[Thunder]

When Lucretia woke up, there was no color.

At first, she thought she was dreaming. Dreaming of a completely monochrome world, haunted by unsettling quiet. But the increasingly rapid pounding of her heart in her chest was evidence that this was no dream, but some new, twisted reality. She slowly rose out of her bed, rubbing her head, staring at her colorless room.

The Belvedere family photos. The roses in the vase on her nightstand. The cover of the novel she was reading just last night. They were all the same, all drained of their hues. Curious, Lucretia opened up the blinds and peered outside. The outside, too, was completely colorless. There was no green in the grass of the family graveyard or any blue in the sky.

[Thunder]

Lucretia rubbed her eyes. She wasn't sure if it was just her vision that was affected, or if others were seeing this too. There was only one way to find out. She went into her bathroom and tidied herself up for the day, taking note of her colorless reflection in the mirror, and then went to her closet to put on her ghost hunter gear: a lightly armored, black, studded jacket; easy-to-move-in black jeans, and black combat boots. Not that color coordination mattered right now, anyway. The last part of her gear as the massive, ectoplasm-destroying claw she liked to use. It fit snugly around her hand, and she wriggled her fingers a little bit to loosen its joints.

[Thunder]

She made her way out of her room and down the spiral staircase to the living room. There, she saw her aunt, Merrith Belvedere, staring out of the window. "So, you're seeing this too?" she asked her aunt.

Merrith turned around and adjusted her glasses. A solemn look was on the elderly woman's face. "Yes, I'm afraid so. The servants see no color, as well. They were quite startled this morning. Clearly, this is a paranormal incident."

As a ghost hunter, Lucretia had dealt with many paranormal situations before, but the scale of this particular case was staggering. The whole world, colorless! Either an exceptionally powerful fiend was out there, or there was a group of them, working together to drain the world of color. Either way, she suspected she would not resolve this one quickly.

[Thunder]

Lucretia took a moment to quickly down the breakfast the servants had laid out on the living room table. It consisted of a croissant, some tomato soup with crackers, fine cheese, and fresh fruit, all totally colorless. When she finished, she went straight to the front door, grabbing a backpack of ghost hunter supplies that was dangling from a hanger on the way. "I'm heading out to investigate," she told her aunt as she passed.

"And I shall contact the spirits to learn what they know," Merrith replied. "Be careful out there. It is close to the Witching Time, after all. I suggest that you bring Montessier with you."

[Thunder]

The front door opened up to the family graveyard and grounds. Montessier stayed outside here, and Lucretia glanced around, trying to find the gargoyle. Her eyes spotted a dark hump behind one of the tombstones. She walked over to discover Montiessier's sleeping form. The massive creature was snoring gently, his body rising up and down with each breath.

Lucretia gently stroked his back. "Wake up, Montie," she said. Slowly, the gargoyle's eyes opened, and he let out a loud yawn. He got to his feet and gave himself a good shake before raising his head to look around. Lucretia wasn't sure how Montessier perceived the world, but it was clear he could tell something was wrong. He sniffed the air and flattened his ears, letting out a low growl.

[Thunder]

Lucretia pet the gargoyle's stony mane. "Can you tell what direction it's coming from, Montie?" she asked. Montessier paused, angling his ears and sniffing around some more. He seemed to hesitate, turning around in place a few times before tentatively stopping to face southwest. Lucretia looked at the horizon in that direction. She remembered that Lya Pointa Cathedral was that way. There were many unsettling stories about the run down cathedral, and it was a hotbed for evil spirits and monsters. If the source of the colorless world was lurking there, Lucretia would not be surprised.

"Let's go then, Montie," she said. She strode over to the front gates of the graveyard and opened them, with Montessier following close behind.

[Thunder]

Lya Pointa Cathedral was not too far from the Belvedere mansion, but it was not quite walking distance either. Luckily, the Belvederes always had a cabbie on call, waiting patiently at the road in front of the mansion, ready to serve. She requested a trip to Lya Pointa from him and helped Montessier squeeze into the back of the car before getting into the shotgun seat. The cabbie started up the engine and drove off, passing through the monochrome streets of town, where everyone looked on edge and scared.

After some time, the town gave way to flat, empty countryside. A vast sea of pale, silvery grass stretched out into the distance. The farm houses here, usually vivid red, were now as drab as everything else. The few trees in the area, which should have been orange, brown, red, and gold, instead bore leaves of gray.

"Sure is something, isn't it?" the cabbie muttered.

[Thunder]

Eventually, they reached the outskirts of Lya Pointa Cathedral. It was a dreary, gloomy place, and now that everything was gray, the sense of malaise was stronger. The ruins of the cathedral seemed even more menacing, and the dead trees scattered around the area looked like twisted, black claws scraping the sky. Flocks of Malphas cried out from their perches as if heralding the approach of something sinister.

The cabbie stopped some distance away from the cathedral ruins and let his passengers out. Lucretia thanked him and helped Montessier exit the back seats. Once they were both out, the cabbie turned his car around and drove back down the winding road that led to the cathedral. It wasn't good for average folks like the cabbie to linger here. There were stories about those who did hang around too long.

[Thunder]

Lucretia watched the car vanish into the distance and then turned to the cathedral. She took a deep breath. It had been a while since she had last been here, but she remembered the evil spirits and ghouls that haunted this place previously were difficult to deal with. With Montie close by her side, she walked up the slight slope to the cathedral ruins, keeping her senses sharply attuned to her surroundings.

Once she was right in front of the ruins, the smell of stone and old, time worn things hit her. The scent, at least, was familiar, even if the colorlessness of the environment made everything seem different. "Is it here, Montie?" she asked her companion. The gargoyle nodded.

[Thunder]

With that confirmation, Lucretia closed her eyes and reached out with her sixth sense. It was a special sense that ran through the blood of all Belvederes, the power to detect spirits and wicked beings. Though the world was now colorless, in Lucretia's mind, her sixth sense gave the world color. For the most part, their immediate surroundings were tinted green, which meant that nothing was out of the ordinary and there wasn't anything supernatural lurking around. A bit further ahead, however, she caught a patch of yellow aura on the ground. Yellow usually did not mean danger, but it did mean that something worth investigating was there.

[Wild Pet Found]

[Thunder]

She opened her eyes and, as the colors from her aura vision receded, Lucretia was once again struck by how strange it was to not see any color in the world. She commanded Montessier to follow her and headed in the direction of the yellow patch she detected. She passed by the crumbling remains of a cathedral wall and tattered, dusty tapestries with designs that had faded to time. When she came upon the site of the yellow aura, she found a stone coffin with a chipped lid and a worn down plaque bearing an inscription right underneath the coffin. Perhaps there was something significant inside the coffin.

[Thunder]

She took a moment to study the inscription on the plaque, but to her disappointment, it was not in any kind of language she could read. Not that it would have been easy to read if she could understand it, anyway. Erosion had erased a significant amount of the text, leaving large gaps of flat stone in between the words. She sighed and glanced around. There wasn't really anything else of interest around here.

At that moment, however, Montessier pushed his paw onto the plaque. There was a click, and the plaque sank into the ground underneath his paw's weight. A harsh, scraping sound broke the quietness of the ruins; it was the cover of the coffin slowly shifting to the left all on its own, stone grating against stone.

[Thunder]

After a few seconds, the lid stopped moving, leaving the coffin wide open. There were no remains inside. Instead, there was what looked to be a very steeply angled stone staircase descending into a deep darkness. Lucretia blinked at Montessier. "Hmph, did you know how to read that plaque?" she asked him. "Or did you just make a lucky guess?"

Montessier shook his head and licked his paw that pressed the plaque.

Well, never mind how the gargoyle figured it out. Lucretia shifted her backpack around to her front and unzipped it, rummaging around for a flashlight. No proper ghost hunter ever left their house without one. She found the flashlight, closed her backpack back up, and swung it onto her back again. She switched it on, and a beam of light shined down into the darkness. But it was so dark that, after some distance, the light was totally swallowed.

[Thunder]

Lucretia hoisted herself over the coffin's edge and took some tentative steps down the stairs. Their angle was extremely uncomfortable, and they were rather thin steps as well. There was nothing to hold on to, and she felt she could fall forward at any moment, tumbling headfirst into whatever hell awaited at the bottom. A damp smell hit her nose, which made her think the stairs led into a cavern.

Taking a deep breath, she coaxed Montessier onto the stairs. The gargoyle grumbled nervously and flattened his ears, also put off by the steep incline. "Come on, Montie, don't be a chicken," Lucretia sighed. She began descending into the fathomless darkness, looking over her shoulder every so often to make sure her gargoyle protector was never far behind.

[Thunder]

The stairs seemed to go down forever. The small rectangle of light from the open coffin lid was long gone, and there seemed to be only more darkness up ahead. As Lucretia descended, her claustrophobia increased, making her somewhat nauseous. The walls enveloping the staircase were quite narrow. Montessier could only fit by pressing his wings tightly against his body.

They must have gone several yards down into the earth before the narrow walls finally opened up and the staircase ended. The flashlight revealed a circular cavern that branched out into two paths, one to the right and one to the left. Lucretia called her sixth sense again, and while the area was mostly green, she caught a faint trail of yellow wandering off into the passage to the left. Something had gone that way some time ago.