Dark Room Salon

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The Salon is the chamber that is aligned with Pandemonium.

Apprentice Mystery of the Salon

Opacity: 2 • Interval: Scrutiny takes 1 hour per test.
Surface Information: This is the result of any successful Revelation test done before the Mystery's Opacity has been unraveled completely.

  • The object in front of you is a soulstone, a calcified piece of a mage's Awakened soul. You have a momentary vision of the mage at the moment they created this soulstone. It embodies the Ruling Arcana of your Path, and is a sympathetic connection to that Realm.
  • The soulstone was calcified about thirty years ago, and they are clearly one of the creators of the Antechamber as well.
  • You can discern something strange at the heart of the soulstone: your own name, scribed in High Speech as you wrote it on the Watchtower.
  • In order to begin to Scrutinize the soulstone, you must have 2 dots in both of the Ruling Arcana of your Path.
  • Gain 1 Arcane Beat.

Deep Information: This is the result of a successful Revelation test done after the Mystery's Opacity has been unraveled completely.

The Iron Door

  • Wrought of a sleek, matte black iron, it is inlaid with goetic sigils and carvings of demons of all sorts. In its center is a circular puzzle-lock, with a series of thirteen small alcoves around it. In the alcoves are the small, manipulatable pieces used to solve the puzzle, but reaching for them reveals that space is warped within them. In some, they are closer than they seem, slamming one's fingers into them, and in others they are entirely out of reach.
  • Mystery of the Iron Door: Opacity: 2 • Requirement: must be studied with Mind and Space mage sight by someone who has fully Revealed the Antechamber Mystery
    • Surface Info: created by Awakened magic using Mind and Space, about the same time the Antechamber was made
    • Deep Info: the door requires a Compelling Space practice to allow the mage to shift the pockets of warped space away, and a Compelling Mind practice to allow the mage to both concentrate on the puzzle and to focus on keeping the pieces accessible.
  • Opening the door requires the use of Ground-Eater (Space •) to manipulate the small pockets of warped space, and One Mind, Two Thoughts (Mind •) to allow simultaneous shifting of the pockets and solving of the puzzle at the same time.

The Chamber

  • A room divided into small intimate alcoves and chambers by standing wrought-iron screens of exceedingly intricate filigree practically forming fractal patterns. Long drapes of thin crimson and black satin billow in a slight breeze which pushes around clouds of heady incense.
  • The shadows are long in this room, with pools of light formed by intricate hookah-lanterns scattered on low tables here and there. The alcoves are furnished with long velvet divans, piles of silken pillows, and other similarly sumptuous furnishings, many of which are strange unless one is familiar with the kinds of things intended for…intimate company of a specialized sort.
  • The outer walls are tall panels of wrought iron, and the darkness beyond roils like a black fog. Occasionally whispers boil up out of that furious darkness, and one's thoughts are entirely too loud when staring out at them – fortunately, the chamber's screen-and-alcoves design means one has to be very deliberate about gazing out into that madness.
  • Soulstone: In the center of the space, in one of the few wide open spaces, there stands a gallery-style area. At the center of the gallery floor is a weird interlocking mechanism of iron and brass and crimson glass in an archway design. Between the posts of the arch, there swings a pendulum in the shape of a shining, razor-sharp crescent. As it swings, its movement causes small mechanisms within the sculpture to shift and fold and blossom, so that it is constantly changing. Their movements in turn keep the pendulum moving, an impossible system of perfect, perpetual motion that is very nearly a visualization of manic thought made physical. Those with Mind 2 and Space 2 can tell there is a Mystery attached to the soulstone (the Apprentice Mystery of the Salon).
  • Tass: Tass accumulates as small, sticky balls of opium-like incense scattered in small bowls throughout the alcoves of the chamber.