Synopsis: Mansion of Terror (a Sir Differel adventure)

The return of the Princess in Orange.

Differel is falling asleep over her work, and lays her head down her desk to catch 40 winks. She has a waking dream in which she imagines lying naked on a massage table as she receives a body rub. Just as she drifts off she hears a voice saying:

"Are you enjoying it, Cousin?"

Differel comes instantly awake, twists around, and sees the Princess in Orange standing over her, and she’s also naked. She grasps the sheet and leaps off, holding it in front of her as she puts the table between them. The PiO explains that after her last visit, she began to realize that she had become enamored of Differel, but it took her awhile to figure out why. She’s too flat-chested -- she prefers double-D boobs at least -- and skinny in the hips, but then she realized it was her butt, which she considers luscious and delicious. She intends to ravish her, and she won’t take no for an answer. She and Differel had been circling the table, the PiO trying to get closer as Differel tried to avoid her, but then the PiO made it disappear. Differel backs away as the PiO approaches, and the sheet disappears. She backs into a corner, and the PiO traps her. She’s spun around, and hands come out of the walls to grasp her wrists and ankles, securing her. The PiO presses against her, and a wave of nausea engulfs her as the room seems to tilt. When it stabilizes she finds that the corner flattened itself out and became a floor. The PiO licks down her spine and proceeds to lick and nosh her butt, even licking at her anus on occasion.

Desperate, Differel suggests they play another game. When the PiO asks why, Differel offers to let the PiO ravish her of her own free will, not just now, but any time and any place in the future, if she loses. Intrigued, the PiO stops and asks what she wants if she wins. She replies that the Carcosan renounce any desire for her body. The PiO refuses, but instead offers to wait until Differel wants it. She agrees.

The hands release her and she stands up. She finds herself in the attic room of an eerie dilapidated structure; a “haunted” house. The PiO explains that the game is very simple: escape from the house and she wins. There are no other conditions or rules. Puzzled, Differel opens the only door and starts down a flight of stairs, when naked demonic vampiric zombies with huge erections appear below her and rush at her. She manages to get back inside the attic and close the door, which holds against their efforts to batter it down. The PiO grins at her and pretends she forgot to mention that the house is crawling with undead critters who will rape her in all of her orifices, suck out her blood, and tear her apart if they catch her. She asks how she could possibly derive any pleasure from her in that condition, now or later, and the PiO responds that she can stretch her death out to an interval a million times longer than the heat death of the universe, so she’ll have plenty of time to take whatever pleasure she pleases from her before she allows her to die. Differel accuses her of creating a deathtrap and that there is no way out. The PiO responds that there is a way to win the game, but she must figure it out on her own.

With nothing else to go on, Differel goes to one of the windows, thinking she can crawl up onto the roof, but the PiO tells her she cannot be in physical contact with the house for it to count. One window overlooks the back garden with a surrounding wall, but the PiO tells her that the backyard counts as part the house. Besides, she doesn’t want to go down there, and Differel sees the garden is crawling with undead. However, there is a balcony on the next story below, and a vine clinging to the wall she could climb down. She opens the window and finds out how cold it is. She crawls out onto the vine, but the wind is so strong it threatens to blow her off, and she gets dangerously chilled. Still, she makes it to the balcony, which opens onto a study, and it is empty of undead.

Differel rubs her chest and stomach as she explores the room. A longsword hangs on display, and it is sharpened, so she takes it. She peers out the main door to orient herself. She finds the room is off a central stairwell accessed by a balcony, and that all the other rooms open off the balcony as well, but there are undead present. She retreats back inside and heads for the clockwise wall door. Going clockwise will get her to the head of the stairs faster. It opens onto a sitting room, and she hopes the rooms are all interconnected. She crosses the room and opens the next door; that way leads into a corner bedroom. She searches for anything she can use, but all she finds is a loaded .45 automatic with two extra magazines in a bedside table drawer, so she claims it. The next room is a bathroom; she relieves herself without flushing, drinks her fill from the faucet, and wraps her hair in a towel. The next room is a wardrobe, so she dresses.

The next room is a game room with open doors, where she encounters three undead. The first two she takes out with the sword; the third nearly kills her before she rams a pool ball into its mouth and stabs it through the eye with a dart. More start to come in and she shoots at them as she retreats. She enters another wardrobe but the undead crash through the door. She sprints through the bathroom beyond into another corner bedroom, slams the door shut, and topples a chest of drawers over in front of it. Momentarily safe, she relaxes, then sees the PiO in bed having sex with three undead. She says not to mind her, she’s just having a spot of recreation. The undead chasing her start to force the door open, so Differel throws the door to the stairhall open, then rushes into the adjoining sitting room. She watches through the cracked door as the pursuing undead breach the room, but the PiO directs them into the stairhall. She then winks at her before going back to enjoying herself again.

Differel decides to put extra distance between her and pursuit, and goes into the next room, which turns out to be a library. A hearty blaze is burning, and a side table under a window has sherry and finger sandwiches, along with a note from the PiO stating that she has done so well so far that she deserves a respite. She decides to take a short rest; she eats some of the sandwiches and pours some sherry. She spots a book on a table beside a stuffed leather chair; it turns out to be a journal of the house, including floorplans. Three stories, plus attic and basement, but no back stairs. However, ahead of her is a dining room, and the plan indicates there is a dumbwaiter there, that goes down to the kitchen. She rips the plan for the ground floor out of the book, eats another couple of sandwiches, washes them down with sherry, and goes into the adjoining sitting room. There she finds two more undead that had become trapped inside; she dispatches them both.

She jogs through the bedroom, but pauses in the bathroom to drink more water. She hears a noise in the wardrobe. She opens the door, but sees nothing at first. She starts to pass through, but then undead appear in front of her, coming out from behind hanging clothing. She backs away, and runs into another group of undead coming up behind her. They grapple her, and she has no choice: she pulls the pistol and begins shooting. They let her go and she wades into the group in front, shooting and chopping with the sword. She makes it through and finds herself in the dining room, which is full of undead. She fights her way to the dumbwaiter and crawls inside. When she runs out of bullets, she stabs with the sword, but it gets pulled out of her hands. She kicks with her feet as she loads another magazine and shoots the undead, allowing her to slap her hand on the button. Several undead hold the door open as it closes, and she shoots them to make them let it go. It finally closes and the lift starts on down.

She expels the clip and sees it has only one bullet left. She pockets it and inserts her last magazine. She crouches, ready to fire, as the doors open, but the kitchen appears deserted. She crawls out and takes a moment to study the floorplan. She memorizes the route from the kitchen through the servant area into the stairhall and finally to the entry hall where the front exit lies. She collects half a dozen steak knives and a carving knife and heads out. The hall appears deserted, so she decides to take a chance and hurries. She shoots a few undead who appear out of doorways, but when she reaches the hall she finds it filled with undead. She fights her way to the entry hall, expending all her bullets, and losing the carving knife; her clothes are ripped off and she is left virtually naked. She reaches and open the doors. She throws the steak knives and gets the doors closed. As they pound on them, she runs to the double doors, but when she throws them open she finds the entryway is bricked-up. The same is true for the windows. She’s trapped.

The PiO appears, and she accuses her of lying and cheating. The PiO explains that she is on a parallel earth where an outbreak of undead occurred. That house was one place where they came through, and in an attempt to contain them the people bricked up the ground floor doors and windows. Unfortunately it didn’t stop the undead from coming through elsewhere, and the people were all wiped out. That was ten years ago. Differel states that to win she had to get out of the house, but obviously she can’t. The PiO corrects her by saying she had to escape the house, and she can: she literally has the one means to do so. She realizes she means the one remaining bullet, and that she must use it to commit suicide; or else the undead will kill her when they break down the door.

Either way she’s dead, and the Carcosan Royal Family will have won, but one way leads to virtual damnation as the PiO’s sex toy, while the other reunites her with her own family in Heaven. Besides, she realizes she would rather die with dignity and pride than be slaughtered like a cow, despite the risk to her soul. She loads the magazine, cocks the gun, and places the muzzle against the underside of her jaw at the top of her throat, hoping she has the right angle. As the undead break down the doors, she regrets not being able to guide Henry as he grows up and takes over the Order, then pulls the trigger.

Aelfraed’s voice startles her awake and she sits up. At first she believes it was all just a dream. She decides to knock off for the day, but first wants to check her email. When she activates the computer, the PiO’s face appears on the screen. She explains that, as she said the last time, her parents want her dead, and having renounced her desire to make her her lady-in-waiting she had few options left. Fortunately, there are playthings and there are playthings, and she figured it might be more fun to eat her to death. But again she managed to pull a miracle out of her ass and save herself; namely, she didn’t believe she had the strength to kill herself. Few people do. So, she gets another reprieve as she tries to come up with some other way to eliminate her.

Oh, and she will keep her word: she’ll wait until she asks her for sex; she will, someday, though she will remind her now and again. When Differel states that she shouldn’t count on it, the PiO flashes an evil grin, as if she knows something Differel doesn’t. She then adds that she should keep in mind that if she can’t eat her one way, she will another, and that her parents’ patience is not infinite. However, she needs to rethink a few things herself. She finds Differel much more fascinating than anyone else she’s encountered in a long time; maybe a different approach is needed. The image of the PiO fades out and the computer destructs, leaving Differel to wonder what she meant by that last.