Vast Expectations, (part 8)
Log Info
- Title: Vast Expectations, part 8
- Emitter: Whirlpool
- Characters: Faranmidahn, Paenitia, Jinks, Razen, Edinaz, Lysos
- Place: The Vast
- Time: Monday, February 28, 2022, 8:57 PM; Tuesday, March 01, 2022, 9:26 PM
- Summary: Farland's expedition looks into the past, and finds nothing. Their ritual is disrupted and a storm approaching swiftly. The gnome determines there is enough time to try again, and does so. Once more the meditating figure appears, and suddenly fills with cracks, claws bursting from his eyes. Claws that are very familiar to a certain paladina. The only solution is to bag the relic Av-de uses to anchor himself in the Vast; it is drawing the time creature. Doing so makes it vanish, but now the party is unprotected and a time tornado approaches. They hide in the hills. Hopefully they won't end up older than them.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Paenitia 3'0" 34 Lb Halfling Female A Lucht knight, dark skinned in bold feathery finery. Faranmidahn 3'3" 35 Lb Halfling Female Albino Lucht woman. Knight of Spiders. So, SO Fluffy. Jinks 3'4" 39 Lb Gnome Male A gnomish fellow in fancy garb and jewelry. Lysos 5'6" 105 Lb Human/Tsuran Female Dark eyed tsuran girl. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GM =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Whirlpool Otyugh I am stinky! -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
Previously
Having travelled to the correct location in the Vast, Farland commences his ritual to look into the past. Everyone prepares for -something-.
The spell builds, produces a power that seems ever increasing. The ley lines nearby arre tapped, yes, and the air has taken on the kind of hazy quality that one might associate with a heat mirage in the desert. Just without the heat. Or the desert.
A pool of inky blackness begins to fill the mirror, slowly, rippling like a recently disturbed and placidly black lake. Slowly, the inkyness creeps out of the mirror and rises up, taking on form and color, presenting a full, three dimensional image of a single room, a young boy seated in it on the ground, legs crossed. Eyes closed. He seems to be meditating. There's a sense of solemnity to him. He's not recognizable to anyone present, but he still seems familiar somehow.
"That's right," says Farland, "This is the time. I remember him." He spins the image around, examining it from all angles.
...but a moment after he speaks, black veins begin to spider-web their way through the image before it violently *shatters* alongside the mirror, glass going everywhere.
"Augh," says Farland, throwing his hands up to defend himself from the eruption. There's a pulse of energy and the sense of something beginning to build, uncontrolled.
Now
Edinaz curses loudly at the appearance of black veins. He just goes for his swords. It seems rational, even if it might be impractical.
GAME: Jinks rolls Spellcraft: (9)+12: 21 GAME: Jinks rolls Knowledge/Arcana: (8)+16: 24 GAME: Faranmidahn rolls spellcraft: (15)+7: 22 GAME: Faranmidahn rolls knowledge/arcana: (1)+10: 11 (EPIC FAIL)
"Okay, the laugh come to us." Paenitia says cheerfully, facing the shattering figure with her grinning mask. Little shards of mirror tinkle and crash against her armour. "Ramirez! Be guarding!"
The great white peacock andalusian flutters into place, interposed between Farland, Jinks, and that strange sensation of growing potential. The Red Knight brings up her shield and lance, "There is the unexpected. Is there the other things to expect?"
Faranmidahn ducks her head as the image shatters, thrusting the lance out past Torrent's face to try and protect his eyes should the shadowstuff be of tangible threat, trusting her helm, even with upturned visor, to shield her own.
The exponential build, the powers at work resonate with the magic in her blood in a sensation she decides she likes not at all, only able to answer, "Trouble!" to her sister Knight's query.
The albino glances about, looking for signs of new dangers, and she prepares to cast at least a basic spell to try and get a read on what's going on.
With her beloved mount's uneasy shifting, she nudges his sides with her heels, "Easy, Torrent, hold steady, now..."
GAME: Lysos casts Shield. Caster Level: 9 DC: 18
Lysos, ever the cool head in an emergency, immediately ducks behind Edinaz, summoning her protective magics almost by instinct at the first sign of trouble now.
GAME: Edinaz casts Shield. Caster Level: 8 DC: 13
Edinaz curses, and incants, raising wards of his own in front of both him and Lysos.
"Get on Ramirez, Farland," Jinks grins as he turns back from flinching away from the explosion. The other gnome doesn't follow his own advice, dragging his fingers lightly along the peacock's forearm and neck as he works his way to the side for a clearer view. His solid-black eyes are squinting as he tries to sort out what, exactly, is going on.
"Shit, shit, shit," says Farland, "Back up! Back up!" He's definitely following his own advice, already beginning to cast another spell. This one, some kind of anti-magic. Those with enough knowledge of magic to tell can tell *that* much. He's trying to contain whatever just went wrong.
He's mostly successful. You can all feel your magical items immediately dis-empower and the sense of wrong ends immediately.
"Good gods," says the gnome wizard, eyes wide. "That's ... that's not good."
Edinaz sags just a little, a little weaker than a second ago. "What the hell did you do?"
"Ah, the magic has gone away from us." Paenitia answers Edinaz, sensing that much. She keeps shield and lance raised, ready for manifesting threats. She digs her heels in and Ramirez backs up a step or two, readying to rear, ready to charge.
The suppressive invocation of Farland interacts peculiarly with the mystical gifts of Faran's blood in a dark reminder of the Winter Queen's tower...
Of being powerless...
Of coming face to face with the Demon...
Of learning the fate of her father.
It sends a tremulous shiver along her spine that radiates along her limbs as her breath catches in her throat, her invocation momentarily derailed, but she manages to cue her mount to withdraw, regardless.
She sags some in the saddle as the shock of the sensation subsides, then draws herself up, "I don't like this."
A glance toward Farland, then, "What happened?"
The black-eyed gnome frowns when the enchantments are smothered, blinking and squinting for a moment. There's a moment to test the draw on his bow and them he starts humming to himself. "Something got in the way of Farland's spell. No idea if it's the mess the Weave is in here or something deliberately trying to spoil our fun..."
Edinaz lips thin, pausing. "Never attribute to the weave something you can attribute to malignance?" He totally got that wrong, but it sounds right.
"The hell?" says Farland to Edinaz, confused. He totally missed something there! But a moment later, he gets it. "Ah, yeah, I guess. No, this is something else, I don't know *what's* going on. But it was ... the signal was stronger, we saw a bit of the past, but then it started to fragment, shatter, like it was being pulled apart. That created a feedback loop of some kind, broke the scrying." He lets out a breath. Looks down at the small hourglass he's holding in his hands.
"...beats finding *no* past at all, but it seems they're right. Somehow, something is eating our past and our future. The Void must've been leaked into it somehow."
"I have see the void spiders come out of the time shenanigans." Paenitia comments, adjusting in her saddle, creaking. "I have no thoughts, on the leak."
Ramirez rotates, checking quadrants for threats, shadows, trouble.
"Is there the advice? Do not touch the time thing or it will age you, or will we be eat and forgot like never existed?" The Red Knight asks cheerfully, and with an amused tone that suggests she expects no answer. Coupled with her grinning mask, it sounds like she's hoping to be surprised and unprepared.
Faranmidahn's eyes widen slightly at mention of void 'spiders', at least for a moment, but it's a moment that takes a few to clear her awareness.
They're probably adorable... but ultimately lethal.
Like her darling boy, here.
Absently stroking Torrent's shell, she looks to the others as they speak, then, "We could create some new terror to haunt the world if we stray into our past." she notes toward the other Lucht, "I've know others who'd unwittingly created such calamity. We should be cautious, or none of the jokes will find an ear to appreciate them."
"Some parts of my past I wouldn't mind being eaten," Lysos mutters to herself, as if trying to be funny.. but her heightened breathing and tense eyes betray her approach to panic. ALso, there's the backstepping.
Tuesday, March 01, 2022, 9:26 PM
"You and me both, sister," replies Farland to Lysos with a wwry look on his face.
In the distance, flashes of light again. They seem to be getting more active, to say nothing of 'closer'.
Av-De, who's kept his distance in this time, clops closer to Farland and then glances towards Jinks, acknowleding the flashes of light himself, since Jinks had pointed out earlier that they were a problem, as had he.
"...seems we might've stirred the storms a bit. We should probably move on."
Farland shakes his head, then, "I need to try one other thing," he says, "And we should have time before it arrives. If anything, this will help."
"The storm is not the good dance partner, yes?" Paenitia asks, turning towards the lights. The brim of her hat shading her mask and eyes enough. "He is fast to the ballroom. Comrades, be ready to run."
She waits, while Farland tries the one other thing.
"You've your rock ready, I hope?" Jinks inquires of Av-De. The hand not holding his bow selects a scroll from his pouches stamped with an conjuration rune, a "IV," and some smaller text. It's tucked into his sleeve.
The gnome yakes a moment to scan the horizon around them and takes a deep breath. "I think the sands are falling a bit more rapidly in that glass," he offers. He's speaking figuratively
"I am always ready to run," Lysos assures the small knight, particularly now that she's felt her magic leave her, her defences down.
Faranmidahn sighs silently through her nose and raises an arm to swing her visor down into place, eyes and gems glittering in the new shadows. She considers her magic once more, but the storm, if that is what it is, is well out of range for her meager divinations to be of much use. She slips her Traveller's knife back into it's place along her thigh and looks again to her fellows, "If we need to leave in a hurry, I can still shrink someone, though it will only last about a mile or so of a hard gallop."
Her attention turns back toward the distant spectacle and asides, "I don't suppose there is a shelter of any valid sort nearby?"
She looks to her lance, then and, with a shrug, slips it back into the loops of her saddle.
It wouldn't help against a storm either.
GAME: Paenitia rolls perception: (13)+8: 21 GAME: Paenitia rolls 1d20+5: (18)+5: 23 (Ramirez Perception) GAME: Lysos rolls derpception: (18)+derpception: 18 GAME: Lysos rolls perception: (1)+10: 11 (EPIC FAIL) GAME: Jinks rolls Perception: (13)+12: 25
Av-De pulls out the stone he showed earlier. The gate-stone. He clutches it in is hand.
"We still have no idea what these come from, or what they could be. We just know that they work to help keep us 'grounded' in time."
Farland nods his head in agreement, then settles down to make a new scrying circle. He's got an extra mirror in that bag of his. Of COURSE he does.
This one goes faster than the last, mostly because he's working faster. Not careless, of course. You don't get to his age with that. The rest of you are busy keeping an eye out for additional danger. The sense that something is about to happen is hard to shake, but just what is anyone's guess.
Once again, an image takes shape, or starts to. It's the same figure in their study, the same young one, but this time he stops and looks up, slowly.
"You have to save her," he says. Is he speaking to you?
"You have to save her, you have to save her, you have to save her, you have to stop--"
Then he looks straight up, rather suddenly.
From his eyes burst forth a pair of sharp claws as his entire body seems to have something forcing its way through it, disgorging itself into the chamber.
"Aw shit," says Farland, as he quickly raises his hands to dismiss the spell. Which he does.
... but the image holds. A pair of hands have come *through* the mirror, yes, even though the image has blacked out. Clawed and distorted, yellowed with age while simultaneously seeming young, bladed at the tips.
"SHIT," repeats Farland.
GAME: Paenitia rolls spellcraft: Trained Use Only: 0 GAME: Jinks rolls Spellcraft: (18)+12: 30 GAME: Jinks rolls 1d20+12: (12)+12: 24 <OOC> Jinks says, "Do I have to decide if I want to spend RPP for a reroll before I know if a check succeeded or failed?" GAME: Jinks rolls 1d20+12: (8)+12: 20 <OOC> Jinks throws dice out the window. GAME: Jinks casts Haste. Caster Level: 12 DC: 20
Onyx-black eyes narrow, darting between the gnome mid-exclamation and the portal through time. Scowling, he looks to Av-De and begins sorting through his pouches again to select a different scroll. He sings the words of the song and a glow bleeds out from beneath his armored doublet.
Threads of the Weave play around the stone in the centaur's hand and the world seems to bend for just the briefest moment before settling back into normalcy. "Mulria's sideways--" he sucks he teeth and looks between Lysos, Faranmidahn, and Farland.
"The stone is being used as an anchorpoint. We need to suppress it somehow... or destroy it." He scowls, eyebrows pushing together as he tries to think of other solutions. "Do we have an extra-dimensional hole we can put it in? Would that work? A haversack?"
"Who this 'Her' we have to save?" Paenitia calls back at the image, and then startles straight in her saddle as claws burst from the young figure's eyes. Her lance tip drops down, aiming at the mirror.
As claws grow forth from it.
Acually... looking at those claws closely, they're kind of recognizable.
"Aha! I have meet this one before. It is the Time Travelling beast that come to punish those that break time." The Red Knight laughs vigorously, "We are in the great danger. Prepare to Die."
"I do not have the haversack or hole."
Edinaz steps back, watching the creature emerge, sword-tips wavering. "You mean, the packs that let you store more things inside of them? I have one."
GAME: Lysos rolls spellcraft: (18)+8: 26 GAME: Lysos rolls 1d20+9: (9)+9: 18 <OOC> Lysos says, "I will RPP that." GAME: Lysos rolls 1d20+9: (6)+9: 15 <OOC> Jinks points at the window he threw his d20 through.
"I think it's our best option short of destroying the thing..." Jinks nods, more than a little relieved when Edinaz announces he's in possession of a haversack. "Av-De, if you'd please." The gnome is doing his best to remain calm but he didn't call the centaur 'horseman' so he's likely somewhat stressed.
"The sacks don't function in Alexandria because of the wards; items inside are removed from the Prime Material and kept in a pocket dimension. That... might be far enough removed to spoil the anchorpoint? I've never attempted to travel through time..." he glances at the paladina knowing she has.
Lysos is fumbling at her own waist, frantic haste actually hindering her efforts to locate her own scroll. At last, however, her hand closes over it.. and like Jinks, she invokes the power of the enchantment woven into her dress as she focuses upon the stone in the centaur's hand. Her attempt, however, has even less effect than the gnome's. "I don't think I did that right."
"The time travel has been the accident, not the deliberate trip." Paenitia tells Jinks, "Hurry to get the rock in the bag, it emerges. I have seen the door block time, the magical bag may be better."
Farland, of course, had already used his *own* dispels earlier on the first one to contain the damage. He's more than happy to let the others try on the magical effects of the gate stone, but alas, they don't seem to take.
"Good idea," he says quickly as the hands begin to grab at the earth to pull SOMETHING up. His eyes widen at Paenitia's words, but then the stone is dumped in the haversack, confining it to an alternate plane of reality, and the door 'shuts', forcing whatever it was back through it.
This still leaves you without the stone.
... and a storm of lights imminent.
"Shit," is what Av-De says.
Edinaz holds out the bag at arm's length, face averted. When its in, he holds it gingerly. "Fuck."
"Is there the cave or the shelter nearby, or it is best that we fly?" Paenitia calls to Av-De, as she places her lance back in the holster. "Who rides with who, and we have the spells to move faster?"
"What is the direction to go?" She's ready, and willing to pick up a rider.
GAME: Jinks rolls survival: (12)+0: 12 GAME: Paenitia rolls survival: (5)+2: 7 GAME: Lysos rolls survival: (3)+2: 5 GAME: Edinaz rolls survival: (5)+15: 20 GAME: Edinaz rolls survival: (1)+15: 16 (EPIC FAIL) <OOC> Edinaz says, "...I'm glad you rolled for me :)"
"Well, we kicked the problem down the road a ways..." Jinks muses, looking between each and all. He takes in a deep breath and begins to sing a song of shadows, pulling the billowing stuff from his mouth and swirling it through the air with his ring-laden fingers. His digits curl and bend, going into the cloud together and tangling. The shadows spill out across the ground, stretching until he's playing with a shadow puppet in the shape of a horse.
The conjuration goes from two dimensions to three, resolving into the phantom version of a horse that nickers eerily and tosses its ghostly mane. The 'animal's' hooves don't quite touch the ground and his floats over near to Lysos.
"You'll have to ride alone, tallman. It flies so please don't loose my luck," the gnome advises the Tsura as he pads over to Paenitia and Ramirez, smiling up at both as he waits to climb aboard. "The yrchblood with Faranmidahn?
"Farland with Av-De?" The minstrel has turned away to hide his face at the last suggestion, unable to smother his grin.
GAME: Jinks casts Shadow Conjuration. Caster Level: 12 DC: 22 <OOC> Jinks says, "Phantom Steed. Lysos can choose to fail her Will save." <OOC> Jinks says, "lasts for 12 hours, 100' base movespeed, ignores difficult terrain and has water and air walk."
Lysos's left hand goes to the other wrist to touch the coyote's talisman she's bound to it with her woven grass fibre bracelet as she stares at the summoned horse. "You're kidding, right?" she says with a half step back, staring at the thing. But then her eyes go to the storm, and though she doesn't vocalize it one can almost imagine the groan trying to push free. She manages to steel herself after a pair of deep breaths, however, and then she scrambles up on to the back of the ghostly horse, knuckles whitening as she clings to it in a death grip.
"I am not riding a centaur," remarks Farland to Jinks, dryly.
Av-De shakes his head. "No,' he agrees, firmly.
"I admit, these are not my usual stomping grounds,"
"Hoofing grounds?" says Farland, relieved enough to be able to joke himself, at least, even as he looks at the ominous approaching lights, "but there's some hills we might be able to find some shelter near down that way." And indeed, there *are* hills, and you're going to need to hoof it to get there quickly if you want to make it. At least, magic might give you some speed.
The group has different relative speeds, Lysos the fastest on her phantom steed, Ramirez a close second and able to fly. Torrent is faster than the average person, likely as fast as Av-de, the centaur. The rest can hustle.
And a haste spell will help.
"Yes, that sounds good." Paenitia answers Jinks, then commands her steed, "Ramirez, we have the passenger."
A sweep of a white wing, and the gnome is lifted up to the pillon saddle behind the Red Knight.
"Sir Faran, the Oruch is with you, and should be smaller. We go to the hills Farland point. Follow my banner." She wheels her hippogryph about, the order of the Pillar flag flying from her saddle.
"When we're all ready, then..." Jinks says, settling in behind Paenitia. He loops the bow across his shoulders and holds a strap. He sings an increasingly familiar tune in his mothertongue, wrapping his finger through the Weave and tapping out a rhythm...
GAME: Jinks casts Haste. Caster Level: 12 DC: 20
Edinaz mutters "Half-oruch" in a tiny, high-pitched voice.
"Wait, I don't know how to---aaaah!" Lysos clamps down on her not quite aborted yell of startlement as the ghost horse she's been assigned pushes off and flies after the hippogryph.
On the move.
Can one really outrun light? Or is it time itself you're trying to outpace? It's not so easy to tell in these circumstances.
Av-de points towards one of the hills, then, and indeed, there are numerous rocky outcroppings and overhangs. He dives into one, bracing himself against the side of the hill with a grimace. "UGh. Rock in the flank," he says.
In the meantime, the rest of you have to split up to find your own places to dive into cover. It's better, says Av-de, and he's not wrong.
Up above, the sky seems to have a line drawn through it. A split. Within it, you can see *countless* winged creatures swarming the sky, dive bombing ... something out of view, raining lightning and fire on whatever it is from their position in the sky.
.... but, of course, some of them seem to notice the 'tear'...
The last time demons showed up, Av-de used the gate key to solidify time so they wouldn't.
Guess what can't be used now.
