Dozens of jagged tears in reality cut through the terrain, forming a glowing purple barrier that blocks further passage. Howls, snarls, and voices displaced through time issue from the rifts, and movement is visible within. Ashasar and VentureCaptain Armeline Jirneau spread the Pathfinders out, then reach out with hands, magic, and mind. “Now! Seal the rift!”
Your team must work together to seal your assigned time rift. Each of you can attempt one skill check. The options are as follows.
• Arcana to wield magical forces.
• Diplomacy to encourage fellow Pathfinders to greater heights.
• Nature to control primal magic.
• Occultism to understand the nature of the time rift and the Dimension of Time.
• Performance to emulate other skilled Pathfinders.
• Religion to call upon the blessing of a deity.
• Survival to find supplemental components to help close the rift.
• Thievery check to detect weakness in the time rift's defenses.
• You can attempt an applicable Lore check to assist as well; the form this assistance takes depends upon the specific Lore skill.
|
Recalling an ancient dwarven sealing spell, Knab focuses his mind's eye and makes slow tracements of runic symbols with his hands for words such as "mend" and "tunnel" and "current" - his tracings gaining a glowing yellowish-orangish tinge, their geometry dilating upon initiation and spreading across the immediate area, sparking upon making contact with the invisible interference waves coming from the damaged rift site.
The magic is old - and what it lacks in comparative age it makes up for in thoroughness!
LINK
Trigger You attempt a saving throw against a magical effect, but you haven't rolled yet.
Your ancestors' innate resistance to magic surges, before slowly ebbing down. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus until the end of this turn. This bonus also applies to the triggering save.
Knab makes good progress mending the out of control energies. Halcamora heeds Horatio's call.
|
|
Kang wanders dangerously close to the rift, studying it with great curiosity, almost falling through at one juncture. Not that he noticed.
"Huh, maybe." He yanks out some parchment and quill and starts scribbling some obtuse symbols. The ink smudges over his fingers and, after a few absent-minded attempts to push his hair away from his face, all over his forehead as well. All this while with the screams and howls ripping through from the other side.
Once satisfied, he stands beside Knab and starts adding to the runic symbols, his eyes glowing with power...
Listen up fellow pathfinders! I think I've seen enough time magic for this lifetime eh? So let's send this thing packing and get back to living our lives the normal way... One day atta time!
Seelah spurs on her fellow Pathfinders. Kang manipulates the arcane forces, assisting Knab in welding the rift together.
Despite your best efforts, the rift is not yet closed. The energy around the rift begins to lash out with wild arcs of blue and white energy.
Knab continues to force the arcane weaves to his will. Halcamora continues to grant her divine support to the efforts. Kang demonstrates impressive control in handling the flows of energy.
Knab and Seelah are frosted by the energy . Horatio and Kang are chilled to the bone as the energy lances directly through them .
As the time rift shatters, reality rights itself, revealing the focus—a fully dressed, towering draconic being bent over a metal and glass sarcophagus. The dragon turns, brandishing a strange tool. “Get back, you blasted dogs! Wait... You’re not the hounds.” The dragon taps her snout, thinking hard, then shakes her head. “You seem familiar. But if we’ve met, I can’t recall. The longer I’m away from home, the more jumbled my memories become. I can barely remember my name! It’s Heraxia, by the way. Who are you?”
|
"They call me Phillipton, mum, and we're members of what's called the Pathfinder Society," Phillipton bows, "We're explorers and adventurers, and quite frankly, we don't know exactly where we are. There's some sort of beacon around here that's causing one of our artifacts to... I believe the term is 'fritz out'."
"The... Pathfinder Society? That sounds familiar but, um, not quite right," Heraxia says slowly with a puzzled expression. She shakes her head as if to shake away the cobwebs. "Is it the Eternity Arch? I've been working on that to try to get home. Oh. I should explain. I'm from what is, I believe, for you, the distant future. I got separated from my bonded partner, Felise, a rhyphorian, while we were exploring time and a pack of insect-eyed dogs attacked us."
|
|
Pathfinder society, you've heard of us, but only slightly, I guess they need to teach history better. Really? What group are you from? How do you know you are in the past in not just on another plane or planet from a teleportation spell? I do want to know some things. Is magic even better in the future? Is there anything out there faster than a cheetah?
"Felise and I were exploring through time when we were separated," she explains. "There's a phenomenon called the Gap. All history before a few centuries ago--and its different for different people or libraries--is gone. We had tried to go to the past to learn about the planet Golarion. We had explored hundreds of planets, all of the planes we could want to explore, and even traveled through time to the future. The past, especially the pre-Gap past, was uncharted territory.
"Well, anyhow, Felise found the Eternity Arch in the future, and I found it in the past," she continues. "I've been tinkering with it try to get it to allow an actual body to pass through time. I've got it modified enough that if I can get this stasis post fixed, I could pass through in it and get transported back to my time. Will you help me?"
|
|
"The Gap" our aged dwarven hero begins, feeling the part of his spotted head where he combs over strands of wispy grey hair "According to you, is a Timeline which we have yet to experience, and which you are unable to remember experiencing, for the records of all peoples have an overlapping Omission? I would guess that, perhaps, if some traditions are Oral in nature, there might survive something useful. But I digress. My name is Knab, Herexia, and somehow your experiments have worked, for here we stand. And yet, it seems our paths diverge from here, for we are under orders from our Society to correct whichever mistake brought us here - the same mistake which you seem to want to repeat"
He lets that sit in the air a moment before "What is your Purpose in wanting to travel?"
Indeed, and what does this sarcophagus have to do with everything? Believe it or not we've seen it before....
While Heraxia is obviously structurally related to dragons, you cannot say that you have ever met, read, or heard about such beings as her.
Rhyphorians are a rare race of humanoids who have ears so large that they can use them to fly.
Heraxia appears to be a wyvaran. Dragons magically cross bred wyverns with kobolds to create winged, draconic humanoids. This must be what they look like in the distant future.
Rhyphorians are an alien people from the planet of Triaxus. Their physical appearance changes with the seasons from hairless to furred, but they are otherwise rather elf-like in appearance if not as tall.
"I want to get home and back to Felise. The sarcophagus is a stasis pod," Heraxia begins to explain. "Once I am inside it, it will sustain my body for as long as the power supply lasts. Normally, it appears, the Eternity Arch only allows a person to send their consciousness through time to witness events. However, my modifications have linked the Eternity Arch in this time with the Eternity Arch in the time where Felise is and will, now, allow inanimate objects to pass through time. By suspending myself in stasis within the pod, I can pass through the gate and reunite with Felise."
She gestures at the stasis box. "I could use some help getting it functional."
3 of 6 Successes
Heraxia points at the metal and glass sarcophagus. “We need to move this stasis pod to a location near the Eternity Arch. Somewhere close but isolated. The oval-shaped chamber at the back of the area should work. Lift on three! ”
Venture-Captain Armeline Jirneau gestures at the surrounding landscape. “This is a dangerous place, Pathfinders. Secure the perimeter. Let’s keep trouble away as long as we can.”
|
|
"You're master, Herexia - this Felise - one of those large-eared-winged Rhyphorians - are you sure you feel safe using your body as an experimental transport? Let me check those seals..." He pulls out his tools.
"Alright then, two, three, and Heave!" the dwarf's tremendous (if rounded) physicality is put on display when he carries the sarcophagus to the launch pad.
He examines the immediate area, clan dagger in hand, to make sure the loading and unloading are undisturbed.
|
|
Kang stares in fascination at Heraxia, trying to picture how the wyvern might crossbreed with a kobold. But he eventually gets down to business.
Something else fascinating to study! And maybe one that won't go *boom*. Kang practically jumps at the opportunity to tinker with the stasis box.
Not being particularly stout of body, Kang nonetheless puts his agility to some use, helping to steer and guide the pod where it needs to go.
"What? Danger?" Almost instinctively, Kang finds a safe spot to hideaway.
"Felise isn't my master, she is my partner, my equal," Heraxia corrects Knab. "Have you seen her, then? I don't think her ears are bigger than any other rhyphorian, but being without an external ear, I may have a different perception."
After quite a bit of tinkering, you manage to get the stasis coffin into what Heraxia declares working order.
Transporting it is slow going, though.
Once you finally make it back to the ovoid chamber, you work on the defenses to the best of your ability.
|
The Eternity Arch pulses with energy as Heraxia and the Pathfinders congregate near it. Venture-Captain Armeline Jirneau calls for silence. “You’ve done well, Pathfinders, but our mission isn’t over yet. We have to send Heraxia home if we want to go home.”
“That’s right,” Heraxia cuts in. “I have a few more tweaks to make to the stasis pod. Then I need to attune to the Eternity Arch—it should only take a few minutes. Then I can climb in the stasis pod and ride the Eternity Arch home.”
“This is where it gets tricky,” Armeline continues. “Once Heraxia is sealed within the stasis pod, we’ll have moments to get back into the Maze of the Open Road. As soon as she leaves this time, the Eternity Arch’s connection to her will be severed and the Maze will realign—that means this path to the Maze will no longer exist. Anyone who doesn’t make it through will be stranded here, on this distant planet. It should go without saying that the chances of rescue are slim. I want all of our support staff to retreat to the Maze immediately. Bring what supplies you can. In the meantime—”
Armeline’s words are cut short by an eerie howl that issues from the Eternity Arch. Heraxia races back to her stasis pod. “The hounds are coming! We’re out of time!”
Armeline’s face hardens as she draws an alchemical bomb. “Steel yourselves, Pathfinders! We must protect Heraxia!”
“Incoming!” Urwal shouts as purple glowing cracks in reality spread like spider webs across the chamber. Reality shifts and flickers wildly, leaving behind blurred afterimages of people from other times and places. The unstable reflections screech in confusion and surge forward, arms raised to attack.
Meanwhile, one of the cracks widens, tearing open a massive time rift in the floor. Pathfinders leap out of the way, grasping at stone to avoid tumbling through time. “Help them!” Janira shouts. “Hurry!”
The time rift in front of you is 40 feet long and 20 feet wide at its center, then narrows at its edges to 5 feet wide. There are eight Pathfinders are in danger of falling into the time rift. Six cling to the tiled floor at the edge of the rift, with their bodies dangling into it. One climbed partway up a pillar whose base has disappeared into the rift; they are 15 feet in the air. The final Pathfinder holds onto a rope tied to a grappling hook.
Encounter Mode. Round 1.
Everyone is Up
Seelah bounds forward to grab the extra pathfinder leftover from Griss' haul.
If seelah gets to grab anyone:
Knab is slowed down by time echoing around him and finds himself having to run steps that he already ran (or at least thinks he ran, or maybe will run) but is able to carefully approach the edge of the rift where the tiles and reality warp and buckle.
Johnny runs around the long way of the rift but falls as he moves onto the warping reality at the edge. Griss focuses through the echoes of time but falls at the edge of the rift as well. However, he is able to reach down, muscles bulging, and heft two of the Pathfinders out of the rift. Seelah is confounded by the echoing of time and repeated steps. She tries to move more carefully onto the warping tiles at the edge of the rift, but she falls to the ground as well.
Horatio tries a more advisory approach and is able to guide one of the Pathfinders at the far edge of the rift to sturdy handholds, and the Pathfinder is able to climb out and flee.
Kang summons a fly next to the agent on the pillar, but it is disoriented and it has to spend all its energy hovering so that the Pathfinder agent can find a secure handhold and muster up the courage to let go of the pillar.
The grappling hook breaks off the seam it was precariously holding, and Johnny watches in horror as the rope begins to slide past him. Then the grappling hook snags on a tile just next to Johnny. The ground could warp and cause it to lose its grip any moment! The Pathfinder dangling at the end of the rope in the rift stares wide-eyed and terrified up at Johnny, silently pleading to be saved.
Round 2.
Knab
Seelah (prone)
Griss (prone)
Kang
>Fly with Pathfinder over rift
Horatio
Johnny (prone)
Kang slips and falls in the process of hauling up the last Pathfinder on the near side, but the important thing is that the agent is safe.