[Adventure]: Shards of Eldanarth (DM: MadAzolin, Judge: ??)

[MadAzolin]

As ritual circle slowly picks up sickly glow shifting from shades of purple to deep green, visibility becomes poor, as if darkness is somehow getting thicker. Through this strange darkness, stars shine brightly, their colors vivid and sharp. Martelai's voice seems to be coming from the distance, as if very air dampens sound as well as light and you feel yourself becoming sluggish and tired...
[sblock="Martelai"]
Ritual is progressing well, you can sense the growing starlight and buildup of power within you, yet you know - the flesh is weak and one tiny wrong step, one touch pointed toward wrong thing might turn you into heap of ground meat... however maintaining proper concentration is easy, easier then you thought it would be and keeping yourself in proper alignment toward the stars, you reach out and peel off these false images of the world your imperfect eyes feed you...
[/sblock]
While visibility is not good enough for you to see each other, circle and starlight become more and more pronounced and you can hear Martelai's voice from the distance, echoing strangely as if followed by other voices: 'Power! More, I need MORE!'...
Vermithrax, Lilly and Cyr focus arcane energy into the ritual circle and its glow gets stronger.
[sblock="Martelai"]
Attuning your mind to things as they are, you see the world turn into pale jelly surrounded by sphere of Stars. Each of them beckons you, but you know that but few will do... beckoning your thralls for more power, you greedily drink from their life-force and focus on the barriers around you, barriers that separate this puny island of calm from true reality...
and find youself frustrated as you perceive barriers between you and truth - countless layers, each twice as powerful as one before it, each determined to stop you from opening the path and letting truth pour into the world of men, turning this world into paradise...
[/sblock]
[sblock="Vermithrax, Lilly, Cyr, arcana rolls"]
As you channel into the ritual, you can feel its hunger; it is almost as if some living things drinks hungrily from your energy, your life force and your mind. That strange, sickening glow becomes much stronger and you can see tiny crack opening in the center of the circle, smoking and seething boil in reality. Chorus of gibbering voices echoes in your ears and strange things swim over your field of vision, layers and layers of things... suddenly you realize you are being watched and feel ritual's demand for more but manage to break off your focus and world turns back to normal - if dampening darkness and unnerving whispering coming from Martelai can be called normal...
[/sblock]
[sblock="Martelai"]
Somehow you suddenly realize your task is different one... you are not trying to break the barriers, but the barrier... thin one between this world and Fey realms... shutting off beckons from beyond, you turn focus to pair of barriers, these reasonably thin... peeling off first one is trivial, but second one seems much hardier. You channel and blast it with all you can manage, but your power slides off... frustrated, you call for The Star, one that opens the way, that cracks the barriers...
[/sblock]
Martelai's voice seems to become more and more distant and time itself seems to slow down until shrill cry breaks the dampening darkness - "Allabar, open the way for me!". You can recognize Martelai's voice in the darkness, but there is more to it now, echoes of some distant, twisted Martelais following his voice.
Sickly green glow from single star breaks the darkness, bathing everything in strange shadows and sparkling mist, mist in which men cast disturbing shadows, in which branches of trees slither like tentacles wrought of claws and teeth and world seems to spin. Standing in the middle of the circle, Martelai speaks words of power in tongues you have never heard before, glowing crack forming between his outstretched arms. Starlight is focused on him and seems to pierce his skin and flesh, leaving gaping wounds that bleed sludge and rot.
[sblock="Martelai"]
Allabar's light shines on you, piercing flesh and bone. There is no pain however and resisting urge to annihilate yourself, you manage to deflect its light into the barrier...

OOC: Martelai takes 26 damage

[/sblock]
Urged by Martelai, Vermithrax, Lilly and Cyr focus another volley of magical energy into the growing rift...
And reality around you shatters with sound of breaking glass, as if massive wall of glass just broke. You can feel splinters of something hit you, piercing trough armor, flesh and bone and biting into very soul... pain is overwhelming but lasts for but a moment before comforting darkness covers you as your senses are overwhelmed by backlash of raw magical power...

GM: ... to be continued ... in meanwhile if anyone wants to try something, go ahead

 

[Voda Vosa]

Vermitrax would not let some puny cosmic entity hurt him. He was an expert necromancer, an he knew the way to reinforce flesh and imbue it with negative energy. "Semprion, Hasmazad al majnum!" he proclaimed, and his body was surrounded by a dark red aura.

Vermitrax will use his broch of shielding to absorb the next 10 damage caused to him, as well as use his necromancy knowledge (which oddly gives +2 endurance) to try and tough out the damage that surpass the shield. Endurance: 27

 

[Neil1889]

Lilli listens to the strange tongues being spoken and her mind files the structures of what she hears away for future analysis; at the same she thinks about what creatures she might be listening to.

She understood a lot more than she'd let on about, but her previous bad experiences with the pacts of Warlocks had made her more curious than it should have; that curiosity had led Lilli to here, another potential place like 'Stargazer Hill' and with another portal to another place beyond it. She'd examined those places too and helped to close or monitor them. It looked like the Park was more dangerous than she'd first thought.

Seeing what the ritual was doing to Martelai truly alarmed her.


[sblock=Power use]Lilli uses her Use Vulnerabilty Scholar power to try seek out knowledge of what she's listening to and also to try and raise her defences against any onslaught.

Arcana is +15, Religion is +13 Nature is +9, Dungeoneering is +4. Her dice roll is 15 .

Use Vulnerabilty (Encounter Free Personal ✦ Arcane)
Trigger: You succeed on a monster knowledge check against a monster that you can see or hear.
Effect: If your check result meets or exceeds the hard DC for the monster's level, you gain a +4 power bonus to all defences against the monster's attacks until the end of your next turn. Additionally, until the end of your next turn, you gain a +5 power bonus to damage rolls against the target, but not when you deal damage that the target resists. If your check result does not meet or exceed the hard DC, your attacks against the target deal only half damage until the end of your next turn. [/sblock]

 

[MetaVoid]

As the pressure grows, Cyr uses a moment in the ritual to invoke the magic of his belt. His body hardens and he counts on his spirits strength to carry him through the corruptive influence of the ritual.

As the power starts blasting around he invokes blades of astral fire, cutting unseen enemies to ribbons while at the same time protecting his allies.

OOC: Iron skin belt give resist all 5 TENT (if I can sense when it will be needed). Also, as deva, Cyr has resist radiant and resist necrotic 9
Blades of Astral fire do 1d6+8 Radiant Damage if there is any enemy to cut, but important thing is it grants +5 AC to allies in the blast

 

[MadAzolin]

It is impossible to tell how long you spent in the darkness; or if how long has any meaning in this void; or if you spent any time in the darkness at all... but as quickly as it overwhelmed everyone, darkness is gone, suddenly and without warning...
Senses kicking back into action feels like falling for long long time, followed by being dipped head first into freezing water. Blinding light, roaring noise and overwhelming smell hits everyone hard and suddenly... However, it doesn't take long to acclimate, everyone's first instinct being to survey damage caused by the ritual: [MENTION=51271]Voda Vosa[/MENTION] [sblock="Vermithrax"]
Vermithrax finds himself still on his feet. As reddish aura around him fades, feeling of stabbing pain becomes apparent. Shedding dust and traces of negative energy he used to shield himself from harm, Vermithrax realizes he feels like being stabbed by countless impossibly sharp needles. Damage is minimal however as his momentary mummified flesh absorbed virtually all harm.

OOC: After resistances are accounted for, Vermithrax took 1 damage.

[/sblock] [MENTION=87106]MetaVoid[/MENTION] [sblock="Cyr"]
Searing pain of countless burning needles slowly subsides. Cyr's skin hardened to iron deflected worst of damage, but more then few cuts and pierces are testimony of being dragged through half-formed rift between worlds. Cyr cannot help but wonder if letting warlock do whatever he did was best idea...

OOC: After resistances are accounted for, Cyr took 4 damage, 3 damage and 2 damage for total of 9 damage.

[/sblock] [MENTION=24380]Neurotic[/MENTION] [sblock="Martelai"]
Martelai found the hard way that being dragged through planar rift is painful. Fact that rift was of his own making didn't seem to help much either as he lost control as soon as it cracked open. Positive thing about the experience is that he realized living creatures don't disintegrate as easily as it is commonly believed. Another positive thing is he realized ritual worked (though perhaps not as perfect as it could) and as he was here and not in realms beyond and ground to fine dust, it did work just fine.

OOC: Martelai took 2 damage, 6 damage, 4 damage and 7 damage for total of 19 damage

[/sblock] [MENTION=100292]Neil1889[/MENTION] [sblock="Lilli"]
Corrupting presence went away, leaving bad taste behind and Lilli shook off sickness that threatened to leave her retching on the floor. Piercing pain quickly gave way to dull ache - while initial feeling was of piercing needles, actual damage was more akin to being beaten repeatedly by something blunt. Pushing headache away, Lilli understood damage was caused by being forced through magical rift slightly too small, but actual picture she has trouble pushing away is being beaten repeatedly and savagely by giant wielding enormous pillow. Surveying rest of party, it seemed that bigger fellas suffered bit worse then she did - perhaps rift was even smaller for them...

OOC: Lilly suffered 6, 4, 5 and 1 point of damage, for total of 16.

[/sblock] [MENTION=75065]jbear[/MENTION] [sblock="Kane"]
As he surveyed numerous wounds suffered by what must have been unorthodox teleport, Kane remembered someone one told him that 'plane-walking is more about falling and screaming then about walking'. Looking at damage suffered by rest of group, Kane realizes he came out bit worse for wear then everyone else, perhaps due to instinctively trying to shield them from incoming harm...

OOC: Kane suffered 6, 7, 5 and 9 damage, for total of 27 damage

[/sblock] [MENTION=79956]dimsdale[/MENTION] [sblock="Lerric"]
It seems that whatever the final result of ritual was, it resulted in severe backlash of magical energy. It hit Lerric hard, attempting to crush him into tiny pieces. As he started regaining his senses, he became aware he must have instinctively blocked worst part of incoming harm, leaving him battered but far from broken... looking at rest of group, it seems that everyone got through it reasonably good, though Kane seems to have suffered most harm.

OOC: Lerric took 6, 4, 3 and 5 damage, for total of 18 damage

[/sblock]

 

[Neurotic]

"Ouch! Not happy."

The warlock dusts himself and inspects his wounds and then those of his companions.
"I see we all made it through. Needs more study next time to keep it wider."

OOC: Martelai is bloodied with 23/68 hp

 

[MetaVoid]

"This will teach me to risk with crazy arcanists for simple curiosity. Vermitrax, Lilli, I'm fully supporting you as our casters on the way back. Luckily, purity of heart and soul reflects on how much one is hurt."

His eyes fall upon necromancy shedding mage
"With few obviuos exceptions, like always."

OOC: total 9 damage, if possible surgeless healing would be ideal

 

[Voda Vosa]

"I see you all have suffered the backlash badly. It was to be expected when you let the Stars do the hard work. They ain't really friendly." Vermitrax smirked, dusting himself, the reddish energy dissipating around him. " It was a pleasant walk after all... For me that is." he chuckled.

 

[Neil1889]

Lilli just feels ill and decides to sit down for a bit, providing nothing around her is going to try and claw her to death.

OOC: Likely a surge to be spent that will leave her on 41 out of 46 hits, unless it can be boosted.

 

[jbear]

Kane winces slightly as the materialise and the blows suffered throughout the passage compress into one sensation. He closes his eyes and mentally pushes the pain away to a distant corner. He takes a look at his surroundings trying to orientate himself.

OOC: Kane spends 2 surges to get back to full