You see a prestidigitated version of Abnaki's banner come flying from beneath you. A second later, the end of a rope smack you in the face.
Now you are dreaming in white and grays; a rare treat compared to the darkness and flames you are used to.
There are voices? You think?
Samen attempts to catch the rope.
"Hello? Vision isn't working here, but how about sound?"
He navigates down the rope to hopefully rejoin his companion.
towards
Samen, you catch the rope, and catch up with Abnaki. You can only hear each other when you can also see each other
Abnaki casts message on Samen, and 5ft steps away to test the efficacy of the spell.
"If this works, we should split up to look for the others."
The message is eaten by the fog. Samen hears nothing from ten feet away.
Samen ties the rope around the ankles of the unconscious Undine and runs the other end through his belt loop. He steps toward the direction Abnaki went, hoping he didn't go far.
"Whatever you tried, it didn't work. Here, loop onto the rope. If nothing else, we should be able to find each other again. There's no telling whether this is a local effect, or if we've stepped into another realm. This is elder-elemental air magic at play, possibly Mist. We fought Undines using Moon magic, so there's a good chance they have some enslaved Sylphs. Press forward or tactical retreat?"
Phon feels the fog swallowing her, and immediately tries to detect its magical source.
She thinks about the weaves, and decides whether or not to try to dispel it, undoing the possible magic.
This is magic of an overwhelming level. You are stunned for 1 round.
You see Phon Vos now, amidst the vague grays of your dream. Does that mean she is asleep too? Or have you woken up?
Phon Vos, after you recover from your stun, Gabriel is suddenly in front of you, looking surprised to see you.
(you are both in the mist)
This is odd... where are we and what is happening? I suppose it is good i found you Phon, we have some things to discuss now that my condition has passed Gabriels black markings have seemed to grow or refine a little more, he seems calmer and more in control of himself than when he left in pain.
"No real choice but to press on. I hope that you and I will be a match for whatever lurks in this fog..."
"Fair enough. Let's stick together and proceed further in carefully."
This is odd... where are we and what is happening? I suppose it is good i found you Phon, we have some things to discuss now that my condition has passed Gabriels black markings have seemed to grow or refine a little more, he seems calmer and more in control of himself than when he left in pain.
"Now isn't really the time... We need to find Osna, they went into this mist somewhere."
Gabriel takes a breath and offers his free hand , i believe we are in the realm of dreams. I do not recall waking and thats where i was last. Dancing between the realms to fix myself so to speak. There is a lot i learned, but id rather not address this question in presence of the group... Phon Vos, Do you have a brother or a cousin that disappeared? One with white scars
The brief description Gabriel gives sounds exactly like your cousin Thanh, though you do not recall him being scarred. You wonder what your cousin could possibly be involved in.
When Gabriel mentions the realm of dreams, sudden gales of laughter erupt all about you. The fog turns a bright white, flashing in time with the laughs. Thousands of elen and inelen voices all giggle and guffaw. The sound slowly dies away into the muffled quiet again.
Out of the fog, you hear (oddly enough) Gabriel mentioning the realm of dreams. Immediately, gales of laughter erupt all about you. The fog turns a bright white, flashing in time with the laughs. Thousands of elen and inelen voices all giggle and guffaw. The sound slowly dies away into the muffled quiet again.
--Osna stumbles through the cacing fog, bloody knife in his hand, where is everyone--
"Great.
Abnaki casts snapdragon fireworks, and fires them off randomly in the direction he thought he heard Gabriel's voice. For good measure, he fires some off in other directions as well.
Abnaki focuses as hard as he can, remembering the crow that led him to his dream just last night, although it seems like an eternity ago. Trying his best to hold that image in his mind, hold the essence of the guiding bird, Abnaki tries to make the mental picture a reality, bringing it about to help find their lost party members.
"Great indeed. Osna; Who did you kill, and are you feeling strange at all? As a Sylph, you may be impacted to a greater degree here."
--Osna disappears, like the cacing mist is sippin' em up little at a time--
Samen, you make an immediate, dangerous connection - no single deity has ever been associated with dreams; all the gods have been known to show up now and then in the dreamlands to their chosen followers.
However, you know without hesitation that the dreamlands, this fog-filled place of revelation and forgetting, is a mainly domain of Moon. The new god could be, as you walk these halls, be gaining power on this plane.
-The dreamlands has aspects of illusion, subjective direction/navigation
-Time can go differently here, but this can be mitigated if you concentrate
-And finally, magic can be chaotic...
As Samen is pondering the characteristics of the place you find yourselves in, the snapdragon fireworks that Abnaki magicked into existence have fleshed out into tiny living white dragons, who frolick in illusory mounds of snow.
One says, "The silver golems are here! This is where they've been hiding!"
You see the little dragons are already starting to melt.
An avian shape appears, cloaked in vague mists and shadows. The area around the tall, beaked elenoid is cleared somewhat, and the four of you all see each other - Phon Vos, Gabriel, Samen, and Abnaki.
The figure before you is inconstant; the features are now more canary, now toucan, then back to raven and crow, then hawk, slowly shifting through cunning and beauty and ferocity. The plumage around its body remains blurry and dark.
The Dream Crow asks a question, but you immediately forget it.
"Quick now, tie yourselves together, before my memory fails me, and the mist reforms!"
Abnaki makes a mental note to leave an offering to the Dream Crow later, to make up for his insolence.
Volc! Osna's not here; He's likely compromised. This fog and confusion is Moon's playground. I don't know how to shut it down, but if we don't we won't just have the few golems from Hearth to deal with, but the amassed forces of Light. Gabriel, Moon and Dark are in opposition, so you're going to be the most vulnerable and most effective combatant in here. Get behind us."
Phon didn't know how to answer Gabriel, "I have a cousin... But there was no scar last I saw them." She knew enough to know that whatever pull was in her blood, it may have claimed another, "We can handle it later, but I wonder what mess they got in. We have a... History with the dark."
It takes a moment for her to hear Samen shouting, and to remember where she was, though such a word wasn't exactly true here.
"I tried to deal with the fog but I was met with unspeakable agony from it. I would not recommend it to the untrained." She was still in shock from everything happening all at once, "I have some rope Abnaki."
She gets to work, though her armour prevents her from moving dexterously at all.
Samen nods in understanding. "It did the same thing when I tried to scan it. We can't stay here long, we need to move. Abnaki, can your bird get us through to the other side? Something in our world must be anchoring this attachment, and I recommend we smash it mightily. If it can't help, I can try calling on Star, but I don't know how it'll work here."
"One of the assassins tried to Planeshift me. There is a chance that we may have wandered into another plane entirely. But as we are in dream, it is a malleable place. Force of will is powerful here. I hate to suggest something so... saccharine, but we may have better results if we create a physical bond, like holding hands, and attempting to create the same result at the same time. Keep in mind this is purely intuition though. I have no idea if it will actually work."
The Dream Crow cocks its head at Abnaki, a hawk's gleam in its eye-
a quick peck on your shoulder, but painful-
and the Crow dips its beak in your music, tastes it, now vulturine-
and fades back into nothing.
As the Crow fades from your sight, the fog seems a less friendly place. Tendrils slowly approach, questing, curious.
as expected , resisting will saves is not in Gabes tool belt...
Inspired by Abnaki summoning the crow, Samen does his best, out of sheer stubbornness, to will a door into existence. He doesn't even care where it goes. Anything would be better than the featureless void. This place is just another flavor of elemental, and Samen intends to dominate it like all the others.
Matching your minds and wills against the pliant boundaries of the dreamlands is like wrestling through a field of clinging webs and suffocating wool. You push on, and on. Are you making progress or standing still?...You feel drowsy. It seems
to take
for
ev
er
f
o
r
e
a
c
h
-
s
t
-
e
-
-
p
N
o.
You push
through
and through
even though it takes years
and Gabriel disappears in the back,
-you make it back to a dripping stone tunnel. Slowly the grayness fades from your vision; there is no fog, no mist, just a blank wall to your back, and the chamber of shattered mirrors in front of you.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"That's the second time today that an eternity has passed. I'm going to go grey by tomorrow at this rate."
The shattered mirror pieces have risen up into little clumsy elenoid shapes, no larger than toddlers, which in turn are assembling more little elens, and so on. There are perhaps fifty or so of the creatures stumbling about the chamber, but their irregular proportions and reflective nature make a precise count difficult. They have not noticed your presence.
Phon Vos speaks quietly to Samen and Abnaki. "I see two things. Firstly, there is an el dressed in robes of Moon, crouched beyond the worktable. Secondly, those mirror people are giving birth to droplets of silver. I see them squirming their way toward the water."
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thank you Oread magi, for teaching me this spell.
Samen points at the bulk of the mirrors and, with uncharacteristic calm, simply says, "Be still."
I've got to learn how to do that.
Abnaki feels a surge of affection for Samen. He had heard of the, "Mad dog Oread inventor," before, but had only personally known him for less than a week. Despite that, Abnaki felt remarkably attached to him. The man never failed to impress.
Phon Vos slowly steps forward with hammer in hand, waiting for the budding golems to act. For now, she bids her time, gazing at the strange inquisitor of Moon. Samen's destructive abilities seem to be handling the glass just fine, but what could the Moon-worshipper do? Something magical, no doubt...
The figure straightens as the ear-splitting noise of Samen's shattering goes on and on. You all see a nearly-featureless face of silver, like a mask melted upon his countenance. In the same colorless voice you heard earlier, before your sojourn into dreams, he says, "Nuisance, eh? Well, arcane crutches can be kicked as well." A with a Doppish incantation, שׁוֹטֶה, and a palm pointed toward Samen,
-but Phon Vos releases another torrent of magic-killing magic, stopping the foul yellow murmurs before they reach Samen's ears.
---
(remaining mirror golem attacks)