Welcome to the Hiems Mansion!

A young, red-haired boy watched as the dawn illuminated the massive mansion’s entrance in front of him. The bursts of blue fire along the entrance flickered out one by one as warm yellow light lightened the tongue-shaped walkway. The light filled the cracks in the mansion’s dark gray and purple walls.

The eye’s massive spherical shape lazily turned until faced him. He tensed, thinking back to the friends he’d met when he found this place, the first generation of hosts. They had vanished, even three of the five hosts who’d stepped up to help him afterward had vanished too, and he dreaded the mansion was to blame. The pupil shifted to its normal purple color, bright in the early light, and glanced off toward another part of the mansion. His tension didn’t ebb, though he felt two presences approaching him from behind.

He turned to find a pale woman with white hair and a tall man with a fluffy reddish brown tail behind him. Despite the presence of his fellow hosts, the young shapeshifter still felt uneasy. What had once started off as an adventure had quickly darkened into the beginnings of a nightmare.

The other two hosts stayed silent for a few moments. The white-haired woman ran a hand along one of the yellowed teeth jutting up from the mansion’s walkway. “I don’t think anything has changed,” she said.

The hellhound nodded. “We always knew there was danger involved--for the guests, for the tutors, for us. There’s no getting around it. I miss the others too.”

The white haired woman blinked her three red eyes. “Even without them. We can still entertain the guests. They still can enjoy the mansion, earn ligts, and have fun meeting other people.”

The boy said nothing. He managed to shift his gaze away from the mansion’s entrance, from the mysterious letters over its eye-adorned door, then sighed. He had invited two new hosts to join the mansion’s staff--the third generation of hosts--but now he was worried. What if he was dooming them, too?

The mansion door creaked open, revealing two more people. One was a tall woman wearing a creature-tipped hat, and the other was a gray-haired boy with a hungry-looking scarf.

Finally, the red-haired boy lifted his head. A spark of hope grew in his eyes. There was a reason he was still here, why the other two were still here. The white haired woman had been right-- at the heart of all things, their purpose was to protect the guests. “Greetings, new hosts. The third age of the mansion begins now.”