been a thing?” Perry queried.

“Who cares, let’s go inside!” Uriel urged before kicking the doors open and, subsequently, knocking them off of their hinges. “Oh. Didn't expect that.” He shrugged before walking in.

“Those doors were long-abandoned, with completely-rusted hinges and probably rotted-through wood. How the fuck could you not expect that to happen, Uriel?” Nox bluntly asked his friend, very much resisting the urge to smack the guy upside the head.

“Well I thought it was reinforced or something!” Uriel shot back.

“Dude, there was moss on them. How could it be stable with moss growing on it?” Perry retorted.

“Oh forget it! Just look at all this, though!” Uriel cried, pointing to the many lavish decorations, like hour glass shaped finial posts, with brass lining the edges of rails leading up the stairs to the second floor. The rug and carpet also had hourglass designs, but also crescents. They were both lined with golden silk and filled in with light blue. A brass chandelier, layered like a wedding cake, hung high above, and strangely enough, the candles were lit. In fact, all the candles around the room were lit.

“Ooookay, that's not weird at all,” Perry said sarcastically.

“Calling it now: This place is either haunted, home to some cult, or is an inter-dimensional hub to other worlds. Or, alternatively, there could be a Jason expy lurking around waiting to kill us. Either way, I’m fucking out of here. Fuck you guys, and fuck this place, I’m out,” Nox said as he pseudo-moonwalked towards the entrance, both middle fingers raised and pointed in front of him with a deadpan expression plastered on his face. But the doors reformed and placed themselves back onto the once broken hinges, and when he tried to open them he got a nasty shock.

“...Welp, anyone got a knife for me to jam through the roof of my mouth? That’ll be relatively instant and painless. If not, just snap my neck right now. I am not dealing with this shit,” Nox said after a few moments, his right eye twitching in a way that the other two men knew after years of being around him was a sign of either unfathomable anger...or the onset of a mental breakdown.

”Many knights have come and gone…” echoed a voice. It was like the sweetest melody, but still rough.

“Nope nope nope nope nope nope nope,” Nox chanted as he clamped his hands down on the door, trying to kill himself through electrocution. Apparently taking note of this, it pushed him back with a wave of blue energy. His cry of “WHHHHY?” followed him as he flew straight into the other two, knocking them down like human bowling pins.

“Ugh…” Uriel groaned. Perry grunted as he pushed Nox off of him.

“What. The fuck. Was that!?” he cried, standing back up.

”But none of them showed the resolve you do… The pure spirit,” the voice continued.

“Oh God, oh God oh God oh God, please no! I hated Saw! I don't wanna cut my limbs off to be free!” Uriel cried hysterically.

“If it meant getting out of here, I’D GLADLY CUT YOURS OFF!” Nox shouted at the hysterical man as, in a last-ditch effort of escape through the sweet embrace of death, he tried to bite through the artery at his right wrist. But a blue light blocked his teeth entry into his flesh.

”Come hither, mortals. And be bound by your coils no longer.” the voice said sweetly, a door on the upper level opening wide.

“...Fucking...Of course. Of course this would happen when we followed you into an abandoned mansion, Uriel! OF COURSE THIS WOULD HAPPEN WHEN I ACTUALLY LISTEN TO YOUR FUCKING SUGGESTION TO GO EXPLORE AN ABANDONED MANSION!” Nox shouted in frustration, his hands reaching for the man’s neck to strangle the life out of him. Perry blocked him, grabbing hold of Nox’s arms.

“Dude, chill the fuck out! This isn't worth killing him over!” Perry said as he struggled to keep Nox from strangling their friend.

“Chill out? CHILL OUT?! We are trapped in a fucking abandoned mansion, and our only way out was opened by some fucking Random Omnipotent Being whose reasons for forcing us into this situation are likely incomprehensible to us feeble mortals! I have every right at this moment to strangle this motherfucker for actually bringing us into this!” Nox snarled, but his arms fell limp in Perry’s hands regardless, the fight in him likely extinguished as he realized the gravity of the situation.

Summoning a surprising amount of strength to wrench his arms free of Perry’s grip, Nox sighed and rubbed the parts that his friend clamped down on, the silver-blonde’s gaze fixated on the floor.

“M-Maybe there's a way out?” Uriel stuttered.

“The fucking cunt electrified the only exit, then flung me away after I tried to electrocute myself to death. Unless you want a repeat of what happened the last time I tried to get through those doors, the only way out is the way that they - who or whatever the fuck they are - wants us to take. Seriously, what fucking compelled that gods-damned packing peanut that you call a brain to bring us here?!” Nox growled at Uriel.

“I… I don't know. I just thought it would be fun. I never thought this would happen!” Uriel said, hanging his head shamefully. Perry sighed heavily.

“Look, maybe he’s right. There might be another way out. I mean, it's worth a try, right?” he suggested.

“...Whatever. Feel free to try, I’ll just be waiting here, contemplating how to spontaneously cease all bodily functions just to spite the fucker who’s keeping us here,” Nox replied, leaning up against the nearest vertical surface and staring up at the ceiling.

With that, Uriel and Perry searched the mansion from top to bottom, trying all the doors save the open one, but found them similarly locked and protected. They tried everything they could think of, but nothing worked. They returned to Nox and sat down, Uriel staring with his face in his hands and Perry curled up in a ball.

“I’m sorry guys… I just wanted to have some fun…” Uriel said, tears threatening to fall.

“...Shut up, and get the fuck off your ass. Same goes to you, Perry the Platypus,” Nox ordered, a hand going to either of his friends’ shoulders and yanking them to their feet. “That fucker wants us to go through the magical fucking door and do what they fucking want us to do? Fine, let’s do just that. But I won’t be doing it because I’m giving up. I’m going to do it so that I can completely fuck up whatever is awaiting us on the other side, as one big ‘FUCK YOU’ to the disembodied voice. You guys up for carrying out the biggest act of spite in our entire lives?”

The two men slowly nodded, Uriel furiously wiping at his tears.

“Yeah, let’s do that. Show that bitch we don't break so easily,” Perry agreed. Uriel nodded, a small smile on his face.

“First one to go through the door gets to be the leader of our soon-to-be ’Three Musketeers’ group!” Nox said half-jokingly, already running up the stairs to the door.

“You’re on!” Uriel chirped as he followed swiftly behind him, Perry lagging behind at a jog.

Having a head-start, Nox made it there first, and he gave a quick one-finger-salute to the men behind him, a smirk on his face, “See you on the other side, minions!”

With that, he jumped through the doorway, being sucked into the inky black darkness. The other two followed him in, and, once inside, the door closed, lock clicking, and the candles lit ablaze, shining light onto three suits of armor, with weapons lined up on either side of each stand.

One suit of armor had a strange visorless feature like a barbute helm, but the slits were so thin that it was still close to being like a visor. There was a solid cuirass on top of a heavy fur and light blue leather coat that protected the upper torso, with chainmail beneath. A set of black leather pants and brown leather boots, likely fitted with chainmail beneath as well if the heavy look to them was any indication, covered the lower half of the bottom. And finally, the gauntlets, which were simple, covering part of the forearm, wrist, and much of the fingers.

Perry approached it in fascination, marveling at how amazing and stoic it looked. “Okay, this might offset the shit we’ve been through in the past few hours.”

“...It’s missing the scar, but otherwise…,” Nox whispered to himself as he gazed at the suit of armor that was Perry was admiring from afar.

Uriel approached a rather ragged and weathered set of armor, made of scales, which looked like those from a very large serpent or reptile, and gilded with gold. It was more of a glorified set of robes, but at the same time, Uriel could easily imagine someone spearheading a charge as they wore this. The set of armor was complete with gold bracelets and anklets, as well as a crown with three long pointed tips, a very large and weathered looking white wig attached to said crown.

“Wow… For something so old looking, it’s really majestic,” he said in awe, placing a hand on the chestpiece.

Nox looked to the final set of armor, seeing the burned and hideously contorted metal, the cuirass being more akin to an ominous ribcage of metal. A fluted spaulder on one shoulder while the rest of the arm was just chainmail with an elbow guard, a gauntlet ending the length of the arm at the hand. The other arm lacked the fluted spaulder of its sister side, but had everything else. The leggings were also chainmail, with kneeguards and boots covering it.

Nox gazed at the worn, battered and partially-melted helm that rested atop the armor he was looking at. The mouthguard was drawn inwards towards the jaw, the ventilation holes appearing vaguely like the teeth of a skull. The visor of what may have once been a fluted helm was melted to the forehead and ridged metal of the helm’s top. Finally, the melted fringes of what looked like a crown were fused to the rear of the helmet.

The worn face of a tired, lonely soul stared back at Nox from the empty eyes of the helm as he lifted it off of the fire-warped armor.

“...How many of you are in there, I wonder…?” Nox mumbled under his breath, before sighing and placing the helm to the side as he began to put on the armor with resignation.

Uriel stared at the crown of his armor, seeing a flash of lightning in it before it faded. He looked around in surprise, as if expecting to feel a bolt of that very lightning behind him, but found nothing.

Perry looked into the visor of his own helmet, and, unlike Nox, saw a pair of terrified eyes in them, which startled him, making him jump. “Okay, I take back what I said about this making up for the shitshow that was the rest of our time here. I am not putting on a suit of armor that has a fucking head in it already!”

“Just pull it out of there. The poor fuck won’t be needing it anymore,” Nox said as he rolled his eyes, securing the right gauntlet of the armor to his arm and clenching his fist to test the flexibility and fit.

“Fuck that! Why in the fucking hell would I take some dead asshat’s armor?! That’s just plain fucking wrong!” Perry argued.

“Uhh… I don’t see a head in there, Perry. You doing okay, man?” Uriel said, glancing at the inside of Perry’s chosen suit of armor.

“What are you talking about, there’s definitely-” Perry began, before turning back to the armor to see that it was empty, only the mannequin’s blank, featureless face greeting him. “...Okay, that’s just fucking… Ugh, forget it, I’ll put it on.” With that, he started to put the armor on, Uriel following his example.

Nox glanced over at Perry, everything save for his helmet now equipped, “You feeling alright, man? Sure you ain’t going crazy?”

“Fuck off,” Perry said with a grunt as he pulled the gauntlets on, then the boots.

“You know we can’t leave, so I can’t exactly do that,” Nox remarked as he donned the helmet, pausing as an odd sensation washed over him the moment the bottom of the helmet made contact with the collar of the chestpiece.

“Shut up. You know what I meant, dickhead,” Perry groused as he finished putting on the cuirass, placing it over the coat.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Let’s just get the gear and look for a way out,” Nox grunted, cracking his neck as he grabbed the greatswords and started strapping them to his back. Perry and Ureil did much the same, finding the armor to be simple enough to put on, although all three blinked when they realised there were six weapons each for them, and they only had room for about three.

“...666. Wow. Any more paranormal symbolism ya want to add, fucking Cunt Upstairs?” Nox scoffed and flipped the bird at the roof above them.

They all blinked when they saw a flash of light, and three bags appeared in front of them. “Take these bags, and let your burdens be lifted, if only slightly.”

Nox wasted no time in taking one of the bags and stuffing a long spear with the remains of a jaw stuck near the spearhead, a black shield, and a greatsword made of stone into it.

Uriel and Perry looked at one another, then slowly followed his example and took them, stuffing their remaining chosen weapons inside.

For Perry, a white birch bow, and a greatsword with a broken, bloodied, weathered blade.

Uriel stuffed an arbalest, and a bronze, well decorated crescent axe inside his bag.

The three men placed the bags on their waists, surprised to feel no extra weight from them despite what they held inside.

“So, now what?” Uriel asked.

“Now… Be reborn and unclasp yourselves from your mortal bonds,” that voice said, and all the three men felt next was agonizing burning, electrocution, and petrification.

Then, blackness.

Author's Note

Let this story be reborn anew, much like our three protagonists.