[Plot Open] Seeing Red

[cult_classic]

Who: The Cult of Nyarlathotep and YOU????????? (Intended for a somewhat small group.)
What: Weird magic
When: It's complicated
Where: The cabins in the woods
Warning(s): Cult activity, religious ecstasy, ritual sacrifice, blood, unhealthy and probably uncomfortable opinions about madness. Your character will also die by going on this quest, but you will receive unique plot information. And who knows, maybe you can have like a ghost party or whatever.


-I don't need your roses, I like men on their knees.-

It's not long after Tarantulas and Valdis find Linette and her body is laid to rest that further investigation begins. The information forwarded to them about the cult is, of course, useful. But with the knowledge that a strange cult was performing monstrous rituals is deeply alarming.

Information is spread like wildfire, the paper running an article describing the grisly scene of Linette Brenning, a woman who went missing years ago, turning up at the bottom of the Fall's Promise well. The cult involvement and the ties it must surely have to the barrier and to the cursed book retrieved by River and Angel some months prior. The constables fan out across the island, investigating the cabins in the woods and the well in which Linette was found.

But even so, nothing of note turns up.

Until one day, an assortment of offworlders seemingly chosen at random receive a note in their mailboxes. It's written in a tight, curling hand that is unfamiliar.

Gather in the square tonight at midnight. More friends will be there. But bring a lantern anyway, and do not be late. Once midnight strikes, go to the cabins off the path in Lockwood Forest and speak the words upon the wall of the furthest. If you can be brave, you will see the unobstructed truth.

Perhaps not everyone who receives this letter attends, but if you wish to see more, you must be one of them. And so you go. You gather among friends, or perhaps strangers, but ultimately those like you. And from there you proceed into the woods, following first the trails, then the desire path leading to the sodden and rotting old cabins where Linette's locket was first found nearly a year ago. Per the letter's instructions, you go to the furthest cabin from the road, and you enter.


-Praying up to their god, seeing visions of me.-

After much clearing away of natures attempts at reclamation of the building, the words are visible on the wall, etched in a thick white paint that almost glows in the lantern light. Do you raise your voices in unison to speak the incantation, or is it left to just one brave soul? Regardless, the words are spoken:

We are the seekers of forbidden knowledge. We are the witnesses of the vile divine. We are the wanderers of the black dream desert, navigators of starless skies. We beseech you, O Chaos; we stand in your circle and ask in reverence to behold your revelations of bygone days. Grant us your unholy nightmare that we may see. Ia! Nyarlathotep! Eater of Souls! Let your truth be thusly seen!

And once the words are spoken, the world begins to change.

The sensation, for those who can recall, is not unlike wandering the collective dream of Pumpkin Hollow in years gone by, but this time you have arrived here by choice rather than by sleep. The cabin around you dissolves like sand, falling away in particles to reveal... something else.

You find yourselves back outside, still under the cover of night. Each of you is now garbed in a red robe and a black mask, and you are surrounded by others wearing similar garb. The world around you is nearly silent. You are standing just inside what is a manor house, elegantly decorated, somberly making your way into the depths of the house with the rest of the group. You are led into what is apparently some sort of meeting space with a large, round table with a tasteful assortment of charcuterie foods laid out. No one says a word as you enter, but some members of the group seem confident as they file into place around the table and take a seat. You should probably do the same.

Far off in the distance, you hear the clock strike 2AM. One of the members of the group, apparently the de facto leader, speaks as soon as the third chime silences. Based on the voice, you presume this person to likely be a woman.

"Bare now your true faces and forfeit your names to your brethren and to our Dark King."

And so they do. Each of them doffs their mask and lowers their hood, revealing their faces. All ages and all sorts, it seems. They go around the circle, speaking their names, starting with the woman in charge.

"Chloe Albright."

"Ingmar Strömberg."

"Nora Winterbottom."

"Christopher Larkin."

"Archie Brenning."

"Maude Brenning."

"Brahm Aberdeen.

"Richard Pirnach."

"Lucy Calloway."

Before you have time to take in these names, it is clear from the expectant glances that all of you are meant to introduce yourselves as well. But once this is done, the woman whose name is Chloe speaks once more.

"Thank you all for your offering of identity. And thank you, Christopher, for once again allowing us to take our meeting within your lovely home. And of course, we thank all of our intrepid new inductees for joining us tonight. We appreciate that the lateness of the hour will take some... adjustment. As we await the blessing of our Master in his hour of greatest strength, that we might perform our ritual to bear witness to the vile divine, let us take a simple meal together in fellowship. Both to know each other and to speak of more mundane business, as well as to educate our new siblings. Shall we, brothers and sisters?"

All at once, your true mission becomes clear. Speak to the members of this cult, learn more about their identities, rituals, and crimes, and bear witness to this so-called "vile divine", then return to your own time with the information you receive. It's unclear how you'll get back, at the moment... but surely it will make itself apparent when the time comes. Hopefully.


-Say I'm your favorite preacher.-

[The thrilling conclusion to the cult gathering will appear in the comments over the weekend! For now, focus on talking to the cult members, or to each other. Maybe you can even sneak away to look through the house!]

Comments

[fuelmayor]

The first thing he picks up on is that his friend has gone missing. There's the possibility that Mulcahy escaped — to where, he couldn't guess, since from the cultists' conversation they no longer appear to be within Mayor Poe's town-in-a-bubble — but more likely a worse fate has befallen him. It's not as if he can slip away without making a scene and then having to fight all of these people where they stand in the halls of the manor, ground which they know far better than he does. And so the Fuelweaver remains with the group for now, however dismal his expectations are for what they'll find at their destination.

Mulcahy's here, alive and physically uninjured, at least. His friend's expression reminds the Fuelweaver of the later hours of some of the exercises in gratuitous slaughter they had been sent to on their voyage. However, his relief isn't enough to stop the centerpiece of the room from drawing his gaze, even as he allows himself to be herded into a gap between so-called initiates on the lower level. Shouts break out across the room.

That stone hoop couldn't possibly be anything but a portal. An invitation beckoning come this way to unknowable forces of destruction. It shows no signs of activation, but only for now, the blood spilled on the adjoining circle likely its power source. Soon to be joined by those of his companions, and the dark fuel that sustains his own form. Saving their own lives will only condemn others to this fate, and even ending the cultists' may further their ends if even one of them lives or resurrects.

He can still stop this. He needs no implements to draw upon the power of the shadows woven into himself, only room to move. The Fuelweaver brings his arms across each other, throws them high above his head, and then slams his fists on the floor, with a burst of darkness at the point of impact and then a spiral of rose-pink puffs of flame that dance above the tips of the fossil spikes that erupt from the floor beneath. Small where they're closest to him, getting larger as they wind around the base of the portal. At the heart of the spiral is a spike strong enough and large enough to pierce through the load-bearing stone base.

[cult_classic]

Blossoming up from the dark cracks in the floor at the point of impact, black tendrils weave themselves lazily through the room, flopping down onto trails of spikes and coiling almost affectionately around the spine-riddled stone. The gelatinous forms absorb the thorny arrangement, sucking them in and consuming them. Little black coils reach up and lick out the puffs of flame. And then, in a final display, a bouquet of black tentacles bursts from the floor and tightly binds the Fuelweaver.

In his mind, he can hear a voice drifting in like a breeze. Cheerful, sing-song, and strangely human.

I hate to interrupt the fun, but I would very much prefer you didn't break my things.

[fuelmayor]

"Release me!" he snarls out loud, struggling in vain against bonds that he half-expects to stab into him with rose thorns and squeeze out what life he has. That isn't the once-human Shadow Queen's voice, but it's the way she would finish him off when her pawns had battered through his defenses. All to open the gateway for Them. Has he failed again?

[cult_classic]

Oh, have I touched a nerve? A laugh, playful, bordering on fond. Not the first time you've found yourself in this position, is it? Don't worry, I'll be gentle. I just don't want you smashing up my toys.

The tentacles decorating the thorny intrusions slink back into the base of the darkness, leaving the stone unbroken, as if nothing had happened.

You see, my friend, all of this has already happened. You weren't here originally, of course. But you don't have the power to change the past! Not in a way that matters. So why don't you sit nice and watch our little performance to the end? Then you can go home and tell all of your little friends what you saw.

[fuelmayor]

"I am no friend of yours."

Every insult and every challenge he'd like to issue is wrapped up in that sentence and the venomous tone with which he declares it. There is nothing that would give him more satisfaction right now than overcoming this self-satisfied interloper from planes unknown. He doesn't want to believe the voice's words; even though it would explain the discrepancies in the cultists' references to life outside the manor, it's exactly what they would want him to believe if he could stop them. If he has indeed been sent to the past he ought to change it. And yet, does it matter when he can't even break free of these tentacles? When his last attempt to shatter the stone left no traces upon it?

[xiaoxiuya]

Shen Qingqiu coughs delicately into his fist, missing his folding fan. "Not enjoying the spectacle, my lord?" he directs the question towards the eye-smarting well of darkness from which the tentacles rise, still holding the Fuelweaver aloft. "And you worked so hard to gather all these players for your amusement, too."

Yes, Shen Qingqiu is directly accusing the entity on the other side of not just being a real eldritch being, but also of having orchestrated this entire dream. And why not? He's read a little Lovecraft, thank you. Nyarlathotep is infamously a lord of nightmares and visions of terror. He's also, like, supposed to be the son of primordial chaos, or something, but who doesn't have a few skeletons in their family tree.

"Offering us information on your cult's history was quite the clever lure," he continues in a calm murmur. Some of the people arguing nearby might even miss his speech entirely. "Or perhaps you really intended this to be a recruitment drive? I can't help but notice your followers are a little thin on the ground, in the present day."

[cult_classic]

The accusation is met with a laugh. One that can only be heard by Shen Qingqiu, drifting into his mind like windchimes on a distant breeze, growing louder and less distant. Gleeful, even, with a startling lack of a sinister edge that almost makes it more unsettling. The sound of light, airy joy.

My, my! That's quite a thought, isn't it? I can't say I blame you for having it. That is a logical conclusion if I've ever heard one. Would you believe me if I told you this was just as much a surprise for me as it is for you?

[xiaoxiuya]

He was expecting arrogance or disdain, not...whatever this is. Since when are eldritch gods friendly? (Perhaps, if Shen Qingqiu had read the mythos a little more deeply, he'd be less caught off guard, but it's too late for that now.)

You know, he silently murmurs, easily adjusting to the mental communication if not, perhaps, the sensations that accompany it, I'm not entirely sure that I would. You seem to hold all the cards, here. Could pretending ignorance not be another gambit in your game? But let us say, for the sake of argument, that this was not at all your design. Who else would have the power to create such an arrangement, I wonder?

cw: reference to violence, using livestock as a metaphor

[cult_classic]

The same person who created the other dream of the past, I imagine. It doesn't seem to be Aster, or Mortanne--- so I wonder? I do so love surprises. Do you think they're a friend or a foe, this mystery person? I'm just having fun reliving one of my favorite bits of the story. This version is much more chaotic than the last time, all starry-eyed recruits thinking they were here to serve a god. He laughs again, catching himself. Well, technically they did, if you feel like calling me a god. But they didn't expect to do it by standing there all full of awe and wonder while my servants cut their throats and bled them like pigs. No, this is far funnier.

[xiaoxiuya]

Shen Qingqiu gasps, his pupils narrowing to pinpoints in outrage. His first instinct is to call out to the others and tell them to run -- but what would be the point? This is but a dream of events that already came to pass; the details may differ, but did any of them enter with the genuine expectation that they'd be able to alter the things they were about to see?

...Well, maybe that dumbass Crichton. But he doesn't count.

I don't recall you being so bloodthirsty in the lore he complains. Or are pallid Rhode Islanders simply not to your taste? But surely dangling information just out reach is beneath your dignity, my lord. The master of nightmares can hardly not know who is casting shared dreams on the general populace. Is this not your domain?

[cult_classic]

Another laugh--- practically a giggle. Now, Shen Qingqiu, surely you know better than to believe everything you read. I'm an omnidimensional cosmic chaos entity, I'm not going to stoop to letting some jackass from Rhode Island, or gods forbid, the internet tell me who I am. It's hilarious when humans kill each other! And blood magic is a perfectly legitimate way of accomplishing tasks. Especially when everything is so deeply attuned to a domain like the Dark Feast. Demons love their labels. Oh, but look, you've got me monologuing.

Up from the base of wherever the Fuelweaver is currently dangling, a tendril creeps over to Shen Qingqiu, sprouting up to meet his height, curled tip lolling out before him in a facsimile of a handshake.

Why don't I just show you what I see? I'm not opposed to sharing.

[xiaoxiuya]

To be clear, Shen Qingqiu is perfectly aware that this? Is a terrible idea. He didn't just flip through a Call of Cthulhu rulebook okay, he read Ol' HP's stories. Past the Mountains of Madness, The Colour out of Space, The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath...that's why he recognizes Nyarly's name. He knows what contact with an Outer God can do to a mortal mind.

But. But. He's also questioning Lovecraft's authority as a reliable source. The guy was scared of air conditioning, for crying out loud. Isn't it possible that, even if he had real knowledge of things beyond human ken, he might have exaggerated their power? Not to mention that this could be a chance to acquire real knowledge of Nyarlathotep's schemes! Not just the names of long-dead cult members, but his plans and intentions in the present day! He could do a lot of good with that knowledge...is he really going to pass it up?

Just how much of a coward are you, Shen Qingqiu?

Not this much, he decides, and grasps the tendril. I don't suppose you've ever done business with a being called the System? he muses, before collecting himself and adding, Never mind. Show me what you've got.

[cult_classic]

The tentacle coils tightly around his hand and wrists, and the last thing Shen Qingqiu hears before being thrust into the void is raucous laughter echoing in his mind like a cavern.

Suddenly, he is pulled into everything that Nyarlathotep can see and know at once, from the movement of planets throughout the deepest reaches of space, to the interactions of the atoms between their joined limbs right that moment. Visions of dream worlds and faraway planets, the makeup of souls and the fractals of the universe. The Time Knife. An architectural floorplan of the castle at Unknown Kadath, which looks more like a drawing by M.C. Escher than anything. All of it tries to cram itself into a mind that doesn't have enough space to store it all at once and finally, in a single moment of incredible clarity, Shen Qingqiu sees the thread of Nyarlathotep's consciousness that is tugged to this place in a storm of pink butterfly wings before---

The tendril releases his hand. See anything interesting?