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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 1381630" data-attributes="member: 1210">Rex's Story (pt. 2)Even with the eagle’s splendor, Rex knows that the odds of mishap are quite high for him.  And a mishap with a plane shift can be lethal.  And without the potion, he wouldn’t even be able to try this.  But he’ll die if he stays.  He’s in no shape to fight, and he can’t rest.  There’s a sweet tone as the scroll takes effect.  Reality around him wavers and shifts and for a moment there’s a tremendous disorientation.  Rex has Lady Luck on his side today, it seems, as he materializes in a hilly area somewhere- has to be on Dorhaus, he realizes.  He’s aiming for Var, but he knows that a plane shift gets you within a few score miles of your target; so he doesn’t really know where he is exactly.  But that’s why he’s got wings.  He sets Patyn down for the moment, laying his body beneath a pine tree, then stretches his wings and lifts into the sky.Hills... mountains to one side- hard to tell which, til he can see which way the sun’s moving.  There is forest in another direction.  The weather’s nice, at least.  The sun feels good on his tired, wounded body.  His butt still burns fiercely from the arrow or bolt or whatever that damned vampire hit him with.  And his back’s a mess.  He thinks, I need rest... time to heal.  He sighs and continues looking things over, surveying the scene as it were.Hey, a tower.Rex descends, grabs up Patyn, and starts making his way to the tower.  He’s strong enough to fly even carrying the hunter of the dead, at least for a little while; and it can’t be more than a mile away.  So he pushes himself, wings straining to hold them both aloft. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, a tower.  Must be a wizard or something, hopefully someone friendly.Lady Luck remains on his side.A strange two-faced construct greets him.  It is civil and intelligent but simultaneously intimidating and threatening by implication.  It informs him that he has reached Arion’s Traveling Tower.“Arion the Archmage?” Rex cries.  “Please, I would speak with him!”“He is quite busy,” the construct informs him.“Please, I am adventuring with his friends- Malford, Lester, those guys!  I need healing and then to go back to them.  Can he help me?”  Rex is desperate.  This is perhaps the best chance he has- and to meet Arion the Archmage!  He’s a wizard who specializes in force, and I have a heritage of force, Rex thinks.  I must meet him!“I will tell him, but he is very busy,” the construct says.***Arion the Glorious watches as the cryoxenthum distills from the alchemical compounds combining in the beaker.  The reaction was proceeding appropriately; cryoxenthum, with its ultra-cold nature, was a logical next step.  If it led in the right direction, they could soon move onto the next phase of the plan.  And then, the final phase: the takeover. “You have guests,” Marius the Enigmatic says vaguely.Arion frowns.  There’s a knock at the door of the laboratory.  It’s his butler, informing him that he has guests.  “I don’t have time for this,” he snaps, but when the butler mentions that it’s a companion of Malford, Lester, et al, he realizes what an opportunity lies before him.“I’d best leave,” Marius says.  “It wouldn’t do for them to catch wind of things too soon.”“They already did, but they don’t realize the implications.”“True.”  Marius the Enigmatic sighs.  “The loss of Marius the Great was a crushing blow.” “That’s why we should have each done what the Progenitor did first: spend ourselves to increase the power of the next generation.”“It’s too late for that now,” Arion says firmly.  “The very nature of reality has changed.  Things do not work that way anymore.”“And you think there is no way to recreate those conditions?” Marius asks with a smirk.  “Do not forget, my friend- you are working with the most powerful chronomancers the world has ever known.”***“You wanted to see me?” Arion proclaims as he descends the stairs, resplendent in bright blue and red robes.  “Do I know you?”Rex babbles, “Yes- I mean, no- I mean, yes, I wanted to talk to you.  I am an adventurer who’s traveling with King Malford and Lester and- and Drelvin and those guys, and I had to plane shift away from a hostile plane, and so here I am...”  He pauses.  “Also, we may have some similar interests, um, in force.  I am a dragon disciple of Brespicacious, an amethyst dragon.”Arion cocks an eyebrow.  “And I am a force mage, and a master of the arcane arts.  Perhaps, another time, when I have time, we’ll chat about such things.  I, however, am a very busy man.  You understand, of course.”“Of- of course.”“I shall send you back to your party, then, so as to ensure that, if they have need of you, they shall have you.”“But we need healing!  My friend isn’t even conscious!”“Well, you’ll be with a party of adventurers.  Surely you have a healer.”  Arion begins casting a spell.“But...!”And that’s how we got to where we are now.Next Time: Lester communes, then the party makes a very fateful decision.  Who will go through the mouth of the face of the fiend??</blockquote>

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