Session 14

## Session 14: Leaving the Portal

After Krum jumps into the portal with Pearl we all decide to jump into the portal as well. Lan is still trailing behind outside of the cave as well as Arthur. Iana wild shapes into a war horse and goes to get Arthur. Batuo notices that the portal is starting to fluctuate and might possibly go away soon. At which point he walks up to it and notices gravity begins to distort. He is involuntarily pulled into the portal.

Lan finally makes it into the cave and runs straight for the portal. He, too, is pulled into the portal. Iana has retrieved Arthur and the two are making their way back to the cave with the horde right on their tail. Erdan makes his way to the portal. He analyzes it just outside of the gravitational range, he decides to jump in more elegantly than the other two who were pulled in. So he jumps towards it, the portal disappears and he lands face first on the other side. The portal kicks back on and pulls him in backwards.

Iana and Arthur make it to the cave and Fletch stresses the importance of getting through the portal before it completely disappears as he jumps through.

We enter into a void surrounded by distant stars. There is no surface to stand on and we simply are floating "forward". It's hard to tell being that we have no concept of distance, time, or movement. It's deafeningly quiet. Batuo's momentum eventually allows him to reach Krum and Pearl and asks where we are.

Erdan is floating in the opposite direction presumably due to the way he entered the portal. He attempts to move but nothing happens. He pulls out an arrow and fires it into the direction he is moving, instead of the arrow flying, he instead is propelled into the direction of the others.

Pearl says his name is not Pearl, instead it is Tas. He says he's been here before but he's not quite sure what or where it is, only that the last time he was here was split into thousands of copies. He shows us a dagger and explains that he stole this dagger from a god, and that it's essence is in the dagger. Upon saying the name of the God, Erdan immediately recognizes it as being a malicious entity.

Fletch, seeing Erdan's physics test attempts to cast sacred flame, it does nothing. He tries cure wounds, still nothing. He doesn't feel like his powers are gone, but that they are instead being muted by something. He begins to internalize the will to move. After a while he jerks into the opposite direction he had intended to go, but it was still a movement that wasn't the natural flow they had been on already. He begins to experiment some more.

Erdan attempts his magic to the same effects. He does however get the lingering feeling that locate object might work. He decides to go into a trance to prepare the spell in his mind. Batuo sees movement off in the distance and it's heading for us quite fast. He alerts us to it's presence and we prepare for the encounter.

The creature begins to take shape as it gets closer. It appears to be a dragon, one unlike anything ever imagined from our home. It was long and wispy with a giant head at the front with horns, and a large mustache. We notice it also has tiny corgi like legs in front and back. Arenus, turns out to be his name and he warns us that the dagger is a danger to us. He refuses to offer help, and leaves.

Fletch continues to learn how to move, he's slowly getting it down. Erdan returns to his meditation. Only to be interrupted again by something off into the distance heading towards us. Batuo once again, points this out to us. As it's getting closer we notice that this is a humanoid figure that appears to be running towards us, carrying an axe. At a loss of what to do being that we don't have the ability to fight, Fletch prays to Tempus to give them some sort of guidance on how to get out of here.

The creature is gaining ground very quickly, and clearly wants to harm us. Tas is swinging the dagger around furiously, as he said it helped him escape before. When the creature is all but upon us, we now notice it fits the descriptions of the Titans of legend. All of a sudden there's a loud boom and flash of light. And before us, facing away, stands an even larger being. Adorned in armor and carrying a flaming sword. The titan stops in it's tracks and stares down the figure. Fletch notices something familiar about the being, and gets an overwhelming feeling of peace from it. It's Tempus.

The titan clearly doesn't want to mess with him so he retreats into a portal, Tempus immediately closes that portal behind it and vanishes in an instant.

Erdan finishes his meditation and casts locate object. He envisions the third shard. We get a sudden shift in gravity and notice it's pretty chaotic. He then envisions a second object and the gravity shifts again. Once it finishes aligning Tas is still swinging away with his dagger when a rift opens and a large black hand reaches out to grab him. Instantly there are roughly 10,000 copies of him all grasping the same dagger. He lets out a scream as he's pulled into the rift, the copies shoot out into multiple directions. And it's quite again.

We get the feeling we've done something with the gravity, clearly we've energized something which allowed Tas' dagger to open a rift. Now we have no way of opening one ourselves. Fletch gets an idea and asks Krum to take the two shards and attempt to recreate the movements he performed that opened the initial portal. He tries many different motions, and finally holds them seperate and then in a sweeping motion combines them and a rift opens. We all head through the portal.

We are in a desert. There is a group of horsemen coming at us. Their leader asks us who we are. We are taken to a village, with sandstone structures, and a pyramid of sandstone. We see Rhajat's symbol everywhere.

We're thrown into a dungeon and all of our stuff is taken. The biggest dude came to mess with us and Batuo knocks him on his ass. The guards notice his Ki usage and take him away.

Lan is taken to fight a bear in the Colosseum. Batuo is asked where he learned his abilities from.

We meet a dwarf, from this world. Asked how we learned our "abilities". Confused that we are from a free land. Reikus - the hairless dwarf from **Pazar**. Need to break out and get to Ages. The big guy from earlier is eyeballing us.

Batuo is led to a torture room. A scared up guard comes in. Speaks in a language he doesn't understand. He is brought back to the cells. We escape the cells with the help of Reikus, to see Ages. He unshackles us. His symbol is a moon with a spear through it. (Anti-Rhajat)

We come across two guards, we kill them and take their scimitars. Big guy takes off running up the stairs. Commotion up there. 3 silver coins are found on 1 guard. We knock out another guard, and meet Ages. He returns Batuo to us.

Rhajat has taken over this realm. Killing all of the deities here, which is why there's no divine magic. He rules this world with underlings. He stays in the city of **Martek** (sounds similar to **Martharkville**). One of the old Pharaoh's (priest of the old god) staff may be in the tomb under the Sunken city. It might be powerful enough for Rhajat to pause for enough time to grab the necklace from Rhajat. Sunken city of **Pazar**.

A warrior, 4 Magic Users & A Rogue. The warrior has a big family.

Borys - the Warrior with a large family. He governs over a city of Ebe. He is called the butcher of dwarves. Reikus hates him. He does not care much about his family. He takes women whenever he wants.

Abalach-re - Sorceress queen. They call her the orc plague. She is the reason there are no orcs in this world.

Andropenis - The sorcerer king. Otherwise known as the slayer of elves. The King and Queen are together, their kingdoms are close, they can't do much without them.

Hamanu - Sorcerer, the troll scorcher. Is the oldest. Doesn't do much or leave.

Irikos - The rogueish type. The Left Hand of Rhajat. He's the closest to Rhajat. The leader of the council. Has no family, is extremely paranoid.

Kalak - Sorcerer, Ogre Doom. His land is further out. He's the newest. Lives in the mountain room. Seems the more normal. Has his family.

We are currently operating in the Hamanu's region. Which would be how the resistance exists. We need to get to the Borys side to get to the sunken city.

We stock up on equipment, Reikus and Pluto (big guy) join us. Aeges gives us two guards to go with us. We get 3 large tents 10x20. 10 bundles of firewood. An old map of the pyramid in the center of the sunken city. We make it out of the city. We reach the first marker, one of the camels gets bored and collapses and won't budge. Krum gets the camel to get up. He tells the tales of the last dwarven hero that ventured on camel. He hated the sand and bonded with his camel.

We get to the horizon and see two pillars. Krum continues to talk. The pillars say "the gates of Suul curse ye who enter unbidden." We set up camp just outside. These pillars erupt from the ground and a stampede of "cow like creatures" stampede by. Here lies the road of kings to the garden city of Pazar. Road to Turbaker. The directional arrows have been eroded away. We camp for the night.

The next day we ride should make it to the sunken city by nightfall. Clouds begin to form on the horizon. We get stopped by an acid rain storm. Krum makes a magical dome. We don't make it to the sunken city. We head out in the morning.

We enter a ravine, and are surrounded up above. About 5 dirt style people. 3 On the right, 2 on the left. We dispatch the dirt people and rest for the night.

The ground begins to shake. A giant purple worm busts out of the ground.

Received 2300xp