Duskmourn: House of Horrors Side Story Review: Welcome Home

Preface

I am not a horror fan. I recently tried to watch The Blare Witch Project and…I could not finish it. Watching horror is simply not my thing. The closest I get to horror is the chapter "A Journey in the Dark" in The Lord of the Rings which is to say close, but not quite in the genre itself. So I find it puzzling that I'm eagerly awaiting the modern horror plane, but I am. Its like horror…but almost horror lite. I can enjoy it without scaring myself to death. This first side story was pretty great.

Analysis

I wont include a synopsis: this one is short enough you should just go ahead and read it. Done? Excellent

This is basically the story about how some, currently unknown, demon or other entity is luring you into a trap. It starts relatively polite, and slowly becomes more sinister, concealing your fate before it's far, far too late. It's wonderful, with lots of great forshadowing.

This whole story starts innocuous (although not that innocuous). I loved the "welcome harrowed..I mean honored" line to start. It immediately tells you that this is not a safe place but it's subtle. I completely missed it my first read, but caught it immediately on my second read. The entity keeps telling you about the plane you stumbled into, and again foreshadows the truth:

This part of the house is called the Boilerbilge. I do apologize for the heat. Turning it down is quite impossible, but, as few linger here long enough to feel any ill effects, it's a small complication in a world that's made of them

Again, another hint that you're doomed, but it's again subtle. The author is playing fair. For all we know we're still just learning about the plane. You're then appeased by the story of Duskmourn: it was once a beautiful plane, but they craved more. Those cravings led to true "deals with the devil" which became the plane's undoing. Again we get a little foreshadowing:

The House was a bloated corpse swallowing the rest of the world, until there was nothing left to eat, and all that remained was Duskmourn itself and the survivors in its walls, like rats.

Again, little do we know that we're what's for dinner: we're still learning the backstory and now it's time for the payoff:

Oh, yes, it is difficult to stand up after you've been sitting for too long. The chairs tend to hold what's given to them, you see, and you sat willingly. Contracts and consequences. But you caught your breath some time ago, and that was all the safety I promised you.

Trapped like a rat, and now trapped forever. We're doomed.

We learn a lot about the plane itself: it was born from, in some ways, the best of intentions. But our desires turned into agony. The plane was born of "a summoning, a binding, and a contract, a slaughter, a betrayal, and a consequence" which I am sure we'll learn more of in the future. We also get to see the insidious nature of the plane at work. It enslaved a survivor to do its dirty work, in order to ensure it's own survival. After a long time of learning about the plane and seeing what it did to the original inhabitants: the unnamed voice is simply…indifferent. All that matters is ensuring their survival.

Now, then. It's so nice of you to stay for dinner. But I'm delighted to say that I won't be joining you just yet. As long as I can keep feeding my dining hall, it won't feel the need to feed on me. So, this is where we say farewell, I suppose, unless your ghost comes back for a second helping.

Keep an eye out for a ghost we saw in the past: I'm guessing it's from this story.

Grade: A

A wonderful treatise of an intro to this plane.