melodiesofeternity | Event || A History of Light and Darkness

Event || A History of Light and Darkness

Who: Brave Explorers and/or Those Poor Souls Being Dragged Along by Friends
When: Oct 15-30th
Where: Thilmit Border Post, inside the Old Heranean Doll Museum
What: The Heroes of Light received a strange letter, and are now being asked to investigate the strange occurrences at the old doll museum.
Warnings/Notes: OOC Post Warnings for Spookiness, Creepy Dolls. Post toplevels for each group. Please post warnings as needed for memory fragments and exploration. For random numbers, use the dice functions on Plurk or Discord.

The Old Heranean Doll Museum is a small building, but somehow the dark, dusty windows and poorly maintained roof give it a menacing feel as you approach. The sign says, "OPEN"...although, as you approached, you think it might have been turned to "CLOSED".

The door creaks as it swings open, though there is no one from the museum to greet you as you enter. A cold breeze blows in behind you, sapping any lingering warmth in the room. The building is dark, and cobwebs are starting to form in the corners of the lobby and on the velvet rope stanchions that guide the flow of traffic in and out. Out of a shadowy corner, a large centipede skitters across the floor and into a crack low on the wall.

At the reception desk, one of the antique dolls sits, unmoving, unblinking. That goes without saying. Its eyes do not follow you as you enter.... The hairs prickling up on the back of your neck are just coincidence, that's all.

There is another doll perched on the wooden brochure display stand near the door. It's strange that the curator leaves the display pieces out where visitors can touch them....

As you enter, you hear something whistling through the air toward you a moment before it makes a impact. A tiny pebble, too small to do any damage other than a brief stinging. During this moment of distraction, the door slams and locks.

When you look at the spots where the dolls were perched a moment ago, there is now just empty space. There is movement in the shadows, and the nearly imperceptible sound of tiny shapes creeping around.

As you move past the lobby into the exhibits, a sign above the entryway declares:

Welcome to the Old Heranean Doll Museum. We hope you enjoy our historic Heroes of Light displays.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Random items appear in the Dream Width from time to time," Takeshi informs. The black coat he almost put on instead being one such item, as is the strange winged blade sheathed on his hip. He can't use it on this asterisk in particular, but he didn't want to lose it. "Most of it ends up being something connected to those brought here, other times... I guess it's dolls like these."

Frisk.bin was doing their level best not to let the dead-eyed soulless stares of the dolls in the pictures get to them when Frisk.exe pointed out their discovery. (Why did they decide to do this again? Whyyyyyyyy???) They go to huddle with the rest of the group over the note, eyebrow raised. "Voodoo dolls. Calling it now. If anybody starts getting weird stab wounds, we're leaving. Or somebody could be using the weird magic stuff to animate 'em. Still, though..."

They snap a picture of the note, uploading it to MogNet. "It might be a good idea to compile all the clues we find on MogNet. If other people join in, we should be able to get a better idea of what's going on."

With useful information and unsettling connotations having been collected, the group quickly proceeds to the next section in the mazelike museum: the Multi-Media Room. Rather than tempt Murphy, Frisk.bin just rubs their hands and pushes open the door... only to be blown back as a green, black, and cerulean nebula explodes out from the room, enveloping the group in darkness.

For a few moments, all is black. Then the darkness reluctantly recedes, revealing that the party is smack-dab in the center of a series of winding, twisting, almost non-Euclidean nexus of hallways. A greenish tint is cast over the scene, and the air is unnaturally cold.

Frisk.bin lays flat on their back for a moment, blinking, before springing to their feet. "Welp. That happened," they say, shivering and still somewhat dazed.

Edited 2018-10-28 00:56 (UTC)

[Frisk.exe groans as they sit up, head spinning. They squint around at their surroundings, then pick themself up and lift off the ground. Best to keep on their toes... or off them, as the case may be.]

"My head says it's gibberish o'clock and I don't like it. Where are we?"

[Takeshi brings his arms up over his face and braces himself, putting much of his weight on his back leg to keep from getting blasted back like the two more obvious kids. He knows this sort of nebula. He's gone into the Dream Width countless times. Both to find people and to retrieve items that have been found. Once it passes, he peeks out past the makeshift barrier. He lowers his arms and his eyes grow wide.]

I don't know, but... that- it felt like diving into a nebula inside the Dream Width. [How the hell-? The Dream Width, inside a building? He shakes his head. It should be impossible, but this entire world is surrounded by it. Who's to say it's not possible?

He doesn't like this. He doesn't like where his mind went, the greenish glow, or-] This feeling, though...

[He's felt something like this before, in a place he'd do almost anything to be done with forever. Takeshi pulls out his iMog slate and glimpses at the time: 25:02? Maybe he should ask the Persona users about it later. They seem to know a lot of weird stuff he doesn't. He switches to Dark Replica and takes a step forward.]

Standing here won't give us answers. We need to go. Now.

[He doesn't want to feel this ever again and draws upon his darkness to keep from focusing further on it.]

[Having a little more distance between himself and the door than either of the Frisks, the blast only manages to send Riku to his knees, both hands slapping against the ground to keep himself from taking a face plant. He shakes his head to clear some of the disorientation before taking in his surroundings. Hallways? He hates this already.]

Like the Dream Width? [Riku climbs to his feet as he ponders over what Takeshi has said. He doesn't remember much about his arrival through the Dream Width, and he hasn't yet been inside it to help pull others out yet, so he has nothing to compare this experience to. But he trusts that Takeshi knows what he's talking about.]

You think we're somehow...inside the Dream Width?

[When his replica trails off he feels a compulsion to question him more, but his sudden switch to Dark Replica makes him hold his tongue. Something is wrong. But Takeshi is right that they can't just keep standing here. He reaches for his sword, his hand resting on the hilt, prepared to draw it if necessary.]

He's right. We should get moving. But we need to decide on a path to take. Anyone feeling lucky?

When she agreed to this, it was pretty much a given that things were going to get weird. Marinette was used to weird. She even expected it, to some degree. When the door opens, she's knocked off her feet along with the Frisks, mostly because she wasn't expecting anything quite like that.

She just lays there for a minute, flat on her back. Then she climbs to her feet and brushes herself off, before looking around at the others. "Are we all okay?" Because that's her first priority, always. Sorry, everyone. "But he's right. Standing around isn't going to accomplish anything. If we are somehow inside the Dream Width, we just need to be careful."

"I'm good, Mari. Well, as good as I can be in the circumstances, because, y'know. And we might as well pick a random direction, all of these have even odds of getting us out of here from my perspective." Noticing Takeshi turn his Intense-o'-Meter from Standard to Suspicious causes one of Frisk.bin's eyebrows to shoot up. They immediately begin hustling down one of the more straight-looking hallways, motioning for the rest of the group to follow them.

"Seems like you might have an inkling about all this, Takeshi. Care t-" Frisk.bin is interrupted by a blob of tangled, shadowy limbs erupting from the floor around the corner and making a beeline for the party. Yelping, Frisk.bin skips back and draws their ninjato, flinging a kunai at the dark mass. It quivers, then explodes, two monsters emerging from the ichor. One looks like a dark, anthropomorphic hourglass, spindly arms and a face-like mask at the top and legs at the bottom. The other looks like a classical cupid, its body made of dark shadow with a crimson mask where its face should be.

Frisk.bin drops into Transience automatically, obviously spooked. "What the heck are those things!" they yell, eyes wide. Every time Frisk.bin so much as looks at the hourglass monster, their head is filled with unwelcome memories of knives and dust falling through the air, of broken glasses and steep hills. If Marinette glances at the cupid, memories of seeing her friends akumatized again and again and again play across the theater of her mind in an unending, cruel production.

((OOC: Cue the Mass Destruction.))

Edited 2018-10-29 17:02 (UTC)

[Takeshi unsheathes his version of Soul Eater - the familiar weight welcome in his grasp as he falls into his usual battle stance with a practiced ease that Riku would likely be able to tell wasn't so much copied any longer than it was mastered in his own time.]

If I had to guess? Shadows.

[A small, sardonic chuckle escapes him. Ahh, he knew this scent well. Different form, but still the same stench of guilt. Mixed together with-] Whatever you hide from yourself or others, they can manifest into. But each one has a weakness. Find it so we can make this fight end faster.

[He darts forward, using Continuous Swings on the hourglass. Maybe it's a good thing he did face his own in Crystallis.]

[Whatever you hide. Wonderful. Frisk is starting to have some second thoughts about being so upbeat.]

"They're not people," [they mutter to themself in some attempt to sooth the guilt tugging at them. They back away a couple steps and tap at their iMog to switch their class. Prescience seems a little handier here. Their hands twitch a little into half-formed signs and they glance wide-eyed between the two shadows, looking out for weak points before rushing in. Recklessness isn't a good tactic for them nowadays.]

"They're not people, they're not monsters. Shadows. Shadows."

Given the circumstances, that was probably a ridiculous question. But honestly, it was more of a reflex than anything. She tended to want to make sure people were alright, and this was an odd situation.

She nodded at Frisk and moved to follow them down one of the more straight-forward looking hallways. But they didn't get far before some kind of strange, shadowy blob popped up in their path. She seemed rooted in place as the blob then exploded into two separate monsters.

"They look kind of like akuma." Which, honestly, was probably the least helpful comment she could have made, but it was the first thing that popped into her head. "But that's impossible. That's not how akuma are made."

Takeshi's words made her frown, though. The only thing she was really hiding from people was Ladybug. And neither of the monsters - or whatever they were - had manifested into that. "If they're shadows... wouldn't their weakness be light?" Maybe thinking about it so literally was silly, but sometimes the solution was simple.

Either way, it was easy enough to aim a Sacre at the not-akuma cupid.

[Shadows. Of course. Riku doesn't doubt Takeshi's assessment at all, especially considering he can't help but think of the countless Heartless he's had to battle when he looks at the shadow hourglass and cupid. If he had his old sense of smell he's sure he would have been able to detect the odor of darkness. But Takeshi seems to have that on lock.

He draws his sword from the sheath as he waits for an opening to attack. But what Marinette says draws his attention.]

What's an akuma? If they're taking on the form of something you've encountered before, they might share the same weakness. [If the Sacre doesn't work that is. Either way, once he has an opening he strikes both targets with a Shock Break.]

Takeshi's swift blows both hit their mark, and the wide arc of Riku's Shock Break slams into both of the Shadows with incredible force, sending them flying back. A beam of light pierces the torso of the cupid, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to do much damage.

The shadows reply to the party's attacks in kind; the cupid taking aim and firing a Holy Arrow (light physical damage with a 25% chance of charm) at Riku. The hourglass follows it up by casting Tetrakarn, surrounding itself and the cupid with a translucent, geometrical shield, but doesn't do anything else.

Frisk uses Smoke Bomb, disappearing into the smog without a trace.

Edited 2018-11-06 15:25 (UTC)

[Frisk narrows their eyes as the shield goes up. They've got a solid guess for how effective hitting that would be, but it's not like they're drowning in options— and besides, better to know for sure.]

[They bound towards the hourglass, swinging their weapon out with every expectation that it'll bounce right off the shield, and ready to dodge away from any return-fire.]

"Hey, jerks! Look at me!"

He's right. [He confirms Riku's hunch. He only ever fought the one Shadow (Cloud- ugh, he missed that guy sometimes), but it held true for that one at least. Fortunately for them, Takeshi knows that much. Unfortunately, he's never seen that particular shield and has a Bad Feeling about it.] Hey, wait-

[Ah, hell. Let the kid learn. He can tend to any injuries later. He jumps up into the air and spins, the height of it letting him clear the space above the hourglass (barely; because ceilings are still a thing) and isolating him from the others as his feet touch the ground behind it. He uses Vertical Swing after Frisk attacks.]

"An akuma is... actually a little black butterfly that Papillon sends after someone who's feeling overwhelmed by negative emotions. It takes them over and turns them into a caricature of themselves. They look kind of like that." That isn't to say that they all look like the cupid, but the general aesthetic is the same all around.

"To fight them... Ladybug and Chat Noir has to find the object the akuma is hiding in and destroy it. And then Ladybug has to catch it with her yoyo and purify it." No big deal. "But uh. Ladybug isn't here." Because Tikki isn't here. Her miraculous isn't here.

"Anyway, I don't think these are quite the same. Because that would mean Papillon is here, and there's no way he wouldn't have made himself known by now." In the meantime, she's been keeping an eye on the not-akuma, mostly to see what effect the group's attacks have. While she's waiting, though, she aims another Sacre at the cupid.

[Riku takes the hit, swaying slightly to the side, but managing to keep his footing. Luckily he doesn't seem to have taken much damage. But he does take a minute to catch his breath as the others attack and Marinette goes through her explanation.]

Okay. It does seem pretty unlikely that they're Akuma then. Luckily, hitting them seems to be working. [When he sees an opening he deals the shadows another Shock Break.]

Frisk.bin, unfortunately, has their wild attack with their rod rebound and hit them on their own head! Thankfully, this dissipates the shield around the hourglass, creating an opening for Takeshi's Vertical Swings to make their mark. Marinette's Sacre hits the cupid right in the chest, but it only takes a moment for it to shake it off. Riku's Shock Break doesn't seem to do nearly as much damage this time around, yet it still packs enough of a punch to send the Sands reeling.

In retaliation, the Cupid casts Dia, healing some of the cracks in the Sands' glass, while the Sands flips upside down, letting loose a roaring conflagration of Maragion at the party for Medium Fire Damage (attack potency A, magical power A). A yelp of pain can be heard from... somewhere, but Frisk still manages to keep hidden. They appear directly behind the Cupid, slightly singed around the edges, to Assassinate in. Their blade plunges straight through the Cupid's chest, and it melts into a pile of shadowy goop before they disappear once again.

[Frisk sees their attack rebounding back at them a split second before it comes, and in that tiny period of time they experience a deep feeling of resignation. Just pure acceptance that this is what's happening to them now, and there's nothing they can do to stop it because they're already right about to hit it. For a moment, they experience utter peace with their existence.]

[And then they get hit over the head by their own weapon. Ow.]

[It made an opening, though, so they're just going to pretend that was deliberate. Take one for the team, and all that! But before they can announce that to anyone, their Prescience goes off again and they leap to the side, dodging the brunt of the fire— it still manages to lick at their heels, but they escape largely unharmed. Then they leap forwards, going in swinging at the Sands now that there's no shield.]

If nothing else, it's very unlikely that they could be dealing with an akuma. Which likely means that it's something else entirely. She watches the cupid shake off her attack and frowns.

Things are moving pretty quickly though, and before she can even decide what to do next, the cupid melts into a puddle of goop. She opens her mouth to say something, and then closes it again because she honestly has no idea what to even say to that. What could she even say to that?

But instead of dwelling too long on that, she turns her attention to the other monster. She's not sure if it's going to be very effective, but she's quick to aim a Sacre at the remaining monster. They're vulnerable to light, right?

A veritable storm of kunai made of fire flies out of the smoke, Frisk.bin's Fire Ninjitsu hitting the cupid right in the back. The magical assault of the Ninja and the Red Mage proves to be too much for the shadow; It's stock still for a moment, then it dissipates into black smog.

Frisk emerges out of the smoke, rolling their shoulders. "Well, that wasn't--"

Then the world twists and buckles and warps. Marinette and both Frisks are deposited in the Display Cases Room, but neither Takeshi nor Riku is anywhere to be found. "You know, I'm getting really sick of this," Frisk.bin grumbles, getting up and dusting themself off. "Wait. Where's Takeshi and Riku?"

[Frisk.exe glances around as they pick themself back up, glancing around at their new surroundings. Sure enough, two of their party are missing. That's... troubling.]

"Split the party. Smart. Do we look for them, or...?"

Things happen quickly once the cupid falls. Before she can even celebrate the minor victory, they're tossed into another room entirely. Marinette takes a moment to look around, and blinks a bit when she realizes that two of their group are missing.

"Should we look for them?" She doesn't know either of them terribly well, but she feels like they're probably capable of looking after themselves. Honestly, she can see the rationale behind splitting them up, but as far as she's concerned, they have a responsibility to make sure everyone makes it out of this.

Frisk.bin opens their mouth, then closes it, thinking. As much as they wanted to say they should look for them... it was probably a better idea to focus on protecting the people they already had with them. "Riku and Takeshi can take care of themselves," they decide. "Hey, chances are, they'll probably be waiting for us outside when we finally get out of here and reprimand us in a stern, edgy way for taking so long blah blah blah. Let's get moving."

They squint at the door to the next room, looking under the cracks to find any traces of nebulas. "Alright, I think we're good," they say as they twist open the door knob, and another nebula floods out from the door. "Oh, for fu--" Frisk.bin's swear is cut off as the nebula completely envelops the party, forming a massive display case around them that fills with a greenish-white fluid...

...and suddenly everything is terribly cold. The party is standing on the edge of a quaint town beneath a tranquil starry sky, the hustle, bustle, and warmth of village life behind them. Suddenly, a snowstorm begins blowing all around them, making it difficult to see anything but silhouettes. A squat, humanoid shape fades into view a short distance away.

Then, in deep Southern drawl, it intones, "it's a beautiful day outside."

[Frisk.exe feels their throat close up at the horribly familiar sights, sounds, smells— they recognize everything here except the sky. They turn around, taking it in with wide eyes, before stopping short as the snow begins to blow around them.]

[Their shoulders tense when they hear that voice, and they turn their head ever so slightly to see the source. Their voice comes out choked and meek.]

"Sans?"

There's no time to protest even if she did want to, because in the next moment they're being whisked away to somewhere else.

Marinette shivers and hugs herself in an attempt to get warm again as she takes a look around. None of this seems familiar to her, but there's no denying that the view is lovely. But it's the voice that gets her attention, and she slowly turns to try and get a good look at the source.

"Hello?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event || A History of Light and Darkness

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DICE ROLL: SIX, TRAP (SEES time babeh!)

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babybabybabybabyOHHHHH

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riku rolled stupid good on his shock break

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