my mind has wandered, the man just said so

Exile's come up with a fantastic Hallows freebie--the Arachnophobia set.

It comes with face spiders.

Sadly, they're not really *impressive* face spiders, but...they're face spiders.

Also, meet Miss Charlee Aluveaux. She's...very pink.



I'm sorry, I should have said...OMGINSANELYFREAKISHLYPINK. On the NUCLEAR level.

What you can clearly make out in this picture is bad enough--decapitation bling, Pepto-Bismol-on-LSD-pink, the absurd level of glow--gah. Just gah. But what you don't see in this pic? Is the spiral particle effects of pink and glittering white that went around each ear and that vibrantly glowing pink tail. Gaaah.

Meanwhile, Happy Mood has the cutest--and believe me, I use that word advisedly--pumpkin swings for two hundred Linden, in their main shop. Also, all the floating ghosties are free to copy.



See? It's just...*shudders*...adorable.

ANYway, some of the ghosts are animated, some aren't, just wander and pick out which you want. Plus, look around the store while you're there--Happy Mood is just an amazing store, full of small--and occasionally large--wonders.

The Putnam House in Spherion.



So there is some visual dissonance here. Face the house directly: it's a haunted house, fog-ridden, decrepit, with the voices of the dead crying for help. Turn south, though...and there's a nightclub next door, complete with laser lights. I don't know what it is to the north, but it looks nearly monastery-ish. This is more than a bit jarring.

When we went inside, the sounds grew, and it was quite clear something terrible had happened.



The cabinet doors were wonderful. The voices were whispers and cries and the screams of small children, creepily effective. Everywhere were splashes of blood and detached limbs.



Fawkes pointed out the real horror, for him, was behind the house--the perfectly flat, groomed to insane stripes land.

I have to admit, it got to me a little too. The abrupt transition, between what our minds accepted without question--torn wallpaper, dried blood, tattered drapes blowing in the wind through the broken window...all of which had only 'existed', in this sense, since the turn of October from the month before--and what our minds would not accept: perfection. Sterile, immutable...frozen, in a sense.

And who knows how long that's been on the grid? Likely that unnaturally manicured parcel has been there longer than the haunted house!



While Fawkes shot the Soul Harvesters downstairs, I ventured upstairs. There was a lot of blood pouring from upstairs down the stairwell. I never figured out where, besides the inaccessible attic, it was pouring from, but that was a lot of blood nonetheless.



The upstairs is divided into 2.3 rooms. Room one is--maybe--a young child's? At least, there are toys whirling about, and a child on the bed--but the tentacle in the box is extremely bothersome, if that is a child's room.

Room two is for seances, one supposes, complete with a table and a crystal ball, and the writing of the mad killer of families, scrawled in blood over the pale walls.

And room .3 is...odd. I couldn't quite parse it. It seemed like a huddled shape pressed to the back of...maybe a closet? With a frame, or screen, or window-into-alternate-reality that's full bright and full glow...but I'm still not sure. The door on this one shuts almost instantly after opening, so I couldn't even get a decent picture. If you figure it out, let me know.

It's worth at least a walkthrough. I think the downstairs works better than the upstairs. And if you go, bring a gun--you'll need it.