Object 1066: The Holder of Defeat
In any town or city, go to a sporting event and watch the event. Whatever the event, you must watch it in its entirety. When the event has concluded, go to a participant who came in last place, and ask him to introduce you to "The Holder of Defeat".
He will look utterly defeated by your request, and will take you to his changing room. This is your last chance to flee. He will then leave, while you must stay. Once the athlete's footsteps fade, there will be a personal trainer there standing behind you. She will tell you that your event is about to begin and you must hurry to the field.
Once you leave the changing room, you will be in the center of a large stadium with your doppelganger standing beside you. You will both be instructed to begin a myriad of athletic events, from swimming to boxing to the javelin throw. You will be overcome by the need to win each event and defeat your opponent. Be wary, for you must let your adversary be victorious in each event. Each time you lose your will to win will become stronger, coupled with a crushing depression each time you lose, all the while your opponent and the audience filling the stands will mock you for your uselessness and incompetence.
You must be vigilant, don't allow the building lust for victory or the suicidal depression filling your mind to cloud your judgment. Soon your opponent will ask "Why don't you give up?" or the audience will start to chant "Give up". When this happens, you must stop the event you are in, and travel to the umpire and ask "What is the reward for victory?" Should you do this too early, you will suffer at your opponent's hands, tormented by his victory. If you do this too late, you will continue the circuit of events for all eternity as your body grows old, tired, and weary. Never to rest, even as your withered muscles fall from your bones.
However, if your triumph is well-timed, a golden medal of victory shall be draped around your neck. Its power would corrupt your mind, and would forever imbue the need to defeat others in your mind. Should you lose, your mind would be broken, driven to kill the one who bested you.
Your defeat, however, is final. The Object of Defeat has already been claimed by the creature known as Legion. Know this, instead of empowering you, it now fuels his insane determination to bring together all the Objects of 2538.
The medallion is Object 1066. Victory in his quest could mean defeat for all.
Object 1069: The Holder of the Bath
Hm?
You're interested in my Object?
Why? I don't have it anymore. The fact that you have encountered a Holder without having gone through the stereotypical "eternal madness" or "fate worse than anything hell could give you" traps should be a sign that He took it and I didn't feel the need to maintain my domain.
Seriously, Seeker, you think that finding the five-hundred-and-thirty-eight that are left would be traumatic enough.
...Oh, very well. If you're that curious, I can tell you about what the path to my Object was like.
In any bathhouse in any part of Japan, you would have had to go up to the attendant and pay the usual fee for entry. You also could have bought whatever else you needed, be it a washcloth, towel, shampoo, whatever. One thing you HAD to buy, however, was two ice creams. When you buy the ice creams, you have to ask the attendant for whatever kind that the Holder of the Bath likes.
If the attendant gave you a confused look, asked you again what kind you wanted, or acted like he or she thought you were a weirdo, or enforce a policy of not letting foreign customers in (if you're not native to Japan), then you had gone to the wrong bathhouse. Nothing bad would have happened to you, but you'd have to try again.
If the attendant suddenly seemed very afraid, then you'd come to the right place. He or she would have given you two random ice creams. One would be your personal favorite, a gesture of pity, which you would have been free to eat right then and there. A last treat before you potentially die a horrible death, if you're lucky.
The other you'd need later.
At this point, you'd need to enter the bathhouse proper, but go through the door the OPPOSITE gender of what you are. A male would have to go through the women's door, and vice-versa. The bathing area would seem ten times as large as it would be normally, all the baths having beautiful men or women in them, looking very interested in you. At this point, you would have had to follow the usual etiquette for bathhouses before you got in the bath because if you didn't, the bathers would have gotten out of their baths and literally scrubbed your skin off. With rock salt.
I despise when people don't follow proper etiquette.
After going through the usual etiquette for preparing for a Japanese bath, you would have had to start walking through the baths looking for my primary guardian. The other bathers, whom I deliberately made to be tremendously attractive by human standards, would start trying to seduce you to join them in the baths. This was another trap, as if you decided to join them you would have been dragged down underwater, the baths becoming impossibly deep, and learned what it's like to drown forever in depth that would normally crush a man into pulp.
No, the best thing to do would have been to keep going without stopping, for my seducers are quite eager to have you and will grab you if you dally. Keep going until you found my primary guardian, who will look quite out of place. He or she (again, the form will be the opposite gender of the Seeker coming to visit) will be vastly different from the others. He or she will be heavily obese, messily eating some large sandwich, and be a different nationality than the other bathers. The water the guardian will be bathing in will be disgusting, looking and smelling more like sewage.
At this point, you still would have had a chance to leave. Behind the guardian would be a single, empty bath full of sparkling clean water. If you wanted to leave, then you would simply have to sit in the empty bath, close your eyes, and go underwater until your breath gives out. You would find yourself in the bathtub in your home (or nearest friend's house, if you only have a shower at your home), with the second ice cream nearby.
If you had the metaphorical balls to say, then you would have had to ask to join my primary guardian in the tub. He or she will rudely dismiss you at first. Try again, and you'd be dismissed again, this time with a crude sexual insult. Offer him or her the ice cream on the third time (and the third time ONLY), and the guardian will consent. At this point, you would have been allowed to get into the bath with my primary guardian. You would have had to show no disgust at the water, and act as if you were getting into a nice, relaxing hot tub, and immerse yourself up to the chin. Any sign of disgust and you would have become the guardian's next meal, soon after to become part of the filth in the water.
My primary guardian would then start talking, casual banter. It could have been on anything. Sports, national politics, celebrities, video games, anything at all. It would have been in your best interest to act as interested as possible, because if the guardian becomes offended...
...well, you're not actively Seeking my Object now. I see no reason to trouble you with it. Suffice to say you would have seen what he or she REALLY looked like before your eternal torment began.
Midway through the conversation, the water will start getting hotter, the smell getting worse and worse. Show any disgust during this point, and you would have regretted it. Keep listening to the guardian, and keep acting interested. Try not to lose consciousness as well, as you would have sunk into the filthy water and become a part of it forever, as other Seekers did before you.
When my guardian started talking about romance (and ONLY when romance is the topic), at this point it was very important that you interrupted him or her, asking if the water seems too hot. The guardian will disagree. The ONLY correct thing to say at that point was this: "Well, it is for me. I'm greatly enjoying your company, but it's hard to focus on what you're saying."
If the guardian looks amused, then he or she didn't believe you and will consume you right then and there. If the guardian blushes, then he or she would have pointed out my office, through a door on a wall that wasn't there before. Get up and go through the door without bothering to cover up or wipe off the filth. You would have needed it. You would have found me at my desk, writing various reports in the Language. Nothing you do would have gotten my attention except for grabbing me by the face and smearing the filth on me.
...Yes, I know. But when I became the Holder, I was told to ignore any Seeker unless they did that.
...Who told me?
...Heh. Bring the Objects together and you'll find out.
Anyway... Once you got my attention (and I clean my face off), I would have asked you what you wanted. Any response that wasn't "Will anyone feel clean again after they are brought together?" would have resulted in the filth covering you to become corrosive, your death slow and agonizing.
Ask the right question and I would have let you use the shower in my office to clean up. As you are cleaning up, I would have given the answer to your question. It will be simple, concise, and to the point, and has left many Seekers feeling unclean for the rest of their lives. Afterward, I will say that the water in the tub you are in has been fixed. Go back and join my guardian again, only this time the water will be clean and the guardian will have taken a form you find appealing. Join him or her in the tub again. The guardian now respects your courage, and will not harm you. At this point you could talk about whatever you like, flirt with him or her, do whatever you like that will be enjoyable. Just stay in the water with him or her (barring any physical needs, such as trips to the bathroom) until the sun sets and rises, as my seducers are still interested in you. Once the sun rises, I would have come out again and asked you to leave. The guardian would leave at this point as well. I would have thanked you for your patronage and given you a small key.
That key is my Object, Object 1069 of 2538. With it, you would have been able to rent any hotel or motel room that isn't related to a Holder quest for free, and hold full mental control over all members of that hotel's staff.
Yes, you could have used it for THAT as well. Not that it matters. He took it.
Why do you want to know this, Seeker? My Object is long gone. All I want to do now is watch and wait for them to be brought together.
...Hm?
A website?
There's a collection of stories depicting the instructions for the Objects on them?
Interesting. How many of the Lost Objects are listed there?
...I wonder what would happen if the instructions for gaining all 2538 Objects were brought together on that site?
I wonder if that would count as bringing the Objects together?
Food for thought, Seeker.
Heh.
Object 1072: The Holder of the Nameless
Why give a name to that which you fear most? Does an identity provide you with protection against it?
Before you begin the journey for this Object, Seeker, you will need a sacrifice. Take any book you wish and blackout all the names contained within. Do so without regret or remorse. Do not pity the author or his work. Most importantly, do not pity the names.
Now, with your sacrifice in hand, go to any library in any city or country. When you arrive you may be tempted to ask the librarian to see "The Holder of the Nameless", but all you would get is a confused blank stare. And in this case, that will get you nowhere. No, Seeker, once you have entered the library of your choice, you must not speak any name. If you do you will face the wrath of The Nameless One.
Walk to the section on Ancient History. With the book in your hand and all the names struck through, you will notice the shelves begin to grow. The farther you walk, you see that no one else is around you. You will begin to hear a faint and distant humming, first shallow and far off, then deep and brooding. All the while you may fail to notice that all the letters on all the spines of the books have fallen off. Letters are scattered on the ground, blowing in an imperceptible wind. Do not attempt to open any of these books. If you do you will be frozen immobile to wait for The Nameless One to come around and peel your skin off to make more pages to fill His vast volumes.
At this point, there are no walls or ceiling to be seen. Continue on your path, to wander off is to face a doom no one can know or imagine. You may see other Seekers who fell victim to their curiosity, now with only tatters of skin remaining on their muscles. Even though their expressions are blank and their posture calm, you can bet that the horrors they face while they are skinned alive day after day is beyond unbearable. After what may seem like an eternity of walking you will find yourself in a clearing of sorts. Nothing for a short while but the small piles of letters on the floor. Suddenly you will come upon a very large book on the floor. On it stands a figure in a heavy hooded cloak. He immediately stops writing once he senses your presence.
The pages you may notice are crudely sewn together from different strange shapes. This is the skin of failed Seekers. Do not let your eyes linger here. The Holder does not want you reading what had to be written. Should he catch you not only will you lose all the Objects you have collected, you will be sent back to each Holder to die in the trials that you had already prevailed over.
You will realize without being able to see into the cloak that The Nameless One is looking at you. You must ask it this: "What was His name in the beginning?"
The Nameless One will loose itself of its cloak. You will not be able to comprehend any discernible feature. He will look like someone you saw in a past dream. Appearing familiar yet indistinct at the time but upon recalling, you only remember a faint blur. The Holder will then tell you of His choosing the Objects and the cursing and blessing of each one. Of the way He delights in destruction and mayhem. The Nameless One will relate in excruciating detail the woes that Their gathering brought upon worlds past.
Ask again, "What was His name?"
The creature will beckon you onto the book, you mustn't do this. Hold back at all costs. The Holder has been said to even take the form of someone you have loved greatly but lost. If you pass this trial, The Nameless One will tell you that His name is lost to all but Legion now. That even he, the Keeper and Destroyer of names can no longer contain it. You will learn that Legion took the Holder's own name using the Objects he collected. That long ago, The Nameless One protected the outer realm of His dwelling. That once Legion struck him down and stole his name, that he was banished by Him to forever be a Holder.
What he wants to give you now, is essential to Their gathering. At this point, he will rush to you and through you. You will lose conscientiousness, only will you survive if you brought along your sacrifice. Everyone who possesses the names you crossed out inside the book will have an inexplicable tragedy befall them. There is no control over this. It will simply happen and there is nothing you can do to stop it.
Is your journey worth the pain of so many innocent people?
You will wake up hours later with a terrible headache that will never ever go away. That is because inside you, you now know His name. Legion was never offered this Object. It will never leave you and you will never be able to speak it unless all the Objects are in your possession. Once you do, god help us all.
The name you have inside you, the one that belongs to Him, is now Object 1072 of 2538. Does knowing His name make Him any less terrifying?