Event || A History of Light and Darkness

[eternitymods]

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.

Comments

[wind_in_my_ears]

Klonoa might as well take care of Conway's lingering pain. He reaches up to press his back, and boy is his hand warm. He imparts a Regenerative light into his body, following the others.

"Which dolls were talking care of you?" Klonoa asks. He'd much rather meet some nice ones than the ones they ran into earlier. "The only ones we've seen tried to attack us. Uh.. and.. we got turned into them, too."

Not the worst experience, all told, but he is still slightly traumatized from having a squeaker in his hand.

[bladeofconquest]

[Corrin is continuing to scan the room while the Curator's office is checked out, sword at the ready, in case another ghost decides to jump out at them while this is sorted out. She does however, turn her head a little to make a contribution to the ongoing discussion.]

"They also mentioned we were all "Calamity-marked", and a threat to that Crystallis place. Come to think of it, didn't they mention a Mog of some sort too? That can't be a coincidence."

[timecrash]

Serge, eventually, steps inside the offered doorway. "Come on. If we're going inside we should probably do it quickly in case something else shows up."

[eternitynpc]

Celain offers the adventurers water bottles as they step inside. Hydration, it's important.

"You turned into dolls? How on earth....? Well, I suppose with everything else that's happened, I'd believe it."

She takes a seat on her desk and begins to answer their questions.

"Let's see...it's been about two weeks since I last left the museum, and I've been in the office for the last five days. All of the dolls have been taking care of me, except that awful moogle doll. You mustn't blame the others. They're confused, that's all. I don't know what the moogle doll did to them...apparently, they think you're 'Calamity-marked' now?

Anyways, it's not me who is in danger here. The dolls won't hurt me...but I am sure the moogle would, if he thought he could get away with it without them knowing. I can't leave because it might put others in danger. While I'm here, the dolls will stay to 'protect' me. If I leave, I worry the moogle will control them completely and make them do even more awful things!"

[wind_in_my_ears]

Klonoa scratches his cheek, just thinking about all this information. Well, thankfully, dolls can be easily repaired. "It sounds like this one moogle doll is causing everyone else all of the trouble. If someone went to restrain it, would it help the other dolls return to normal?" He asks. "Come to think of it... what does 'calamity-marked' even mean, anyway?"

[kissthemoons]

Stepping into the room, still eyeing the curator a suspiciously, Kid takes one of the water bottles and turns it over in her hands, not yet ready to take a chance and drink it. This demi-human, as they might have called her where she came from, didn't seem to mean them any harm... yet.

"So..." while the others asked their questions to make better sense of things, this Radial Dreamer was more focused on how to end this dollhouse-funhouse, "What yer sayin' is we should be takin' out the moogle doll then, right? Problem solved!"

[defenestraighttomyheart]

There was something warm on his back. Like, very warm. It was like sticking one very specific part of his back near a hot oven- not really on the grills where flesh would burn, more like just outside one when it's cracked open just a tad.

And then he felt okay. His hands went itchy for a brief second as flesh began to knit back into place, but his knuckles went back to normal.

He looked back with near astonishment. There sat a child. A bunny rabbit. A cat. One or more of those things. "Kid, whoever you are," He mutters aloud. "You're better than a night with ketamine and a Colombo marathon." A pause. "Okay, you're better than seasons four through ten of Columbo and ketamine. Not quite ready to call you better than the best bit of television yet or since. But thank you."

Eat shit, Sherlock.

He steps forth and places his hand on the doorframe. "So. Where's the moogle?"

[timecrash]

Serge punches one hand. "Hey, beating things up with a stick is one of the approximately three things I'm actually good at. Point me in the direction of this Moogle guy and we'll beat 'im into the dirt."

[wind_in_my_ears]

Klonoa gives a smile to Conway. "Oh, I'm Klo~oa. I guess we never really exchanged names when we started, huh."

But then he really can't restrain himself as he glances at Serge.

"...What are the other two?" He asks, his curiosity being extremely pervasive about this. Maybe cooking chow mein?

[eternitynpc]

If they are introducing themselves, the Curator will offer them her name as well. "I'm Celain."

"If you could defeat the moogle, I think that would make this whole area much safer, but I don't know if it's possible. Others have tried, but he flees when he gets too beaten-up. And I don't know if he can be 'killed', because he's a doll, which isn't technically alive."

She sighs.

"But if you think you could do something to stop him, he tends to appear if you wander around the Employee's Only section long enough. Not here, but the other parts. If you go back out, you could run into him. But you should really think about it before rushing out to face him. He's strong, even though he's a doll. He won't hesitate to try to hurt you."