Sijhen At the Threshold *SPOILER ALERT*

Greetings Everyone!
I am in desperate need of your collective Wisdom. I have been running digging for Lies, and it has been one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences of my GMing career. As a caution for this thread I have alerted for the pretense of spoilers as the ending has me utterly confused. This is doubly frustrating as I am 7 rounds into the assualt on HQ at the end of this weeks game. So I have 7 days to understand this ritual, how it works, how failure occurs and what the consequences for success/failure look like.

I don't think it matters but I am running this game with the wounds and vigor system along with the Elements of Magic system retooled for Pathfinder since it was also written by Mr Knock and seems to move along the themes of magic represented in Zietgiest. I will summarize my understanding and questions below. I would love any insight or experience all of you might wish to take a moment to share.

1. At 9:30 PM after a lengthy and crazy confession on the part of Puppet Xambria, The last lantern lights itself and an Ancient Style portal to Apet is Opened and Energy from the Planet of teleportation begins to pulse through the surrounding 1000 feet or so. However this pulse wave is just the leaking energy, the majority of the energy is being concentrated in the ritual area so it can be used to push the portal spell farther than normally possible once phase 2 begins.
2. At 9:01:30 There is enough energy present that if Sijhen is at the portal, he begins the process of Realigning the portal to point at the Gidim homeworld. He Does this by adjusting the pattern of star stones on the golden Icon of Apet while standing next to the seal. Tentacles of the Thing from beyond begin to writhe and move at the edges of the portal as background visuals.
3. At 9:38 (or whenever the PC's attack Sijhen) The Portal shifts away from Apet and begins the process of digging though space to connect to the Gidim Homeworld.
4. The Lanterns need to survive the fight with Gidim in order to be controlled.
5. The Seal must be adjacent to the Portal for closing to be achieved.
6. The Seal must remain adjacent to the Portal for the sealing to be possible.
7. There is a train... (not really sure at all how this mechanic is meant to work since there is 30ft of stone between the train barriers and the seal? but supposedly if the train hits an adjacent seal it closes the portal.
8. if things get messy, Sijhen shucks the Seal with telekinesis I think and allows the thing from beyond to manifest. (This is also the result if the party collapses the portal before its release)
9. Collapsing: This is where it gets confusing... What is dangerous about destroying all the lanterns other than the beast releasing?
10. Rupture: if the portal completes itself at 9:40PM. The paragraph states "Repeat the attack from collapse above except that it affects every creature and object within 1000 feet." However there is no attack or for that matter any damaging affect in the collapse description.

That last one is where I am really struggling because I don't have a baseline for what is ripping through this area to dust hundreds of people and buildings (the PC's included I think?) or not. Just don't want to mess up the ending of such an epic fight.

Lastly, with the gala, HQ and Sijhen. Did anyone have a party survive this night? its seems unlikely to me. As always your help is appreciated.

Flyer

We were playing 4e, though, so I don't have the answers to your mechanics question, but I'll translate as best as I can.

1 through 6 all looks roughly right to me.
7. I figured the speed of the train could overcome the barrier at the end of the line and conveniently jump up onto the platform (or whatever). Most of the party were running for their lives at this point, so I just handwaved the train crashing into the Thing Beyond the Portal, and shoving it back through before the train itself caused the portal to collapse.
8. Our Sijhen died as he was trying to leave, but I had the seal move at the same time, so maybe it was telekinesis?
9 & 10. The danger is in the release of all that energy, which is represented in the 4e adventure by an area attack, but it sounds like you're missing some sort of attack info.

our experience is recorded here and here.

I think this is an issue of the PF version missing text. The 4e version has:

When the portal collapses, the uncontrolled magical energies blast outward, Close Blast 20; Atk +13 vs. Ref; Hit 3d8+13 damage and the target is knocked prone; Miss half damage.

Click to expand...

In PF parlance, that would probably be:

4d8 damage (Reflex DC 15 half)

Click to expand...

So it's enough to possibly kill most 'normal' people, but the PCs should be able to survive.

That is sweet. Thanks, I might tweak it to adjust for the hittyness of Wounds and Vigor, but that clears up alot.
I think i am starting to grasp this more clearly. Just very dangerous without alot of time to rest. Still a bit unclear on how to use the train, but I will keep working on it.

While I go complete my Anima Alchemist conversion...

Anyone have anyother gems for closing out this adventure they think might be helpful?

Well, just to make sure it's clear, there's a tunnel, with tracks that end about 30 feet from the end of the tunnel. You can start the train and have it speed up until it hits a wooden barricade, which it plows through, and then likely rams into the Thing from Beyond, shoving it backward through the portal. If you want to seal the portal you either need to kill the monster or ram it away. You can just ignore the train if you want.

I'm curious if you thought that somehow there's a solid stone wall between the ritual and the end of the tracks, because there's not.