@Cyrus Darsel | @Howard White | @Johannes Sauer | @Makaio Kāne

How many adults did it take to untransfigure a moth? More than it probably should. Bridget winced sympathetically as Howard's spell sputtered, though less disastrously than hers had, and echoed, "Stupid magic." Hopefully it sounded equally encouraging coming from her. The third time proved the charm -- or rather, the leather-clad fourth member of their group was more competent when it came to casting spells than determining what parts of a sealed tomb to touch. The moth was now a dart and she was a decent enough shot, unfamiliar as the weight was. The orb was hit, the gate opened, and she was plenty eager to move out of the space.

The gate only seemed to lead them in deeper, though. The only way out would likely be through; the way they'd entered had shut far too definitively, heavy and seamless. She kept her wand lit despite the influx of torchlight, since those might similarly snuff and plunge them back into darkness at a moment's notice, and as established, she wasn't so keen on the dark. It helped that some of her companions could still see to some degree -- or, really, it helped that Howard could see in the dark, because she wouldn't count on anyone else here to have her back. They seemed nice enough, and Cyrus possibly overly so, but nice didn't equate reliable, and they were currently in a tomb somehow connected to sacrifices.

Case in point: Cyrus' discovery of voices, which had her shoulders hiking ever so slightly toward her ears with the creeping sensation of being observed, had him immediately assuming good intentions, people that might help them. She was much more inclined to agree with Howard that the friendliness of these voices was far from guaranteed, and she nodded at his suggestion they don't split up. Horror movie logic, right? It was best to play it on the safe side, and it was usually not that easy to kill four full-grown wizards. Picking off one was a different story.

While Cyrus and Howard investigated the doorway, she hung back. The opposite wall was odd, incongruous with the rest of the stonework and looking vaguely like some secret passage entrance, like one of the stones could be pulled to trigger a mechanism. Or maybe one of the stones was the right size for the table, since not much else seemed to be lying around? Nothing seemed to be trying to kill them yet, so perhaps she had the time to plot her next move carefully.

Actions:
1. Maintain Lumos
2. Investigate the east side wall

Potions: Erumpent Potion, Bruise Removal Paste, Weakness Potion

Banner Credit: Prat Pass

threading as Johannes Sauer

outfit reference

speaking in english unless specified

In a dangerous, unpredictable environment like the one they were in, the best course of action was to fall back on what they knew. At present, it was 'very little', but at least it wasn't none whatsoever. He'd take as many wins as they were offered. Luckily for everyone involved, Johannes hadn't yet forgotten proper spellwork. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself, according to his grandfather.

It was easy enough to wave off their failures as nothing more than lapses in judgment (his own was still in hand), easier still to take advantage of the newfound light everyone and their mother in the community seemed to wield. All around him, two Lumos and a magical candle lit up the small room in quick succession, providing more than enough visibility to take a shot at what two others had failed at in the dark. It was like magical crowdsourcing. “I’ve got you, don’t even worry about it, man.” With a flick of the wrist and a flash of white, the dart-moth's poor unfortunate soul pulled back into itself and reshaped into something far less pseudo-animate. He couldn’t have done it any better if he’d tried.

Whoever’d first made the dart certainly had both aesthetics and aerodynamics in mind, for it was easy work to throw once they'd gotten the puzzle solved. The orb flickered, successful in an almost embarrassingly drawn-out way, and the grated door closing them in slid open. Bingo.

Johannes took the lead, wandering into the next room with a complaint already locked and loaded, only somewhat distracted at Cyrus's cheery humming. You never could get that guy down for long, could you? He was endearingly consistent. Just looking at Cy made the situation feel less like walking towards their imminent death and more like a shitty escape room gone wrong. They hadn’t been singing in the rain earlier, but Johannes supposed the plentiful 'shelter' they got from the haunted mausoleum was as good an umbrella as anything.

He didn't need to cajole everyone along, not when he could track his own shadow thrown against the stone as they ventured into the next room. “I know it’s dark, you guys, but don’t you think flashbanging this goddamn place is a little—“

A loose stone underfoot clicked into place. He stilled immediately, a jolt of brief fear cementing him atop the pressure plate(?) for fear of triggering something even worse than a gust of foul wind, but once again, there was a pause before the mechanisms started working. A moment of suspense, if you would, to add fuel to the bewildering fire. Dread threatened him, and yet the only thing he'd done was light all the torches in the next room. “…Excessive.” Fucking hell, they couldn't have gotten that treatment earlier? No matter what he said, he’d always eat his words... “Right, never enough, then.”

Banked in by light on both sides and a stubbornly extinguished one still in hand, it seemed like he was really mastering delayed traps today. If only he could press a button and open a way to the outside world… In a single, accidental moment, he’d completely made everyone’s illuminating collaboration redundant, but at least they were getting somewhere?

Hopefully, that didn't mean 6-feet-under (even if their fumbling curiosity spoke otherwise). Cyrus wasn't going anywhere near the door after hyping himself up for human interaction, not out of common sense and certainly not with a hand on his coat sleeve, wet though it was, tugging him back from the rhetorical brink. “Dude, we just read about people being made into sacrifices and you want to go meet the murderers? Chandler’s right, we probably shouldn’t just forge ahead." A firefight in such close quarters would be a nightmare, not to mention all the extra adjustments that came with learning how to fight alongside strangers. He wasn't even going to entertain the idea of soloing the unknown, not when they struggled with four people and a simple puzzle.

With two of their party sniffing(?!) around, one more legit than the other, and another up against the east wall, Johannes' most logical direction was north. He approached the wall-length mirror cautiously, peering into and around it without his usual sticky-fingeredness. “Hey, does anyone remember Bloody Mary?" Was there a wizarding equivalent, and could wizards recite it properly without electric light switches? Maybe if they blinked their Lumos three times, they'd trick a few naive kids. “Never played it myself, but I feel like someone who unironically calls themselves a masoleum’s ‘Mastermind’ would have. Or not, I dunno." The wizarding world had worse shit in it than a bloodied reflection, but it wasn't as if West London was a very representative sample of standard society. Maybe if he stood a certain way, he could catch the reflection of hidden things in the room, or even glimpses of the mysterious conversationalists in the next...?

Action: Investigate the mirror and its reflection(s).

Potions: Revive Potion | Calming Draught | Jawbind Potion

Our intrepid adventures stepped into their next challenge wearier than when they first met the old man at the decrepit tavern. Gone were the looks of cheap confidence as spells failed and darkness fell. With enough lumos to shame a lighthouse, the group deftly solved one puzzle and immediately set to work examining the next.

The bouncy Cyrus first went to the wall and reported hearing voices. Perhaps this wall would come in handy another time! The next thing to catch his attention was the table in the center of the room. As he approached, he would notice the table was made of grayish blue stonework as if they were leftover bricks piled up after a construction project. However the round surface was smoothed and polished with care. Quite the juxtaposition. At the center it was concave as if something should be resting on top of it. If Cyrus was really looking, his next observation was that it looked not only as if something should be resting there but also as if it were a pressure plate, a button of sorts perhaps! Does Cyrus press the fairly interesting looking button? Time will tell.

Shifting over to our next contestant, the dhampir Howard. Avoiding the mirror and realizing that perhaps blood cultists aren’t very friendly company, he went to the open doorway. Some walk through a doorway. Others examine it. Howard? Howard chose to smell into the void. The first thing he would notice is that the light from Bridget’s wand did not penetrate the darkness. To anyone without blind vision, it would have looked like the blackness was a door. However, Howard was well equipped with both nose and eyes - perhaps his best features! If Howard would look into the darkness, he would see that it led into an adjoining corridor that bent right. Just a normal looking hallway filled with a deep unsettling dark. As for his sniffer, well, there wasn’t anything at first beyond the dank sewage smell of an unkempt tomb, but really concentrating he caught the smell of iron faint, as if it was coming from wherever the corridor led. Perhaps he just needed blood and his iron deficiency was kicking in.

We come at last to our brave duelist, who seemed humbled by her previous performances, approached the wall Cyrus had just finished investigating with her wand still as bright as Rudolph the reindeer’s nose. A detail that Bridget noticed that escaped Cyrus’ first glances, would have been that the stone work matches the stonework of the table. The two were obviously connected. But what goes on top of the table, and did it have anything to do with this wall? Surely nothing a little magic couldn’t solve!

The most curious discovery of all was made by Johannes, approaching the mirror, the most peculiar thing would have been seen or not seen. The mirror, for it was a mirror, reflected only light sources but not images, that is unless they were all suddenly vampires! The light from Bridget’s wand, the torches on the wall, all reflected perfectly. If Johannes had the eyes to see, he would also see that right at the corner of the ring of light cast by the lumos against the mirror he could faintly make out what appeared to be scratch marks? No, another missive? Perhaps, it looks old and the marks don’t quite make sense from his distance. Does he dare get closer to the mirror without a reflection? Does he shrug off the scratches as poor maintenance? How brave will our librarian aide be?

DUNGEON RULES
(will add or subtract as rooms require - please read carefully at the beginning of each round)

1. In each room you are granted two actions per person per round.
2. You may perform a room action: search, open, talk (to any non-party member), door (interact).
3. You may perform a casting action of any spell that is in your trunk.
4. Some puzzles and enemies will need you to perform certain room actions and others will need you to cast before you can progress.
5. There is more than one way to explore this tomb. You may follow room instructions, if provided, or you may find your own way to cast your way through the tomb. The choice is yours and yours alone.
6. Unless noted in instructions, the walls cannot be messed with. If you could blast your way out of a dungeon then it wouldn’t be much of a dungeon.
7. You will have your chance to escape throughout this journey if you are coward enough to run.
8. The next round will be posted April 22nd or after everyone has submitted their actions.

The Doom Crew

Reducio

@Cyrus Darsel, @Howard White, @Bridget Collins, @Johannes Sauer

@Cyrus Darsel | @Bridget Collins | @Johannes Sauer | @Makaio Kāne

Fortunately everyone in the group seemed determined to stay together. For now anyway. The passageway in question was making him nervous. First of all it seemed enshrouded in an unnatural darkness. It was odd to be able to both tell that light could not penetrate it and still be able to see through it at the same time. How much of it was enhance vision? Or was it simply all of his other heightened senses working together to be able to decipher what was ahead? Questions for another time as what really unsettled him was the faint hint of iron drifting through the dank air. Could it be blood? The note mentioned sacrifices. They could probably hold their own, but avoiding dark witches and wizards would probably be for the best. "I can see dow there, but I think we should go another way." Hopefully his companions would heed the warning.

"Oh shit, I remember that." Howard did recall a game played in the dark meant to scare little boys and test their mettle. It seemed so long ago now that he had left his Muggle life behind. To think just how much his life had changed in just eight years was actually hard to believe. He made his way over to Bridget who seemed to be examining the far way with curiosity. "This looks different, yeah?" The stones here appeared to be different than what made up the rest of the room. In fact, it almost looked like they could even be shifted around. "Bridget, what do you think about these? Maybe I can move them?" Howard mused aloud to his friend, but curiosity got the better of him. He'd place his hands on either side of a random stone in front of him and give it a go. If it could be removed he would attempt to take it off the wall. If they only move around he'd try shifting its location on the wall to see what happens.

Potion Inventory:

1. Wit Shapening Potion
2. Vitamix Potion
3. Exstimulo Potion

Actions:

1. Attempts to manipulate a stone on the east side wall.
2. None

Stats:
STA - 17 | EVA - 21 | STR - 17 | WIS - 1 | ARC - 0 | ACC - 21

Abilities:
Fangs, Claw & Bite | Martial Artist | Unsettling Aura | Blindvision | Keen Smell | Terrible Presence | Blood Resurrection

Banner Credit: Prat Pass

threading as Johannes Sauer

outfit reference

speaking in english unless specified

As far as Johannes could tell, none of their party were vampires and/or vampiric sacrifices just yet, yet the mirror just wasn't mirror-ing. That was strange. He backed up experimentally, walking the room's empty middle in a slow arc to test its reflection, yet the gleaming starbursts against an otherwise blank surface remained otherwise static. Two to his west, placed neatly near each other, and several smaller ones near the east, with one of them hanging just slightly higher than the rest, as if... As if floating.

Of course, the candle! Magic was a cheeky bastard. The mirror was reflecting light, not heat or images, as if a moth's least technologically advanced detector. Very much unilluminated, definitely (one of) the only one(s?) in the room to be so, Johannes couldn't have shown up if he'd tried. Realisation made, his attention swung directly to each flickering lamplight reflected in the mirror, from its very source to the edges where it dissolved back into the mirror's ambient gleam. He wouldn't have noticed the scratch marks marring its mostly uniform surface if not for the careful way he was changing his angle, a museum-goer confronted with something new and half-obscured by lamp-glare. Bingo.

He shifted away briefly, still scrutinising every shift of depicted light, and reached towards his fellow rat-catcher standing in the centre of the room. "Need this for a sec, hold on." Without even waiting for an answer (he wasn't asking, only informed the other as a courtesy, okay?), Johannes yanked the floating candle from above Chandler's head and crossed the short distance to reposition its illumination closer to the mirror and its etchings. Another note, perhaps? One would think there were easier and less ominous ways of communication than engaging in property vandalism... of your own crypt, he supposed. Well, not really, because the whole cemetery likely belonged to the City of London in the first place, and its useless groundskeeper spent more time wet-coughing over shitty tap water and trickery to really attend to it.

"What are you playing at, Mastermind?" He murmured to himself, attempting to investigate the wall-length mirror further.

Action: Using Howard's magical candle to illuminate the 'etchings'.
Approaching to read/investigate the mirror's message.

Potions: Revive Potion | Calming Draught | Jawbind Potion

@Cyrus Darsel | @Howard White | @Johannes Sauer | @Makaio Kāne

This wall was weird, at least compared to the rest of the room. With Bloody Mary being brought up, it sounded like the mirror was weird, too, though Bridget would leave that to the still-unnamed stranger (only Cyrus seemed to know him, but now wasn't really the time for introductions). It all had to be intentional, a surprising attention to detail applied to the tomb's construction for some reason. Perhaps some wealthy wizard wanted their resting place well-guarded. Or perhaps this had been overtaken as a meeting place for this mastermind and their... minions? Cultists?

Bridget wasn't sure what the point of all this was, but she was sure the wall's stonework matched the table. Did one of the stones come loose and fit squarely in the table's divot? She'd seen something similar in a movie, once, desperately bored over a summer vacation without magic. Howard had come over after his check of the doorway--she did not particularly like the implications of her intrepid roommate disadvising that route, though she supposed he'd made it this far by exercising appropriate caution--and asked about the wall. "It's different," she confirmed. At his question of if he might be able to move one of them, she nodded. That was what she was going to try next.

Howard was already in motion, and she started searching, too; they might not be safe in here indefinitely. While he reached for a stone in front of him, she took a step back for a broader view. Was there anything the same size as the table's divot? That one, maybe? "D'you think it will trigger something bad if we fit a stone on the table?" she asked aloud. It was an important base to cover before they got that far. Some of the things in here were clearly meant as keys, hidden ways to progress deeper into the tomb, but others may well be traps for intruders who didn't know the right way through. In the movies, activating a pressure plate wasn't always a good thing. Seldom was, really. And that was often without all the possibilities of hexes and curses.

Actions:
1. Search for a stone in the wall that matches the size of the table divot
2. If found, attempt to pull the stone out of the wall

Potions: Erumpent Potion, Bruise Removal Paste, Weakness Potion

Our team wastes little time searching the area. Everyone has a task and they are dedicated to helping each other instead of waving their wands around like madmen. Howard went to the wall to search for any movable stones. His fingers are met with rough stonework that does not match the surrounding wall. Try as he might the wall doesn't move but the voices are still muffled and chattering. The wall can obviously be moved, it seems to Howard, but there must be some kind of trick. Meanwhile Johannes noticed the literal writing on the wall. Moving carefully, unless, just like everything else in this cursed tomb, it was a trap. He notices the following written:

….put…orb….of…iron….
……on…..pedestal……

A little obvious for my taste but where might our adventurers find something that is made of metal? Perhaps it's time that half the team puts their eyes to good use.

Bridget, taking a step back after the previous room, examines the room and finds the following setup now more clear than when they first walked in:

North wall: Writing on a magical mirror that only reflects lit object – “put the orb of iron on the pedestal” – no explanation yet for how or why the mirror is the way it is.
South wall: the way they came in, nothing descript along this wall.
East wall: some sort of moveable partition, how they move it and by what mechanism remains unclear.
West Wall: the open doorway drenched in darkness, something iron smelling could be detected by Howard’s heightened sense of smell. However, no light can penetrate the doorway.

And lastly, our little light in the darkness, Cyrus maintains his Lumos to maximum volume despite the fact that the room is well lit with torches. He is ever the plucky and optimistic light in the proverbial darkness.

DUNGEON RULES
(will add or subtract as rooms require - please read carefully at the beginning of each round)

1. In each room you are granted two actions per person per round.
2. You may perform a room action: search, open, talk (to any non-party member), door (interact).
3. You may perform a casting action of any spell that is in your trunk.
4. Some puzzles and enemies will need you to perform certain room actions and others will need you to cast before you can progress.
5. There is more than one way to explore this tomb. You may follow room instructions, if provided, or you may find your own way to cast your way through the tomb. The choice is yours and yours alone.
6. Unless noted in instructions, the walls cannot be messed with. If you could blast your way out of a dungeon then it wouldn’t be much of a dungeon.
7. You will have your chance to escape throughout this journey if you are coward enough to run.
8. The next round will be posted April 22nd or after everyone has submitted their actions.

The Doom Crew

Reducio

@Cyrus Darsel, @Howard White, @Bridget Collins, @Johannes Sauer

Banner Credit: Prat Pass

threading as Johannes Sauer

outfit reference

speaking in english unless specified

The magical candle was a good idea, or at least having a million lights up wasn’t such a bad one after all, if either helped identify objects in the mirror in front of him. The more Johannes looked, the more deliberate the chicken-scratch etchings seemed to be… maybe another message like in the last room? Whoever renovated this mausoleum-turned-escape-room had absolutely no faith in their followers, who were probably well-aware of every trap and exit and still managed to forget. But it was okay, because they were looking at things with fresh eyes and Johannes had faith that they’d probably stumble their way into proficiency.

….put…orb….of…iron….
……on…..pedestal……

Nevermind. He spoke too soon.

Fucking hell, it wasn’t the Mastermind’s lackeys being looked after— it was them, all of them trapped, who were dumb as rocks. Or at least, they were dumb enough not to realise anything metal in a room full of rocks. “You guys…” He called to the group behind him, honestly despairing over the practical child-proofing at the corner of an arguably much cooler mirror than anything else in the room. “Whoever the mastermind is, they know we’re stupid.”

“The writing on the mirror literally says ‘put orb of iron on pedestal’. Word for fucking word.” He felt distinctly ridiculed. You couldn’t get more specific than that. It wasn’t even like, ‘iron on pedestal’, or ‘pedestal, iron, orb’—no, they were getting tutorial-guided by their own captors. Full sentence instructions. Despite the mirror’s lack of true reflection, Johannes had nonetheless looked into one and saw only clowns looking back. Thank god it was Cyrus that he’d accompanied to London and not one of his more observant or judgemental friends, because this was just embarrassing.

Orb of iron, orb of iron… He didn’t see one in their current room, at least one large enough to reflect light or make their searching even more redundant, but there had to be one nearby. Already having paced half the room just trying to read the mirror message, the other half well-combed by three other people, they had searched everywhere in their immediate surroundings except— “Do you think…?” Johannes looked toward the open doorway, accompanying candlelight getting absorbed into the pitch-black room beyond the threshold.

Action: Informing everyone about The Clue™, prompting towards the open doorway.

Potions: Revive Potion | Calming Draught | Jawbind Potion