Irina, her gaze intent on the man, doesn't seem to hear the newcomer. When she does notice the woman, it is distractedly, and she waves her hand casually, and replies, "Yes, yes, some more wine would be nice. Now I wonder... Yes, watch this, gentlemen. I think his cup is about to tip over..."
She will use one of her prestidigitation spell-like abilities for the day, and attempt to tip his cup over onto his "notes".
Glee gives Irina a pained look, then just shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "Right. Hilarious." She goes back to idly scanning the room and nursing her ale. At the moment, the man in the corner isn't really of any interest to her.
Something seems to occur to her, then, and she takes the bracelet out and sets it before her on the table so she can get a better look at it in brighter light, see if there's anything she missed.
@Irina Moretskya
@Irina Moretskya
Apologies. I thought I read somewhere that he hadn't touched his cup. In that case, Irina would use the spell to conjure some harmless liquid onto his table, threatening his notes, to see how he reacts. Then she'll tell the others what her spell deduced.
Sevram eyes turn to Gliressa as he sits back at the table and he asks So you see him too? What kind of joke is this?
@Gliressa:
When you place the bracelet before you, you see a momentary flicker of surprise pass across Rhane's face, and he quickly moves his hand to a pouch on his belt, as if feeling to ensure that something is still in it's rightful place.
...interesting. Now, where did you find something like that, Glee?
Impossible, the legends only spoke of one bracelet, and I just killed an ancient friend to ensure it's safety. Now there's another! This can't be good...
Glee looks up and smiles as Sevram rejoins them. "Hi Sev. Yeah, I can see the guy. Some fella doing a bunch of scribbling, right? Do you know him? I saw you speaking with him. What's he writing over there? I admit I'm curious."
The half-elf then turns to Rhane, her face bearing a troubled look. "Some poor old drunk, homeless guy gave me this. I was just doing my usual rounds, helping out, you know, when he starts cackling about...stuff. Said 'my friends' and I must go to the White Tower. Said he'd seen it. He was...wearing this, then he took it off and tried to give it to me. At first I first I thought he was just some sot trading me costume jewelry for water or medicine, but when I left I cast a divination spell on the thing, to find out if it was magical, and it just about took my head off with the force of its aura." Glee's familiar hisses mildly at her neck and she gives a warm little chuckle. "Seth's too." She looks questioningly back up at Rhane. "You ever seen anything like this? Because I'm stumped. Of course, now I can't wait to figure out what it is." she says this last with a wolfish grin.
Irina weaves her magic and a small quantity of water appears on the table, soaking the man's parchment.
He lets out a long, weary sigh, rubbing his temples with his thumb and index fingers.
"What is this, a joke to you?" he says, frustration evident in his voice, "Do I pester you when you're running around metabolizing or whatever else it is you people do? No! I leave you alone and do my job like a professional."
He throws his pen down on the table and sits back in the booth, arms crossed. "You know what? I'm glad your world is coming to an end. Yeah, there, I said it. And I'm not taking it back! I finally get to observe the only remotely interesting thing that's ever happened in this horrid, backwater universe of yours, and here you are trying to ruin it for me. Well fine. That's just fine. Have your laughs. It's not *my* world that's ending. After this, I get to go home and relax, take up a hobby. What are you going to do? Oh yeah, that's right, nothing!"
(Only way I can get this is on a natural 20 - assuming our DM uses that particular rule. But, here goes nothing!)
Sense Motive:
Rhane eyes her curiously for a moment, his gaze shifting back and forth between her and the bracelet on the table. This is a sticky situation, Rhane. Come on, pull yourself together lad! You haven't known her very long, but she seems trustworthy enough. And everything is getting very weird, very quick. Might as well feel her out a little bit...
As a matter of fact, yes. I have seen something quite like that. A twin to it, in fact.. and not very long ago. It seems a bit too much of a coincidence that they should both turn up here at the same time, doesn't it?
He seems to be completely unaware of Irina's hex or the consequences it has wrought on the man in the corner booth, as he has a much more personal interest in the puzzle before him at his own table.
(Only way I can get this is on a natural 20 - assuming our DM uses that particular rule. But, here goes nothing!)
@Mayve & T'zay "Quite right, lad, quite right," Lamere replies to T'zay, before pausing and seeming to look off into a great distance, he turns back to you, "Do either of you feel that?"
I thought I read somewhere that he hadn't touched his cup.
*blink blink*
Glee's jaw literally drops. "A-a twin? There are more of these things?" she looks from Rhane to Sev and back again. "W-when? Where? I share your discomfort with the coincidence of two of them suddenly appearing. We gotta go get it before someone else finds it! Who knows what these things could do, or be."
Her interest in finding the bracelet is plain. She pushes her ale aside and fixes Rhane with an earnest look. "Is it far? How soon are you comfortable leaving? Because I've no business here that can't be put off until we solve this riddle."
Rhane holds one hand up in a furtive gesture for silence. Shh! Not so loud, Glee. It's close. Believe me, after the price I paid for it, I am not about to let it fall into anyone else's hands. But, if I were you... he gestures towards her bracelet on the table.
...I would put that thing out of sight and try to not draw any more attention to it until we find out more about them. If they truly have the power that your drunkard and my legends seem to invest in them, it wouldn't do to draw notice to them.
Irina puts a hand on Rhane and Glee's arms. "Excuse me, friends, but if you'd mind putting your discussion of bracelets on hold for a moment the nice extra-planar man in the corner has just told us that our world is about to end. It might be important."
"Care to offer any details on this impending apocalypse, or are you just going to write about it?"
Gliressa looks down at Irina's hand, then up at her. She laughs. "A minute ago I was a waitress, now I'm your friend? You work fast." She smiles wryly as she takes a drink of her ale and removes the bracelet from the table, placing it back in a leather pouch on her belt. She nods significantly at Rhane.
Leaning back, Glee awaits the man's response to Irina's hurled questions. She may be rude, but she did have a point; if this guy really was an extraplanar entity and was also proclaiming some kind of doom to this plane, that would definitely be worth learning more about. Maybe the bracelets were related somehow?
He sighs, "Actually, yes, I *was* just going to write about it, until somebody ruined my parchment. So yeah, I'll give you the two minute version... well, I guess the 49 second version under the circumstances."
"The planar discohesion event was theorized... I guess the concept of when can't really be expressed to your simple, linear minds, but let's just say a long time ago. Now, it didn't come up often, because everyone assumed nobody would be both intellectually advanced and blatantly idiotic enough to engineer a paradox that would invalidate existence -- but, hey, if there's anyone who can find a way to really screw things up, it's mortals, right?"
He already seems to be growing bored with the explanation, and he begins to speak faster, waving his hand as if it was the most mundane information you will ever hear, "Long story short, over the next few weeks your plane of existence will break apart, be reintegrated into the multiverse, and everything you've ever known will cease to exist. The event b--"
@The Inn
A flash of blinding, white light passes through the room and you feel a sharp shock shoot through you. A deafening crack can be heard all around you.
When your vision returns, the room is in chaos. Everywhere people are wounded or dead. The far half the room is missing, having been replaced by a cavernous pit revealing the city's ancient sewer system. Smoke fills the air around you, and the edge of the destruction is burnt and blackened.
The man in the booth rises, seemingly undisturbed by the event.
"Hmpf. I was off in my calculations by more than a second. This never would have happened if it wasn't for your silly spell ruining my notes.
He moves out toward the ruined edge of the inn, "I believe what we saw there was an incursion of the elemental plane of air."
Glee is ducking before she even knows what's happening, deeply-ingrained reflexes taking over and saving her from the worst of the damage before her forebrain can get in the way and mess things up. Nonetheless...
"Owww! The hell?"
Shaking herself, she strides over to the edge of the pit, looking to see if anyone is trapped. If not, she'll try to help those in the room who are hurt. Looking up at the man as she rushes about, she speaks loudly enough to be heard over the din of crumbling stone and wailing victims. "Who are you?"
"Yess, a tingling that sseparates ones sscales." The large brown snake tightens its coils and turns to meet T'zay's eyes. "Baem feelss it as well. It'ss as if the Mother ssplit the ssky above your head"
Reflex Save: 17 damage
HP: 51/68
Caught unaware by the violence of the explosion, Rhane is lifted from his seat and flung across the room by the force of it. He regains his feet quickly, assessing the damage and attempting to aid anyone he can see in immediate peril. What the devil was that?!
"Interesting, is it an earth quake?"
Sevram avoids most of the damage but is startled at the destruction surrounding him. His first instinct is to force the man to explain himself to the detail, but he cannot ignore the injured so he moves to help them as best as he can.
What in the name of the gods was that?!
Reflex save:
Irina throws herself behind the table, letting it take the brunt of the discharge. When she climbs back up to her feet, she looks around wildly. Seeing wounded everywhere, she frantically starts fumbling through pouches for herbs, looks about her again, then screams, "Oh hell with it!" and starts rushing over to wounded, hexing them with cure moderate wounds hexes to stabilize their injuries.
Once she's finished saving those who could be saved, she rounds on the observer, screaming,
She lays a curse on the man that all his writing would come out gibberish on the page, but since she doesn't even have bestow curse prepared this day, its more a vent of her anger than anything else.
@The Academy
"An earthquake? No, I don't think so."
He rises, and as he turns to the window the old man quickly covers his eyes with the colorful sleeve of his robe as the window shatters, sending small debris and glass shards flying in, and the whole room is momentarily filled with a blinding white light.
You can hear a fierce wind and a terrible churning of earth and stone, as if the earth itself were in rebellion.
"BY THE GODS!" he exclaims, and you can see out the window that a great gash has been dug into the earth, and a swath of the city is disintegrated, including half of the inn where your friends were staying. Smoke, dust and flames rise into the air from beyond the square, and in the distance you can hear the earth rumbling and the cacophony of panicked screams.
@The Inn
As you all work to aid the wounded, you feel tremors all around you, and a massive geyser of lava explodes from the square outside the in. Glee dodges a red hot clump of molten rock that nearly engulfs her as the cavity in the earth begins to fill with glowing lava. She's forced to recoil from the heat, but the mysterious stranger seems unaffected.
The spatter of molten rock continues to pelt the walls of the inn, but the stone seems to hold up to the onslaught.
You move those injured people you can to relative safety, and Irina does what she can to patch up their wounds.
Mayze stands up from behind the chair she had flipped, tumbling backwards and avoiding most of the spray of glass.
"Well, that was most unexpected." She walks to stand next to Lamere, shacking bits of glass off her clothes. "Are you okay?..." Mayve stops and stares at the devestation below her, momentarily stunned by the shear size of the destruction.
"By gods indeed..." she looks out and seeing the lava filling the void, looks at the Academy grounds.
Are they higher or lower in elevation?
Ignoring Gliressa's inquiry, the observer turns to Irina, "Quite the contrary. It would cost me *everything* to save them. I tried interfering once. I merely suggested, every so casually, that maybe it wasn't a good idea to build a causality matrix, you know, because of the whole 'end of the universe' thing, that maybe mortals shouldn't put themselves above the gods, and what do I get for my trouble? Demoted! Forced to endure the lifetime of the universe, recording every mundane event that ever happened! It's not like they even *listened* to me. They still built that stupid tower, and now here we are! Not again, no thank you!"
Glee's eyes narrow at the Observer's words. ...the tower...again... She stands and fishes the bracelet out of its pouch and holds it up for the Observer to see. "Can you tell me what this is?"
@Mayve
Sevram looks angered at the man Who demoted you? What tower are you talking about? Are you insane or is there something remotely useful in your words? his eyes fly over the devastation surrounding him I wonder if this is a localized event or... my family... he turns back to the man and draws Legacy You will tell us what you know or one of us won't leave this ruins alive when Glee shows the bracelet Sevram looks at it and mutters What the heck is that?
Gliressa dodges another spray of flung magma. "That's what I'm hoping to find out, Sev. I'm sure he's speaking of the White Tower, and this is the second time it's come up in the last hour. This bracelet is related somehow, I'm sure of it."
11 Dmg
HP 69/80
Evasion 0 Dmg
Deep in thought, T'zay is caught completely unaware by the blast, while Baem withdraws back into the satchel in a blink. "Eldesst, are you injured? Maayve?" T'zay offers healing to Lamere and Mayve, healing himself last if there's time.
"Yes, yes, the White Tower, exactly," the observer says, completely ignoring Sevram's threats, "That trinket is a temporal anchor. The chronomancers built them to sync with the causality matrix. How else would you ever expect to find it?! How do you not know this?!"
Sudden realization comes over him, "Gods! Is this the first time we've met? I always figured you people had some idea what you were doing! All this time you've just been blindly groping in the dark?! Why does management torment me like this?"
He throws up his arms in exasperation and walks out the front door of the inn, mumbling something about mortals.
@The Inn
"Ugh." Glee shakes her head. She takes the bracelet and slips it onto her left wrist, then pulls a spare kerchief from her pack and ties it around the same wrist, covering the bracelet.
She then takes a deep breath and ties her hair back up. "Sev, Irina, simmer down. Remember no one else can see him but us. We look like a buncha loonies right now." She pauses for just a beat, then adds "I mean, if you care about that sort of thing." Having helped as much as she can at the inn, she steps lightly around the wreckage and rubble and makes for the door. "I'm going across the street, if any of you are interested. Gonna speak with those in the academy, see if they know anything about this, see if I can use their research materials. Then I'm heading for the tower. I wouldn't mind company, of course, but I'll understand if you've your own paths to take."
With that, the half-elf heads back out into the night.
Sevram sheathes his sword once more before moving after Glee We'd better stay together... whatever that trinket does it is important, so I swear on my life to make sure it stays in good hands
@The Academy
With the aid of T'zay's healing magic, no one is seriously hurt.
Master Lamere leads you towards the hall, suddenly becoming very serious, "We should be relatively safe here at the academy. We're protected by powerful, magical defenses, but we should gather the others. We'll need to find out what happened and see what we can do to help."
As you step toward the door, you hear a roar of crashing stone from just outside the wall, and a thick cloud of brown dust crawls into the headmaster's study.
Perception:
A temporal anchor? Hmm... that's interesting. If it does what I think it does, perhaps I'd better "anchor" myself, as well. Rhane slips one hand to the pouch on his belt and fiddles with something underneath the table.
Sleight of Hand to put the bracelet on beneath the level of the table. Once on, it should remain fairly inconspicuous underneath the sleeves of the red tunic he is wearing.
I am with you, Gliressa. Finding out more about what exactly is going on would be the wisest course of action, I think.
Without laying hands of the wizard, T'zay attempts to put himself between Lamere and the door. "Eldesst, allow me."
The big lizard steps up to the door and places his hand against it. He grows very still and tastes the air for signs of further danger.
Defering to the venerable human's wishes, T'zay stands aside, his gnarled spear held at the ready.
Irina glances about at the remaining inn patrons, then sighs. "They'll be going for their pitchforks and torches in no time," she says to no one in particular.
Spotting the strange man leaving the inn, she curses (mundanely), grabs her pack, and follows. "Hold on a second, we're not done with you? How come we can see you, but nobody else in the inn can? And what do you mean about this being the first time we've met you, and blindly groping in the dark, and all that nonsense?"
@T'zay Sshi'aah You don't feel any dangerous level of heat on the door. The dust tastes of stone and plaster. It seems that part of the building outside may have collapsed. You're not sure if the door is blocked or not without trying it.
@The Square
As the group of you step out of the inn after the stranger, you feel an intense wave of heat, and you see that the square is in chaos. Cracks fill the area, and to your right, the north, a lava geyser continues to blast molten rock into the fissure where the inn was destroyed.
You have trouble keeping your feet as a tremor shakes the square. A section of the ancient campus of the Imperial Academy of Wizardry collapses in front of you, sending a massive cloud of dust into the far side of the square.
Apparently unaffected by the tremors or the heat of the lava flow, the observer stops and turns back to Irina.
"HA! I'd always wondered why you'd never asked me that. I don't know why you see me. This humanoid form is something you people conjure up to rationalize something you can't understand. Physiologically speaking, I mean. Most mortals have the good sense to ignore me. I've met you several times before. Apparently, you people are some sort of time travelers."
He turns back to the spout of lava illuminating the square in orange light. He removes a ledger from his robes, flips in a few pages, and begins scribbling notes.
"Now, if you'll excuse me," he says, waving you away, "I've got the end of the world to record."
With that, he fades away in front of you.
Gliressa ducks behind whatever cover she can find in the rubble-strewn streets and tries to take stock of things. "Okay, um, maybe we need to scratch the plan of visiting the wizards' academy. Yikes!" She bites her lower lip and shakes her head, then, saying "Never mind, I can't just let this happen! Hang on, Seth…"
She trots forward and vaults over the fissure, flipping neatly in mid-air and hitting the ground running. Arriving at the base of the academy, she surveys the damage, trying to discern the level of structural integrity left.
As far as she can tell, things look solid enough to climb up and in. She scrambles over the rubble, looking for a door in, all the while calling out "Is anybody in there! Hello! You've got to get out, everything's going to hell!" She makes a face as another spray of magma shoots up into the air, her mouth a bloodless hyphen. "...literally..." she mutters.
Seeing Glee jump above the rubble without trouble Sevram decides to look for an easier route Seems like hell has been let loose, aren't we forgetting something in this chaos? Sevram turns to Rhane and shouts above the chaos Rhane! Can you get to your horse or do you need help? We can't leave it back at the inn, there may be no inn when we come back!