[Real Places] #1. Headlight

Real Places is a series of small adventures inspired by my photography, meant to be an exercise in writing (for me) and ideas or encounters for your games. There are no mechanics here, just a setup.

It’s darker than usual. Normally, objects are bathed in a dim hue from the lights of various closed appliances. It’s funny, you think, that we need signals of when things aren’t currently functioning.

During hot summer days, you would rather sleep in the basement’s guest room. It’s cool and the air is heavy. You joke that it feels like a coffin.

You thought what woke you up is the buzzing of your cellphone, but it’s dead. It’s the thumping : slow and meandering, above you on the main floor. You are meant to be alone.

Why are you alone? (Roll a D6)

1 - Your parents are gone on vacation
2 - Your partner is on a business trip
3 - You’re a loner
4 - You are housesitting for a family member
5 - You are recently seperated
6 - It’s dangerous to be around you

You are (Roll a D6 for each row) :

1 - Sturdy 2 - Fearless 3 - Dextrous 4 - Smart 5 - Street smart 6 - Lucky
and
1 - Anxious 2 - Clumsy 3 - Cynical 4 - Impatient 5 - Impulsive 6 - Aggressive

Your eyes slowly accomodate to the darkness and the objects in your immediate vicinity start to be defined as if you were penciling them from memory. You look outside through the small basement window and you barely see the rain in the night. No moonlight, no street lights, no sign of electricity.

The thumping stops, but the silence fills the room with tension before, as if between two beats, it finally starts again, quicker and more disjointed. Those can’t be footsteps.

You slowly approach the stairway and where you expect total darkness, a beam of flickering light shoots through the small gap of the uneven wooden door.

Then, a hiss. No, a scream. Like metal bending and being thorn apart all at the same time. The light is turned off but in its stead, a black inky void, as if it was projected the same way light would be.

Then the sound of something heavy falling on the floor and that same slither of luminosity from the door clicking from void to white, intermittenly. It’s coming towards the stairs.

Create your basement :

• It has 1D6 rooms.

• (1d6) 1 - Mostly dirt and brick except for your room 2 - Empty rooms except for your bed 3 - Small and filled with old boxes 4 - Has parts you never go to 5 - Has an atelier and workout gear 6 - A full living arrangement with kitchen and bathroom

• The only way out of the house is through the main floor.

• The basement holds one secret you never knew.

Find a hiding place.

The door is quickly opened and closed, too quick, and it makes the room vibrate. The white light intensifies as it comes down, drowning all the detail from things except for a faint outline.

You see a sphere of impossible white held above the shoulders of the headless statue of a woman. It is not walking but clumsily teleporting 1 foot a time forward, slamming on the ground, colliding on the walls and rocking from the impact. Its limbs are unmoving and still.

As if sweeping through the space like an eye, the blinding light focuses on movement and the statue quickly teleports to a clothesrack with tshirts drying, slowly swaying from the action. Then the screeching again and the sphere implodes to void as it sucks in the clothesrack into a small point, every grain of wood and cotton breaking apart in this suction.

You should probably avoid this.

It seems that when it turns black hole, the statue is unaware of its surroundings as it consumes, in but an instant, its target.

Using your characteristics rolled before and navigating the basement you created, escape the house as this creature reacts to any movement in the light. When it is in void mode, though, your visibility is null and your movement impeded.

Find ways to lure it away or use the darkness to your advantage.

Once escaped, you wonder : What was it? Was it sent? Will it follow me?

Thank you for reading! You can always reply to this email if you want to chat some more. Also, come by the discord channel and say hi.

This substack is free, but if you want to support me you can do so by checking out my games on my website, itch.io, or drivethru.