>>27202643
>Peter told me nothing

>>27202643
>>Peter told me nothing

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"Peter told me nothing. I had no idea such strange things happened on campus."

"What did you see that was strange?"

"It was almost like a dream last night. I was inside the library, and I saw a man with a rope."

If Jack's face wasn't flushed red from running, you think he would have gotten a few shades paler.

"Just a man with a rope?"

"No. He was big. Huge. I didn't get close enough for a really good look at him, but he was massive. Looked like he was there to lynch somebody."

"What, exactly, happened?"

>Give Jack the whole truth
>Hold back information

>>27202933

I don't know about this one. How much do we trust Jack?

>>27202933
>Hold back information

>>27203122
He's our roommate in college. We just arrived yesterday. I don't trust him, but others might.

>>27202933
"i felt like he intended to hang me, so i ran. thats about it"

>>27202933
>>Hold back information

>>27202933
>Give Jack the whole truth

>>27202933
Just tell him that he tried to hang us. Tell him about the dream with our brother.

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"That was it, I just saw a glimpse of it in the library and thought it was strange."

Jack bites his lip and thinks for a long moment, then snaps the cap off of his own water bottle and takes a pull.

"My advise is to stay out of all that business. I'd stay away from any person or any place that you associate with anything spooky, especially with what you saw last night. If you saw something happening around the library be careful of the library for a while until you stop getting that feeling. If you're seeing these things late at night start going to bed earlier. The one thing I wouldn't do is go poking around trying to find out just what you're seeing and why."

"What makes you say that?"

"Rule with this sort of thing is that if you go out looking for them or taking notice of them they take notice of you. If you are in a frame of mind where you don't even have time for that nonsense you can usually just stroll right by like it's not even happening. Do you understand?"

>I don't follow
>Makes sense
>How do you know so much?
>Did Peter take notice?

>>27203319
>How do you know so much?

>>27203319
>How do you know so much?

>>27203319
>>How do you know so much?

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"You seem well informed in these matters."

"It's pretty common knowledge that the campus is haunted. I've got big ears, maybe a little too big for my own good. I hear some things I shouldn't, but then I put it out of my head and just keep going. I recommend strongly that you do the same."

"It sounds more like you've been involved in this sort of thing."

"Yeah, Peter and I both were. You need to stay out of it, period."

"How did you get involved?"

"Are you not following what I'm telling you?"

"Maybe if you explained it to me I'd be satisfied."

Roll 1d100 please.

Rolled 90

>>27203638

Rolled 83

>>27203638

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"Fine. Rush week is where introductions are made. We signed up. We went out. We became initiated. That's where all the trouble starts, that's where you get involved, and that's where people get caught up."

He looks distant, and he hits a groove like he's winding through a routine he's been through in his own mind many, many times.

"It's all bound up in secrecy, but if you dig deeply enough you will notice. You will also be noticed. That's where it gets spooky. That's when you start making enemies. That's when your personal demons, or somebody else's, catch up with you. That's when..."

He trails off, looking upset. His demeanor softens as he turns back to you.

"Listen, I know you're curious about what happened with Peter, but if you go down the road he did you might end up regretting it. Obsession is an ugly thing, especially if it's already something you're predisposed to. It's not my business to tell you how to live your life, but be fully informed that if you go diving into these things it's going to get ugly."

You walk the rest of the way in silence. As you get back to Arkham Jack offers to take you out on the town tomorrow night.

>Accept
>Decline

>>27203869
>Accept

>>27203869
tell him you'll decide tomorrow.

lets see what happens tonight first.

>>27203962
Second.

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You tell him it depends on what tomorrow brings, and satisfied he grabs a change of clothes and heads out to do... something.

>The time is 7:15 PM

As you get changed you see one of your neighbors going from door to door, furtively looking around knocking. Coming out of the bathroom across the hall you soon see that he has been joined by another fellow and they are still knocking around. Shortly after you enter your room and sit down you get a knock. Opening the door you discover that there are now three furtive looking young men outside your door. The fellow knocking has dark hair and dark eyes, and a forehead that's just too slightly sloped to be handsome. The second has green eyes, blonde hair, and a baby face that suits his soft hands. The third has curly black hair, a crooked grin, and looks amused by the entire thing. You answer them.

"Hello, can I help you?"

It is the one who knocks that responds.

"Uh, yes, well, I was wondering if you could help me out."

"He's looking for a condom!"

It is the baby faced one that blurts this out, though he is shushed by the other two. Embarrassed, sloped forehead turns back to you.

"Well, yeah, I figured somebody had to have one. I, uh, brought this girl back to my room and I have her waiting, but I don't have anything."

"If she will give it to him now, then he must take it now or she probably won't offer again."

It is black hair that chimes in here, and you note his slight accent.

"Uhhh, let me check if I have any left."

You proceed to search around you room for condoms that you know you don't have, didn't pack, and didn't buy.

"Nope, cannot find any."

A fourth fellow with dreadlocks is now hovering around the edge of the group, looking at the conspiratorial huddle with some curiosity.

"Ah, well, I guess I'll keep looking..."

Dreadlocks takes the opportunity to break into the conversation.

"Looking for what?"

"An, erm, a condom."

"I have a Baby Ruth wrapper."

>Tag along
>You don't have time

>>27204184
>>You don't have time

>>27204184
>You don't have time

>>27204184
>You don't have time
and would choose not to if we had all the time in the world.

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"Well, good luck with that."

You shut the door slowly and lock it audibly on the group of young men searching in vain for a condom. It's not like you want to interact with other people anyway. Or that you have any interest in getting laid while you're at college.

Turning back to your notes you begin puzzling out how to go about this ritual, and whether or not you will attempt it tonight. Also at the forefront of your mind is The Hangman. You ponder the likelihood of whether or not he was looking for you specifically, and the odds of It appearing at the library again. What would you like to do?

>Set up and perform the ritual here
>Perform the ritual off campus somewhere, maybe that cemetery down the way
>Grab a study room at the library, do it there
>The hedge maze is a good spot for this
>The math and architecture building will suffice
>The liberal arts building is just right for these theatrics
>Down by the river, under the bridge
>Spend your remaining few hours looking for a random secluded spot on campus
>You know, maybe tonight isn't a good night for this...

>>27204512
>Spend your remaining few hours looking for a random secluded spot on campus
we dont actually need to spend hours for this. i am sure there is some sort of small woods on a campus this big, just go into a patch of trees and perform it there. secluded and there is less risk of anyone walking into you during the ritual.

>>27204512
>Down by the river, under the bridge

>>27204512

Why do I feel like we're picking our starter pokemon?

>>27204512
>>You know, maybe tonight isn't a good night for this...

>>27204512
>The hedge maze is a good spot for this
If anything goes wrong, at least we might have a chance to lose any kind of being in the maze.

>>27204512
The math and architecture building will suffice

>>27204512
>>27204603
What he said

>>27204512
>The hedge maze is a good spot for this

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You carefully weigh the pros and cons of each potential location, and eventually you settle upon the hedge maze by the biology building as the most logical place to initiate the ritual. It allows you some level of privacy, the chance to escape should things go wrong or The Hangman show up, and you've been curious about it for a while.

Resolved, you draw out one of the big sheets of paper and using a protractor, a pencil, and a straight edge you proceed to create a gigantic pentagram. You jot down the poem you are going to have to read on a sheet of notebook paper, and place both carefully in your drawer.

You have just over four hours until Midnight, if you're sure you want to go through with it...

How would you like to spend them?

>Explore the hedge maze a bit so you don't get lost later
>Grab a long nap
>Other

>>27204887
>Explore the hedge maze a bit so you don't get lost later

>>27204887
>Explore the hedge maze a bit so you don't get lost later

>>27204887
>>Explore the hedge maze a bit so you don't get lost later

>>27204887
>Explore the hedge maze a bit so you don't get lost later

>Prepare for fun

5d100 please

Also I'm going to get dinner before we get to the big scene, as I don't want to be distracted for it.

Rolled 69, 52, 91, 63, 62 = 337

>>27205077
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH MAN THIS IS GONNA BE GOOD

Rolled 60, 79, 39, 25, 84 = 287

>>27205077

Rolled 89, 70, 37, 16, 31 = 243

>>27205077

>>27205100
>>27205151
>>27206388
fuuuuuuck we are so screwed.

>>27206415
The first roll is not bad at all. All above 50.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdXCsXcs6nA

The smell of decay is the first thing you notice. Surmising that there are big piles of dead leaves inside that simply haven't been swept away you consider that the maze might have entirely new dimensions in exploration you had not previously considered. Hiding spots should be easy to find within, but finding a nice clear place to perform the ritual might be tricky. The next scent that catches your nostrils is the smell of water. Somewhere nearby there is a large pool of what is likely to be standing water, but you haven't been able to catch a whiff of it anywhere else on campus. You file the information away for later use.

You make your way into the maw with a pocketknife, the pentagram, the poem, a flashlight, and a few other goodies tucked away. Immediately after the first turn you find yourself ankle deep in dead, dry leaves, and a short time later you manage to crunch through them and navigate the second turn. Dropping anything vital in this place would be a disaster. Shortly after you navigate out of this pile you find the avenue clear, and you have just enough light left that you don't need the flashlight to navigate your way further in.

Right, left, right again, you plunge deeper into the maze, keeping careful track of how many and what kind of turn you have made. Employing a bit of simple fieldcraft you reach out and snap the occasional twig in order to mark your passage. You descend deeper into the rows grown over a very, very long time. There are additional piles of leaves that you are mostly able to bypass, though as you slip through one you feel the leaves slide, and something slithers through the pile at ankle level, annoyed at your intrusion. Suppressing shudders, you step slightly to the left and pull away from whatever it is you have annoyed, then continue about your way.

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Further and further in you go, and that's when you realize that this maze was expanded upon over time. Through the passage of years the rows of hedges further inside have grown thicker, or perhaps were always a different species of plant altogether as the rows to the interior are very different than the rows to the outside. As you descend further, the smell of water becomes stronger, perhaps it is coming from somewhere in the sealed off biology building? No matter, you push onward.

After you have made your way to a depth you feel comfortable with, you take the time to mark your location and purposefully go along wrong turns, then correct your arcs and feel out the interior. At about the time you reach this depth you also find yourself forced to begin using your flashlight. The day has failed you.

Eventually you come to be satisfied with your exploration, and you decide to test just how isolated you are. Sitting between the valley made by the ominous shrubbery all around, you sit down in the grass, and with a simple click you kill your only light. You wait in utter silence.

Your ears strain for the familiar sounds of crickets, of birds chirping, or even something unpleasant slithering through the leaves, but there is nothing. Very soon the only sounds you can hear in your little hiding spot are the ones that you are making. Your breathing is the first thing you latch onto. A gentle wind, faltering every now and then as you pause in your natural rhythm, missing a beat as you become increasingly self aware. Your heartbeat is like a drum, never faltering, always steady, and soon it overtakes your breathing as the most obvious noise to your ears. Cocooned in vegetation and armed with words gleaned from a cipher broken by despair, you are alone. Nothing in this world can reach you.

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Checking the time and finding it to be just a little over two hours until midnight, you look up at the stars. It is a cloudy night, but your phone suggests that it won't rain until tomorrow. Turning on your flashlight you reach into the bag and pull out a blanket and spread it out, then carefully cover it with the massive pentagram you drew. You spread it out carefully and double check your work. If anything were not perfect you have with you the materials to redraw it, but the symbol remains unblemished. Carefully you draw forth your pocket knife and one of the copies of the poem you brought with you, and you set them aside as you contemplate what you are about to do.

Are you sure?

>Yes
>No

>>27206549
>Yes
Though we must do it on the first stroke of midnight.

>>27206549
>>Yes

Rolled 60, 72, 4, 100, 40 = 276

>>27206549
>Yes

>>27206594
>>27206605
>>27206671
We just need to remember who we are.

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Steeling your resolve, you set an alarm on your phone, and then you turn off the flashlight so as not to betray your location and begin meditating. You do not worry about the wind blowing away your work, because in the maze there is no wind other than the breath from your lungs. Sitting cross legged is uncomfortable, but you feel too vulnerable laying on your back between the rows, and leaning against the ancient plants is hardly comfortable.

Eventually your heartbeat and your breath become as one in the silent darkness.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

There is suddenly a noise that sends a chill down your spine, a shrill cry of alarm that sets your carefully timed rhythm to fluttering. It is your phone informing you that it is a mere five minutes until Midnight.

You turn off the alarm and rise to your feet, clicking on the flashlight. Everything you made is in perfect order. Everything is as you set it to be. Things are proceeding precisely as you wanted them to. Truly you were the engineer here. It was your will that all things would be as you have chosen them to be. Responsibility for the direction you have chosen in life is entirely within your hands. For once, you are in control. Only a minute remains. The barest hint of time. You know this because you synched your watch up with the time told by the library bell.

Thirty seconds now.

>>27206758

Oh shit

We are fucked.

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You draw forth the blade of your pocket knife as the last few seconds come closing in.

Ten.

Your hands are shaking, but you steady yourself...

Nine.

You steel your nerves...

Eight

No mistakes, no fumbling...

Seven

You press the flat of the blade against the skin...

Six

The flesh is turning white...

Five

You can't cut yet...

Four

Almost, not too soon...

Three

The blade turns in your fingers...

Two

You drag the sharpened point across your flesh...

One

Metal digs out the vital drop...

The chime cuts through everything, even the cocoon of silence that the maze has created. The song is sweet. The song is playful. The song is sad.

The first ring of the bell reverberates through your entire body, and as though coaxed by the sound the blood finds its way to the paper, and the words come unbidden to your lips even as every fiber of your being quakes.

"Students begin with an inquisitive mind,
But it takes much more to step into the realm of dreaming,
In doorways hidden and passages sound,
Betwixt heath and ruin and blasted mound,
Throughout hallways known only by their absence,
Fevered dreams cried only by madmen in their passing,
For you dear apprentice the offer is nigh,
The Writ, signed in blood, the sigil of office,
Invitation to find your first pieces,
The Game of the Gods is cruel sport,
Stakes go beyond life and death,
This world, Elsewhere and betwixt,
To draw blood from your finger upon the first stroke of the witching hour,
Passage out into the Dreamland,
Where you must forge the Contract,
Letter of Marque with Lords Dread and Sovereign!"

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The Bell tolls for the final time, but your body does not stop shaking. You realize, now, that it isn't just your body shaking but the very world around you. Your watch and phone have already stopped working, and now your flashlight flickers and begins to die.

You watch as the flickering beams seem to make the hedge rows dance as they shake in time with the tone of the bell coursing through everything. The world has its own pulse, just like your heartbeat, only it has overlaid itself over your quiet little cocoon. Heart fluttering in your chest you jerk in panic as you take a step back from the site of your blasphemy against reality.

Even as you move back the world moves with you, and you find that even with the light gone you can somehow see, to a point. The hedge rows expand out around you, blotting out the sky. Paths behind you close and new ones open as the world shifts. Mathematician that you are, you spot fractals at work even as non-Euclidian geometry comes into effect. Very soon you can't see the sky, and the world around you has changed.

The hedge maze you were once in is now a great tunnel with thick veins feeding the thorny leaves that make up its walls, and across the site you performed your ritual upon is a location that seems to call to you. In the gloom you can make out a faint glow up ahead. It is soft, and seems to be the only source of light in this alien place.

>Proceed?

>>27207109
Move towards the faint glow.

>>27207109
>>Proceed?

>>27207109
Go towards the light. Look around.

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You slowly make your way forward, stepping around the ritual you just performed and down the passageway. It twists and turns in subtle ways, the space between you and the walls betraying you every time you glance at it from a new angle. Sometimes you feel you have an arms length from its edge, and other times you feel the thorns slipping just by your skin. Eventually you find yourself in a clearing, or more accurately a cave. The walls fall away until they are so far from you that you cannot hear your own echo.

Ahead of you is a pathway to an altar, and beyond that altar is a massive crystal. Suspended within that crystal is a figure you cannot quite make out. Nearer and nearer you come to it, trying to make out the details of its warp and weft, but as you draw close to the altar you realize that the problem is not that your view isn't clear, but that your perspective is skewed. In order to understand what you are seeing you have to dial back your perspective to encompass the entire scope of what you are looking at.

Even as you begin to scream you still do not hear your own echo. The size of the cave you have found yourself in has rendered any noise you might make, any gesture you might perform, any action you might take, seemingly irrelevant. The only thing that seems to be built to scale for you in this entire cosmos is the altar, and it is perhaps for this reason that you cling to it so tightly. The figure that looms above you is that of a Titan, something alien in both form and scale, and you hunker down from it the way an ostrich buries its head in the sand, hoping that by some miraculous act you will not be forced to face the Great and Terrible presence you can feel lurking above you.

As you draw near to it you hear a chorus of whispers. The voices are discordant, but slowly they make themselves understandable as they bring themselves into alignment. They sing out to you, the voices of men, women, and children.

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"Be not afraid."

The voices are calming, perhaps even compelling. Though you do not bring your gaze up to the great figure above, you do find the courage to rise to your feet and gaze down at the altar. It seems to be made up of similar crystal to what looms above you, and you can see swirling through its structure swirling wraiths moving throughout it towards some center, some nexus.

"Who is it that comes seeking a pact with a Lord Dread and Sovereign?"

Somehow you find your voice.

"I, Samuel Carter, have come."

The voices are silent for a moment, discordant again, but then they respond to you as one body again.

"Your blood has been tasted. It is Known. Do you come here, apprentice sorcerer, to gain for yourself a Writ?"

>What is this writ you speak of
>Sure
>Nah, I was just on my way out

>>27207576
>What is this writ you speak of?

>>27207576
>What is this writ you speak of

>>27207576
>>What is this writ you speak of

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"What is this Writ you speak of?"

The choir is discordant again, some laughing, some shrill, some solemn, but again they come together to answer.

"What all Sorcerers crave. Authority to act upon their vision, that they may have Influence to take their trickery beyond mere legerdemain and perform true magic. To work their will upon the Dreamlands and to practice their craft in earnest. All other goals pale before this one."

"What is the price of this Writ?"

The choir falls silent this time, before a single voice speaks.

"Thirteen great tasks will be set before you in your lifetime. Between you a legion of enemies carrying Writs of their own or influenced by the light of other Lords Dread and Sovereign. Before the end there must be one great sacrifice that will be demanded of you. Failure to complete these great tasks, or failure to sacrifice, before passing beyond the veil of death will cost you your soul."

The choir falls silent again.

>What do you wish to do?

>>27207789
Accept.

>>27207789
Other Lords Dread and Sovereign? Inquire about them and the Lord we'd serve if we were to accept.
Inquire about the tasks and sacrifice. To what end?

>>27207885
Yea.

>>27207789
It's my soul. I only get the one. What happens to my soul if I don't accept a Writ?

>>27208029
Also: what happens to my soul if I do and succeed? Or I do and fail? "Cost me my soul" is pretty vague. Destruction? Eternal torture?

>>27208038
This also.

>>27207789
who are these others who have writs and what will the great sacrifice be?

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"Who is the Lord Dread and Sovereign I am called upon to serve?"

The voices call back to you in many tongues, though their answer slowly begins to make sense.

"In the tongues of man spoken in this era he can most easily be called Lord of the Great Abyss, Nuada of the Silver Hand, Nodens."

"There are others?"

"None so great as our Master, but all play the game of the Elder Gods."

"Who are these foes, these others with Writs?"

"Rival sorcerers. Creatures controlled by the other Gods playing the Great Game."

"What happens to my soul if I fail? What are these tasks that are to be set before me? What must I sacrifice?"

"All will be decided in due time by the great Lord Nodens."

>Accept
>Flee

>>27208245
Accept

>>27208245
Flee

>>27208245
>"What happens to my soul if I fail? What are these tasks that are to be set before me? What must I sacrifice?"

>"All will be decided in due time by the great Lord Nodens."
Flee, flee!

>>27208245
Accept. Nodens is a cool guy

>>27208303
>>27208307

>Find eldritch ritual
>Told there is no going back once read and no doing things by halves
>Go out and perform it during the obvious weird midnight hour on campus
>Meet representative of Elder God
>Now is totally the time to pussy out

>>27208245
>>Accept
PRAISE GREAT NODENS, THE FIERCE NORTH WIND!

>>27208360
>>Now is totally the time to pussy out
Look, when you ask somebody "what's going to happen to my soul under this deal?" and they go "Eh, I'll decide later," you back the fuck out, ASAP.

>>27208245
>Accept
We'll need the power to face the hangman. Without it it is only a matter of time before we fall.

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Standing before the great altar you take a breath to steel yourself before you give your answer.

"I shall accept this Writ. What must I do?"

The voices are cacophonous now, a complex chorus made up of all tones and emotions. Finally they speak.

"Sign your name in blood upon the altar."

That's all for tonight. Archiving thread now.

>>27208643
>>27208654
Thanks for running. When will the next one be?

>>27208745

I'm thinking Sunday afternoon/evening, 5PM Central time.

I hope Nodens isn't going to turn out to be a huge asshole, because if he does we're fucked.

>>27208654
Great! Bravo!

Into the mysteries we go!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tp9s3do7My4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkiVU9ptYBM&list=PLX1pxYGy-S7lsAwSLjPYS4OHqcy3dr9K3

>>27210514
Everything you made is in perfect order. Everything is as you set it to be. Things are proceeding precisely as you wanted them to. Truly you were the engineer here. It was your will that all things would be as you have chosen them to be. Responsibility for the direction you have chosen in life is entirely within your hands. For once, you are in control.

I hope we enjoyed it while it lasted.