The fourth installment of the Magic: The Gathering Duskmourn: House of Horror story picks up with the Wanderer, Niko, and Winter following the glimmer of Kyodai through the manor.
Previously, Winter had stated that following one’s glimmer would take them along a “relatively safe path” through the house, but after walking for some time, he grows suspicious at the lack of danger they had encountered so far. Niko encourages Winter to not be so pessimistic, but it’s clear that Winter’s mindset is based off of his many years of experience within Duskmourn.
Moving onward, the trio enters into a long gallery filled with mirrors – some broken, but most intact. Winter notices that his companions were starting to get memorized by their surroundings, so he quickly acts to get them refocused before the “glitch ghosts” find them. According to Winter, the glitch ghosts are spirits that died outside of Duskmourn, but enter into the manor through reflective surfaces and become trapped just like everything else. In that moment, a glitch ghost emerges through one of the mirrors and Niko swiftly throws a shard of magic at it. In the blink of an eye, the ghost is sucked into the shard, trapped by Niko’s magic.
Stunned, Winter comments he’d never seen anyone be able to fight a glitch ghost, but they have little time to celebrate their success, as Kyodai heads off down the hallway. The trio follows the glimmer into a new area of the home, which appears to be a forest but still covered by a large dome. Approaching the treeline with weapons ready, the party stops when they see fires ahead. The Wanderer scans the scene, observing figures covered in wood and twigs, as well as several hanging wicker cages containing several Nezumi – one of which is Nashi.
Despite Winter’s warnings, the Wanderer leaps into the circle of Wickerfolk, slashing away at them before getting pierced from all directions by branches and spikes. As her vision fades, she reaches for Aminatou’s fateshifter and finds herself back with Niko and Winter. The totem had saved her this time, but it wouldn’t again.
With a second chance, the Wanderer and Niko prepare to attack together, and Niko launches a surprise attack using the shard with the glitch ghost trapped inside. The surprise attack works, and the pair quickly shred through the Wickerfolk. Using his magic, Niko pulls Nashi into a shard and stores it away, safe from the chaos. One of the other trapped Nezumi calls out for them to use fire, to which Winter provides a make-shift lighter, and the Wanderer quickly lights up a pile of nearby brush. She then hurls the burning brush into the hoard of Wickerfolk, who immediately begin to retreat into the woods.
After freeing Nashi from Niko’s shard, the Nezumi youth explains that he has located Tamiyo, who was presumed to be dead. The Wanderer tries to talk sense into the grieving rat-folk, but he refuses to listen, carrying onward to where he believes his adoptive mother to be, and without any other leads, the party follows.
Zimone and Tyvar
Back in the library, Zimone and Tyvar have finally escaped from the human-spider creature and stop to catch their breath. They aren’t offered much respite however, as a rift begins to appear in a nearby bookshelf. Expecting another of the creatures they had just escaped from, Tyvar prepares to fight, but instead what emerges is the form of an “elegant elf woman,” who Zimone immediately identifies as Kianne, one of Strixhaven’s Deans who was killed during the Phyrexian incursion.
Clearly in shock, Zimone struggles to grasp what she’s seeing. She wants to believe her beloved Dean is still alive, but Tyvar begs her to listen to reason and accept that Kianne died and this is a monster preying on her weakness. Enraged by Tyvar’s words, the phantasmal Dean lunges at the pair, and Tyvar moves to shield Zimone. The imposter’s claws rip into Tyvar and he begins to bleed out. Once again, Aminatou’s fateshifter is able to rollback another death, and Tyvar prepares to defend Zimone again. This time, Tyvar is able to grab hold of the specter’s wrist.
Using his transmutation magic, Tyvar begins to cover himself in a plaster-like skin, mimicking that of the imposter Kianne. The monster immediately pulls away, fading back into the wall before striking out again, this time at Zimone. Tyvar quickly reacts at the same time, wrapping Zimone in an embrace, his magic washing over her as well. The transmutation moves quickly, and soon the pair’s skin is completely changed to that of the monster – and the house.
Tyvar goes on to explain to Zimone that the being they just fought was part of the house, not one of its inhabitants, and thus could not be killed, so instead he used his magic to make them part of the house as well. Realizing Duskmourn would not attack its own, the pair would be safe while under Tyvar’s magic. With their new “disguises,” they make their way to another room and find it filled with a number of the mysterious cherrywood doors. Realizing that Duskmourn is setting up even more traps now, the pair begins to look through the doors. As Zimone opens a door and sees Strixhaven on the otherside, she falls to the ground, realizing too late that the magic that made them part of the house was also slowly consuming them.
Just as it had with Tyvar moments earlier, Zimone’s fateshifter brings her back moments before her demise, and she immediately tells Tyvar to break the magic, which he does without question. She explains what had happened, and the pair realizes they need to be careful getting too close to Duskmourn or risk being consumed into its ranks. Thinking fast, Zimone suggests that they make their disguises out of things the can find within the house, as it might lessen Duskmourn’s desire to attack them. Together, the pair then moves into a nearby room and begins rummaging for anything they can use to help them blend in.
Jace and Kaito
Switching over to Jace and Kaito, the duo prepares to fight what they now see is a floating mass, improbable and horrific, with sharp teeth and filled with trapped souls. Jace confidently states that the creature is a nightmare, and asks Kaito to distract it. He then disappears, and Kaito is left to fend the nightmare off. After dodging a few strikes, the creature suddenly bursts into a cloudy fog. Jace then reappears, stating that he took the dreams away from the trapped souls, leaving nothing left for the nightmare to feed on.
With the threat dispelled, Jace informs Kaito that he’s here looking for Vraska and Loot, who evidently are lost within Duskmourn like everyone else. Begrudgingly, Kaito agrees to a temporary truce and the duo sets off down a nearby set of stairs.
“Basement gave way to boiler room to underground storage to an empty atrium whose glass ceiling looked out upon a sky spangled with unfamiliar stars to a great cavern that would have seemed natural if not for the patches of bare brick showing through the broken stone.”
As Jace and Kaito approach a door at the far end of a large cavern, the floor drops out from under them and the pair falls into a pit filled with a tar-like sludge. Kaito reacts faster than Jace, and moves to grab a set of rungs on the wall, but turns back when he hears Jace gasp, realizing that shackles have been placed around his ankles.
Kaito quickly jumps back into the sludge and uses his telekinesis to push the sludge away from Jace’s feet, just long enough for Himoto to pick the locks of the shackles.
While freeing Jace, similar shackles grab hold of Kaito. Jace, who’s now holding on to the wall rungs, grabs Kaito’s arm and says that he’ll hold onto him until he’s able to free himself. At that moment however, Jace looks up to see some sort of projection above showing Vraska and Loot running from blade-covered monsters.
Without another thought, Jace apologizes to Kaito and lets go of his arm, climbing quickly to his beloved’s aid. As Kaito sinks into the sludge, he curses Jace for yet another betrayal before being forced to planeswalk back to Ravnica.
Duskmourn: House of Horror is scheduled to release on September 27. View our official preview gallery.
