Affairs of Darkness

"Oh that's wonderful..." Shock sighs and starts moving foreward into the unknown. "Let's go and find out what's the level of damage and the dangers we'll be facing on this... Little "save-the-world" quest-game we've been forced into."

Chris hits the water with a puff of steam, then shakes out some water while shifting back to it's aquatic form. "Well isn't this just great? I really hate these stupid games..."

"So then... Let's compare notes at what we were able to gleam from our Enemy..." Shock suggests as they walk. "I for one noticed that she was sickly thin... Suggesting that maybe her mask can't be remove to allow her to eat, or for some reason she doesn't care to feed herself."

Scarlet was walking forward still, though she had paused as Reign 'spoke,' the glowing text having caught her attention. "The mask wasn't normal, it kept...Shaking when the mare did things. Not to mention it was shrugging off everything we threw at it, up to and including immolation." She growled. "Also, it was toying with us...If it's as powerful as it was acting, it could have finished us off on a whim, but it didn't..."

As Paper Reign walked along with the others, the gold inky substance moves from the water and slithers up the walls to form the letters: Her magic was powerful. It was all I could do to simply interfere with it briefly.

As you walk up the barely noticeable incline of the tunnel, you hear a loud heavy thunk in the distance as if something heavy were falling into place. It happens consistently, repeating every few moments without fail. As continue onwards more sounds are added in, ropes straining, wood creaking, and metal groaning.

The dim blue light from the ripples around your feet begins to lessen and eventually cease altogether. The tunnel is not cast into total darkness however, a soft light illuminates it from further ahead. Though the illumination caused by what little of the already gentle light manages to trickle into the tunnel isn't much, you can see your surroundings have changed since you began walking. The walls are now studded with bricks, which go from sparse to a complete wall the closer you get to the exit the light trickles in from. Literally from one step to the next, your steps go from making splashing sounds to making wooden thunks as you find yourself stepping on old wooden planks that are dank and covered in moss.

As you finally step out of the tunnel, you notice the scenery to be completely different to what it was when you started out. Giant wooden cogs turn in a massive clockwork, each cog alone being bigger than a pony. Iron beams and thick ropes support the titanic machinery that goes up as far as the eye can see. Sunlight trickles in in thin beams from above, bathing the room in a soft light. The loud thunks appear to be coming from the main mechanism of the room, three large wooden wheels turning over high against the wall, a peg of sorts halting their turns uniformly. The next thunk is accompanied by several other clicks and groans before a bell rings out at a deafening volume. It rings four times and goes silent again, leaving behind only an echo and the continued sounds of the clockworks.

You stand atop a wooden walkway built over the water. The stream from before looks much deeper and faster now, turning a large water wheel nearby which you assume to be what powers the machinery. You guess the water would be up around a pony's neck here. The main machinery of the room is raised several pony heights above the water on a large stone platform. The wooden walkway you're standing on leading up to the platform, than up along its side to the top as a ramp. At the top of the platform you can see a small flight of stairs leading to an old wooden door, golden rays of sunlight streaming in from the small round window at the top of it..

Looking back for a moment, you find the tunnel you came out of is gone. Instead of the slight incline you just climbed you see a large metal grate where there wasn't one before, and beyond that the water goes out a short way and over the edge of a sudden fall. The space beyond the grate is little more than two ponylengths in size, no where near the length of the tunnel you just left.

Paper Reign shifts back into the form it was in when the group first met, looks around, and heads for the stairs.

"What in the world...?" Scarlet asked, looking around...Wait...The way back had been barred!? She turned, looking closely...No, it had never been there, if her eyes were to be believed. She placed a claw against the bars, as if making sure they were solid..."Well...I suppose we've gotta head forward now...This is getting stranger and stranger the longer we're here..." She turned, deciding wasting time trying to figure out how the path had closed itself behind them was utterly pointless and beginning to walk up the stairs herself...She felt like she was being herded somewhere, which annoyed her, but considering the only other option was to starve to death sulking, it wasn't much of a choice for now.

"No way backwards... That doesn't surpize me... We seem to be dealing with some foal with godpowers... I'm partly shocked to see that we're not playing on some giant board game of some type." The Medical Unicorn comments as he looks over the clockworks...

mechanics check:

As you near the door at the top of the steps you feel another presence in the room where there wasn't before. Turning around you see an rust red and white earth pony mare, her eyes closed as she perpetually smiles in your direction. Her mane and tail are short for a mare, her her legs a little more thickly furred. Her coat color changes below her knees from orange to a snowy white. Her muzzle and hooves are both a pure deep black.

Her expression and body language make her seem tired, as if she were putting on the smile in spite of herself. On her back is a large pack, loaded to the point that's it's actually bigger than her. Things jutting out of the barely holding flap keeping it closed, such as the handle from a pots and pans. All along the outside of the bag are several masks, some comical and others grotesque. By far the most immediately noticeable trait however is her cutie mark. There's clearly something there, but it seems faded as if someone had wiped it mostly away to the point you can't tell what it might have been.

She also doesn't radiate any magic at all. All ponies, and living beings for that matter, have at least some magic in them. But even if you were completely untrained in any mystic arts you can tell this mare is like a walking hole in the surrounding magic field.

She stands quietly with the same smile holding on her face, her ears folded back as she shifts on her feet slightly. "...a foal with god-like power is it? They wouldn't happen to have been wearing an unusual mask would they?" She asks in a tiredly cheerful tone like a shopkeeper after a long day.

mare image:

Chris skeptically observes the new pony, "You are acquainted with the Masked Mare, or at least her victims? Then I'm sure you understand our position when I ask you to identify yourself."

Paper Reign takes out a piece of paper from somewhere and causes it to glow, then flings it so it will just barely invade the mare's personal space just to see if anything happens to the magic.

---

Pretty sure I don't even need to roll for this.

"Honestly..." Shock said to the newcomer. "Just how the buck did you pop up out of nowhere? Also who and what in Equestria are you?"

(OOC: The happy mask salesman isn't dealing with Link. We for one thing CAN TALK BACK! And yeah... I always thought of the Mask Salesman as the bigger bad of the game. So I felt why not to say so to the pony verison! XD

Besides we didn't get cursed so that also is another roadblock for him.)

Scarlet stared that newcomer for a moment...Was something like that even possible...? It was...bizarre...Then again, nothing about this case had been normal...But still, they were friendly for the moment..."Yeah...Who are you, and where the buck are we? Last I remember, there weren't any random towers in Everfree in this kind of shape..." Her eyes darted about as she tried to take in everything at once...It was...difficult, to put it mildly.

The piece of paper brushes lightly against the mare's coat and immediately loses its glow, momentarily becomes just as much a hole in the magic field as the mare herself before slowly returning to normal as it falls to the ground. The mare sighs, shaking her head sadly though her smile never falters.

"I see, I was afraid of that..."

Her ears flick up for a moment and she looks up towards you, or you assume she does as her eyes don't appear to open.

"I have not met whoever it is that bares the mask myself... but I know what to expect from the mask itself since it is mine."

She chuckles quietly to herself at the questions.

"I walked here... ...quietly? And as to what, I'm an earth pony if you've never seen one. Who am I next then? I don't remember my name."

She responds flatly.

"It's been so long since anypony said it I simply forgot what it was myself. Most just call me the Wanderer and I suppose that's as good a name as any. Ever Free? Goodness you really ARE lost! This is the inside of the Listeneigh grand clock tower in Temporal Square!"

Her ears flick back again but her expression becomes momentarily more genuinely cheerful.

"Now then, I believe it's my turn to ask some questions since I've answered all of yours? When was the last time you saw the mask? And where? It's absolutely imperative that it be back in my hooves as soon as possible! It's my responsibility and rightful property after all! And I've hardly been able to sleep ever since I lost it in the storm!"

"Last time we saw it...? We saw it just before we ended up here...And I just told you where we came from...The Everfree forest. They were...evidently turning other ponies into masks, we'd been sent to stop them...It...Didn't work, they opened up some kind of hole in the ground and pulled us under...Wherever we were, we ended up here...Though the way back sealed itself behind us..." Scarlet gestured with her tail towards the grate at this, thinking. "You said that mask was yours, though, unless I misheard? Mind explaining how you lost it, it might explain how the mare we're after came by it..." The dragonnel shifted her weight, trying to think for a moment...Something wasn't right, but she couldn't quite put her claw on it. "Temporal Square, huh...? I don't remember hearing of a place like that..."

Paper Reign stomps a hoof against the ground and nearby the Wanderer, a clock on a metal pole springs up. The minute hand is shaped into the words Everfree Forest and the hour hand into the word Equestria and are at the time when they encountered the Masked Mare.

"Oh great... And I was hoping we just got sent into a world the Masked Mare had made to play in..." Shock comments with a sigh.

Paper Reign looks to Shock and shakes its head.

Chris looks perplexed, "Temporal Square, never heard of it... And what can be expected from that mask pray tell?"

"Also... When I asked what you are... I was referring to the fact you seem to be a void... In the magic of reality..." Shock asks. "Why is that? Why are you without any magic, and it seems that magic even seems to just be drained around you or something... This fact... Makes me worry... Deeply worry..."

The mare nods quietly as she listens, she continues to smile but her brow furrows in thought as she does. "hmm....I see..." She looks over towards the clock, though her eyes remain closed, and inspects it for a moment. Her ears perk up and swivel towards you again before she turns her head to face you once more.

"Temporal Square is the main location for celebration in Listeneigh, capitol city of the nation of Caballend! Ponies and non-ponies gather for miles to attend any festival that's thrown here! ...Well, not here here. The inside of the clock tower is kinda a restricted area." She says this as she shuffles her hooves slightly.

"Oh, um... I lost the mask while wandering around. Took shelter at an inn from a storm and when I woke up my pack had been looked through and the mask was gone. The mask itself is cursed, it bears a very powerful grudge inside it and has a kind of awareness of its own because of it. It's not too fond of ponies so I suspect it'll try to wipe them all out one way or another. It has the ability to alter reality around it among other things so, given enough time and power...I don't doubt that it could."

She looks towards Shock and tilts her head slightly, first to the side and then back in thought. After a minute she looks back and simply shrugs. "Dunno. It's been like that so long I don't remember how it started. I've never really been too concerned with it since it helps me keep some of the more dangerous things I'm responsible for under control."

"Hmmm.........ah! Here's an idea! You said you were supposed to stop it right? Well how about this: you promise to go stop its rampage and get my mask back to me. And in turn I'll help you all out however and whenever I can!" She says with a cheerful expression on her smiling face.

Paper Reign nods in response and then after a moment points at the other masks.

"So let me get this straight... You want to help us for having us do something we already were going to do, but just add on giving a powerful godly mask to a pony who seems to be anti-magic itself... Just to get your help? What help could you be?" Shock asked, unsure to what good this deal would bring. It more seemed like it'd just add an unneeded point onto their quest.

Chris just sighs, "It looks like we don't really have a choice though..."