As your hand touches the crystal, thoughts and images flood into your mind. You can feel your muscles bunch and shift below your Lorica Segmentata. The slow twirl of your spiked chain is comforting to your strained nerves. Varro, Mara, and Isabelle are all carefully searching the room while you keep a lookout.
Hearing a noise you step to a window a peek between the boards. You can see a large number of figures in the courtyard outside. The narrow gap in the boards and darkness prevent you from making out many details. Before you can whisper a warning to your friends you start to hear something odd. A loud high-pitched singing springs up from all directions at once.
The rest of the party stops what they are doing and looks nervously around. The constant singing sound starts to become agony. It feels like all the nerves in your body are resonating painfully with the music. Dropping to your knees you clutch your hands over your ears but the singing only gets louder. The pain wracking your body only gets worse as you can feel yourself start to change. Your hands and feet shift into webbed claws as your armor straps snap under the pressure of your new growth. Your vision goes walleyed as your head twists and contorts into something else. You can feel your mind and sanity give way with an almost palpable snap as you lurch forward to feast with unspeakable joy on the succulent flesh arrayed before you.
The screams and delicious taste of bloody flesh fade to be replaced by overpowering sensations of alternating terror, remorse, and longing. As these feelings swell in your mind you can make out some actual words. “Help us… Save us… KILL US…” Just when you think your mind will be washed away by the torrent of foreign thoughts you can feel the crystal in your hands again. It starts to shake in your grip and suddenly explodes, sending jagged shards of crystal spraying all over the room.