The Amazing Digital Circus E3: The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor - TV Tropes

Jax teaches Pomni that each of the Digital Circus characters have special abilities. To test what Pomni’s abilities are, Jax has her hold her breath as long as she can, which causes her to change colors. Caine swoops in to introduce today’s adventure: The Mystery of Mildenhall Manor. On this adventure, the characters will visit a haunted mansion. Caine stops talking when he notices that Zooble has wandered off again. The others are sent through a portal to begin the adventure.

As the group walks through the entry hall of the mansion, Pomni worries about how scary the adventure will be, as she’s never been a fan of the horror genre. Jax starts to tease her about this, but Ragatha tells him to leave Pomni alone, since she’s had a rough couple of days. Gangle hears creepy giggling, and suddenly a ghost appears before them, causing Pomni’s eyes to literally pop out. The spirit introduces itself as Ghostly and offers to be their guide for the adventure. As Kinger tries to put Pomni’s eyes back where they belong, Ghostly explains that there are two doors ahead. The left door takes them on a family-friendly adventure, while the one on the right leads to an extra scary adventure. Before Ghostly can finish explaining, Jax sucks the ghost inside his ghost vacuum, thinking that the goal of the adventure is to capture all the ghosts. When Gangle asks which way they should go, Jax pulls off Gangle’s mask and throws it through the door on the right. The door becomes a terrifying hellmouth, and the mask disappears. Kinger promises to get the mask back for Gangle but forgets that he’s holding on to Pomni’s eys, which are still attached to her head by a nerve. When Kinger blunders down the hellmouth, Pomni gets dragged along after him, and the mouth slams shut after her.

Jax: Oh that’s the scary door.

Meanwhile, back at the circus, Caine tries to have a therapy session with Zooble to find out why they keep skipping the adventures. Zooble exasperatedly says that they’ve had this discussion before, but Caine never remembers the details.

Kinger and Pomni find themselves in a dark trophy room. On the walls are mounted heads that look like each of the current performers at the Amazing Digital Circus. The head of another creature is mounted over the fireplace, but it isn’t from anyone they recognize. Kinger pushes the play button on a nearby tape recorder and hears a recording. The voice introduces itself as Baron Theodore Mildenhall. The Baron says that hunting was his favorite hobby, but the creature mounted over the fireplace was a monstrous creature that he had hunted for many years. When he learned the creature was an unholy abomination, the Baron spent every moment trying to protect himself and his family from the monster, but even when he killed it, he was still not free from it. The tape recording stops abruptly.

Kinger: You know, I’m starting to think…

Pomni suggests they try to find their way back to the rest of their party, but when she opens the door behind them, all she finds is a brick wall. Kinger finds an elevator, but it is locked. They keep searching the exits and find a small room with another recording.

Baron Theodore Mildenhall: (recording) Tuesday, December 4th. Although I had shot the creature multiple times in its vitals, and severed it’s head to keep as a prize on my wall, my troubles were just beginning. I took my eyes off the body for what felt like only a minute, and when I looked back, the body was gone. The creature was not dead. And it would be back to reclaim what I’d taken from it. If anyone is listening to this, all I ask from you is one thing: do not let the head out of your sight. You have been warned. (recording stops)

Kinger: Well, this is some rather inconvenient lore placement.

Pomni finds the key to the elevator, but the room suddenly goes pitch black. Kinger suggests they hold onto each other and try to get back to the trophy room. Hearing an ominous creaking sound, Kinger suggests they stay quiet, but he is unable to stay quiet when a fly keeps harassing him. Kinger catches the fly, but suddenly the ghostly head of the monster appears: a huge white face with red circles around its eyes and three rows of sharp teeth. With a horrible shriek, the monster comes at them. Pomni rushes to the elevator, but drops the key in her panic, and struggles to find it in the dark. Kinger looks at the flashing lights in the maw of the monster, seeming more fascinated than terrified.

Kinger: You look beautiful, honey…

Pomni unlocks the elevator and grabs Kinger before the monster can devour him. Pomni and Kinger climb inside the elevator but are dismayed when it goes down instead of up.

As Caine’s therapy session continues, Zooble says they are depressed because they hate the body they have in the circus. With a flick of his fingers, Caine conjures up a box full of spare toy body parts and suggests that Zooble simply swap their current limbs out for new ones. Zooble sadly says they’ve been trying to fix themselves ever since they arrived at the circus. Obliviously, Caine goes back to the subject of his adventures.

Zooble: Caine, nobody likes your stupid adventures.

Caine: Ha ha! Good one, Zooble!

Zooble: Ragatha’s just too nice to say anything. Jax just likes to bonk! with everybody, Gangle’s too shy to speak up, Kinger’s insane, and Pomni…she looks traumatized every time she comes back from one.

Caine insists that making adventures is what he’s good at, and as he contemplates the possibility of being bad at the only thing he’s good at, the entire circus starts to get glitchy, as though the stability of the dimension is dependent on Caine’s self-esteem. Zooble nervously asks Caine whose therapy session this is, and Caine abruptly switches back to his normal cheerful demeanor and gives Zooble an ink blot test.

The elevator comes to a crashing halt at the bottom of a dark cellar. Pomni and Kinger see the Baron’s corpse with a shotgun lying on the floor next to another recording. On the recording, Baron Mildenhall says that his paranoia about the monster eventually led him to kill his own wife by accident. The Baron resolves to wait down in the cellar until he finally slays the beast. The recording then stops. Kinger suggests they take the gun, and Pomni agrees.

Pomni: (nervously to the corpse) Please don’t come alive…

Corpse: Ok, I won’t.

Pomni hands the gun to Kinger, who notes that they have only two shots. Out of a drain in the wall, the headless body of the monster climbs, while from the elevator shaft, the shriek of the monster can be heard. With two quick shots, Kinger blasts both the body and the head, and they collapse. It looks like the monster is defeated, but suddenly another recording turns on and the Baron’s voice says that the creature is actually an angel, and anyone who harms it will be dragged to Hell. The voice says he lured them here so he could possess their bodies and escape from Hell. Kinger wonders how Mildenhall was able to make a recording if he was in Hell, but hands spring up through the floor and start dragging Pomni and Kinger down.

Baron Theodore Mildenhall: (recording) I hope you’re ready, because the next breath you take down there will be your last, and your bodies will belong to me.

Meanwhile, Ragatha and Gangle are finishing up the family-friendly adventure, in which they have a peaceful conversation with the ghost of Baroness Mildenhall over tea. Jax is tied up to keep him from throwing the adventure off the rails. As they bid farewell to the Baroness, they are informed that they have completed the Pacifist Route of the adventure, but before they can go back to the circus, they have to wait for Kinger and Pomni.

Kinger and Pomni find themselves in a dark hallway. Pomni starts to freak out about being in Hell, but Kinger tells her to stay calm, since Caine must have included a way for them to escape. They find a corridor filled with ominous green mist. Kinger takes off one of his eyes and tosses it down the hallway to see what lies ahead. Through this eye, Kinger sees a staircase leading up on the other side of the corridor. Pomni rushes into the corridor, but the mist forces itself into her lungs and possesses her, for the mist is actually composed of evil spirits. The possessed Pomni flies back to the hallway, and Kinger starts beating the evil souls out of her until she recovers her senses.

Pomni: Why? Every day I spend here is one nightmare after the next! I knew it would end up like this! He—he just wants me to suffer. I really am in Hell.

Seeing how distraught she is, Kinger suggests they sit down for a minute and relax while nothing is chasing them. Pomni cries, and Kinger apologizes for sending them down this path. Pomni asks why Kinger has been acting so differently this adventure, and Kinger says that being in the dark helps his memory. Kinger tells Pomni about how his wife Queenie had abstracted, and he had ended up inside his pillow fort with her abstracted form. In the dark, Queenie seemed to calm down from the berserk chaos that abstraction causes and Kinger was able to touch her safely one last time before she had to be sent to the cellar with the other abstracted characters.

Pomni: You had a wife?

Kinger: Yeah. She was funny, creative, really into entomology…I used to hate bugs, but…she somehow got me to like them. It’s not the most cheerful memory, but…it’s one I at least have control over. I know how it can feel in this…circus. Sometimes it all just feels…pointless.

Pomni: Yeah.

Kinger: But it’s not. Not if you have people who care about you. Good memories can do a lot. Hold onto them. And cherish the people around you. You’ll never know when they’ll be gone. In this world, the worst thing you can do is make someone think they’re not wanted or loved.

Pomni: I’m glad you’re here with me.

They sit in silence for a moment. Kinger remembers what the Baron said in the last recording and speculates that they might be able to pass through the corridor of souls if they hold their breath. Pomni realizes that when they get back to the circus, Kinger will go back to his loony personality and forget most of what happened today, but Kinger says as long as Pomni remembers it, it will be ok. They join hands and hold their breath as they walk through the corridor and up the stairs, where they come out in the entrance hall of the mansion and find the rest of the group. Ragatha asks if they’re ok, and Pomni says she is all right. Kinger says Pomni was very brave, but his memory starts to slip away as he comes back into the light. Pomni thanks Ragatha for how caring she has been, and Ragatha says they all care about each other in the circus. Gangle asks if Kinger and Pomni remembered to bring her comedy mask back with them. Whoops.

Back at the circus, Zooble is now the one acting as a therapist for Caine, but Caine ends the session to welcome everyone back. Pomni watches with a small smile as Kinger goes inside his pillow fort.