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Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

1.

A house is shaped by the person living within it, and that goes doubly for witches. Every witch is the eye of a mystical storm, and her house and belongings cannot help but warp in the weather. You were once just a door, and presumably a tree before that. You don't know exactly what you are now or when you became it, but you do know a great deal of other things. You cannot see, but you can hear, through the vibrations in your oaken body and iron hinges. You've learned.

Your mistress sits before the hearth, sorting through a basket of medicinal herbs and fungi, occasionally throwing a pinch of something into the flames. If you could sense light, you'd know the long shadows and the deepness of the dark. As it is you can feel yourself cooling and contracting, and you can tell the sun has set. You feel the slow tick of the clock. You feel the wind on your back.

You feel a scratching.

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Open- go to 4

2.

The scratching, scrabbling sensation intensifies. Your mistress hears it too, you hear her turn to you. Is she alarmed? The visitor is clearly intent on gaining entry, perhaps even desperate. You would swear you feel tiny pins gouging into you.

As suddenly as it started, the scratching stops, and you let your locks relax once more. All is quiet, but your mistress doesn't move. The visitor hasn't left.

Tappa tappa tappa. It's drumming on the window pane.

Remain closed- go to 3

Open- go to 4

3.

Tappa tappa tappa it goes, rattling the glass. It sounds like claws, or long, sharpened fingernails.

Tappa tappa tappa, and your mistress sets down her basket. You can't tell if she sees something behind the curtains.

TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA and then silence. You and your mistress listen intently. She doesn't dare breathe.

Footsteps approaching. Two people by the sound of it. You shake as knuckles rap your back.

Knock knock.

Remain closed- go to 5

Open- go to 6

4.

This seems to you like witchery, and witchery is welcome here. You open a crack, and something small flits inside the cottage and lands lightly on the mantelpiece.

Chirrup chip pip pip chirrupit, It says. You feel as if you might have understood these words in a previous life, but alas you can make no sense of it now. Whatever the message, it's clearly bad news. Reflexively, you slam yourself shut, opening again briefly to free the sparrow. Your mistress scurries around, hiding various implements and artefacts, gathering others to hide them in her skirt pockets, and donning her cloak.

Lifting the rug, she tugs on a metal ring thrice, and the trapdoor yields on the third, bursting open in a cloud of dust. She climbs in and closes the door, and the rug rolls itself back to hide her.

Footsteps approach outside, two people by the sound of it. You shake as knuckles rap your back.

“Open up!” demands a voice. Authoritative. Educated, to an extent. Not wise, though. This is the kind of voice that belongs to a dog of a man, one that takes orders without question and relishes barking them at others. Barely five seconds later they're battering you, with fists first, then boots too. You can feel yourself beginning to splinter.

Remain closed- go to 8

Open- go to 9

5.

“Open up!” demands a voice. Authoritative. Educated, to an extent. Not wise, though. This is the kind of voice that belongs to a dog of a man, one that takes orders without question and relishes barking them at others.

Remain closed- go to 7

Open- go to 6

6.

You are thrown open, slamming against the wall as two men muscle past. You feel something crack.

“On your knees! Show your hands! Attempt to say anything and it will be treated as malediction!”

You hear the ring of a drawn sword.

“I said show your hands! Palms up!”

There's some sort of scuffle. You hear a thump, and your mistress exhales hoarsely. Chains tinkle and a mechanism clicks. You can distantly recognise it as a lock, although not of a kind you're familiar with.

“You are to be tried for blasphemy, witchcraft, harlotry, and inciting demonic intrusion. You are to remain silent. Resist in any way and I swear to God, we will run you through.”

You feel them brush past you. Hanging by one hinge, you're unable to stop them as your mistress is dragged away to town, where a trial of torture awaits, and a bonfire is already being built.

7.

At this your mistress panics, bolting into action. She scurries around the cottage, hiding various implements and artefacts, gathering others to hide them in her skirt pockets, and donning her cloak.

Lifting the rug, she tugs on a metal ring thrice, and the trapdoor yields on the third, bursting open in a cloud of dust. She climbs in and closes the door, and the rug rolls itself back to hide her.

Patience at an end, the witch hunters begin battering you, with fists first, then boots too. You can feel yourself beginning to splinter.

Remain closed- go to 8

Open- go to 9

8.

They continue to beat you. Stress fractures run through your body and chunks of you start breaking away. A boot rams through one of your panels, and it ruptures inwards.

One more kick like that and you'll split.

Remain closed- go to 10

Open- go to 9

9.

With no more strength left, you creak forlornly open, barely a door anymore. Sensing your sorry state, the rest of the furniture almost seems to shrink away from the witch hunters. The men start to tear books from shelves and rip drawers out of the kitchen cabinet, upending their contents onto the floor. It's only a matter of time until they uncover the trapdoor. A fire awaits your mistress. Likely as not, a fire awaits you too.

10.

The witch hunter general tries to finish you with a bullish shoulder, but you refuse to yield. You'd scream if you could as you pop a batten and spear your assailant on a spike of your own broken corse. You tumble into the cottage together.

“Hell,” spits the general, clutching his side. His partner hovers at the threshold, unsure whether to help or pay heed to his fear.

Blood seeps into the floorboards. The cottage knows what you've done. Shelves begin to rock. The hearth breathes sparks. Knives rattle in the drawers.

“Holy mother -” starts the general, picking himself up and backing away. The chandelier breaks its chain above him and crashes him back down to the floor. Knives start flying. Shelves topple. The cottage buries him alive, and his partner runs, yelping into the woods.

Your pieces mingle with the broken walls and rafters, with shards of glass and bits of clockwork. You're not a door anymore. You're something bigger.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

1.

A house is shaped by the person living within it, and that goes doubly for witches. Every witch is the eye of a mystical storm, and her house and belongings cannot help but warp in the weather. You were once just a door, and presumably a tree before that. You don't know exactly what you are now or when you became it, but you do know a great deal of other things. You cannot see, but you can hear, through the vibrations in your oaken body and iron hinges. You've learned.

Your mistress sits before the hearth, sorting through a basket of medicinal herbs and fungi, occasionally throwing a pinch of something into the flames. If you could sense light, you'd know the long shadows and the deepness of the dark. As it is you can feel yourself cooling and contracting, and you can tell the sun has set. You feel the slow tick of the clock. You feel the wind on your back.

You feel a scratching.

Remain closed- go to 2

Open- go to 4

2.

The scratching, scrabbling sensation intensifies. Your mistress hears it too, you hear her turn to you. Is she alarmed? The visitor is clearly intent on gaining entry, perhaps even desperate. You would swear you feel tiny pins gouging into you.

As suddenly as it started, the scratching stops, and you let your locks relax once more. All is quiet, but your mistress doesn't move. The visitor hasn't left.

Tappa tappa tappa. It's drumming on the window pane.

Remain closed- go to 3

Open- go to 4

3.

Tappa tappa tappa it goes, rattling the glass. It sounds like claws, or long, sharpened fingernails.

Tappa tappa tappa, and your mistress sets down her basket. You can't tell if she sees something behind the curtains.

TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA TAPPA and then silence. You and your mistress listen intently. She doesn't dare breathe.

Footsteps approaching. Two people by the sound of it. You shake as knuckles rap your back.

Knock knock.

Remain closed- go to 5

Open- go to 6

4.

This seems to you like witchery, and witchery is welcome here. You open a crack, and something small flits inside the cottage and lands lightly on the mantelpiece.

Chirrup chip pip pip chirrupit, It says. You feel as if you might have understood these words in a previous life, but alas you can make no sense of it now. Whatever the message, it's clearly bad news. Reflexively, you slam yourself shut, opening again briefly to free the sparrow. Your mistress scurries around, hiding various implements and artefacts, gathering others to hide them in her skirt pockets, and donning her cloak.

Lifting the rug, she tugs on a metal ring thrice, and the trapdoor yields on the third, bursting open in a cloud of dust. She climbs in and closes the door, and the rug rolls itself back to hide her.

Footsteps approach outside, two people by the sound of it. You shake as knuckles rap your back.

“Open up!” demands a voice. Authoritative. Educated, to an extent. Not wise, though. This is the kind of voice that belongs to a dog of a man, one that takes orders without question and relishes barking them at others. Barely five seconds later they're battering you, with fists first, then boots too. You can feel yourself beginning to splinter.

Remain closed- go to 8

Open- go to 9

5.

“Open up!” demands a voice. Authoritative. Educated, to an extent. Not wise, though. This is the kind of voice that belongs to a dog of a man, one that takes orders without question and relishes barking them at others.

Remain closed- go to 7

Open- go to 6

6.

You are thrown open, slamming against the wall as two men muscle past. You feel something crack.

“On your knees! Show your hands! Attempt to say anything and it will be treated as malediction!”

You hear the ring of a drawn sword.

“I said show your hands! Palms up!”

There's some sort of scuffle. You hear a thump, and your mistress exhales hoarsely. Chains tinkle and a mechanism clicks. You can distantly recognise it as a lock, although not of a kind you're familiar with.

“You are to be tried for blasphemy, witchcraft, harlotry, and inciting demonic intrusion. You are to remain silent. Resist in any way and I swear to God, we will run you through.”

You feel them brush past you. Hanging by one hinge, you're unable to stop them as your mistress is dragged away to town, where a trial of torture awaits, and a bonfire is already being built.

7.

At this your mistress panics, bolting into action. She scurries around the cottage, hiding various implements and artefacts, gathering others to hide them in her skirt pockets, and donning her cloak.

Lifting the rug, she tugs on a metal ring thrice, and the trapdoor yields on the third, bursting open in a cloud of dust. She climbs in and closes the door, and the rug rolls itself back to hide her.

Patience at an end, the witch hunters begin battering you, with fists first, then boots too. You can feel yourself beginning to splinter.

Remain closed- go to 8

Open- go to 9

8.

They continue to beat you. Stress fractures run through your body and chunks of you start breaking away. A boot rams through one of your panels, and it ruptures inwards.

One more kick like that and you'll split.

Remain closed- go to 10

Open- go to 9

9.

With no more strength left, you creak forlornly open, barely a door anymore. Sensing your sorry state, the rest of the furniture almost seems to shrink away from the witch hunters. The men start to tear books from shelves and rip drawers out of the kitchen cabinet, upending their contents onto the floor. It's only a matter of time until they uncover the trapdoor. A fire awaits your mistress. Likely as not, a fire awaits you too.

10.

The witch hunter general tries to finish you with a bullish shoulder, but you refuse to yield. You'd scream if you could as you pop a batten and spear your assailant on a spike of your own broken corse. You tumble into the cottage together.

“Hell,” spits the general, clutching his side. His partner hovers at the threshold, unsure whether to help or pay heed to his fear.

Blood seeps into the floorboards. The cottage knows what you've done. Shelves begin to rock. The hearth breathes sparks. Knives rattle in the drawers.

“Holy mother -” starts the general, picking himself up and backing away. The chandelier breaks its chain above him and crashes him back down to the floor. Knives start flying. Shelves topple. The cottage buries him alive, and his partner runs, yelping into the woods.

Your pieces mingle with the broken walls and rafters, with shards of glass and bits of clockwork. You're not a door anymore. You're something bigger.