Art by my friend  icecreammac!
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It was a few months before graduation, and a few months before the little circle of friends were bound to split up, going all their own seperate ways. What harm would there be in just one harmless little dare? Sending Oliver, the meekest and most introverted among them, into the old haunted mansion, where the supposed demon summoning had happened, all those years ago, leaving the entire family found dead the next week.

It was supposed to be a simple dare for somebody like Oliver. Go into the mansion's cellar and take a bottle of wine, and take a picture of himself with it. The task had gone off without a hitch, although in his phone's camera roll, he tried not to think about what looked suspiciously like a blurry hand reaching for his shoulder. It was the next task that seemed much more daunting to him, sleeping for the night in one of the upstairs rooms.

The other bedrooms had seemed to have their doors blocked, immovable no matter how much Oliver jiggled the handle, until he finally found one to open with no resistance whatsoever. The room seemed different to the rest of the house, as if the foreboding feeling that he felt vanished when he stepped foot inside. Just realizing how weary he felt, he kicked off his shoes and sank into the luxuriously soft, if dusty, four-poster bed, pulling the covers over him as he drifted off to sleep. However, it felt like it had been no time at all before Olvier was awakened by the silvery, ethereal image of a young woman sitting on the edge of the bed. She was young looking, if not slightly older than him, and her smile had a hint of sadness to it.

After she had patiently waited for Oliver to recover from the minor shock of seeing a ghost sitting on the edge of the bed, she explained herself to be Lady Francesca Maronette, daughter of late 19th century robber baron Louis Maronette. The Maronettes had been an old and wealthy family, but the patriarch Louis wasn't satisfied. Deep, deep beneath the earth in a secret chamber underneath the mansion's cellar, he had begun a communion with the infernal denizens of the underworld, who would give him all that he asked for in exchange for the souls of him and his family. Louis was blinded by his greed, and in hus hubris he accepted the deal only for the devils to break their bargain, taking him then and there.

From there, the devils had swarmed the rest of the house as they killed and took the souls of the Maronette family, but Francesca, herself a practitioner of white magic, was able to save her soul from being consumed, but lacking the power to face the demons herself, she used her power to barricade herself inside of her room, creating a safeguard between the demons and herself. And now that Oliver was present in the mansion, she would be able to inhabit his body and with their souls combined, the two might have a chance of cleansing her home.

Journeying down into the depths, Oliver felt invigorated by the white magic now present in his veins, and the warm companionship that Lady Francesca gave him. He felt as though his fear was vanishing, being replaced by courageous drive to rid the mansion of the evil that had made it's home inside. When they opened the secret compartment with the spiraling staircase leading down into the earth, Oliver felt the oppressing darkness pressing all around him, an unnatural feeling that made his fur prickle. He descended downwards and in the chamber below the mansion the binding circle that had been broken so long ago, the dark obsidian pillar stood in the middle, the engravings on the smooth, cool surface glowing with demonic energy.

The demons that had laid dormant in the mansion gathered in the area around him, and launched an assault against Oliver, but with a shield of white magic their hands burned on contact with it and he was able to wade through the unholy horde. He laid his hands upon the surface of the pillar and Lady Francesca used him as a conduit, forcing pure white magic into the pillar as it sizzled and cracked, and finally crumbled to pieces, the demon horde giving a shriek that rattled the foundations of the room and chilled Oliver to his bones as they were forced back to their underworld.

Oliver emerged from the mansion soon after into the cold night, the oppressive darkness of the grounds vanished after his exorcism. The newly minted white mage had found a purpose for himself.