Serious Plots 7: Why so srs?

[Deathkeeper]

Hunted Honey

Aran is gripped by fear, and nostalgia, and also his instinctive bear need to defend his den. Also by the fact that he does not know how to swim.
Aran goes over to the door and opens it for a moment to look outside. He shouldn’t be able to with his paws but he does anyway.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

The door opens, revealing a staircase heading down. It's narrow, dark and twisted, and approaching is a monster. It looks like a massive spider, forcing its way up the staircase with immense difficulty. It has human hands at the end of each leg, and eight old-fashioned car headlights serving as eyes. It has a pair of massive fangs made of glass, filled with glowing green liquid, and it drags a bloodstained double-headed axe behind it. When it sees Aran, it rears up and roars, trying to force its way up the staircase to him as it raises the axe with two of its legs, with the intent to smash it into Aran, when it gets closer. The aura of fear is emanating off it in waves.

[Deathkeeper]

[Hunted Honey]

Aran decides that he is exactly none of that. He shuts the door and locks it, and throws himself out the window, with the hope that the impossibility of his shape continues to hold and he does not get his bottom caught in the sill like a certain bear.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

The door is closed and locked, and silence reigns afterwards. At least, it reigns until Aran jumps out the window falling... Into sky. The seascape remains far above him, steadily getting further and further away as Aran plummets in the wrong direction. His bedroom window only exists on this side, hanging in the air; there's no wall around it.

The fall ends when Aran hits a cloud. Halfway through, he hit something with a thump and the cloud dissipates. Aran's on the floor of a large room, a very large room. It seems to be a kitchen, but everything's scaled up to ludicrous sizes. Aran seems to be the size of a cat, in this kitchen. He can tell, because there's a feeding station nearby, with a bowl each for water and food. The food bowl is full of dismembered corpses, mostly human, and the water bowl is filled with stale blood.

[Deathkeeper]

Hunted Honey

The smell of blood is strong to the nose of a bear. Aran quickly makes for a door; any that he can find. If there’s no exit he might have to find a window. He has no interest in staying in this place.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

Well, there's a catflap nearby Aran could fit through, but something's just used it. A cat, the same size as Aran, with three eyes and six legs. It looks as though it should be dead; somebody has hammered nails into most of its body. It hisses as it approaches, sounding not like a cat but rather like a rattlesnake.

There's no windows, and the doors are too large for Aran to handle... But there's a cupboard nearby that's been left ajar. Aran could fit in there, and whilst so could the cat, thus far every time he's used a door he's faced a different environment.

[Chaotic Bob]

[The Blue City]

Magtok has seen the Blue City before, its vast wasteland of desert and towers stretching into the sandstorm-obscured distance. It is very difficult to mistake for anything else.
However, when Affidavit finally maneuvers everyone here...that is not what they see.

Instead, they see a dimly illuminated room, approximately the size of a small building on its own, with very few notable features. The walls curve upwards with slight creases, creating a form of tapered flower effect by the time they meet in the middle. As best as can be immediately discerned, the floor and walls are all made from a solid piece of off-white material strongly resembling bone.
At equidistant points around the walls are three doorways, open, unmarked, and dark beyond.

A few feet in front of each sits what look to be memorial headstones, each of a different material with a different message carved onto their face.

The first sits carved of dark obsidian and faintly gleaming purple.

Here lies the First opposition, her conquest was foregone.

The second sits carved of a rough, barely polished ruby, edges still jagged and uneven.

Here lies the Second opposition, and the closest of them all.

The third sits carved of alabaster, smoothed to a mirror shine but with a singular deep crack scored through the middle.

Here lies the Third opposition, relentless but cowardly.

While those sensitive to it can feel the heavy saturation of magic in the air, a thick blanket of overlapping spells and energies, there is not much else here. No breeze, no sound, not even any particular cold or warmth.
Empty.

[Deathkeeper]

Hunted Honey

Like before, Aran dives for refuge, lumbering as fast as he can to the cupboard and pulling himself inside and the doors shut behind him. He doubts it will help much, but who knows, maybe it will?

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

Through the cupboard door he goes! On the far side, Aran is in a desert with three suns in the sky- a pale yellow one hovering just above the horizon, a cool blue sun straight overhead and a large red sun sinking towards the horizon. The sand under Aran's paws is very soft, and white, and if he turns there's no door behind him. This place is very hot; it doesn't seem like the kind of place a bear should be.

Suddenly, there's an immense splurting noise as an immense geyser bursts through the sand, an eruption of dark brown chocolate milk bursting from the ground and spattering around like sweet, tasty rain. This dream doesn't seem as bad as the previous ones, and even quite tasty- though that sky's quite unnerving, with three suns. Even if it is dusk for the red sun.

[Deathkeeper]

Hunting Honey

Aran drinks his fill of the dessert rain, even though it makes his fur all sticky.
Then he continues through the desert, hoping he finds another door soon.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunting Honey

As Aran wanders through the desert, he may note things starting to appear, things that are out of place in a desert. Even more so than chocolate geysers, I mean. There's a streetlamp, emerging from the sand as the dreaming bear-witch approaches, the light glowing. There's a canoe, being rowed across the sand by a mass of limbs like four people who have merged into one, except there's an extra arm growing from the mass, daintily holding a pink parasol. Despite its horrific appearance, however, the canoeist ignores Aran and just keeps rowing. After that, buildings slowly grow from the sand, rising up like submarines emerging from a dive. Sand streams off their facades, people walking through the streets shoving waves of sand before them, and a totally normal commercial street appears. A close look reveals that the people are a mix; some are shop mannequins, moving stiffly and awkwardly on limbs that don't bend properly, and others are faceless things wearing suits, that bend too easily and whose flesh seems to bubble and pop if Aran stares too long. They all ignore Aran, going about their usual business, passing through doors whenever they need to get into a building. They don't open it; they just pass through it, like they or the door doesn't exist. Aran knows, with all the logic of a dream, that to him they are locked and he cannot use them.

Aran might notice, sat outside a cafe, is a young girl. She's about six or seven, and she's wearing a pink sleeveless top and a pair of jeans; she's neither one of the faceless horrors nor a mannequin, but a real child, with brown skin, black hair and brown eyes; Indian or Pakistani, or some equivalent thereof, perhaps. She is currently drinking from a fine china teacup and talking to an old, much loved stuffed toy dog with thread bear blue fur and only one button eye, and a yellow bird, a real one, with a tall crest of feathers on its head- a hoopoe, if Aran's familiar with birds.

Or there's a door! One of the shops, a clothes store by the look, has an open door that looks quite inviting.

[Lord Magtok]

The Blue City

Spoiler

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[The Blue City]

Magtok has seen the Blue City before, its vast wasteland of desert and towers stretching into the sandstorm-obscured distance. It is very difficult to mistake for anything else.
However, when Affidavit finally maneuvers everyone here...that is not what they see.

Instead, they see a dimly illuminated room, approximately the size of a small building on its own, with very few notable features. The walls curve upwards with slight creases, creating a form of tapered flower effect by the time they meet in the middle. As best as can be immediately discerned, the floor and walls are all made from a solid piece of off-white material strongly resembling bone.
At equidistant points around the walls are three doorways, open, unmarked, and dark beyond.

A few feet in front of each sits what look to be memorial headstones, each of a different material with a different message carved onto their face.

The first sits carved of dark obsidian and faintly gleaming purple.


The second sits carved of a rough, barely polished ruby, edges still jagged and uneven.


The third sits carved of alabaster, smoothed to a mirror shine but with a singular deep crack scored through the middle.


While those sensitive to it can feel the heavy saturation of magic in the air, a thick blanket of overlapping spells and energies, there is not much else here. No breeze, no sound, not even any particular cold or warmth.
Empty.

"A riddle. Great. I guess it was too much to hope that we'd get straight to business and hit the ground running," a purple-robed figure scowls, pressing a chrome right hand against the obsidian headstone. Finely tailored illusion spells crackle and shimmer as magic touches magic, before Purple withdraws his hand and backs off. Best not to put any undue strain on Needs' runic arrays, especially so early into the invasion.

"Every path leads to death," a pale sorcerer in an orange robe observes, pointing to each of the three headstones. His lips, nose, and fingertips are all black as night, perhaps consumed by ritual ink or frostbite or both. Mismatched eyes, one red as rubies and the other tangerine, give each of the three epitaphs one last perfunctory examination, before roughly flicking a wrist at an unnatural, unsettling angle, aiming to seize any loose aetheric threads hanging from the hewn stone, to gracefully pop open the locks dictating shape and form, and mold each grave marker into a shovel, tasked with unearthing bodies and memories that surely aren’t here anymore. They're not actual graves, Needs. You think Feiadyne would respectfully bury her adversaries? The dead are probably caught in some death traps up ahead, if they even exist at all and aren't some figurative, fictional beings made up for the sake of this maybe-riddle. Hell, they might even be you, Magtok, and Affidavit.

"This is satisfactory. After all, are we not seeking Death?"

[Gnrlshrimp]

[The Blue City]

Oh, how delightfully charming. She's really rolled out the welcome mat here, hasn't she?

Oh, are we colour-coding our robes now? Well, there's one individual here who seems to have donned a particularly electrifying set of blue robes.

Not at all reminscent of those piercing blue eyes of a certain phantom in the wires, I'm sure.

Now then, gentlemen, do we feel like playing along? I'm quite sure you could simply explode our little prison here, couldn't you, Needs?

The figure strides over to...well, let's do this in order, shall we? The doorway of the first opposition.

Let's see what's behind door number 1!

Eyes that pierce through all darkness scan what lies beyond.

[Arkhosia]

Spoiler

Show

[Substation XRay]

Local shepherds call the mountain "the place of the witches' sabbath" or "the place of the witch's sabbath", depending on which side they live on and how much of a grudge they have against a specific woman they can pretend is the specific witch. The twin peaks rise into the sky and command attention. The Royal Clandestine Agency built their black site on a modest hill a little bit away from this mountain, so that it would be easily overlooked. A barbed wire fence surrounds the area, but a motorized gate at the road in has been battered down by something wanting quick access. Reinholdt, Blanche, and Callie arrive to investigate why the Substation put an alarm out and then went silent. They find that XRay has been hidden among some medieval looking stone ruins.

The road leads up to the largest tower and what used to be a reinforced garage door set in one side. The tower bears other signs of modern use: electrical flood lights on the other sides and a grove of antennae sprouting from the roof. The only sign of life in the exterior of the black site is a truck-sized animal that looks like a rhinoceros with a horn shaped like a battering ram. It's currently pushing against one of the unoccupied towers, digging in its large hooves and inching forward until the whole thing topples over with a clatter. At the same time, a surge of divine magic on the mountain draws Callie's attention (and possibly the attention of everyone sensitive to magic for miles around). A flash of green light should catch Reinholdt and Blanche's attention too just in time for them to see the sky open up and bombard the peak on the left with fire and lightning. A second later a black line slashes out from Mother Nature's target, catching the other peak at an angle from its top left to halfway down its right side. A cloud of dislodged snow disrupts the view, but it soon becomes clear that the entire cap of stone is sliding off the peak. Before the sound of the avalanche reaches them, they will see the once proud feature cut down to size. Some Goddess has murderously masectomized the mountain.

Callie swears once, voice shaken with awe and fear, and then starts sprinting to the central tower as if every second she spends out of cover is another invitation for the dueling deities to take notice of her. Like the beast notices her. It starts lumbering after the foxy terrorist and if the sniper and the medic don't stop it from building up speed it will catch her before she can escape inside.

[Substation Xray]

Well the gate being wrecked indicates bad, but Rein didn't quite expect the bad to escalate so quickly. Large beast, yikes. Tower falling, oh no! Mountains exploding. Well, they just stepped right in it, didn't they? One of the Vulpans pissed off the wrong person this time. It was most unsettling. And loud.

"Wait Callie! Stick together! Dammit." She's got the right idea to get inside, but top speed and alone is not the way to do it. Reinholdt follows her for a bit before noticing that they've already been noticed. He swears again, skidding to a stop as he pulls out an elephant gun. He wasn't expecting to have to deal with an organic tank right away. Kneeling, he checks the gun out as quickly as he can, not having to fire one in a very, very long time. He's not satisfied with his inspection, but he's out of time too, so he lines up a shot and fire, trying to catch the beast in the legs.

Blanche shields her eyes from the blinding blast before briefly staring in awe at the sundered mountain peak. It was a destructive spectacle fully unlike anything she had seen before in scale, for the era in which Blanche had served back home was far past the grand years of orbital bombardments and clashes between massive fleets.

"...Holy [caress], this is way above my paygrade." She states to herself, before her father's own expletive draws her attention to the elephantine beast pursuing their leader. Her weaponry was certainly not up to the task here, she notes far too acutely as she pulls back the bolt of her Mosin Nagant, before following the beast through her scope and sucking back a breath. She presses the trigger with the aim to hit the creature straight in the eye, knowing the difficulty of the shot but doubting the rifle's ability to puncture its hide and flesh effectively.

[Deathkeeper]

Hunted Honey

The city is a scary place. But Aran is used to scary cities.
He can’t keep going through doors forever. He waddles over to the little girl.
”Hello, Miss. What are you doing here?” he asks her.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

"The same thing as you, I think. I'm dreaming. Would you like a drink?" There's a cup of tea in front of Aran now, sat on the table. "We've been keeping track of you, Mister Bear. You've run from two nightmares, at least. Why is that? You're a bear, you can take on a nightmare or two. Even if it's a spider with hands and an axe or a giant cat with nails. I guess that spider might have been tricky, but it needed room to use that axe and you ran when it was in a corridor too narrow for it to fit easily." She looks at Aran, and tilts her head. She looks human, but she's not. She's not even mortal; she feels a bit like Ursagridd, but different.

[Chaotic Bob]

[The Blue City]

The text on the obsidian headstone gleams a faint purple, after the Magtok removes his hand from it. This is probably not significant in any way.

And unfortunately for Needs, the narrative text is actually correct here: there is nothing of importance beneath the headstones as he pulls them apart to use as digging implements.
As exciting as the crack-crunching efforts of digging through the bone-like material of the floor is...that's all that is beneath it. Maybe some lingering sentiment of smug satisfaction somewhere. It would appear, that despite the presentation as such, there has been really absolutely nothing of note in this room ever.
Well, mostly.

Those headstones were steeped in all sorts of enchantment energy, which have also unraveled like wispy spiderwebs torn from the air upon being yanked from the ground. Although, the latter two seem to have already been broken before then, just hanging on by the edges of their anchor-points to the stones.
Ruby and alabaster were dead spells.

Obsidian seemed to be a rather active one, even if the active component of it just seemed to be something akin to an on-switch. An on-switch spell loaded with a lot of juice for something elsewhere.

Which brings us to Blue Robes.
That hallway had seemed inexplicably dark, unlike the dimly (if sourcelessly) lit headstone chamber. At least, up until a moment ago.
That dimness extends down the hallway as Blue approached the doorway, revealing an upward sloping chamber made of the same material as the initial room. Unlike the plain smoothness that had existed there, however, the hallway seems to have been rather intricately carved in a scale pattern. Hundreds upon thousands of scales line the walls and ceiling, each about the size of a hand. The floor is made of significantly larger, and wider scales, stretching from one end of the wall to the other, clearly all in representation of some reptile's belly scales.

There are strange symbols carved into random scales, here and there, but they don't appear to have any obvious meaning or magic tied to them. They're just there.

While the hallway is fairly long, it is straight, and clearly opens up into another room in the distance. This one is glowing with a gentle purple light.

As for the other two doors...
What other two doors? There are no other doors.
Just this one. Maybe there was always just this one?
That's probably it. Definitely.

[Lord Magtok]

The Blue City

"Did he seriously just-"

"The arrogant, obnoxious, self-proclaimed genius just charged ahead recklessly, yes," Orange Robes answers flatly, his tone very deftly suggesting that his brother ought to make sure his lair hasn't been turned to glass before throwing stones about. He shifts the obsidian shovel into a crude sort of kite shield, before shaking his head and following after Affidavit.

"Fine, whatever, not like we have any other options now. Just pointing out that if this path leads to instant death, and condemned the entire Nexus to oblivion because of us dying on the first stage of Feia's stupid funhouse of murder, it was Affidavit's fault. You know, this kind of ****ery is exactly why we didn't invite more people to th-"

"Cease non-vital communications," Needs interrupts, before the two of them hurry after Affidavit before this bone chamber gets any funny ideas. It's just a straight hallway from here, right? Nothing to get worried about, just walking down a simple hallway in the dark. Hm. Bone, then scale, and possibly muscle and sinew next, if Feia's interested in following weird, self-absorbed architectural references to herself?

[Deathkeeper]

Hunted Honey

Aran looks at her, considering. But still, he tells her the truth. He also tries to take some of the tea offered, but his paws and mouth aren’t suited to it.
”Well, I’m not really a fighter, Miss. I make things or fix things, usually. Going into a fight unprepared is usually just a way to get hurt.” he explains. It makes far more sense to run if you think you might get injured, even if you might win the fight.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

"Well, here's a note for you. A nightmare's greatest weapon is fear. If you're confident enough to stare it down and charge, you're well on the way to winning. And you're a bear. Bears are Bad News. Now, those nightmares are going to go on and terrorise small children, like me. Well, not like me. Nobody's like me, except me." She'll reach out and pat his paw. "So, you're dreaming. I'm dreaming. And that bird there's also dreaming, but its dreams are second-hand. It tried to read my mind, and now it's dreaming what I dream until I wake up. What do you want, Mister Bear?" She points at the hoopoe when she mentions 'that bird', and it ruffles its feathers and looks indignant.

[Deathkeeper]

Hunter Honey

Oh, well. That doesn’t sound good at all. But sadly it’s not anything he can do about it now.
”Well, if you asked me a month ago, I would have told you something different. But right now, I’m just trying to get my life in order. I’ve just sort of become a bear without realizing when that really happened, or what it means to me. I don’t think I was ready to suddenly be....Big. But I am Big now and people seem to expect me to be Big and I’m off running strange magical errands like helping bees with magic honey and talking to people in dreams. I think I could maybe use directions.” Aran does a lot of babbling, but it’s only in part due to how confused he is. It’s also just what happens when you’re in a dream world ruled by the subconscious due to eating magic substances.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

He could try going back to fight them, now he knows how.

"Well, now. You want direction? I think I can help you with that. It's tricky, since it's so vague. I can give you some assistance, but it'll be dangerous. I can help you find direction, if you'd like. Guide you to the dreams of the weak, the vulnerable, the scared and the insecure, to protect them and guide them in ways I can't. You'd be helping people, but it won't be easy. I can't always do it myself, though I try. You'd do it when I can't, as a guardian angel. Your body would sleep soundly, but... It may change you, in small ways."

[Morty]

[Underground Laboratory]

Magler slips out of the cage, though he almost misses his window being just as confused as Sophie is. So she worked for that malodorous malpractitioner after all? And was somehow just dimwitted enough to believe that Magler was here of his own free will and also working for the doctor? These two must have been brought in as temps for whatever move Sophie is referring to. Well fine. He can play along just long enough to give them the slip and escape the horrific condemned trash heap. There were two of them though, so it'll be that much trickier.

"Ah, well that's perfect ma'am. Why don't you grab my books from the back corner in there and lead the way ma'am?" There don't seem to be any books back there, but it's pretty dark in there. Doctor Xeyal apparently blew his entire lighting budget on a single room. There could be some.

Sophie blinks.

"Oh. I'm sorry. I think I misunderstood why or how you're here. Sorry about this little deception. We're actually shutting this place down, so... you're free to go."

[FireFox]

[Substation Xray]

Well the gate being wrecked indicates bad, but Rein didn't quite expect the bad to escalate so quickly. Large beast, yikes. Tower falling, oh no! Mountains exploding. Well, they just stepped right in it, didn't they? One of the Vulpans pissed off the wrong person this time. It was most unsettling. And loud.

"Wait Callie! Stick together! Dammit." She's got the right idea to get inside, but top speed and alone is not the way to do it. Reinholdt follows her for a bit before noticing that they've already been noticed. He swears again, skidding to a stop as he pulls out an elephant gun. He wasn't expecting to have to deal with an organic tank right away. Kneeling, he checks the gun out as quickly as he can, not having to fire one in a very, very long time. He's not satisfied with his inspection, but he's out of time too, so he lines up a shot and fire, trying to catch the beast in the legs.

Blanche shields her eyes from the blinding blast before briefly staring in awe at the sundered mountain peak. It was a destructive spectacle fully unlike anything she had seen before in scale, for the era in which Blanche had served back home was far past the grand years of orbital bombardments and clashes between massive fleets.

"...Holy [caress], this is way above my paygrade." She states to herself, before her father's own expletive draws her attention to the elephantine beast pursuing their leader. Her weaponry was certainly not up to the task here, she notes far too acutely as she pulls back the bolt of her Mosin Nagant, before following the beast through her scope and sucking back a breath. She presses the trigger with the aim to hit the creature straight in the eye, knowing the difficulty of the shot but doubting the rifle's ability to puncture its hide and flesh effectively.

[Substation XRay]

Reinholdt's round takes out a chunk of one of the beast's front legs, midway between the shoulder and the foot. Blanche's bullet barely hits, destroying the beast's eye but lodging in the bony orbit instead of reaching the brain. The walking tank cries out in pain, a deep bellow like a diesel big rig driving off a cliff. The modest amount of momentum it has already built up pushes it forward one step and then another, but its wounded leg can't support its weight. First it trips, then it skids a couple meters along the ground with its battering ram horn plowing a short furrow in the rocky ground. It shouts again, angrier now, and struggles to lift its armored mass with its three good legs.

Callie's snow white tail disappears into the tower without so much as a wave of gratitude. The divine battle in the distance has moved down the back slope of Witches' Sabbath Mountain. Who knows whether one of them is driving off the other or if they're being deliberately led away.

[Reinholdt]

[Substation Xray]

"Yeah, well. Welcome to the Nexus Kid," Reinholdt tells Blanche, as he rubs his shoulder. His now very sore shoulder. He's used to some heavy kickback, but this was another level. Reminds him why he doesn't use this gun hardly ever.

He gets to work reloading the one shot wonder. "When facing down a superior force, you need to outwit them. Flap your mouth. And right now whatever's going on isn't in a talking mood. So follow Callie. I'll cover and be right behind you," Reinholdt says, taking aim again, bracing on the other shoulder and waiting for Blanche to move. If that biological tank even looks at the catgirl, it'll get shot again in a different leg. Well, perhaps. Rein's aim is worse since he's swapped from his dominant side.

[Gnrlshrimp]

[The Blue City]

Did I take a whole four steps forward to look at the only thing of interest you two weren't digging up? Yes. Yes I did. And please, do use your inside voices, hmm? Think it loud enough and I can just think everything back and forth between us.

The blue robed figure takes a step away from the hallway, no doubt smiling oh-so-pleasantly at Purple and Orange.

But since it's apparently such an arrogant and obnoxious thing to do, then please commander, take the lead. Blue robes motions for one of the Mags to go ahead of him, down what is surely a completely safe and secure hallway without any traps in it whatsoever.

[Deathkeeper]

[Hunted Honey]

Aran stares at her, thinking. It’s certainly not anything he was expecting. But...
”I could do that, maybe. But I’m already sworn to Ursagridd. I can’t accept anything like that from other beings if that’s what you’re offering.” he tells her.

[Earl of Purple]

Hunted Honey

"You think it would conflict? I can't fight Ursagridd. Hmm. I could grant a boon, a one-off gift. But those are also tricky." She's silent for a bit, as she mulls it over, trying to think of something, and being completely truthful about not being able to fight Ursa. "Oh, here. You're asleep, but this'll be in your hand when you wake up." She pulls out a... toy compass. It's cheap, with a tacky plastic case and it's on a rainbow-coloured shoelace, complete with aglets. The needle itself wobbles a lot, poorly balanced and only approximately accurate. "Huh, I thought it was nicer than that. Anyway. It'll point you to what you want most. Or possibly where you're needed most, it's never worked properly for me." She shrugs, and puts it on the table, sliding it towards Aran.

[Chaotic Bob]

[The Blue City]

Moving past all the clearly friendly tension between the group members, we begin to ascend the not remotely subtle reptilian hallway.

Where a whole lot of nothing happens for a minute or two, until they're about halfway through the hall.
Presumably everyone is on the lookout for traps, hawkishly staring at everything around them constantly.

Maybe Needs will notice it first, the subtle shifting in the ambient magics, the sense of a burden being lifted, a tension released.
Or maybe it'll be whoever looks directly behind them first.

It is blackness. Oh yes, presumably everyone here can see through darkness, magical or otherwise, but it is still very pitch-black anyway. Should anyone bother to try to touch said blackness, they will find that it appears to be stone? An absolutely light-consuming stone. Certainly wasn't there before.
Just like with a pair of other doors that probably existed at some point, it seems as if there simply wasn't any hallway back in that direction at any point. Just a ceaselessly dark wall.

Which is following them.
Every time the group moves forward at all, there seems to be less hallway behind them. It maintains the same distance from them, this darkness, giving the unsettling illusion of them not actually making any progress away from the wall at all, if not for the fact that the room ahead is clearly getting closer.

Now, again, presumably the group doesn't waste an eternity contemplating the dark wall and moves forward at least far enough to see into the purple-glowing room just up ahead. Or, feasibly, at least one member of the group does.
This particular action doesn't trigger anything on its own, but it does reveal that the room ahead also seems to be surrounded by this inexorably unviewable stone. It leaves the only other point of focus the source of the purple glow filtering through the open space: keys.

A lot of keys. Keys made of something akin to polished amethyst and all arranged into the distinct shape of a small dragon's skeleton.
Small here, of course, is a rather relative term.
The key-dragon-skeleton is still about the size of a small truck.

Presently, it is posed to look like it is curled up on itself, floating in the air slightly off-center towards the back of the room.
Almost as if it were sleeping.

[Lord Magtok]

Blue City

But since it's apparently such an arrogant and obnoxious thing to do, then please commander, take the lead. Blue robes motions for one of the Mags to go ahead of him, down what is surely a completely safe and secure hallway without any traps in it whatsoever.

"If you insist," Needs^*answers, seemingly oblivious to both Affidavit's sarcasm and request for mental projections instead of verbal communication. It could just as easily be ignorance as a deliberate snub, honestly, and there's no easy way to determine which one is in play here. Hold on a second, though. Needs is the one who steps up as commander? Not a Magtok? That's...that's certainly unusual. Magtok would be the obvious choice for this sort of thing, but he doesn't seem rattled or even a little upset by this usurpation, content to just trail behind and grumble about Affy to himself instead. It briefly occurs to him to try to throw a rock down the hall, to see if the wall behind them will suddenly shoot forward and launch them all with it, but that would be beyond stupid, so he doesn't do anything of the sort.

"I will need a lock. If you cannot find one in the room ahea, I will use my own," Needs reports to his two cohorts, his amethyst kite shield shifting once again, molding itself into a lock that will perhaps be further shifted in a few moments, to perfectly accommodate one of the reptilian skeleton keys.