Call of Colthulhu: Team One's Adventures

"...Did anypony else hear that? It sounded like something skittering on stone somewhere below us," Torque said as he got to the landing. "So, what are we looking at here? I *think* my eyes are getting better, but for now it's all black to me."

Aurora thought for a moment, analyzing the situation. "Hear what now? I...I didn't hear anything. Let's see...Some kind of black moon engraved on metal doors. Some more stairs, not as fancy though. Something else...Running water?" She seemed to be weighing options. "You said something skittering? Maybe a spider, or...Well, it was making noise, so I guess it was probably fairly good-sized...Hmm. Flashpoint, wanna try the door?"

"Not really." Flashpoint flaps down to the door, and tries opening it.

The door, though clearly very old and requiring a good deal of force to push open, swings open completely silently. There is a faint scuttling and rustling from the inside that falls entirely silent when the door opens. The chamber beyond is fairly sizable, with a ten foot wide platform with stairs leading down to a larger circular room, with a pillar-like altar set into the center of the circular room. A bowl, carved from translucent black crystal, is propped up on a golden stand on the pillar, sweet-smelling ashes still smoldering within, filling the chamber with a faint lavender scent. The walls are once again filled with depictions of rat and reptilian bipeds, although this time, not frolicking - rather, prostrating themselves at an indistinct figure, towards the door, so there is an impression that the bipeds are groveling at the group of ponies.

Torque blinks - and vision returns, however blurry and darkened it may be.

Torque can now see! Any perception checks made to see things suffer a -10 penalty.

"Gotta be going the right way." Flashpoint steps into the room, and then turns around to look above the doorway, seeing if he can find out what they're bowing to- ignoring the scuttling for the moment.

Oddly enough, there's nothing on the wall - just a large blank space, looking out of place amidst the rest of the densely decorated walls.

"...Is it even worth keeping a list of things that are unnerving, unsettling, or terrifying down here? Or should we just sit content with 'buck everything'?" Flashpoint questions rhetorically, and turns his attention back to the Altar. Less rhetorically, but still as dry as ever, he asks the other two. "I'll feel a lot better if I break something creepy and evil- more in control of the situation. Can I knock over that bowl or what?"

"I...I think my vision is starting to come back, thank Celestia." Torque leaned in close to look at the figures on the wall, then glanced up at the empty wall where Flashpoint was looking, then towards the bowl (at least, he believed it was a bowl, it was still a bit blurry from here). "...If I had to guess, based on the smell and the carvings, I think that burning something in that bowl causes an image to appear in that blank space, probably looking like the god that the Verminkind all worship. You know, for thematic purposes." He thought for a moment. "We can inspect the bowl to figure out what magic or illusions going on with that. Flashpoint, could you check the ceiling? I don't want some critter leaping down on us by surprise as we head deeper in."

For a few moments, Flashpoint doesn't take his eyes off the crystal bowl, but he slowly ascends to the ceiling to check it out.

---

Perception: 14+11=25

The ceiling is decorated with indistinct geometric reliefs that seem to resemble fumes or clouds of some sort, and are studded with more black gemstones. There are two oval gems arranged right at the center of the ceiling, resembling eyes of sorts. Flashpoint, from his vantage point, notices a flicker of activity out of the corner of his eyes but when he casts his sight around, doesn't see anything out of the 'ordinary'. However, the bowl does once again catch his attention, the embers smoldering weakly and a thin line of smoke wafting up - the embers seem to gleam faintly. Like there's something embedded into the ashes.

"Oh, good. I was worried it might be longer-lasting. Guess it was just to disorient you. I guess if we'd set off that alarm, they could have-...Well, no point in worrying about it." Aurora approached the bowl, looking over it, both in a mundane sense and a mystic one. Rituals sometimes were just to make the people doing them feel better...Other times...Well. Best to be sure. "Tell you what, though. Gimme a moment, and if I give the okay, you can totally smash this bowl, alright?"

---

Perception-
1d20+8 = 19+8 = 27

Aaaand Arcana-
1d20+15 = 15+15 = 30

A quick look over the bowl tells her than the bowl probably doesn't have much going in terms of traps. Its edges are well worn and the sides scratched and buffed by use, but still it retains a translucency that would make any gem collector drool. Magically, however, the incense lights up like a christmas tree. It carries innumerable effects - numbing, pleasure, hallucinogenics, sensory enhancement, magical boosting, improved mental acuity, to list just a few. Furthermore, her scan indicates that the incense fumes linger for long periods of time, and kick in after only a few moments of exposure... She feels a tingling sensation at the back of her neck, one she's acutely familiar with, and her hoof starts to itch...

Color explodes in Aurora's vision, and suddenly everything is a dizzying mess of rainbow shades. Shapes could still be distinguished, but the disorienting colors could not be thrown off, and Aurora finds herself stumbling slightly. Curious sensations rush through her body - waves of heat and cold, rushes of exhilaration and glee, an almost intoxicating surge of magical energy - she looks up, her body barely responsive, and she sees that the ceiling, previously an undecipherable tangle of swirls, began to form coherent details - the eyes, the lines, the shape... a massive tribal mask, eyes glowing, leers down at her, and when she tears her vision away to the entrance, she sees it. A mask, an almost exact replica of the mask mural on the ceiling, sitting in a sea of calm amidst the vibrant colors, hanging just above the door.

Then, as quickly as it set it, the colors fade away when Aurora staggers away from the bowl. A cursory glance tells her that the mask is still hanging there, even after the vision faded.

"The bowl's fairly normal...I mean, you could probably sell it for a lot, but, the incense, it's...Well, it's hallucinogenic, and-...Nooooo, no no nooo...!" Her eyes went wide for a moment as she realized what was going on, and she tried to step back, breathing quickly, trying to calm herself. It was...It was a bad trip, she was fine, none of it was real, right? It was too sudden for her to protect herself, much to her dismay...Though, once she calmed down and regained lucidity, she blinked, trying to regain her composure..."I...That was...Intense. Wouldn't have minded so much if we weren't in potentially hostile territory and I wasn't surprised...Ugh. Be...Careful if you get near it. The fumes...Linger. Now, as if you..." She approached the mask, trying to take it down from its place above the door, taking a closer look at it. "...Why did you feature so prominently in that little 'vision?' ...Side note, let me...Let me know if I start going completely over the edge. It was probably just the fumes, but...I got that feeling when something's about to mess with somepony's head."

---

going to let everyone else react before I roll more dice.

"...So was that a yes?" Flash asks impatiently, staring at Aurora as she talks to the mask.

---

So can we also see the mask, or just her?

The mask parts with the wall fairly easily, attached to the wall with a simple hook. Aurora gets the notion that whoever put the mask up didn't expect anyone to have noticed the mask to begin with, or messed with it even if they could see it. The incense seems to have been a defense mechanism of sorts, hiding the mask from ponies. The mask is blue and ceramic, unlike the crazy tangle of colors from the fumes, it has similar patterns but far more subtle and varying shades of blue, along the edge of the mask.

It's fairly clear to the others that Aurora is holding... something. Except they can't seem to be able to make out what, despite not being that far away from her.

"Flashpoint, I'd be careful about knocking that bowl over. Aurora seemed to be "affected" by the incense fairly quickly from just a whiff, and while she seems to be fine now, I'd prefer not to have it fly in the air and share any strange visions. Speaking of vision..." Torque started to walk towards Aurora. "Perhaps it's just my still recovering sight, but I can't seem to tell exactly what you grabbed off that blank wall above the door. Could you describe it to us?" Torque tried to peer at Aurora's hoof to see what she was looking at.

Rolling Perception...14 (1d20) + 8 - 10 (Near Blindness) = 12

"You...Can't see it? It's a mask, I assumed you could see it too...Perhaps the incense hid it, or...I'm not entirely sure, but I get the feeling that I wasn't supposed to notice it. It's blue, looks like some kind of ceramic. It has some kind of tribal patterns along the edges. Are you sure you can't see it? I mean, I'd like a little confirmation I'm not just still hallucinating here." Aurora glanced at the others, blinking. "As for the bowl...I mean, if you can do it without sending us all on a trip, go for it." She focused on the mask, trying to figure out how it worked...

---

Arcana check:

1d20+15 = 1+15 = ...I think I'ma burn a magic point to use Disaster Averted on that.

Aurora is suddenly acutely aware of the fact that despite ceramic being a comparatively magically inert material, the mask has a bizarrely high magical conductivity, and even as she probes the mask carefully with her magic, the mask seems to absorb the magic she's releasing without showing a single sign of being filled up - which, as she soon discovers, makes sense due to the fact that the magic is being siphoned away from the mask to an indeterminate location deeper underground. She then realizes that, much like the gem which the Giver was trapped in, the mask seems to have a soul trapped inside. It's a faint signature, and it's clear that the soul has been bound to the mask with an incredible amount of magical energy, as the soul is almost permanently fused to the mask.

What she feels next is dread, as her hoof begins to tingle again. Alarm bells ring in her head, and she just manages to notice a pulse of psionic energy coming from the mask, filling Aurora with the urge to put the mask on.

As this happens, Torque squints his eyes to see the barest outline of a mask in Aurora's hooves.

Aurora, roll Persuasion. Everypony else roll Perception.

Rolling Perception...13 (1d20) + 8 = 21 (11 if visual)

---
Persuasion? Okay then...
1d20+5 = 5+5 = 10.
So I suppose my luck had to start running low sometime. Maybe someone should be in 'smack the loony over the head' position.

Flashpoint narrows his eyes, keeping away from the bowl for the time being.

---

Perception: 13+11=24

Torque can barely see as is, but Flashpoint an almost imperceptible change in Aurora demeanor as shakily, but swiftly, she puts on the mask.

The scratching and scuttling the group heard when opening the door intensifies around them, but still there seems to be no one there but the three.

Why had she done that? She KNEW better than to do that. Then again, 'knew better, but did it anyway' was probably going to be on her tombstone. She looked back (Not that she had much choice at the moment,) confused. "What...? Who are you? ...Perhaps it might be wisest to ask what are you...? What are you doing...here?" She gestured vaguely.