Ponysona 4, the Campaign.

George coughs, gets some soot off his face and gets tending the injuries of himself and the rest of the group.
Roll! (Heal: Treating burns.)

Roll:

When he finished with that he went up to the edge of the hole.
"I'll take a look at what's down here since I can fly."
and jumped down.

Melody nodded a bit, listening to the others as she was treated, though she looked down the pit for a moment...She could make the jump easily if she had her wings...But she didn't, and she wasn't about to sprout them over an inconvenience...She stepped back and took a deep breath..."Just a hop, skip, and jump...!" she murmured to herself, running forward and leaping! Hopefully she could make it...

Athletics jumping!:

The moment everypony flies/jumps across the gap, they notice that the other end seems to have moved closer, letting them all land on that side safely.
"Brave little ponies, aren't you. "
The male voice rang out, chuckling as a bit more slime oozed from the walls, before Sugar snapped.
"Hey, they are my toys to entertain."
"My apologies. Maybe if you got closer to me, I could show my sincerest apologies."
"I may be a slave to others, but even I know to avoid sleaze like you. They'll visit me and me first, anyways. You can wait your turn."
"Very well. I'll give them a nice, warm welcome."

The floor seemed to immediately open up to the staircase in front of them, the floor behind them sealing shut.

---

George can fly down the hole a couple floors, before the ceiling above him shuts and Shiro's screen appears. "George?! Are you ok? You're on B3, I think, and I can't really scan it from here. I'd say stay there, but I don't want you hurt. There's the time limit to worry about to..." The doctor can here the noise of shadows slithering around him, though none are in his immediate sight.

Tilt gapes a little as the floor closes behind George. "Uh oh."

"We'd better pick up the pace. B3, huh? Well, we've got two to go. Let's hope George can hold out until then." she waits up for the others to get things together then gallops off towards the down stairs.

"If I don't get away I may not last that long."
George flies up to evade the shadows as he searches for the stairs.
Roll! (Acrobatics. Shadow Evasion.)

Roll:

"Aw, crud...George...!! We should...Y-Yeah! Come on everypony! There's no time to waste!" Melody turned, hurrying down the stairs as well...As she ran, she focused for a moment, trying to contact George...
::Hey, hang in there, okay? I'll keep in touch, we're coming for you, just hold on!!::

The main group can rush down the stairs, and Alice and Daisoujo  blast some enemies that appear with Samsara and Die For Me!, not holding back and actively killing the shadows due to their weaknesses. Shiro jumps onto Daisoujo's back to keep from getting left behind and flips through his screen. "All right, so I'm trying to make sense of these upcoming shadows before we find it."
"What's there to make sense about?" Alice looks up at Shiro. "The mare's icing, and is a sadistic and icky creep, and the stallion's somepony touchy feely, who's also icky."
"I meant the exacts. Like what things about them got turned really really bad, like me wanting someone to save me, or Tilt's desire to prove herself."
"Yeah, sadistic and icky, and touchy feely and icky. The pony thinks he's icky probably."
"Do you really have to say 'Icky'"
"Yes, kiddo."
"I'm a year older than you!"
"Children." Daisoujo softly glares at the two.
---

George can dodge many of the shadows, though in his rush he doesn't seem to look where he's going and gets a little bit lost. However he finds a small silver chest in his rushing behind a magically sealed glass door. He also notices a golden shadow out of the corner of his eye.
---

Icing comes too and he notices that Sugar is looking at herself in a large glass mirror, changing her outfit over and over until she finds a simple  outfit that flatters her blade wings. She looks at him. "Ah, you're up! Lovely. It's no fun to play around with somepony who can't react."

"Insightful, Alice..." Melody nodded as she hurried with the others, thinking as she listened. "You missed a part of Sugar, as the Shadow seems to want to be called...That collar around her neck, makes her seem like a toy to be controlled by others...The other...Well, best I could tell the Shadow would have been good-looking once, but...Well, decay and that slime stuff..." She nodded...She supposed Alice had been keeping an eye on the shadows as well when the Midnight Channel came on..

"I think... We are done playing." Icing says groggily to his captor, shaking the heavy lull from his head. His eyes roll when he finds his hind legs tied together, and slices them free with the scythe that she never bothered to disarm from him. It was done purely to make him bend over backwards for her in a literal sense. "Cute."

"Anyways, I called my friends here with an enchanted ribbon before I lost consciousness, they shall be here any minute." He gives a humourless smile at the news. "Then, we can figure out what horrible fool actually associates with you, roll out the welcome whacks, and move on with our lives."

He sighs. "Or we could, but then we get no answers, the spirit bonds completely with its host and loses much of its upper cognition, from what I can see of the other cases. Sad, that. And I flew into your spiderweb to get answers... Beyond knowing you are a slave to your base aspect. Why do shadows not fight other shadows, but seem hostile to us? Why attempt to torment what you believe to be your dominant psyche? Surely you cannot find so much amusement in this that you would risk complete conceptual annihilation to do it solely for that."

The earth pony talks, for if they was talking, he wasn't being electrocuted, or sliced by those wings, and then he could be in good condition for when the others came... Any minute now...

Tilt nickers softly to the two foals. "Everypony has something about themselves they think is icky. But it's not nice to say it like that; Wraith is somepony's shadow, and they need to be able to accept that they're him. If they think we think it's icky, it's only going to make it harder." she chides, gently, "But you're right too, they're not icky, they just think they're icky, and that's why their shadow is icky."

She had a guess in mind as to who the touchy feely pony was, but it wasn't her place to out her.

"Icky? That's kinda vague, dont'cha think? So they're both icky, Icing's shadow is sadistic, and the other is ultra-icky. Well, whoever owns the second shadow, whatever they don't like about themselves can't be that bad, can it?" Soul looks over each of the ponies she is running with, but doesn't know who to look at. She only met these ponies a few days ago, and now she's expected to psychoanalyze them? At least give her a week!

"It never is. They're the parts of us we need to face, given the power to force us to face them," replies Tilt, not leaving the damlike tone she used with the foals, "When the time comes, just remember everypony's there to help you and you alone - just like you'll help them when it's their turn to face themselves."

She'd been conspicuously avoiding engagement with the shadows - not even when one had lunged at her had she done more than back off and run around it before Alice had killed it with her magic.

Zeela was mostly trying to just clear her head after her major outburst and Gorge getting split from the rest of the group... So her major option to try and focus on the goal was to maybe fight some of the Shadows... Only to get a good deal of them killed before she could land a hoof on them. Still... The Winged Zebra keeps to herself thinking over things...

"Yeah, Soul's right, this is at worst, just how that pony sees themself. That's just something we're here to help them get though." Zeela comments as they travel, trying to keep quite about her personal qualms about how. "And help fight the Shaodw if everything turns crazy..."

If I keep flying like this or go after that unusual shadow I'll end up getting completely lost, especially if the shadow flees. I can use the door as a reference point though, as well as whatever I find in the chest.
George touched down and examined the door, using both sight and what he knew of magic.
Roll! (Perception/Arcana. Door examination, sharp eyes for perception.)

Roll:

The door George finds seems like a perfect, completely average door with a large, magical arcane lock, though the keyhole seems to be just as golden as the shadow is, and the chest inside seems to have the roman numeral XV on it.
----
Sugar laughs once again, walking over to Icing with a swing to her hips. "Oh... If you don't want me to leave... Why don't you speak to the personae? I'm sure they have quite a lot to say... Just need a little... kick" Sugar fires a small, mocking Zio that doesn't even damage Icing. "Oh, that's right... Sinestra, is it?"

"..."

"Ah, I was right~ Shadows are better than a Persona~That's why we don't fight each other. We're better than ponies. and anything else. Or that's what Blackie says." Sugar fiddles with her wings. "I'm just a servant, as I've said. I follow on whims. Fu and Whitie on the other hand, were afraid for themselves. They didn't want to disappear, be taken over by the concious and become a persona... Though I admit, Whitie is a lot better like that. Less creepy." She giggles again.

---

The rest of the party can find something similar to what George has, a door blocked by a normal door, arcane lock and a golden shadow a bit of a ways away. However the chest inside, if someone looks, is marked with VIII

Soul gives a skewed look to the giant, golden glove-thing. "So that's a Shadow?" she asks, pointing at it with her wing. She gives a quick flap to land near it. "Doesn't look so tough to me!" She shoves it with a hoof. "I've seen bigger!"

"Um... Not really... Those are more minor shadows at best." Zeela comments inwardly debating if she should attack the thing or not, it's golden appearance is just begging to suggest something good happens if fought and won.

"...Yeah...I forgot my roanan keys at home, so the chest will have to wait...As for the Shadow...Yeah, it looks different than the others...Shiny and pretty...Maybe it's carrying something useful?" Melody trotting over. "BUt it's an odd-looking one. Haven't seen any...Goldish ones, then again, I'm think I'm the second-least experienced pony here..." She looked thoughtful...She wanted to see why it was gold, but if the others had better ideas, she'd defer for now...Besides, they still needed to find George and Icing...

"Eight..." Tilt murmurs, pulling out her card and looking at it. Nope, she was 10. "Well, it's not mine. Anypony here have number eight?" she asks, walking over towards the shadow.

"Shadows are a lot smaller when they're not yours, Soul." she adds, to the pegasus.

Icing clopped a hoof against the ground triumphantly. "I knew it! You are being led like a dog by Blacky!" He leaves off any commentary about this monster delighting in the wholesale sublimation of another of its kindred close enough to know by name, sheerly because it was "less creepy" in its new, quasi-vegetative state. The conclusion that this mare was a horrible miscreant was reached long ago, and neither side needed him to belabour that point.

"Sinestra!" The earth pony summons up the tiny moon-sickle apparition, and looks between it and the monster. "I do not think it speaks. Sinestra, speak your mind. Was Blacky a good employer?"

"What are the numbers for? The locks? Eh, doesn't matter, I'm more interested in this guy." Soul pokes the shadow again. "So you get cool stuff if you defeat him? What are we waiting for!"

She jumps away form the shadow and concentrates on it with a determined look. From nowhere, a ghostly-green scythe materializes as Soul winces a bit, swaying on her hooves. She looks at her weapon and gives her body a once-over. "Ouch. That's different like this. Any objections before I attack? This guy shouldn't take more than a minute if we work together, Icing can wait a teeny longer."

Tilt blinks at Soul. "How did you do that?" she splutters, in surprise, even as she moves away from the shadow towards Soul again, "Anyway, I've taken the precept to abstain from killing. I'll help you how I can, but I can't help you kill this shadow."

RavenscroftRaven wrote:Icing clopped a hoof against the ground triumphantly. "I knew it! You are being led like a dog by Blacky!" He leaves off any commentary about this monster delighting in the wholesale sublimation of another of its kindred close enough to know by name, sheerly because it was "less creepy" in its new, quasi-vegetative state. The conclusion that this mare was a horrible miscreant was reached long ago, and neither side needed him to belabour that point.

"Sinestra!" The earth pony summons up the tiny moon-sickle apparition, and looks between it and the monster. "I do not think it speaks. Sinestra, speak your mind. Was Blacky a good employer?"

Sugar giggles once more, quickly walking over to Icing and running her tail along his cheek. "Aw, you noticed? I'm not complaining one bit about it though~ After all. That's all I do. I'm lead like a dog to do what my father says. I'm lead around by Arcana to do what he wants us to do. I got led here by my own bucking self.... Isn't that right me?" Sugar chuckles, her golden eyes betraying her as Sinestra goes to slash at her. "You see? A persona's nothing like a shadow. They can't speak at all unless... fufufu~ But I'll answer that for myself. Blackie? He's good at trying to give us shadows what we want. To be acknowledged."

---
Shiro, Alice, and Daisoujo all go to respond, when the golden hand rushes at the party, smacking the filly in the face and sending her flying into Daisoujo. "GAH!"
"Ow!"
Shiro yelps and slaps at the hand and his floating Hanged Man arcana with his beads, summoning Arachne and running away from the chasing hand.

Spoiler:

XV...that's 15 isn't it? I should have read up on tarot. Still, going by the similar hues of the lock and the shadow I guess I'll have to go after the shadow if I want to find out what's in that chest. Worse luck...
With that George looked around for the golden shadow and, if he saw it, charged it.
I apologise for this...
Roll! (Perception: locating Golden Shadow and Acrobatics: Jumping Golden Shadow.)

Roll:

George can easily find and tackle the shadow, though it wriggles out of his grasp before flicking him in the beak.

Spoiler: