Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 165
“Watch out!” cries Kibi to the new arrivals. “There are two evil wizards flying around.”
Aravis immediately pegs the red-armored woman with a magic missile, and spends a few seconds scanning the area for the mages without success. Grey Wolf casts spectral hand from a scroll and also looks around for the hidden casters, but he doesn’t see them either.
Morningstar flies to Dranko and reads a heal spell off of a scroll; Dranko’s many and serious injuries (88 hp worth!) are instantly cured. The withering look she gives him is almost enough to open the wounds up again. Dranko gulps down a fly potion, and both of them join in the hide-and-seek game, looking for those mages.
Hey! There’s one! Well, no one actually sees her, but a fireball pellet comes streaking out of the mist and explodes around Dranko, Aravis and Morningstar. All of them manage to shield themselves from at least some of the blast, and Dranko uses his quick reflexes to avoid the damage altogether. Several nearby soldiers, mostly Charagan but with a couple of Naradawk’s, are caught full in the fiery blast and incinerated. But when members of the Company look in the direction from whence came the fireball, they see nothing.
“She must be invisible!” shouts Dranko. “And I’ve lost my spell to see them! Kibi, I need another see invisibility!
Another spell comes hurtling from the mist, from a different direction. A massive acid orb catches Grey Wolf directly in the chest and splashes up into his face. He smells the foul odor of his own dissolving flesh and screams in pain.
Kibi, who has see invisibility cast upon himself, catches a quick glimpse of the mage vanishing into the mist, but before he can pursue, the red-armored woman flies up (yikes!) and over toward him, slashing him with her wicked blade. He flies away from her toward Dranko, and gets hit with a second sword-swing, but he makes it over to the half-orc and casts see invisibility.
Flicker lands behind one of the elite warriors, who is cutting his way through some ill-trained Charagan farmer-conscripts. Using his allies to flank, he delivers a punishing sneak attack, sending the enemy reeling. Ernie drinks a haste potion, and flies directly toward the red-armored foe. Step lays into another one of the elite minions, almost knocking him out with a single swing of his flaming greatsword. And then everyone in the immediate vicinity feels the soothing healing magic of a healing circle from Morningstar. Aaaaah.
Aravis drinks a potion of see invisibility, further increasing the likelihood that someone will spot one of those damn enemy mages. But they are staying out of sight, using the trees, rain and fog to great advantage. Dranko flies to Grey Wolf and heals much of the acid damage.
Another fireball pellet comes streaking out of the fog, but this one strikes a tree branch and explodes harmlessly, except perhaps from the tree’s point of view. Dranko actually sees the caster clearly for a moment, but to his great frustration she immediately flies back into the forest and out of sight. The red-armored warrior sees Ernie and launches contemptuous swings at him, and is dismayed that only one of her blows strikes true, the others deflected by his plate mail. Still, as single hits go, it’s a powerful shot, and Ernie winces in pain. Kibi, without many spells left, grabs Aravis’ wand of magic missiles, and drinks a potion of cure serious wounds.
Flicker spends a round looking everywhere for signs of the enemy wizards, to no avail. Dranko casts bless, and he manages to spot one of the wizards soon after. He watches as she casts web among the tree branches, catching Morningstar and Ernie inside. Dranko points at the wizard and shouts “there she is!” Morningstar, wearing a ring of freedom of movement, slides effortlessly out of the webbing and moves to pursue. Kibi takes off with Morningstar, drinking a potion of haste as he goes. Flicker launches an attack on the red-armored warrior but cannot penetrate the armor.
The red-armored woman finds herself a mere five feet away from One Certain Step; she shifts position, her longsword flashes, and Step is badly diced by three vicious cuts. Ernie, who knows from recent experience where the weak points are in the red enemy armor, smiles as he sees an opening in the knee joint. Two critical hits later, blood is pouring down the left leg of the armor and dripping onto the leaves below. Step looks like he’s also going to move in, but Ernie sees that he looks near to death from his injuries.
“Step!” he practically screams, “heal yourself first!”
Once Certain Step withdraws and uses his wand of cure serious wounds, grumbling.
Grey Wolf joins in the hunt for the enemy mage. Aravis flies low to get an angle where he can cast flaming sphere to burn away the webs that have entrapped Ernie. He catches a glimpse of an enemy soldier running up to him and swinging, but suddenly Attrius is there, interposing himself in front of the blade. A slice from one of the woman’s elite minions opens up a wound on the bodyguard’s chest. Aravis casts his spell and torches the webs.
Dranko moves to where he’s flanking the red-armored woman with Flicker, but he too can’t get past the armor. She has no such trouble with him. A furious flurry of cuts with the black sword follows, and Dranko’s blood is all over the place. If not for Morningstar’s heal scroll, Dranko would be dead almost twice over by now!
Morningstar finally gets the enemy wizard in her sights, cuts her off, and throws down a flame strike upon her. Kibi is following close behind the quarry, fires off two volleys of magic missiles from Aravis’s wand. Wham! Wham wham wham. Wham wham! The mage tumbles out of the air and lands with a heavy thud, dead or unconscious, at the base of a tree.
Flicker again attacks the red-armored woman from a flanking position, and hits with a massively damaging sneak attack (which would have missed if not for Dranko’s bless.) Dranko, sensing the foe may be about to fall, takes the opportunity to taunt.
“This is our world,” he says harshly. “You’re not wanted here.”
“It was ours before it was yours,” she retorts.
Dranko is actually taken aback. “Er… it was?”
Ernie declines to partake in the discussion, preferring to let Beryn Sur do the talking. Two more slashes, and the foe is clearly starting to wobble.
Flicker pipes up. “What’s your name?”
From the woman’s helmet: “Why do you care?”
“We like to keep track of who we kill,” says Flicker.
“F*ck you,” says the woman.
“That’s a nasty name,” says Flicker.
Grey Wolf casts true strike, flies in, and smacks the woman with Bostock. “Good!” says the sword. “You must wield me at every opportunity!”
Aravis looks around for a likely place to send his flaming sphere, but suddenly there is a twinge in his mind, from the aspect of his consciousness that has been gathering energy in the Crosser’s Maze. He has gathered enough life energy to unmake the space-time around the Gate! Without uttering a word, he grabs Attrius and Portia and teleports back to the secure shelter.
Skorg looks up.
“How are things…”
“Don’t let anyone in,” Aravis interrupts. “I’m going to do something drastic. I hope it works.”
He sits on a bunk and drops his whole mind into the Maze.
* *
Dranko strikes twice at his foe but the armor turns his whip. But Morningstar comes streaking in, finds the only available opening at the mostly-surrounded warrior, and swings her morningstar… crunch! The red armor splits under the force of the blow. The woman’s head lolls back, and the whole body drops out of the air. Grey Wolf just manages to avoid having the deadly armor land on him.
Flicker swoops down, and just to be sure the foe is dead, he sticks his short sword into the visor of the red helmet… and stirs. The others look away in disgust. Kibi flies down to the fallen mage and delivers a less messy coup de grace.
Then the forest shudders, and time seems to stand still.
* *
Aravis has gathered into himself a great store of energy, along with the confidence that the local fabric of existence will stand up to the punishment he’s about to inflict upon it. He reaches out with his mind, remembering all that King Vhadish XXIII taught him…
…and he blows apart the Planar Gate, the one thing that has protected Charagan from Naradawk Skewn for the past 900 years.
* *
A wind begins to blow through the trees, a wind that starts in the very center of the Mud Zone and emanates outward in all directions. Thunder cracks overhead, waves of sound that roll outward as if riding the wind. The gusts pick up intensity, becoming a gale in a matter of seconds, and the thunder does not abate. A white light tinged with orange shines out from the Gate like a small sun, and the forest is illuminated as it has never been in all its centuries of growth. All around the battlefield a hundred different melees slow to a halt, as soldiers stop fighting to pause and wonder. Is this the end of the world?
* *
Aravis wastes no time. Every second is precious, and every second, while the opening between Volpos and Abernia gapes, more soldiers are arriving. He can see them, dozens, hundreds of points of light, crossing over in a constant stream.
He starts to weave life force into new, whole fabric, using the Crosser’s Maze to focus the power toward the opening, but it doesn’t take long for him to realize that it won’t be enough. Each individual soldier would be drained to death in the first few seconds of the endeavor, and he’s not even sure that the other members of the Company could supply the raw power he needs. There is only one remaining chance. With the speed of thought he re-centers his consciousness at the entrance to the Archmagi’s demiplane and sticks his head through.
The Archmagi are seated in their chairs, already looking expectantly at the entrance. The energy pattern that had been the center of their lives for so long, is gone.
“I need you,” Aravis says simply.
“We have prepared for this need,” says Salk. “Do what you must.”
Aravis reaches out and begins to draw life energy from the Archmagi.
It’s nearly more than he can control. The demiplane, he realizes, was already created to focus and magnify outgoing magical energies. And these old wizards, the greatest of fifty generations, are the source of a huge store of energy. Where other people provided thin threads of life force, the torrent Aravis draws from the demiplane is like a thick writhing cable of energy that almost tears his mind apart. He barely manages to focus it, but when he does, he knows… knows!… that he can succeed.
Quickly he funnels that energy through various aspects of the Crosser’s Maze, using methods and skills learned under Vhadish. He directs the focused power at the gaping hole where once the Gate had been, and quickly forms a thin layer across it like a skin. The soldiers from Volpos start to slow down in their crossing, and Aravis knows they now must feel that making the plane-to-plane journey is like wading through thick syrup.
The energy stream stays solid, and he strengthens his newly created piece of space-time. It grows thicker and more substantive, and Aravis exults as he realizes the enemy soldiers are unable to make the crossing. But his mind is growing weary beneath the strain, and suddenly something large and powerful attempts to pass into Abernia. Aravis loses focus, and for an agonizing moment he loses control of the energy stream. It starts to overwhelm his mind, and his consciousness begins to slip away, carried on a massive flood. Whatever the mighty creature is, it passes through his nascent creation and into Abernia!
Desperate, Aravis draws on every last reserve of mental control. He seizes the energy cable like a man wrestling with a mighty python, and forces its focus back to the vital task. Power pours from the demiplane like a raging river, and all of it is now translating directly into solid space-time. Aravis has lost all notion of time – all he knows is that no more soldiers can make the crossing, and that he is very close to completion. The area around where the Gate once stood is almost indistinguishable from the space-time around it. Just a few more… seconds? Hours? He doesn’t know. He only knows the agony of burning energy coursing through his mind.
Something approaches the place where the Gate had been. Whatever it was that crossed over during his moment of weakness, that was as nothing compared to this. A being powerful beyond comprehension has reached Aravis’ creation. It pushes.
Aravis pushes back. He allows the energy to flow even more freely, though he knows it is damaging his mind. He can almost taste the fury of this being that struggles to breach the unexpected border between Volpos and Abernia.
The fabric of the multiverse bends beneath the might of this creature.
It bends…
Stretches…
Buckles…
…but it does not break!
The mighty being backs away and out of sight of the Maze, defeated. The boundary between Volpos and Abernia is smooth and unbroken, with no sign that a Gate ever existed to facilitate the crossing.
Exhausted, Aravis stops drawing energy from the Demiplane. In the Maze there is silence; the two planar spheres no longer have congress. Aravis slowly turns his focus toward the room with the Archmagi, fearing to look inside.
The voices there, too, are silent.
* *
In the forests of Verdshane, thousands of soldiers have covered their eyes to the light and are hunched against the hurricane winds. Saplings bend and break before the onslaught. Thunder rolls loud and unceasing. The world shakes, its very bones rattling.
The winds suddenly die down, dropping back to a light breeze over just a few seconds. The blinding light goes out a moment later, though a glowing white nimbus remains on objects for a few seconds afterward, outlining every leaf on every tree in a glowing aura. Some seconds later, that too fades away. The last peals of thunder echo through the trees.
For a time following, every combatant for a mile around stands in awe and confusion, forgetting to fight.
Then: “Are…are you there?”
It is a panicked voice, squawking over the Rary’s Telepathic Bond. Is that Corporal Edridge?
“We’re here,” thinks Morningstar. “What’s wrong?”
“I can see it,” babbles Edridge. “I’m near the Mud Zone, and it’s… I think… it’s a dragon!”
…to be continued…
I have to congratulate Sagiro on his part in such a great game. Though my dreams last night were plagued by clones... 
