The winds blow, the leaves fall, the bright year giving way to the dark, as it always has, as it always will. Whispers through the open windows, to listen, focus, heed, and with a smile I turn away. Not all their messages are meant for me, after all.

This has been a tumultuous spring and summer, full of dizzying heights and heartbreaking losses, and far too few moments of honest contentment. Strangely, in the midst of a rather savage relationship upset--the Train Wreck Love Life strikes again, as it always has, as it always will--I find contentment in the chill in the air, the hint of wood smoke, the laughter of children, the taste of store-bought sweetness on the tongue.

Tonight we will welcome the ancestors with good heart and open spirit, and bid farewell to recent shades. Tonight we will scavenge through remaining holiday candy and watch terrible horror films and gasp and giggle at appropriate moments. I'm still not sure if I'll make it into SL today, because of these things; I wanted to cover at least a few more haunts, but I may have finally run out of time.

So I will wish you all the blessings of the season, instead. Now is the time to stock up for the winter, pull out the sweaters and the blankets, air our homes of summer's swelter. Now is the time for candles, lanterns, stories around the hearth or the fire. Now is the time for the rich stews, the warmed wines, the spiced ciders. Also apple crisps, which we may not have time to bake up tonight, but do sound yummy and amazing.

The veil thins, and other worlds will be within our reach, if we desire to peer through. If we ask the right questions, we may learn things, but we need to be very sure we wish to learn. The wheel turns, as it always has, as it always will, fortunes and fates of all flavors going round and round.



Blessings and safe journeys to you all.

Next is Daddy's Haunted Hideout in Unique Falls. If ever there was proof needed of the growing popularity of the DD/lg phenomenon, it's the fact that here we have a haunt named after Daddy, and earlier, we had a haunt named after his (or another Daddy's) babygirl.



I rezzed into heavy brush, or unharvested corn stalks, or...whatever. Dead, taller-than-me weeds of some kind, anyway.



When I finally found my way out, I passed a tree rife with climbing skeletons...



...and remnants of a roller coaster. Do these two things go together?



Floating ghosts and hooded figures patrol the crypts.



This was a curiously old-school--like, a prop from many, many years ago in SL, definitely showing its age--prop, and I can't decide if it worked or detracted.



Simple but effective headstones...



...and in the one 'haunted house' on the property, this intriguing casket room.

It's not a bad haunt. It's better than average, but...outside of getting curiously lost at the start, it was just another haunt in the group of haunts I've done over the past two months. Not bad, just...not outstanding.

(Continued from part one.)



There was another room devoted to art, or at least, was formerly rented to an artist, and...this and the wallpaper? Were the only safe images to take. Apparently the artist was quite irked with his nude model...



In the third room, an exorcism was taking place. I tried not to disturb the priest's concentration.



The last room was devoted to a UFO enthusiast's worst nightmare or greatest hope--being present at an actual invasion of UFOs, outside the hotel.



Just remember--that UFO you thought you saw out the window? You didn't actually see that. Be well, citizens.

I returned to the Haunted Silent Peacock Hotel because I received word they'd added...or, at least, opened...more of the attraction to the public. Four rooms, to be precise.



The first one was themed around the Addams Family. Very romantic honeymoon suite, for the gothically inclined.



The only problem was, the room was really dark, so I played around with Firestorm's photo filters until I got an effect I liked.



This actually looked better filtered than 'natural', but again, only because of the dimness of the room.



Next up: the Mad Scientist's Lair, complete with wandering monster and electrical arcs from arcane equipment.

(Continued in part two.)

(Continued from part four.)



She calls the stone children to her, and offers solace and solid comfort, but it does not seem to work for anyone still bound in flesh.



Behind this stone saint, the fog moves, is lit with a febrile glow, and her plinth seems less a refuge, and more a dire portent of things to come.



Past the graveyard is a small shack with shelves of potions and mystical ingredients. No one was present, but when an attempt is made to read the dusty, faded cards, a glowing circle of protection still activates for the reading.

Is it to keep spirits out? Or flesh in?



A strange, neutered angel points the way to the cave. The opening to the cave is dark, and there are odd chitterings heard inside.



The lamps that light the way, at least through those cave passages smoothed by the hands of men, seem to be incandescent skulls, dripping magma. Are these lamps alive? Could they be saved? Were they penitents mounted willingly, or prisoned souls burning in torment?

And further in, the skittering...the sounds of many legs...and the presence of giant, foreboding webs...

I can't recommend this one enough. I have no idea if it operates year-round, though I suspect it does; I have no idea if it's intended as a roleplay sim or not. I do know that every inch of it is steeped in melancholy and the whispered passage of dark things. I know that the caretakers are attentive, but do not seem to interfere.

If it weren't for all the spiders, I could live here. Do make time to see it, if you have the inclination.

(Continued from part three.)



Other shadows move on upper floors...but they are indistinct, unsettling but immaterial.



Who keeps the candles lit?



You find the asylum's small chapel, but it's to no deity you recognize. And the stray cat that has made its home here...two heads, and so thin...how has it survive in this place?



A small crypt lies just past the asylum, but again, it's a startling discovery to find a carved stone bas-relief of Mayan, or perhaps Aztec origin. Why is it here?



In the cemetary proper, more statuary, but at least one hold's a saint's relic, some forgotten martyr's skull. Which one? And why here?

(Continued in part five.)

(Continued from part two.)



Stepping through the doors of the Ironwood Asylum is something of a psychic disconnect. It's dark, dusty, and abandoned, but there's a familiar song playing over and over, one that speaks to light, not darkness...or does it?



There's a shadow on the wall, gesturing, and it stops you in place for a moment while you struggle to remember that shadows are not supposed to move.



There is art on the walls of the asylum, but it's of the type that disturbs, instead of enlightens.



This is the music-box that's playing the song. The sigil atop it, however...is it Ozgin? Andras? It's hard to tell, even with a flashlight, in the dim dusk that pervades Ironwood Hills.



And on the floor, inset in small mosaic tiles, an image of two trees, root to root...an allegory for split minds? For the division between worlds? The separation of spirit and flesh? What does it mean?

(Continued in part four.)

(Continued from part one.)



There's a carnival on the other side, the tents collapsing under years of neglect, the grass grown tall and sere.



Some of the toys follow you with their glass eyes. Some menace you without a single move. Some talk back, and you're never sure how to answer.



There used to be a sideshow, but if any of the attractions are left, you haven't found them...



Images of sculpted solace abound, but they didn't help the former residents, now, did they?



And there's a strange, mystic symbol above the tower at the aslyum...you dread finding its source, but you're drawn to investigate anyway...

(Continued in part three.)

You awake in a dusty back store room. You don't remember how you got here. When you rise, you hear distant vintage music, and see a room full of damaged mannequins. Was this where you were meant to be?



Welcome to Ironwood Hills.



There are signs of civilization, but nothing recent, nothing untouched by time and nature.



The few others you see, well...they either ignore you, or...they've long since passed away.



Your only answers lie through the mouth of a screaming man...what will you find on the other side?

(Continued in part two.)

Hit a couple of disappointing, why-did-I-port-here haunt experiences, so had nearly decided to give up for the night--until I saw this. Apparently it's set in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. Interesting.



They definitely didn't have tricycles in 1692...and no one had even envisioned Saw.



It's a decent enough altar layout.



Help who? And with what?



A TV on the floor. I am disappointed.



Why does this small graveyard say 'Private' if it doesn't even have a gate?



Okay, this was mildly impressive. A flame-tinted, glowing pentagram tracing itself on the wooden floor of one of the cabins.



And in another graveyard area, wraiths carried skeletons around in circles.

This one does not come recommended. Every time they get something right, they do three more things wrong. Perhaps I was letting my bad mood from the previous two haunts affect me, but I was expecting a historical recreation of Salem, and instead, I got this mishmash of time periods and nothing that made effective sense in the least. Let's all just move on.

Took a bit to find it--the port dropped me off at the club itself--but down the hill, through the trees, I found a small haunted house ride. And it's not on Adult land.

Let's go see.



So, I had to click the panel that rezzes out a car a couple times, but once it did, and I got in, the ride started immediately. And it is FAST--about the fastest haunted ride I've been in this year.



Inside's a pretty standard collection of haunted decor, a lot of things we've seen before, blood splashed liberally along the walls, cobwebs, blood pools, et cetera...but the difference is the speed with which everything passes by.



It feels very old-school--not in the sense of old SL, but in the sense of those little carnival rides found in small towns, where everything's sort of rickety and creaking, but it's still fun? It's that kind of feel.



And in the middle of the ride, a set of surprisingly realistic textured tombstones. Impressive.



It took me around twice, because I didn't have time to jump off, and at the end of the second go-round, it launched me into the air, where I landed at the foot of the stairs to the upper section. There's not a lot of upstairs to see, the main draw is the ride--but it's a good, if short, ride to take. I recommend it, I thought it was a lot of fun.