A Chunk of Fantasy 2.08 – Mask of Trelitou

“No…you can’t have it….it belongs to me…it chose me EEE Eee!”
Lady Mirabella, last known user of the mask

A masquerade ball is an event in which the participants attend in costume wearing a mask. Often very lavish events, they are places to show off your latest clothing. The mask is considered part of that. They can range fro simple eye coverings, to full blown face masks, which, whilst impressive does make drinking and eating harder.

The Mask of Trelitou was one such mask. In its default unactivated state, it has a feminine looking porcelain face, with make up painted on and with a frilly outer edge. The mask is of high quality in of itself, but looks to many to be very hard to use, for the eye holes are small horizontal slits and the mouth slot is tiny. Those who see it its default state can appreciate its beauty and worth and everyone can see it is worth a lot of money, However, those with the ability to sense magical energy are normally repulsed by the item, seeing it as something horrible, with an aura that seems like a mixture of necromancy and transmutation.

The Mask of Trelitou (MoT) was first believed to have been discovered in the tomb of Trelitou, the body on which it was resting having had every last drop of moisture and fluids drained from it in what looked like a painful manner. The mask, despite the age of the tomb, was in perfect condition. This might not have raised suspicion if it wasn’t for the fact that the mask was not on the tombs main “inhabitant” but on what looked like a worker, lying om the floor. It was not long after being discovered that it went missing, only to turn up several years later at the site of a gruesome murder, where a body had been found, again with what looked like every last drop of fluid drained from it.

Over the years, the mask gained in fame and notoriety, so much so that fake copies were made as gifts and to fool the gullible. It became almost a fashionable item to have, to wear something so associated with grisly deaths. A few legends started to spring up about the mask, how it would grant the user the ability to shift their features, to look like and sound like anyone they chose, perfectly. A few stories suggested the mask could turn itself invisible or even allow the user to shift their form.

Of course, with such power would come a price. And the mask always seemed to take more than it gave, wanting more and more and giving less and less as time went on. It would force the user to do it’s bidding, subtly at first then more and more overtly. It would demand small sacrifices of blood, and when no was forthcoming it would drain the user. It would whisper to the user, twist its morals, make them increasingly paranoid, drive them to greater and darker acts, draining more and more of the host’s vital fluids. Once the host was dead, it would resume it’s natural, default form and wait for the next person to desire it. And there was always someone who did.

One legend does say the only way to truly destroy this evil mask is to somehow find a pure-hearted descendant of the maker to wear the mask for a year, willingly and without coercion. No-one truly knows if this is true or who the original maker was. It is agreed though that this foul thing was created an extremely long time again and may be the first ever “true” artifact encountered by mortals.