Alright, cool, cool. Some clarifications and some particulars to nail down given your choice:
If we're not going to engage in both of these conflicts synchronously, then that will put the situation in Bantouk as more perilous due to the time involved. Mechanically and thematically, the decision-point is intended to be a rough one, so if we're going to make this choice then there will be implications on the combat encounter at The Bantouk Palace. So, the following changes to the palace scene and micro-failure consequences of the Astral Sojourn to the Breech SC:
* Level +5 instead of +4 with the bladeling horde having already arrived once you guys return from The Astral Sea.
* I'll load out that initial encounter with some of the horde (with more bladeling horde showing up every even round as noted in the post).
* The following micro-failure will be on the table for a consequence due to time: The Bladeling Horde Waves show up every odd round starting round 1 (rather than starting round 2).
Further, as noted above, The Mind is going to have to stay behind and enter The Far Realm to perform the final closing of the breach...unless someone else wants to make that sacrifice of course! You guys don't have the Paragon power/means to project/portal out of The Far Realm so whomever goes in ain't coming out! The Mind will have to move into the breech (entering the Far Realm) and make the final success in the embedded Close the Breech SC of that combat.
The immortal, crystalline creature projects telepathically into the minds of all around. Regardless of station, they listen as the instructions are clear:
"Begone from this chamber as I must prepare a volatile, dangerous ritual to The Astral Sea."
They need no more coaxing and all present, from artisan to clergy to military attachment, leave the chamber with haste.
The short work of an hour has you each marked with residiuum and a trail of it from you poured to a central circle. Telepathically:
"This will feel...strange. When we emerge, you will barely detect a faint silver nimbus around yourselves and the rest of us. From you, a ghostly cord connecting you to this location will trail. Wherever you go it will follow until severed either by your death or by entering another planar nexus.
You will be held aloft by your sheer willpower, though you will have insufficient economy and pace of movement for the task before us (you have a fly speed of 2 [clumsy] and can hover). Our first order of business will be locating an Astral Vent. It will imbue us for a short while with the burst of speed (you gain overland flight 20 which is suppressed during combat as you lose all combat-capable motility/motor control) necessary to eliminate the distance between ourselves and the breech. Beware though…there is a foulness to it…its arcane toxicity may disagree with your material body.
Understand, as a creature of Astral origin, I will be unable to detect The Far Realm breech. As such, I will need aid in both locating it. Fear not, as creatures from the mortal realm it will be as a luminous beacon to you, spilling its purple contents like a violent, cascading river. Further, I will need aid in moving my form through the breech (like Teleport or another form of Forced Movement). Once on the other side, I will seal it. This will sever my cord and, soon after (AtEotMNT in combat terms), send you back to your world."
The Mind instructs you all to take a long, controlled breath.
"Let us begin."
The world shifts wildly and suddenly settles. The skin tingles cooly; it is neither hot nor cold here. Nor is it actually a sea, but rather a place of vast clouds of a luminous silver-gray substance that is neither fully a mist nor fully a liquid. Something in between perhaps? Infinite stars glitter in the distance. Prismatic colors of unknown astral dominions glow far beyond the endless expanse of "open sea" between you and them. Far, far away you can see your destination; a great scar pouring a river of eerie purple into The Astral Sea which finds its way into your world by various nexus herein.
As your churning stomachs settle (or perhaps not!), The Mind abruptly interrupts your contemplations and points:
"There! A sundered mote of the divine lattice!"
A small island "floats" directly beneath you. Topographically, it looks like a massive stalactite/stalagmite combo in an earthly cave, but prismatic shimmering races across each nook and cranny of its structure. Spilling violently from the center point of this odd mass is a mercurial vapor not unlike The Astral Sea itself, though this is prismatic.
Near it, like terrestrial animals feeding at a watering hole are 3 large, crystalline dragons, drinking deep of the "stuff."
"An Astral Vent!"
Level +3 (13) Complexity 1 SC. DCs 14/20. Goal: Journey Across the Astral Sea to The Far Realm Breech.
0/4 Successes (0 Hard DC Available)/0 Failures/1 Secondary Skill Available
What do you do?
The threats here are the crystalline dragons and the volatile prismatic mist itself. It gives supernatural speed but that surely could come with cost (like starting the next combat down 1 Healing Surge worth of HPs).
