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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sagiro" data-source="post: 1488807" data-attributes="member: 726">Sagiro’s Story Hour, Part 209Kay, unhingedGrey Wolf, who was against Aravis’s unnecessary excursion, lets out a sigh.“Never toss the mage through a portal,” he says, exasperated.“Let’s go back to the nice place,” says Dranko.  Everyone agrees.They all go through, and after the obligatory seconds of sucking void, they’re deposited on the lovely grassy hilltop that Dranko had described moments earlier.  Clear blue sky, green grass, yellow and red flowers, and….Dranko points.  “Um, guys?  That storm is about twice as close as it was a few minutes ago.”“It’s moving towards us, too,” observes Kay.A stiff breeze is blowing from the storm, stirring their hair.  Dranko does a visual check on the other blue gate he saw.  It’s two hills away, with over a mile of trackless, steep and folded terrain between them.   It would be a good hour’s journey, and the storm will be on them in minutes.“Towards us, and speeding up,” amends Kay.  “Clearly not natural.”A sharp blast of lightning fires out of the storm as it reaches the shoreline, straight down into the ground.  Sand flies up in a cloud, while some is fused instantly to glass.   This engenders some hasty planning among the Company.  Dranko has a lightning bolt – ironstorm flashback.Kay’s eyes go wide for a moment.“Oa Lyanna is extremely worried,” she says, trying to keep her own voice calm.  “She thinks this creature is a God.”“Aiiieeeeee!” says Ernie.“Leaving now,” adds Grey Wolf.In a voice that literally is thunder, and whose meaning is mysteriously conveyed through the throbbing roar of sound, the storm speaks.WHY ARE YOU HERE?Aravis shouts into the wind.“To restore our world to its proper state!”Another bolt of lightning slams down from the storm onto the hillside, a hundred feet below the Company.Morningstar casts wind walk on several members of the party, to allow Aravis to teleport the whole party at once.  The storm moves closer, and the wind-walkers start to have trouble standing still.YOU ARE NOT ABIDING BY THE AGREEMENT!Another lightning stroke burns the ground, closer this time.  In a loud and frantic voice, Dranko answers: “Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us just what that agreement is!”The wind-walkers start to take damage from the violent winds of the storm, which is now nearly upon them.YOU HAVE AGREED THAT…But they miss the end of the sentence, as Aravis teleports the party to the distant hilltop with the other blue portal.  At once the sound of thunder grows quieter, and the wind here is only a gentle breeze.  They can see the storm far off, enshrouding the distant hill on which they just stood.Kibi at once tries to move through this new portal, but discovers that in his misty form he cannot make egress.  His vaporous body just splashes against the blue light and flows around the portal’s edges.   At that, he and the other wind-walkers start the 30-second process of becoming solid, while the storm (seemingly aware of their new position) starts to boil toward them.  Ernie, solid to start with, jumps through to investigate the place into which they are almost certainly about to flee.He lands on a solid stone floor, indoors.    He glances about and discovers he’s in a small room, or a large closet, six feet wide and fifteen feet long.  It’s lit by a sconce with continual flame upon it at the far end.   The air is stale but breathable, just like the air in the woman’s bedroom.  In fact, like that boudoir, the walls here are of the same dark gray stone with a blue-stone diamond pattern inset.On the two longer walls are pegs, most of which have cloaks or robes hanging from them.  With a last look around to verify that there are no obvious ways in or out other than the portal, Ernie leaps back to the grassy hillside near to the storm.Meanwhile, said storm has been fast approaching the party.  Lightning is crackling angrily down from it, scorching the grass and blasting small trees and bushes into splinters.  Ernie sees upon his arrival that it’s only about 15 seconds away from them!  His fellows look at him expectantly.“It’s a closet,” he summarizes.“Is there another way out of it?” asks Kibi.“I didn’t see any, but I didn’t spend any time searching.  It’s got the same blue stone diamond on the walls, like in that woman’s bedroom.”“It’s a Black Circle place then,” says Morningstar.  “We should check it out.”Aravis starts tying a rope around his waist.  Another bolt of lightning shoots out of the storm and blasts the ground.  “The bedroom would be better than this!” shouts Grey Wolf above the howling wind.“I want to stay and talk to it, just a little more,” says Aravis.  He hands the other end of his rope to Ernie, while Morningstar casts bear’s endurance on him.   Everyone except Aravis leaps through into the cloakroom.  Once there, Grey Wolf grabs the rope in Ernie’s hands and suggests that everyone else do the same, “in case Aravis becomes a kite out there!”Inside, the Company looks around as they hold the rope.   Morningstar turns to Kay.“Why does Oa Lyanna think that’s a god?”Oa Lyanna says to Kay in a shaking voice, “It’s a living storm!  Such beings are… beyond my scope.”Outside, Aravis casts energy buffer on himself, just in time for the storm to arrive.EXPLAIN WHY YOU HAVE BROKEN OUR AGREEMENT? it thunders.“We didn’t make an agreement with you,” Aravis explains calmly. “We aren’t of the people who created this place.  We believe that those people are involved in a horrible magic that has changed our world beyond all recognition.  We were told…”YOU ARE TRAPPED AS I AM rumbles the storm.  I WAS PROMISED… SOLITUDE.A lightning stroke crackles not ten feet from Aravis’s head.   His robes start flapping wildly in the gusting wind.I SHOULD SLAY YOU, adds the storm.“We are only here to fix our world,” says Aravis.  “We are not here to disturb you.”THEN YOU MUST LEAVE IMMEDIATELY AND NOT COME BACK.Well, okay!  Aravis steps through the portal.Dranko has been listening intently, but hears nothing beyond the breathing of his party-mates.   After Aravis has returned and told his tale, Morningstar walks to the far end of the room to cast thought capture while the others start a more thorough search of the place.  The cloaks and robes are mostly black, and of varying quality.  Some have black circles embroidered on them.  Flicker finds a bag of old spell components in the pockets of one.  (With the exception of Kibi and the halflings, everyone takes a black-circle garment that fits them and stows it with their gear.)  Morningstar’s thought capture captures a thought of someone musing upon an academic point of indecipherable magical philosophy.  She gets the sense that thinker is pondering a book or scroll he has just read.There is a doorway out of the room, but it’s directly behind the blue portal at one end.  The portal is so close that it’s practically painted on, and so there’s no clear way to make use of the door.  Dranko goes back into wind form and manages to slip into the sliver-thin space between portal and door, but it does no good.  The door is also the boundary of this plane, and Dranko’s brain doesn’t allow him to try going further.“Stupid Black Circle!” blurts Ernie.  “Why did they make a world that only consists of a stupid clothes closet!  Who builds a hallway that goes nowhere?”That drives home to Kibi a fact that has been disturbing him.  Ordinarily his dwarvish senses can tell how far underground he is.  But here, in this little room, he has no sense of the surface.  There is none. Morningstar decides to blanket the far end of the room with more thought captures, and sifts through her mental findings.  Some are thoughts similar to the first one.  Some are more specific, thinking about tasks they have to do or jobs to perform, none of which make sense to Morningstar.    There are two thoughts, though, that are very distinct, and nearly identical though they come from two different minds.  The gist of these thoughts is that they’re worried about “the stability of the rotunda.”  The rotunda!  That was mentioned in the love letter found in the Black Circle Boudoir.There’s a final thought of:  “Why do I have the crappiest cloak?”Before the subject of “what do we do now” can be raised, Kibi suddenly grows tense.  He can sense something odd stirring around him.  The air takes on a peculiar vibration that only he seems to feel.“I think something’s about to happen,” he warns.“Why?” asks Grey Wolf.“It feels like there’s about to be an earthquake.  Can’t you feel it?”Actually, yes, they can.  Whatever it is is growing stronger.  Could it be the god-storm outside is affecting them?  Dranko jumps up and readies his whip.   The ground isn’t shaking, but somehow reality is.   Except for Kibi, each member of the Company feels like they are coming unanchored from space-time, though they might not have thought to phrase it that way.  Kibi still feels firmly rooted, as though he is a heavy statue in a rushing wind.“Fascinating,” says Aravis.   (Grey Wolf isn’t much impressed either.  His guts felt worse than this for months!)Kay’s eyes go wide.  “Ow!  It’s painful!  Don’t you feel it?”Yes, everyone feels it, but no, no one else is in pain.  Her face contorts in a agonized grimace… and that’s before the phenomenon spikes.Everyone feels the world blur around them, feels caught in a terrible wrenching turbulence.  (Still not Kibi, though.   He remains solidly rooted to reality.)  Kay and Oa Lyanna scream as one, a terrible double-voiced cry of pain that is abruptly cut off as their body shifts several feet in a crazy blur before vanishing entirely.“Kay!” cries Ernie.“What happened?” shouts Morningstar.“Holy s**t!” says Grey Wolf.“Bring her back!  Bring her back!” Ernie wails, not sure who he’s asking.A few seconds later, whatever it is dies down quickly.“Kay is gone!” says Ernie, in case everyone hadn’t noticed.  “Aravis, find her!  Use the Maze!”“I don’t think I can,” says Aravis, shaking his head.Morningstar keeps a level head.“Kay, are you here?” she speaks into the room.  No answer.“I wonder what it was?” says Kibi.  “It was odd, but I felt fine through the whole thing.  What did it feel like to the rest of you?”“You felt fine?” cries Dranko, incredulous.  “Why didn’t you tell anyone you felt fine?  Maybe Kay could have grabbed onto you and been okay!”“Eyes?” says Ernie angrily, turning on Scree.  “Aren’t you suppose to stop this sort of… oooo.”  He stops, and grows red.  “I should have given her my belt!”Scree rolls over to stand before Kibi, and the sapphire eyes blaze.“Oh, now they talk to us,” mutters Grey Wolf, disgusted.“What happened to Kay?” Kibi demands.She is… probably safe.  She was not properly anchored.  She was made somewhat of air-stuff, and came loose.“Can we find her?” asks Morningstar.She is outside of Het Branoi.  She cannot be found while we are inside.Dranko laughs nervously.  “If any of us could survive out there on our own, it’s her.  She can eat moss and drink raindrops or something.”“I hope the universe doesn’t decide that it hates her,” says Aravis, worried.She is not in this universe.“What?” several voices cry.She is probably still with you.Not comprehending, Ernie starts waving his arms around, as if Kay is merely invisible and might be discovered by touch.You are multiple.  Infinitely.  All of you are.“So where is she then?” asks Ernie.She is with others of you.  Probably.“Does that mean there are two Kays with the other ones of us?” asks Kibi.If so, I am sure they have much to discuss.Scree’s gemstone eyes lose their glow.  The Eyes of Moirel have finished talking.Ernie wheels on Aravis, his head spinning.“What does that mean!”Aravis starts into a halting explanation of parallel world theory, planar offsets and simultaneous cosmic splintering.  Dranko gets a twinkle in his eye.“You mean… there are two Morningstars.  And they could be together, at the same time?”“You can’t really look at it that way,” says Aravis.“Besides which,” says Morningstar, smirking at her fiancee. “At any given time, even if one of us were happy with you, the other would be annoyed at you.”“So I can’t win,” Dranko complains.“Well, there’s a lot of disagreement about how the universe works, in academic circles…”“You’re making this crap up, aren’t you,” says Dranko.Morningstar stamps her foot.  “How could the universe have multiple versions of people?  That’s ridiculous!  When I cast a sending, I get you, not multiple versions of you.”“Well, you get the one you’re more… anchored to,” Aravis explains.“So we exist in multiple planes?” asks Grey Wolf?“Like I said, there’s some argument about that.”Dranko tries another optimistic angle.  “So why don’t we get one of the other ’us-es’ to fix the world, while we go lie down someplace warm?”“It doesn’t work that way,” sighs Aravis.  “Those other ‘us-es’ don’t care about our universe.  They don’t know about it.”“Goddammit!” Dranko spits.“Is our Kay somewhere where there’s another Kay?” asks Morningstar, still not entirely buying it.“That, I don’t know,” admits Aravis.  “Yes, probably.   It sounds like that’s what the Eyes think.”Grey Wolf’s head hurts.  He groans.  Morningstar tries sending to Kay and gets no answer.  It appears that Kay is just gone.  No one speaks for a few seconds.“I have a theory that I’d like to put to the test,” says Aravis, tying the rope around his own waist.  “I’m going to step through the portal.  As soon as I’m gone, I want you to pull me back.”“Are you protected from lightning?” asks Dranko.“Yeah.  energy buffer.”He steps through the portal.  He finds himself in the middle of the storm, but before it can do him any harm the others yank him back as instructed.  “Well, we didn’t move physically, when whatever happened happened.”“I wonder if that sort of thing happens often… like earthquakes,” ponders Grey Wolf.“Or maybe it happened because of the “instability of the rotunda,” guesses Morningstar.“My rotunda’s pretty stable,” Dranko laughs nervously, patting his own backside.  No one else laughs.   “Well, okay then,” he continues.  “I suggest we make camp.  It’s that, or make a run for it out there.”“Remember what happened last time,” says Kibi.  “If we camp here for a whole day, tomorrow there’ll be five storms waiting out there…“…and lots of little stormlets?” says Dranko.Ernie makes a noise of frustration as he prepares his cooking gear.   “I want to make a fire, but this room would just fill up with smoke.  And I was going to cook Kay’s favorite.”“Why?” asks Dranko.  “She’s not here to enjoy it.”“Dranko!” snaps Grey Wolf, but it’s too late.  Ernie turns on Dranko, his face florid.“Because maybe I’m thinking about her!” he yells.“Sorry, Ernie.”After a cold meal during which no one says much, Ernie says,“I think we  should wait it out in here.  Remember, the storm wasn’t on top of a gate when we came through.  It was out over the ocean.  Maybe it’ll get bored and go back there.”The others nod in unenthusiastic agreement.“So,” says Dranko after another awkward pause.  “Who wants to play mumblety-peg?”…to be continued…</blockquote>

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