Once inside, Kala pulls out a torch and lights it swiftly with Druidcraft to illuminate their surroundings. If there's a sconce in the ruins, she'll place the torch in it.
Tes steps into the hole, "Phaerlin, come with me hurry!"
Hearing the sound of more pods dropping, Vitrius realizes that staying here is detrimental to his and his companions' health. As soon as Tes' flame sallow him to see further into the temple, he looks around for a mechanism that would make closing this door easier.
Phaerlin puts his back to the opening and move his blade in a defensive arc.
Phaerlin stands between the doorway and the onslaught of monstrous creatures, determined that if death should occur, it would be his own before his comrades.
The tendrils that had restrained the Eldrazi are torn asunder. Now free from their bonds, they rush towards Phaerlin.
Despite Phaerlin's best attempts to ward off his attacker, each creature manages to sink in a fang or spiked tentacle.
Another mighty roar from off in the distance and though only Phaerlin can see it as he peers from the side of the door, he witnesses ten more spawnlings come falling from the sky and landing (offscreen).
.
Kick-lick keeps his bow readied. "Make room!" He yells at Tes.
Kala En readies an action to shove the door closed once Phaerlin is inside.
"Come on!" She braces her shield against the door, to put her weight against it once the vampire is inside.
Vitrius grabs Phaerlin and brings him inside.
With Kick-Lick fending off any would be followers and Vitrius pulling Phaerlin through the door, Kala has just enough time to close the door with a mighty heave of strength. A mottled arm shoves itself through the crack, but is snapped off as Kala closes the door with a mighty push.
There is only a small amount of light emanating from Kala's torch, but the most eerie thing of all is the complete and utter lack of sound or movement from the other side of the door, as if the world of Zendikar has been completely sealed off.
Before you lies a series of steps that will take you further into the ruin.
"Remind me of home. Nice place. We go?" Kick-lick says, gesturing down the stairs, "I lead." He creeps out.
"Well, we've all made it, and in one piece." Kala breathes a heavy sigh of relief, not realizing how long she'd been holding her breath.
"I'd love to put on bandages, but that giant Eldrazi might flatten this place. If we get underground, maybe we can take a break then." If someone wants the torch, Kala En will pass it off. Else she bears it and heads towards the steps after Kick-Lick, dripping blood every few steps as she goes.
Kick-lick will stay about 15 feet out of the torchlight, and always go around corners first.
"Phaerlin are you injured? I can heal your wounds, we don't know that this place will be safer than out there..."
"It is but a scratch. I'm sure that there are others who need your powerful magic more than I do."
The descending staircase seems to go on forever. You remain tense and alert the first hour in, but eventually you begin to question if there is really an end to this descent. Silence from above and below, the horde should have passed by now, or at least gotten in the ruin if they were able.
The air is cool, and easy to breathe. The steps pristine.
Another hour in descending and you legs are getting tired. It would probably be close to nighttime and the end of the journey is nowhere in sight.
Used to climbing rocks as part of her daily routine even Tes is beginning to get tired.
"We could rest on the stairs themselves and continue afterwards. My people have rested in ropes on the side of the mountains when tired so this will be safer as we have solid ground to lay on".
Phaerlin, clearly tired from the walk, simply says "If that is what you wish, lady Il-Stone."
"Let's rest then." Kala En is unsure how to set up on the stairs, and hopes the Kor guides the party in this. She takes some time () digging through her herbalism kit to make a poultice for her wound, wrapping it.
"So, what do you lot think is at the bottom of these stairs?"
After what seemed an eternity of descending the stairs, Vitrius replies to Kala's comment. "Whatever it is, the Eldrazi are keen on protecting it. I have a feeling they will be attempting to impede our progress as they can. Any idea how far below ground we are?"
Its been a couple hours after the party started their descent, and they are possibly thousands of miles under the surface.
You make yourselves as comfortable as you can on a series of ancient, but perfectly kept, steps. Its odd. You've been at the edge of your lives in these past few days but here it seems as if the world could be torn asunder and you wouldn't feel a thing here. Still, with no enemy in sight everyone falls to a fitful sleep for the night.
You are a speck of a sand drifting as the wind pushes you along. The world is peaceful, calm.
And then
A step so large that monumental doesn't even begin to describe it.It moves slowly across the land. Forests turn to sand. Swamps turn to sand. Hills, valleys, oceans. All turn to sand. And you watch on, as the Eldrazi move past you step by step turning your entire world into a wasteland on which no life will ever spring from again.
Do you: try and pierce the Eldrazi as a small speck of sand, gather the sand around you to attack the Eldrazi together, or some other third thing?
You are drifting in an endless ocean, vibrancy of life.. You feel as if you are everything and everyone and the entirety of the Roil exists within you. Chaos with Harmony. Your existence feels so complete than what you were before.
But then.
Slowly, but surely, you feel your forms slipping away. You try and grasp at the beings you lose, lives you have lived and have yet to live, but they escape your hands and soon you feel so naked and alone. You are alone, you feel fear, you feel uncertainty, and then you feel something enormous behind you.
Do you: focus on yourself and the being that is Kala En, try and capture the being of the enormity that you can't see, or some other third thing?
You're falling. And screaming. But mostly falling.
The fear takes you for the first few moments but eventually you feel exhilaration and even a joy of adrenaline. You can feel something burning, something intense inside you that feels as if the very fury of fire is trying to claw itself from your chest. On your left is a dragon, its scales scarred from many battles and its eyes examining you curiously.
Do you: focus on the fire within, try to hop onto the dragon next to you, some other third thing?
You are alone, sitting and meditating in a familiar temple. It seems that all the worlds knowledge is around you. Enough knowledge to banish the Eldrazi from your home. Enough to vanquish your mistakes from a life long past.
And then it begins to slip away.
Like grains of sand, you can tell that you are losing that which makes you strong. You being to panic and urgently grass at the seamless walls looking for where the leak is coming from. But before long it is all gone. All of it. You can't even recall your own name.
Do you: return to the center and begin your meditation once more, continue to search for where the knowledge has escaped to, or some other third thing?
You find yourself with your family, on one of there rides through the countryside and nearby village. You watch them, all faceless, converse and laugh as you ride by impoverished, starving folk. Eventually the carriage stops as the driver shops the horses to tend to a block on the road.
And then they come.
Thin, frail hands beating at the windows, pupil-less eyes and gaping mouths begin you, pleading you to end their suffering. Calling you insults. "You're no hero!" they scream. "You're doing this for yourself and yourself alone! End our suffering! Why must you keep us alive!". And your family laughs, and laughs, and laughs. One offers you the sword you carry at your side
Do you: step outside the carriage and end the people's suffering, remain in the carriage without a word, or some other third thing?
You all wake up nearly at the same time, having woken up from dreams or rather nightmares. You wonder if it has any significance, and quickly make preparations to descend once more.
Phaerlin accepts the blade without hesitation and then begins wiping out his family, seeing them for the first time as monsters. When none remain, he will step from the carriage and say "If this is what you truly wish, I shall end your lives. Let anyone who wishes me to stay my hand move to the side." After waiting for people to move, Phaerlin will begin the assisted suicide.
He yells in happiness as he leaps, attempting to grab on and hold the beast, "Come with me!" he yells, attempting to steer it anywhere, or somewhere, or nowhere. He isn't quite sure, he just wants to fly.
"We go!" he laughs.
Kala En's first instinct is to retreat into herself, to dive back into the water and never return. She dips below the surface. But no.
I left the ocean to become something greater. If I come back now, I will never grow. I just need to reach the air and finally feel myself grow.
She resurfaces, and reaches out to the colossal presence she felt. It is also alone, but it need not be so. Kala En resolves to make it the first, a stepping stone to the encompassing all-ness she felt in the beginning.
She reaches out.
After a time, precious time where much of the land is destroyed, Tes has her answer. There is no way to stop them, oh the small ones can be destroyed, the large ones disabled but the most powerful of their kind are truly indestructible. Still, even Gods can be, silenced.
So too will Tes silence these dark Gods. Her coarse sandy nature allows her to gather the blades of grass form the plains already destroyed but not yet rotted away. She fuses these blades with fresh grass form the plains not yet touched by the blight of the Eldrazi.
She gathers her energy for one spell - the "swords" of these Eldrazi becomes "plowshares". In exile, they can do no harm, no harm to her world anyway. These plowshares till the field allow the land to heal, where it can. And where it can Tes will nurture it and of course continue to study these dark Gods, somehow someway, there must be a way to defeat them...
You all gather your things and continue down. Silence among you, as if mutual understanding of what has transpired. If was all just a dream or maybe....more?
It takes another hour or so but eventually you reach the end of the staircase. And what is before you takes your breath away. A flawless room, carved from blocks that can only be described as luminescent silver. Twenty meters or so away, you see an altar of sorts and on top of it a large, floating crystal that shines red, blue, white, black, and green.
It cracks.
You look wildly around at the others and begin racing to the jewel. It can't crack. It absolutely cannot shatter. There is something primal inside you, something pulling you faster and faster. This is what holds Zendikar together. This is something that can help you fight!
You reach the gem at the same time as the others, and as you can feel your fingers graze the surface
It shatters!
A bright flash, loud and thunderous clap of sound throw you back as energy fills your veins. It's fire, burning. Unimaginable pain fills you.
Can't breathe. Every pore is screaming. Your thoughts fall to the back of your mind to make room for the pressure building in your head. Its splitting open! Your mind is splitting open! Oh god!
YOU
CANT
HANDLE
THIS
AAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHH!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
And then silence.
The first thing you realize is that you can feel a gentle breeze blowing against your face. It's a nice, cool feeling that helps against your sweaty skin. But then it comes back to you. The blades of grass you feel under you and the smell the sweet scent of blooming flowers around you.
You get up, shakily rising to one foot, a knee, another foot and standing at last. You appear to be in a forest of some kind, the trees are vibrant around you and it feels as if mana is floating freely.
Yet one thing is clear. This is not Zendikar. This place is too....harmoniously natural for it to be anything like the home you know. But to leave Zendikar....then where are you? A world beyond your knowledge? One like the rumors that the leaders against the fight of the eldrazi came from?
You remember the gem, and look down to the hand you tried to reach it with. The back of your hand glows faintly, barely perceptible, its ebb and flow matches those of your internal powers. Something has happened indeed.
Knowledge Arcana .
It would take more direct study of the ruin and the history itself, but from what you've personally experienced, you seem to feel tied to Zendikar itself, as if its energies live inside you. But not all of it, you can feel a distinct piece of its power, and the other pieces seem to have lodged themselves into your companions.
As for the sudden change of scenery, you have heard rumors of an ability to change worlds. But perhps you thought it was flight of fancy, or mere myths.
But here you are.
Vitrius looks around, his senses slowly coming back to him. It appears his companions had a similar experience as he watched them accustom to their new surroundings. Words filter into his brain, some familiar, some not. Knowledge...Truth... Tes...Eldrazi...Phaerlin...Power...Kick-Lick...Strength...Kala...Wisdom... Mana... As the words came, so did images. He could sense, no, he could feel Zendikar near him. As if its life's breath were his own. This new place, it was close. The ability to shift planes was a power his studies told him only the Eldrazi had, but this..this was not Zendikar.
"What?" Kick-lick says, standing up and looking around. "What?!" He turns to his friends, WHAT!!??
Kala opens herself to the mana around them as she stands, becomes dizzied and falls over again. She begins laughing.
"Oh, this is not Zendikar! The mana is not as wild, but just as free. This must be a sacred grove." She stands again, and surveys her surroundings for signs of other life.
As she looks around, she considers her dream. Is this world the presence I felt?
Phaerlin groans and shakes his head groggily, then partially sits up.
[I]How much had I had to drink last night. Where am I[/b]
and then it all came rushing back to him, and Phaerlin stood shakily and looked around.
"Does anyone have an idea as to where we are?"
Somehow Kick-Lick is able to take the immense arcane mechanics of planes walking and sum it down into one easy to reference phrase.
"Big mana make hole we fall into"
You're definitely not in Zendikar. You are in a vibrant wood. Other than that, you're not sure.
It doesn't seem as if even a tuft of grass has been touched by humans, but you notice that it rights itself as you lift your foot to move.
As you all struggle to get your bearings, you hear a small gasp.
A few meters from you is a young, lithe man. He is dress in white robes, tied at the waist with a simple green rope. Before him lies an empty basket, the juicy fruits it carried emptied onto the ground.
He looks at you all for just a second, then turns to run.
"Big mana make hole we fall into!" Kick-lick says, summing up the power of planeswalking in a single phrase. He sees the man, and charges, jumping at him and attempting to grab the man by wrapping his legs around the person's neck. He also quickly tries to untie the rope holding the man's robes together, readying it to tie the man up.
The man falls, screaming shrilly as Kick Lick manhandles him to the ground. He pleads as Kick-Lick ties him up.
"Please! No! I'm not tasty I swear! Don't eat me!"
He begins to sob uncontrollably, as Kick-Lick finishes restraining him.
"No eat. Just talk. Where we?" Kick-lick says, sitting cross-legged in front of the man.
The man can't get any words out past the tears. He is one lone young man who has been captured by a group of strange intruders. He is fondly remembering his life as he waits to be devoured by the goblin that sits before him.
"Mommy!" he cries out between fits. "I don't wanna die! I don't want to die!"
Though, the thought occurs to you that it may be something about how you're dressed and how Kick-Lick has a small cooking pot on his back (which is acting as his backpack).
Kick-lick sits there, waiting for the man to stop wiggling. He sits for about 10 minutes at first.
"It's a resilient land." Kala En muses, bending forward to sweep the area in front of her with magic. Druidcraft to make nearby flowers blossom, though she expects that everything that can bloom here is already at it.
The high-pitched scream cuts through the air.
"Oh no, there's a girl in trouble!"
Turning around to find Kick-Lick sitting just beyond the restrained and terrified youth, she pauses at the awkwardness of the situation. She tries to put on a calming smile, and slowly walks over to join the goblin and the human.
"We're not here to eat you. Look, we have plenty of our own food." Kala again clasps her hands together, and after a faint green glow, opens her palms to reveal ten plump Goodberries.
"But I would like to meet your mom. Can you take us to her?"
She eats a berry to sate the hunger planeswalking woke in her, and offers one to the young man.
He begins to calm down, and while maintaining a safe distance, stops crying at least. For a man of probably his early twenties, he doesn't take to surprises well.
"W-What-" he sputters. "What business does does the Gruul have in a Selsynan Grove?"
Vitrius feels a familiar need for the chase rise in him as the youth races away, but it soon replaced by a strange mirth as Kick-lick captures the being and then proceeds to talk to him. Kara's calming voice seems to have sated the youth, so it is here Vitrius chooses to join them. " I am not sure what a Gruul is, but if they are anything like what we left behind, we are not it."
As Vitrius finishes his sentence, you can sense multiple presences around you. Slowly but surely, men and women begin appearing from behind trees and foliage. They are all wearing the same green and white robes that the cowering man is wearing and look remarkably calm.
"Outsiders are not welcome in the inner sanctum!" One woman declares boldly. You look down to see the man who had been cowering before, not appears as calm as the others, a flicker of mana appearing in his eyes as well. The next words or spoken together by all present members in unison.
"Leave now! Or be swept away by our united might!"
The woman beckons in one direction there doesn't seem to be any members in, clearly indicating you should leave in haste. Now.
Phaerlin will bow and says "Apologies, we were not brought here of our own agency, and we were unaware that we were trespassing." He then turns to the group and adds "Let us leave and we can plan our next move from there."
Tes broods silently then blurts out, "BY the Goddess we have world-walked. Not Zendikar but where...?"
As the group encounters the locals she asks them, "Tell me good folk, where are we and we shall kindly leave your inner sanctum. This is all a misunderstanding..."
Deciding that discretion would be better than testing his untested newfound powers on an unknown group, Vitrius acquiesces and bows to their speaker. He will follow his companions silently as they leave.