"I wanted to ask about form A1-F4M. I was supposed to get them from the room on the right hand side of the hall, but there's no doors there. What's the forms all about?
"Form A1-F4M?" The ghost scratches their head with a ghostly sheet corner. "Never heard of that one. Never indeed." The ghost slaps two sheet corners together in angry sort of gesture. "They thought they'd pull another fast one on me! Well, I never! Always the last one informed!"
The ghost stops the second laundry machine and pulls out a wet, but clean sheet that they throw over their stained sheet, then barge out of the small room as loudly as a ghost can barge. They begin to throw open the other doors down the corridor, deaf to any protests.
"Form A1-F4M? You sure it wasn't AN-1WF, as stipulated by circular CH-177?" says a suit of armor that had been snoring in the meeting room, scratching its helmet with one gauntlet. "Those Temporary Forms sprites always messing everything up so we never know what we're doing!"
The weeping angel photographer next door, interrupted mid-photoshoot - the photograph was ruined because the model blinked - has no idea either. Soon, a ghost, two suits of armor, a weeping angel statue, and a witch march around the place, gathering more indignant colleagues. The Department of Internal Communications turns out to contain a Roadrunner, which dutifully carries express messages with happy MEEP MEEPs.
A procession of goblins storms up and down the stairs. Large flocks of papers, tired of being passed around and compared, flap around in every room, and the employees start to stand on tables, using butterfly nets to bring them back down. A genius has left the doors to the broom closets open, and the brooms are zooming around the place, attempting to sweep everything and everyone back into place. The waterbed landing judge in the candy corn suit is tearing their hair out. The cats' Council Room is the only one that the mob does not dare invade.
You retreat into the first reception area, hoping to find a way to escape this madness. The mob has invaded this area, but is too busy fighting through the long queue of skeletons to attack the front counter. A tall figure in a dark cloak is chatting to the receptionist, who has mellowed so much that she seems like a different person.
"Why, what seems to be the problem?" the person asks you serenely, before noticing your coupon. You are holding on to your coupon, are you not. "Form AK-B48? I thought you'd never ask!" They hand you a paper that smells strongly of sulphur. "No need to yell, now." Then they disappear into thin air.
Seconds later, the entire building is filled by the loud crackling of an old speaker system roused from a deep sleep. The employees stop as one, drop their nets and swords, spit their colleagues' hair out of their mouthes, loosen their hands from around others' necks.
"All employees are to return to their duties," croons a silky voice. "
Celestial.
Shinko.
Pixie.
Sporty.
♥ Azzie.
Gelquie. Would the lucky winners of the Halloween draw kindly proceed to the Director's office."
They do not need to move an inch, however, as you are once more yanked into a cloud of smoke, this one a deep red. You can tell that you are moving downwards this time, and fast. The cloud dissipates and flaps away from you in the form of a bat.
You all find yourselves in a small waiting area with black velvet-padded chairs. The chamber is carved from a stone darker than night, on which you cannot even see your shadow. A red light fills it in flickering bursts, coming from behind a flimsy curtain to one side. Distant screams echo from tunnels behind the curtain every now and then.
You are not alone. A giant three-headed chihuahua is pacing back and forth in front of a towering black door. It glances at you and yawns threefold. A large silver plate on the door announces
"DIEM VERSAVI
TARTAREAN TREATS - MAIN BRANCH
DIRECTOR
Marquis of the Third Circle
Co-coordinator of Gluttony and Sloth
Honoured Member of the Order of the Styx"
"Sent my offices into a crisis, didn't you? Using our own weapons. I'm almost impressed," a voice booms from behind the door, heard as clearly as if there was no door, and simply a dark void behind the frame. It is the same devilish voice you heard over the speakers. "Chirbi, down." The chihuahua yawns again and trots away.
"Now, have you all filled in your forms?"
When flipped open, the precious AK-B48 forms are revealed to contain a single question in the center of the page. Not even a question.
Two checkboxes. Two tiny little checkboxes. The voice reads them out for you.
"Treat?"
"You came for treats," the voice booms even louder, so loudly that the cavern seems to tremble, and specks of dust float around as if carried by wind. "For candy. You came to the right place. There is more candy here than your mortal minds can conceive! More candy than your world can hold."
A crach appears in the stone near the center of the chamber. Yellow light filters through. The ground shakes more and more as the stone crumbles under your feet, raining into a grotto filled entirely with colorful specks. Candy wrappers. It is larger than a building. Maybe larger than a town. A huge sea of candy beneath you, about to swallow you up.
"Did you not want your prize to be worth the trouble?" the voice asks as a floating grin and two flaming eyes appear in the dark frame.
You manage to stay balanced on the stone ledge that is left of the crumbling floor. Then another cloud of smoke appears below you, and inside, you see the street. The good old street that you so innocently strolled down earlier. You are immediately drawn into the smoke vortex and land softly back into your world.
The smoke does not disappear behind you. It remains open, and through it, the sea of candy begins to pour. Slowly, at first. Then it gains momentum, pushed by its own weight, and the street is flooded with a pile of candy larger than any trick-or-treating group's pooled haul. On the other side, the voice is laughing maniacally.
"See you next year!" it says before the smoke vanishes, interrupting the flow of candy.
"Or trick?"
The voice's booming effect falters mid-word, suddenly sounding like an ordinary human's. The black door swings open, and behind a desk, slumped in a very tall clawed chair padded with purple velvet, is Liou. They blink, startled at being found so soon.
"Well hi! I only do this part time! There's a lot of us taking turns. Um, thanks for coming to play here! There are prizes for the coupon - no really, there are prizes, I swear!"
And indeed, on the plush carpet in front of the desk is a pile of large goodie bags stuffed with perfectly respectable Halloween treats, including all those you sampled earlier, as well as "Return Tickets" and "Eternal Candy Vault Passes". You want to come back very soon, don't you. Don't you.
Decided to end this smoothly, as I won't have time to post more tonight, and I had all that stuff left to use and don't like to leave things hanging. Hope it was all enjoyable enough, thank you for visiting! Feel free to post delayed reactions, to grab any objects or use any NPCs in there!
