Apocalypse Reborn
The shattering of the psionic dome produced a shock wave that knocked everyone to the floor, ally and enemy alike. But most of the force was directed upward, blasting through hundreds of feet of rock to the surface. Sunlight streamed down from the ceiling through a gaping hole over the tumor of energy that comprised the reincorporating Silko, which had swelled to almost fifty feet across. Tendrils of energy streamed from each of the eighteen relics into the vortex, and the divine objects began to flicker in and out of existence as their power was drained. Stone fragments of varying sizes rained down from the ceiling, one narrowly missing Lanara, another slamming down inches from one of the robed psions.
Tolly looked at his draconic companion as they all got to their feet. “I am supposed to teach you? Then here is your first lesson. This is how you die in service to your goddess.”
The Legacy charged.
They broke and ran into the room even as Kyle invigorated all of them with a haste spell cast in the blink of an eye, dodging falling rocks and the occasional burst of energy from the vortex itself, using the stone pillars as cover as they moved in on Meeranda. Aran and his dromites had teleported across the room to block off another exit, and were engaged in a psionic battle with the robed psions who had been performing the ritual. Lanara, singing as loudly as she could, climbed up the cavern walls using her magical slippers to avoid the rain of falling stone.
Coming around behind the pillar holding Fiel’s relic, Kyle saw another familiar figure standing off to one side, previously hidden by the energy vortex. Xerxes waited, mindblade at the ready, looking for an opportunity to strike. Kyle made a quick decision, cast another spell, and Xerxes was suddenly gone, banished into an extradimensional maze. He grinned, knowing that now they could concentrate on taking out Meeranda before Xerxes returned.
And then the back of Kyle’s head exploded.
The wizard collapsed, twitching, as Meeranda laughed at him. Kyle was spared the additional indignity of watching as Xerxes reappeared only a few seconds after vanishing, smirking at how easily he’d solved the maze. But the thrallherd’s mirth quickly faded as she was pummeled, first by a falling boulder, and then by Arrie, who lashed out furiously. Kuparikkoliko, who had resumed his true draconic form, blasted both Meeranda and Xerxes with acid, though they managed to avoid the worst of it.
Autumn glanced quickly at her husband, lying slumped against a pillar. She knew there was nothing she could do for him now, but she had the chance to save others. Running over to the pillar holding Bail’s oathbond dagger, she grabbed it and shoved it under her breastplate. The tendrils of psionic energy still trailed from it, and she could feel the dagger fading in and out of reality, but the relic seemed to draw strength from her.
The huge anomaly pulsed, sending energy throughout the room. The wave hit Osborn, who was standing behind a pillar, invisible and waiting for an opening. The daggers in his hands were enveloped in a greenish energy. With no time to think about this, Osborn saw his chance when Meeranda backpedaled away from Arrie, obviously trying to take over the warrior’s mind but having little success. He threw his first dagger, hoping it would land in a vital area.
The energy surrounding Osborn’s blade seemed to accelerate it, and when it slammed into Meeranda it severed her arm at the elbow. More daggers followed, each leaving a hideous wound and staggering Meeranda. Osborn’s last dagger landed square in the middle of her forehead, splitting her skull like a melon rind. She jerked backward, and fell into the vortex. Meeranda was torn apart in an instant.
As her screams echoed in the chamber even over the fury of the psionic maelstrom, another sound was heard in the cavern. From behind the Legacy came a horde of hulking, black-skinned humanoids with long talons and teeth. “Tonight we dine on man-flesh!” one of them screamed, in a voice that Osborn recognized as the same one he’d heard whispering outside the iron golem’s chamber.
“Astral stalkers!” Tolly thought at the others, identifying the new enemies even as he and the dragon turned and tore into the interplanetary mercenaries.
From the cavern walls, Lanara aimed her rod of many wands at Xerxes, hitting him with a triple blast and managing to drain away some of his intellect. The sudden loss of his mental faculties threw off his concentration, and so the power that the mindblade was trying to manifest on Autumn only gave her a few minor scratches as tiny crystals flew at her. The sentinel had been trying to recover Ardara’s relic, a compass carved from marble, but her hand passed through the ephemeral object. Whirling, Autumn came toward Xerxes, battle axe in hand, with her sister Arrie running up to join her. Her axe blazing with holy power, Autumn easily batted aside the xeph’s mindblade and carved a deep gash into his abdomen, sending blood and viscera flying. Staggering back, and hoping to avoid being flanked, Xerxes tried to open up a dimensional tunnel under Arrie, the same power that had been used against Osborn on board the Armadillo. But the agile warrior easily avoided the sucking vortex and continued her pursuit. Xerxes tried to run, using his psionically enhanced speed, but unlike their last encounter, the Legacy was more prepared to deal with this. Another blast from Lanara’s rod left the mindblade dizzy and reeling, unable to focus enough to walk straight, let alone run.
The cavern shuddered again, and rocks rained down on several of them, from fist-sized chunks to boulders as big as horses. Curiously, rain began to pour down from the hole blasted in the ceiling, most of it getting sucked into the psionic vortex. Another pulse of psionic energy enveloped those in the room, and Osborn was suddenly concealed in a cloud of dark energy. Also, a creature stepped out of the vortex; a green, three-armed monstrosity composed entirely of ectoplasm. The beast roared, and advanced on Osborn, Tolly, and Kuparikkoliko. It tried to grab the hin in its three powerful arms, but his ring of freedom of movement allowed him to slip out easily and escape. It tried to rake him with its claws, but the dark energy surrounding Osborn obscured his location, causing the construct to miss.
Both Tolly and Kupa obliterated the astral stalkers they were fighting, and turned to aid Osborn, who had just narrowly avoided being stuck by a poisoned dart spat at him by one of the other stalkers. Another pulse from the vortex struck Osborn, and the dark cloud around him was stripped away, but his daggers once again started to glow with a strange energy. The green ectoplasmic creature recoiled at the sight of the glowing blades, but unfortunately it did not choose to run away, which would have ensured its survival. As it was, it soon had several psionically-enhanced daggers protruding from its body, and it stood quivering, barely able to hold its form together after the assault. However, at nearly the same moment another ectoplasmic construct was extruded from the vortex, this one resembling a centaur like creatures. The construct moved out from the opposite side of the anomaly, close to where Lanara was perched on the wall. Yelping, the bard scuttled back and cast a quick spell on the creature, which did not seem to have an effect.
Arrie closed in on Xerxes, ready for revenge from their first meeting so long ago, when the mindblade had nearly executed her. Anyweapon sang as it sliced through the air, connecting solidly with Xerxes’ neck. He collapsed, his legs folding under him like wet strings. Arrie and Autumn looked at each other.
“Kill him,” Autumn said, allowing her sister the final word in their long-standing conflict with Xerxes. The aasimar went back to trying to recover the Ardaran relic. She was intercepted by the centaur-like creature, but at that moment it was struck by one of the rocks from the ceiling and staggered, allowing her to slip past.
Tolly dispatched another one of the stalkers, but before he could turn to engage the last remaining one, he heard a sudden loud roar from above. A torrent of water began to cascade down through the hole in the ceiling, spraying out over the entire cave and filling it ankle-deep within seconds.
“Merciful Earth Mother!” Tolly said. “We’re under the ocean!”
It was apparent to everyone that Tolly was right. The destruction of the psionic dome had blown a hole through the ceiling, and blasted out through whatever body of water the complex had been built under. Now that water was rushing back in. Only the presence of the vortex itself, which was absorbing the majority of the upside-down geyser, was keeping the chamber from filling up instantly.
Osborn dashed across the room, taking a hit from one of the stalker’s claws, and leapt atop the pillar holding Ladta’s relic, a floating, spinning coin. His fingers wrapped around the coin just as it was about to fade completely out of existence. Lanara tried to do the same with Feesha’s relic, a weathervane with no spokes that turned without regard to the wind in the room, but it faded away and her hand went through it.
Arrie and Autumn moved to dispatch the centaur-like construct together, while Osborn, Tolly, and Kupa worked to finish off the last of the astral stalkers and the three-armed construct, which had been slowly trying to drag itself away. Soon there was only a single astral stalker remaining in the room.
With an audible hiss, all of the remaining relics vanished from the pillars, finally drained of power by the vortex. Both Osborn and Autumn felt the relics they had grabbed starting to fade, and grabbed desperately to them, willing them to remain. Autumn cried out in frustration as the dagger she has strived to reclaim for nearly three years dissolved into nothingness, absorbed by the anomaly to fuel Silko’s return. Osborn, on the other hand, felt the pull on Ladta’s coin ease, and it returned to a fully corporeal state.
As wind and water rushed all about them, Tolly ran over to Kyle’s still form. The wild surges of psionic and divine energy had battered him as well as the others, leaving him with an untapped reservoir of power that he was able to will into the form of the magic needed to heal his affliction. Slowly, Kyle’s eyes refocused, and he sat up slowly.
Meanwhile, Arrie had run over to a weary-looking Aran, who had finished dispatching the enemy psions. Only two of the four dromites remained at his side. “How do we get them back?” Arrie shouted, pointing at the empty plinths of stone.
“You can’t! They’re gone!” There was an edge of genuine panic in Aran’s voice. “Can’t you hear it?”
Arrie knew what he was referring to, though she’d been trying desperately to block it out. From the center of the growing anomaly came a sibilant whispering, a growing psionic echo that threatened to drive anyone listening to it mad.
“Silko has absorbed their essence!” Aran shouted. “He’s coming, and we need to leave!”
Tolly concentrated for a moment, feeling for his divine connection to Ardara. The link was still there, but it felt strange… altered, somehow.
By now everyone had gathered around Aran. “I can get us out of here, but I can’t guarantee safety. Are you ready?”
“We have to close this gate.”
Arrie turned to Tolly. “We can’t close it! We have to go.”
“We have to close this gate,” he repeated.
“Tolly, there is no way to close it. The chance is gone.”
“I have to close this gate.”
Aran looked at Tolly sternly. “If you stay, you will fail, and you will die.”
“If I leave, then I have no goddess. I am already a failure. I have to close this gate.”
Everyone stood silently for a moment, stunned by Tolly’s proclamation. Lanara considered attempting to influence the priest into coming with them, but she knew his resistance to her power was formidable.
It was Arrie who broke the silence. “Okay. If you’re going to give up, then go ahead, give up, and die. We’re going to try and find a way to fix this.”
Tolly looked at Arrie, and shook his head slowly. “Of all the people…” Tolly exhaled slowly, and nnodded his acquiescence.
Aran concentrated, and a new portal opened on the far side of the room, just large enough for Kupa to squeeze through.
“Go through, quickly,” Aran said, beads of sweat standing out on his head. “I can’t hold it open long. If we get separated, head for somewhere familiar.”
The Legacy moved into Aran’s portal, with Tolly and Autumn helping the wounded dromites through, and Arrie moving Aran toward the portal. Kyle walked slowly and silently into the portal, not looking up once. Finally, as water surged around their knees and cottage-sized chunks of the ceiling began to fall, Arrie pulled Aran through.
The transition through the portal was rough, like a ship on stormy seas. When they emerged, they were in a vast, chaotic landscape that felt familiar to everyone despite being completely alien. Colors seemed strange – some were slightly off what was expected, some were muted or nearly nonexistent, others bright and vibrant to the point they were almost painful to see. They all had a strange sense that their perceptions were altered here; at times they felt very detached from everything, and moments later they experienced very intense emotions.
“Where are we?” Arrie asked.
“The Realm of Dreams,” Kyle said flatly.
The land changed before their eyes every moment. They saw trees growing in the midst of barren deserts, waterfalls flowing up into the sky, stones that moved.
“This place is amazing!” Lanara said. The look on Tolly’s face showed that he didn’t agree.
Suddenly, a great windstorm blew up out of nowhere, blasting the Legacy with sand and dust. They lost sight of each other as they were all tossed about in the maelstrom.
END OF PART FOUR
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Just to avoid confusion about what all was going on in this combat, here's a little background. Every round the vortex was sending off a surge of energy. Psionic characters were getting bonus power points, arcane and divine spellcasters were randomly gaining and losing spell levels, and non-casters would get affected by a random psionic power (helpful or harmful). Plus there were rocks falling from the ceiling randomly.
And we've determined that Osborn truly is blessed by the goddess of luck. He got the psionic power that adds d4 damage to every weapon he uses before he attacked Meeranda (and remember, Osborn can throw up to 10 daggers a round on a full attack, and has that feat that lets you do sneak attack damage on every crit; Meeranda was at -300 hp when he was done). He got concealing amorpha the next round, which saved him from the emerald gyre's attacks. The next round he got the dissipator property on all of his weapons, so bye-bye emerald gyre. And then not only did he successfully roll to grab Ladta's relic (it was a percentage chance, which got worse with each passing round), but he also made the final roll to see if he could manage to keep it whole, which means that Ladta's relic was the only one that survived. (The effects of this will become apparent in future updates; we know OOC what happened, but our characters are still clueless, so you'll all have to wait...)
By the end of the night, Osborn's player was contemplating whether he should take a level of cleric. Me, I was contemplating whether Kyle would participate in another combat beyond the first round ever again.
Then Xerxes turn came up right after that, and he rolled a 19 on his first Int check, so out he comes. The stuff about Kyle's head exploding was just dramatic license - the power just teleports parts of your brains away, leaving you incapacitated and you die within 1d4 days unless you get a major restoration or better. The reason Tolly didn't try to heal Kyle mid-battle is that he didn't have a greater restoration prepared, but by the end of the battle he'd accumulated enough excess spell levels from the vortex that he could cast it 'spontaneously'.
