PARALLAX, Session 18: The Yellow Mansion

Scene setup

Scene Expectations

The surviving team members explore the house and find the book.

Expected scene test

Scene was altered
Make 2 adjustments
Remove an object + Increase an activity
My interpretation: search of the house takes longer than expected but in the end we find the book and an opportunity to destroy it arises.

Playing the scene

We climb through the window into the dark living room. Everything is eerily normal: some magazines are tossed onto the sofa, a dirty coffee mug and a half-eaten hamburger lie on the table beside the TV. Nothing suggests that a mere minute ago, an otherworldly monstrosity lurked in this very room.

We move to the next room…

FQ: is it a carcosa place?
A: Yes!

…and find ourselves standing in a medieval banquet hall. A huge, roaring fireplace lights it from the far left, and a massive, rectangular carved wooden table sits at the center, capable of seating dozens. Smaller braziers line the walls, providing heat and a faint, flickering light.

The walls are covered by heavy tapestries depicting an unknown religious iconography. One in particular catches our eyes: it portrays a masquerade ball. All the participants have apparently just removed their masks and are staring in horror at the only guest who didn’t—a tall man in tattered yellow rags, wearing a plain white papier-mâché mask.

FQ: is there something unnatural with this tapestry?
A: Exceptinal yes!
create + object
My interpretation: two white papier-mache masks appear in the floor under the tapestry

As we stare at the tapestry, we notice something on the floor beneath it: two white papier-mâché masks. We look at each other, certain they weren’t there when we first approached.

Pariah: “I believe we are meant to wear these masks.”

Placebo: “Meant? Who wants us to wear them? Who?”

I am close to breaking down again. Pariah doesn’t answer. Instead, she slides the mask over her face.

FQ: Does something happen to pariah when she wears the mask?
A: yes!
Restore + Dark
My interpretation: wearing the mask, she is capable of seeing through the Carcosa illusion

Pariah: “Fuck me. Placebo, I can see the house through this mask. It pierces the Carcosa reality. Wear it—this can help us find the book.”

I put my mask on, and the ballroom instantly vanishes before my eyes. We are back in the house’s entrance corridor. A flight of stairs leads to the upper floor. Pariah gestures for me to follow.

We climb the stairs and reach the second floor. A long corridor presents three doors. Two are open, appearing to be bedrooms, while the closed one is likely a bathroom.

FQ: Do we notice something from one of the rooms?
A: Exceprional yes
noisy + communicate
My interpretation: we hear a woman’s voice talking to someone

Suddenly, I hear something coming from the closest bedroom: a woman’s voice. I gesture to Pariah to listen, and she nods in confirmation. We approach the room quietly and peek inside.

Jackie LaRoux is there.

FQ: who is she talking to?
A: Flight + Destroy
My interpretation: she is reciting some kind of litany to a book standing on a desktop near the bed

FQ: is there some unnatural effect going on?
A: Exceptional yes!
Disease + Bright
My interpretation: the book emits a sickly light of the impossible color. Where the light touches, LaRoux flesh is deformed

An unsettling scene unfolds before our eyes. Jackie LaRoux is kneeling naked beside a desk near the bed, where an open tome rests. She is reciting a rhythmic litany, causing the book to emit a sickly, brilliant light—the exact same impossible color I witnessed at the morgue. Where the light touches her skin, her flesh seems to melt and change shape, her body slowly warping into something blasphemous and not of this world. We quickly look away before the light can cause us any harm, relieved that we are far enough out of its direct path.

Pariah: “Okay, Lawrence. Go to the other room and get a towel, a sheet—anything to cover the book. Then we act. At my signal, you throw the cloth over the book and I shoot LaRoux. Clear?”

I nod. I slip into the bathroom and grab the largest towel I can find, and then we take up positions on either side of LaRoux’s bedroom doorway. Pariah has her weapon ready. I hold the towel taut with both hands. At her signal, we burst in.

Lawrence Dex X 5 check
(D100): (5) < (60) => Success

Pariah’s Firearms check, aiming for the head (20% penalty)
(D100): (29) + (20) < (60) => success
Maximum damage: (2D6): (12) => LaRoux dies

I launch the towel across the room. It lands perfectly over the book, instantly blocking out the poisonous illumination. LaRoux screams the moment the light vanishes, but she has no time to react. Pariah’s shot catches her cleanly in the head, and she drops dead to the floor.

FQ: were we hit by the light?
A: Yes
0/D4 sanity check
(D100): (84) > (56) => Failure!
(D4): (4) sanity loss (unnatural) Dropped below breaking point => Bout of madness!

But I wasn’t fast enough.

I did not manage to completely cover the tome before a flash of the light hit my eyes. In that split second, my mind is ripped away. I have a brief, terrifying vision of a vast lake beneath a night sky. The stars above it are wrong—completely, terrifyingly alien. I perceive a presence beneath the dark water, lurking, waiting.

The vision snaps shut, but it is enough to push me over the brink. My mind cannot handle any more trauma and simply stops functioning to protect itself. I collapse to the ground in a completely catatonic state, slipping into a deep, unresponsive fugue. Pariah tries to shake me out of it, but to no avail.

Leaving me on the floor, she turns her attention to the threat. She carefully wraps the uncovered book in a heavy blanket, carries it downstairs, and throws it into the fireplace.

As the pages burn, every single trace of Carcosa leaking into our reality vanishes. The banquet hall disappears, and the building reverts back to a regular New Orleans home.

Upstairs, LaRoux’s dead body begins to melt like ice under a July sun until absolutely nothing is left of her.

I see none of this. My mind remains entirely shut off.

Pariah hoists my limp body onto her shoulder, carries me out of the house, and lays me across the backseat of the car. She starts the engine and drives away into the night.

---

Scene bookkeeping

Chaos Factor

7 (-2)

Character list

Jackie LaRoux removed

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