The Simulacrum Wars (first battle)
Stepping carefully, our heroes pass through Marius the Chronomancer’s gate and into the center of the plane of Time.
The Citadel of Eternity- they’ve seen it before, but not been within it. Except for Marius himself, of course, but that’s a whole ‘nother story. It’s a grand structure made of what looks like silvery metal or stone of some kind (“actually, it’s solidified time,” Marius will tell them later). The sweeping halls curve off, with large rooms here are there. Who made this place? What strange, primeval god or force crafted the walls that bend the winds of time around them? Who knows? It may have been at the beginning of time or even before (if such a concept even has meaning); for now it’s irrelevant.
Our heroes stalk the halls invisibly. Perhaps the most useful of the invisibility spells is Malford’s group invisibility, which allows the group to walk unseen and unheard by everyone except each other. From room to room they follow Marius, looking for other Marii. For the simulacra.
“Why does he need us, anyway?” Sybele whispers to Thrush. “If these simulacra are more powerful than he is, how are we going to have a chance against them?” At the head of the party, Marius the Chronomancer smiles grimly to himself. It all makes sense; they’ll see soon enough.
No ersatz Marius comes out to greet them from the first few places that Marius declared to be very likely; but soon enough, as the party creeps along through the eerie fortress, they open a door and find themselves facing not one, but two, Marii.
For an instant (if instants have meaning on the plane of Time) everyone freezes, but then everyone blurs into motion.
It’s immediately obvious that they know our heroes have arrived, for the two false Marii act before anyone else has a chance to. The first- let’s call him Marius the False Chronomancer, though he calls himself merely Marius the Chronomancer, just as does his progenitor- disappears quickly. The second- call him Marius the Willmaster- fires off a quickened disintegrate that blasts Marius (the real one) for a shuddering amount of damage.
Worse yet, two whirling tornados of shining silvery sand zip towards the party. Those who were together in Bile Mountain fought one of these things before- chronal repeaters, a strange sort of time golem. Grim thoughts flash through several of our heroes.
But before anything else happens, the real Marius fires a disintegration beam at the invisible Marius. There’s a howling scream as it discorporates. Malford mass hastes the entire group, and our heroes move in on the remaining adversaries. Horbin tries a lower resistance on one of the repeaters while Telemundo readies a counterspell against the remaining false Marius. Unfortunately, he can’t counter what the Willmaster casts- and a hole gets blown through Lester’s torso! He screams in pain, staggering, and a volley of quickened magic missiles shoot into him as well, nearly driving him from the air. Then, without even missing a beat, the Willmaster teleports out.
“How’d he do that?!” Malford yells. He just cast two quickened spells at once...!*
There’s no time to talk about it, though, as the first chronal repeater seems to split into two wavering forms, spilling scintillating sand everywhere, and flanks Horbin, tearing into him with its powerful slams again and again! The other one seems to split into three images, attacking Horbin, Angelfire and Drelvin and landing terrible blows on each of them. “What’s this?” Drelvin cries as the creature smacks at his leg.**
But our heroes fight back, despite the fact that their weapons seem to slip past the repeaters as if they aren’t there about half the time. Grunting, Angel throws everything into a deadly power attack that lands heavily on one of the constructs, and in a spray of temporal sand it explodes. The other falls to Marius’ deconstruction.
“Not a bad start,” Telemundo comments wryly, but Marius snorts.
“One of them got away. Now the master of this place will know we’re coming. We must hurry.”
“Maybe we should come back another time?” Horbin wonders, but Marius shakes his head severely.
“Then it would have all the time it needs to prepare for us, no matter how little time we spend away. Its control of the time stream here far exceeds mine on the demiplane I took you all to.”
“How many of these simulacra are there?” Malford asks.
“Three that I fashioned to be greater than myself,” Marius replies, “and they may have made more even greater than themselves. And who knows how many others, lesser than the ones I made but possibly roughly as powerful as myself. Not to mention lesser ones, or those created by other wizards tricked by my duplicates into making the same mistake I made.” He takes a deep breath. “Let’s go. There are many places they could be, but I doubt whether the usurper of my Citadel will shirk from a confrontation; I wouldn’t. But we mustn’t give him the time to prepare for us.”
And he leads the way further into the Citadel of Eternity, our heroes following behind, full of misgiving.
*Thanks to the Multispell Epic feat.
**Don’t forget Drelvin’s theme song! Drelvin- he lost his leg!
Next Time: A bridge over troubled energy! Pseudonatural enemies, both greater and lesser! And, of course, a false Marius!
