Tag Archives: magic

From fire through water to ice

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While we wait to climb the stairs again and face the wrath of the fire…

Red sits and spreads a few of his items in front of him.

He sets the wooden bowl in his lap.

He sprinkles a bit of silver dust into the bowl.

He lets out a few drops of water into the bowls.

He places the blue stone he has on top of the silver dust.

He take out the lens of his bulls eye lantern and sets into the bowl on top the blue stone.

He holds a clear crystal at arm length above the bowl.

Long he spends just sitting in that position. Holding open in his mind and how he is able summon a flame.

Long he concentrates on the effects of water.

Long he concentrates on how he is able to flow between heat and cold.

Long he concentrates on the effects of fire.

Long he breathes.

Long his takes his mind back in time to the crystal with the man frozen. The moment when he touched the crystal and was transported into cold.

Long he takes mind mind back to the cold from the wolf that shielded them from the danger of the Orcs.

Long he dwells on the true distance between flame and ice.

Slowly he evokes and slowly he attempts to bring forth a cold ‘flame’ from within.

An anchor we hadn’t considered

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After we descend from the fire room fleeing from the bats.

“Alexis, we have talked about what ‘anchor’ we might use to return to our own time. We have also talked about how Hedonis is diligently still pursuing us.

We have, up to this point, assumed he was trying to follow in our tracks and head us off on our path to the tear.

But there are more than one way to catch us.

What if he is building a new working. A summoning not of demons, but of us.

Hedonis wants us to return to him, in this time…. with the Tear in hand.

What if we plan on that. We use Hedonis as our anchor. We create a plan to beat him at his own game?

It might be a long shot, but it also might be the one real shot we have to return home with the Tear and to actually keep it.”

The Making of the Fire Room Plan

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After the group has retreated from the eruption of the fire bats from the fire lake, Alexis sits with the Crimson Calling on the steps between the two levels. He adjusts his whip.

“Good. Now we know what’s in the fire.” He looks at Rask, Gustav, and Ca’armine. “First, the bats. Then we try talking to the giant again.” A slight pause. “He must be desperate for conversation by now. Desperate might work in our favor.”

He glances up toward where the giant would be.

“How long does he think he’s been here?”

He lets that sit for a moment, then continues.

“If talking doesn’t work, we have options. That unnatural forest below, we can harvest from it. We could build a ballista again.” He waves a hand slightly. “Long shot.” Alexis looks at Ethelred “But maybe you can find something in that idea worth working with.” He looks at Ca’armine. “Raiden can reach him too. The determined wall of the north, your bolts. That right?”

“If it comes to it, we hit him from range, keep him from throwing those boulders, rest, come back the next day. Repeat. Not my preference, but it works.” A beat. “We might need more food if we’re doing this over days. Gus, you have options. Rask, Carm, you two as well?”

He looks at Gustav, Ethelred, then Rask.

“Any of you have anything that reaches at this range?”

Alexis takes a moment and looks at all his comrades. “But that’s just where I’m starting. Any other ideas? Rushing to the stairs? Blinding the giant somehow if we need to? Something else?”

Orcs as the legions of the downfall

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While the group has a little downtime on the lush forest level in the tower-out-of-time of Nodden-Torr, Alexis muses out loud.

“Something’s been sitting with me.” He waits a moment. “The orcs that tore through Nodden-Torr had black veins running through them. Unnatural. Shadow infused in them, or some-such. Clearly altered by Shasherak. And that shadow creature we fought under Nodden-Torr, same thing: Black veins.”

He glances at the group.

“And Bandesingh uses orcs too. Different mark, same foot soldier.” He glances back. “Why orcs for both of them? Not stink lizards, not hobgoblins, not gnolls. Orcs.” A beat. “Did Bandesingh learn that from Shasherak? Is there a connection between them, or did two men arrive at the same answer separately?”

Another beat.

“There’s a spellbook tied to Shasherak that nobody’s seen in an age. I’d very much like to know where it is. I wonder if it’s being held by the Dark Hand.”

A chair for Ethelred

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After the conversation about the ‘anchor’ dies down. Red’s mind turn to materials.

“Alexis, I want to take apart one of these chairs. Materials might be tight soon. These chairs seem sturdy, worth gathering what I can.

In the past you have been.. reluctant for me to take things apart.

A chair for future makings?”

About to get Shafted

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The group has been awake for a little while, moving through the quiet routines of breaking a camp that was never quite a camp. Eight plush chairs in a room that has no business existing where it does. Everyone present.

Alexis sits forward, elbows on knees, and tilts his hat brim up toward the shaft in the ceiling.

“Before we move, I want to talk about that hole.” He looks up at it for a moment. “There’s light up there. And this room is clean. No debris, no dust, nothing that should have fallen down from wherever that shaft goes.” A pause. “That’s worth understanding before we decide what to do with it.”

He looks around the group.

“Carm, I want to ask you something that might be a long shot. Your connection with Raiden,” he chooses his words carefully, “is there any chance he could tell us when we are? Not where. When.”

He looks back at the shaft.

“And does anyone have a way to learn more about what’s up there before we commit to anything? I’d rather know more than less before we start climbing.”

The Missed Beaded Treasure

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After the group has finished fighting the Ogres and moved back the way they’ve come.

“At the end of this series of monsters there could be some amazing treasure!” Alexis looks back the way towards the Ogres and beyond noticeably wistful. “With that protection, the working would surely be amazing.”

Alexis keeps walking but looks back a couple more times.

When the Plans Make Contact With the Enemy

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After the group has left the room where four of the group had to deal with their doubles. Ca’armine addresses Alexis. Alexis is clearly emotionally wrapped up with both watching himself die and losing the possibility of having two Alexis’ to plumb the secrets of the universe.

“Boss, in that room, remember that we had a plan.” Alexis nods, and Ca’armine continues. “And I would be such a disloyal team member if I didn’t keep reminding you that you had a plan and we needed to follow the plan and I’m going to keep doing that. Changing the plan in the middle is not—”

“We changed the plan in the middle, in the bead room, because there was an opportunity there. And Red followed through on that opportunity.” Red agrees with Alexis as he says this.

“There is no universe in which both of those Alexis’ could have survived.”

Alexis and Ethelred enthusiastically agree, with Ethelred adding, “but they might have been able to fold them back into one.”

“They did by walking through the door.”

Alexis and Red both disagree, and Alexis adds, with just enough self-awareness to take the edge off, “But five minutes could have gained so much for the world.”

“From studying that trap?!” Rask stares at him.

“Yes,” Alexis and Ethelred exclaim together, with Ethelred adding, “It was a working much like the other workings we’ve discovered.”

“Sleep on this, but think about how dangerous that could end up being.”

Alexis looks at Red, then back at Rask. “We’ve thought about it.”

After a second Alexis turns back to Ca’armine “A plan is where you start, Carm. But when something changes on the ground, that’s a conversation you bring to me. Not a reason to hold the line by yourself.”

The hour glass

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As we peer into the strange room with the hour glass.

“Alexis, I would strongly advice we attempt to solve this room and gain that hourglass. Given the power of the scrying ball and all the time effects in this dungeon. Having that hourglass could turn out to be very helpful.

Thoughts?”

Finding the 3rd key

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We reach the strange metal door for the 3rd time. Ethelred turns to Ca’armine.

“Ca’armine you mentioned detecting for keys. I might have been too hasty in dismissing your idea. We have gone through some trouble to get here and not yet found the 3rd key.

Detecting for the 3rd key might be our best option. It would be a shame to leave this area hoping the key is beyond the door we skipped, only to be wrong.

Alexis, what do you think?”