The Mansion Jeff and his friends were going to was a rather old and large mansion located on a hill some fair distance from town and surrounded by forests, it was formerly the home to some estranged millionaire some 40 years ago who met his end due to an accident within his estate. And due to the mans lack of any close next-of-kin, his belongings and corporations were handed over to a distant uncle who quickly tried to sell off the mansion, before abandoning it entirely when he found no buyers or reason to hold on to it.
Its remoteness from civilization and old age spawning rumors and dares were the primary reasons why Jeff's friend Todd came with the idea to explore the inside of the old mansion to his friend-group, and believing it would be fun and/or cool, they accepted. And so the five friends drove for an hour along circuitous and decayed roads until they arrived at the grand, rusted gates to the abandoned millionaires estate.
"And we're here." Jeff announced as he pulled the car into park to the side of the gates.
"Ugh, finally. 𝘍𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘰𝘮." Zack gasped as he rushed out of the car to get some fresh air to calm his upset stomach.
"I told you not to look at your phone dude." Dean followed behind to lightly pat him on the back.
"And I told you the road was bad." Todd snarked as he joined in on patting Zack on the back
"Y-you didn't say it was so swingy!" Zack complained
"Thats part of what makes a road bad dude." Dean responded.
"Not my fault I didn't think a rich-guys road to his giant mansion had 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 many fucking swings!" Zack seethed
"Sober up Zack, we're gonna be exploring a haunted mansion." Mike was giddy as always, he had always been the horror games and movies guy in their group, and while they didn't expect this mansion to be anything like some of your standard horror-movie/game places, he was genuinely excited to explore a bonafide abandoned mansion, especially one as 𝘣𝘪𝘨 as this one was.
"More like a haunted 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘦 man. who needs something 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 big?" Jeff added, quickly locking the car and putting the car-key snugly in a pocket, then whistling at the sight beyond the rusted gates.
The mansion looked like a combination of really old Victorian and Gothic style building 4 stories tall with castle-like towers on each corner and the roof, despite having several massive holes, was covered in large gargoyle statues. Yet overall despite being left to the elements for decades the rest of the mansion looked surprisingly intact, though every window was quite obviously boarded up 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺securely.
"Is it just me or shouldn't it be more worse-for-wear?" Jeff asked, Zack, Dean and Todd shrugged while Mike looked thoughtful.
"Well how long has it been since it was abandoned?" Mike wondered, and most everyone shrugged.
"Pretty sure its been here for our whole lives." Jeff replied.
"Uh, yeah, maybe its worse inside?" He theorized.
"Less talking more exploring guys! C'mon." Todd declared as he waltzed through the gate, beckoning everyone to follow his lead. Despite the gate having rusted stuck, the gates hadn't been fully closed, so there were enough space between them for a grown man, or a 16-year old teenager, to walk through without problem.
But as they walked through the formerly undoubtedly-pristine-but-now-completely-overgrown garden. they found that the mansions front door, and any other alternate forms of egress they could see, were completely boarded up.
"Well this is problematic." Jeff declared as they took in the sight of a pair of massive oak doors near completely concealed by boards, there was a small sign on it but its been such a long time since it was made that the characters have become unintelligible scribbles.
"Maybe theres a back entrance?" Mike suggested.
"Lets search around the back." Todd nodded.
"How about we split up and meet up at the back?" Dean suggested, everyone nodded.
"Alright, me, Mike and Jeff will go left, you and Dean go right, even if you find what you think might be a valid entryway dont enter it before we've all met up again." everyone agreed and we split to search.
And while they did that, Jeff took the opportunity granted by being in the back of a group of three to quickly go through the Chronivac, deciding that he wanted to quickly see if the Mansions inside was terribly decayed and boring, a quick scan with the Chronivac told him that the Mansion was 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 old and quite decayed, and giving himself temporary X-ray vision confirmed his fears. The Mansion, with its massive size, old age and breached roof, had an interior best described as decrepit and barren with a small, entirely flooded basement being the only non-boarded (but locked) entryway available to him and his friends.
Jeff was rightly annoyed at the lack of easy entry, and the complete lack of any interesting things inside, him and his friends were here to explore an abandoned mansion dammit, it wouldn't be any fun if they needed to get a damned crowbar to enter, and especially so when they'd find nothing but rotted planks and a whole lot of nothing inside. But, Jeff had the perfect solution to that problem; 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘢𝘤.
Making sure his friends didn't find it odd that he had his attention glued to his phone, he quickly made several changes to the Mansion: Firstly the backdoor going into the Mansion-basement had the rusted chain-and-lock made to be so incredibly decayed it could be effortlessly broken by any of them. The Basement was no longer flooded, and he made it much bigger so it was a more proper basement in his opinion. And finally he made the Mansions interior not-decayed, or more like its exterior when it came to decay instead of near-entirely-decayed, and he made the Mansions desolate halls actually filled with stuff, like dusty furniture, pictures, chandeliers, anything a millionaire might populate his mansion with, but made intentionally creepy with age and dust.
And that was about everything he decided to do for now before he, Todd and Mike found the basement-door.
"Hey this ones not boarded up!" Todd immediately noticed.
"And its different from the others. Think it goes to the basement?" Mike wondered, noting its darker colouration to the other boarded mansion side/back-doors and low position ringed in mossy stone.
"Its locked though-. hey does that chain look... Awfully rusted?" Jeff noted, leaning in to fake inspection of the padlock and chain that honestly looked to have been held in acid until recently with how rusty and damaged it looked.
"Huh, 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 rusted, though I dont think-." Todd was interrupted when jeff tested the chain, and it immediately broke off with such ease he was genuinely caught off-guard.
They stood in silence for a brief moment, before Todd broke it. "We're not here to vandalize or anything, remember? Buuuuut, I dont think anyone will mind a broken chain when it has rusted beyond all reasonable degree..."
"We'll say we found it broken already to anyone who's concerned, like the police if we're unlucky enough?" Mike suggested to unilateral nods from all three of us.
"Lets go let the others know we found a way in." Todd said to their agreement and noone had any arguement against it so they went and met up with Zack and Dean who predictably hadn't found any other way in except for more boarded up windows and doors.
Back at the Basement doors, Todd struggled briefly with the door before it opened with a horrible screech due to the rusty, but functional, hinges, giving view of narrow stairs descending into what was quite obviously the basement.
"Its dark down there. You have the flashlights yes?" Mike observed, then asked them to nods from everyone, while they didn't plan to be out at night (it was 5 o'clock by now) they didn't expect an abandoned mansion to have sufficient internal lighting and they didn't want their phones to get low on power by constantly using the inbuilt flashlight, so they had actual flashlights with them courtesy of Jeffs dad.
"Well, time to explore an abandoned mansion guys!" Todd grinned as he flicked on his flashlight and led the way down the stone stairs into the unlit mansion basement and then further.
"Awfully empty here." Mike eventually noted as they were searching for a way up into the mansion itself.
"They probably took everything they could before abandoning it." Zack stated, Mike nodded.
Jeff grimaced slightly out of sight, he'd meant to ensure the enlarged basement had more stuff in it but he'd not figured out what he wanted down there before they descended, he'd figure out later on if he wanted to bother.
It didn't take much longer for them to find some stairs upward into the mansion proper, and though the door didn't want to fully cooperate at first, it did give in without loudly shrieking.
"Now this, is cool." Todd whistled as they left what they tentatively identified as the mansions giant kitchen and entered the not-so-empty main hall.
"Woah, those pictures are creepy." Dean stated as they took in the rows of various pictures displayed along the massive halls walls.
"Well they don't like your typical pictures thats for sure" Jeff commented awkwardly.
"I retract my previous statement, what the fuck?" Zack added as he looked over one of the larger paintings; It looked like a combination of modern abstract art and biblical artwork.
"Is this supposed to be Satan when he was cast into hell to be tortured for eternity?" Mike wondered as he looked at the picture Zack was staring at.
"... Uh, thats certainly a maybe?" Zack responded, shrugging.
"Weird paintings or no, we're not here to question a dead guys sense of aesthetics, c'mon." Todd interrupted the two and lead everyone further down the hall, the group descending into silence as they took in the dead millionaires somewhat creepy taste in art.
And during that moment of overall silence between them, Jeff was trying to decide what he wanted to do with the Chronivac, though he was occasionally disrupted in his pondering when he caught sight of some rather distinct artwork or picture, or when he tried to look inconspicuous to his friends while he stared at the Chronivac app on his phone. Which culminated in Jeff looking through the Chronivac for a way to temparily pause time so he could fully think on what he wanted to do without worrying about his friends (he didn't want to run off suddenly, and he was rather unsure whether he wanted to immediately let them know about the app), and to his great joy, he found it and made time stop for however long he needed to decide.
He watched as all around him the world greyed and froze within seconds before Jeff was the only spot of color and movement he could see. Grinning at the solid confirmation about the Chronivacs ability, he settled down to brainstorm on what he wanted to do with this power.
Firstly, and most importantly, he wanted to use it to spice up their exploration. Now he wasn't completely sure how he wanted that to happen. He could make the Mansion genuinely haunted by the dead millionaire, with bodyshaping possession-powers and the ability to temporarily animate some objects around it to spice it up? Or he could make the Mansion host to a SAW-like game with transformative puzzles and the like?
Second, and similarly important, whatever he did, he didn't want to be inconsiderate with them and throw them into a genuinely dangerous situation/game, they were his friends and he would feel bad if he traumatized any one of them or got them absolutely 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘥 at him. So he decided that whatever he ended up doing, it would be completely harmless and not-painful (he'll even make it so nothing could actually hurt them), though he could make it so most of whatever happens 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 to be dangerous, but is in actuality completely perverted below the surface.
Thirdly he wanted them to be completely themselves, though he might have something brainwash or change their mind in some of his concepts, it would be ultimately finite and even reversible within the game/scenario, especially if they're made into slaves of the 'game'/scenarios antagonist(s). A side-note of that is that he wants them completely aware of any changes that might happen within the game/scenario so there would be no 'reality-alteration' (he would also ensure there is no outside interference unless needed), and he wanted to keep any additional changes with the Chronivac to a minimum during it all if he found something he wanted, and has an opportunity to, change.
Fourth, while he wouldn't be 𝘢𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘦 to it, he could make it so he himself 𝘪𝘴 or transforms 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 the game/scenarios Antagonist, though he felt that his friends would be more angry with him when it was all over if he was quite obviously what they 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 might've 'killed' some of them. So preferrably he wanted to participate in his creation alongside his friends, and to help make them treat it all seriously he's decided that he might as well make it so he is the first to get 'caught' in view of everyone, and to hopefully lessen any anger they might have with him after it all. As he wanted to make it so that everything would essentially be undone after the 'game' has been lost or completed, or one or none of them manages to escape the scenario, afterwhich Jeff would come out about the Chronivac hopefully without his friends getting completely livid with him.
...
But he could also be boring and just, immediately tell his friends about the Chronivac and get them to help make this mansion into a truly haunted (and kinky) Mansion, then watch it work on a couple nearby victims? Maybe bet on eachother and see if they could 'survive' their own creation? Fun like that.
It was a hard think, but eventually he made his deciscion and entered it all into the Chronivac o̶r̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶?̶ (though it went a little slow due to him needing to navigate a 𝘭𝘰𝘵 of options and tabs compressed onto an average-sized phonescreen) before making time go as normal again, silently accompanying his friends without needing to conceal his frequent usage of his phone, and instead focusing on hiding his grin of anticipation as they entered the Mansions giant foyer, and then watching the world change ever-so-slightly as the Game/ Scenario begun, and the opening scene began to play.
O̶r̶ ̶d̶i̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶ ̶d̶e̶c̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶t̶e̶l̶l̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶m̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶C̶h̶r̶o̶n̶i̶v̶a̶c̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶e̶a̶d̶?̶