Subject: [porc] The Impassible Door Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1998 20:24:05 -0800 From: Nick casler To: dagrfall@ods.com >Balefire put away his staff and looked over at the party. "I shall take my >next foe with the sword. Not a cleaner death, but a quicker one it shall be. >Let us proceed to the castle." Betrayal looked from his own task, cleaning his axe and dressing a light wound he had recieved in the battle, after already ensuring that Alyssa was in good health (and fine fettle, after the results of the conflict). The light in Balefire's eyes made something deep in his heart quail at the thought of such power, and such anger, and he bent back to his weapon. Swiftly finishing the scrubbing, and reholstering his axe, Betrayal nodded to Alyssa and Skudge. Tenaka and Kriella had both recovered, seemingly miraculously healed, and were in some sort of conversation. Betrayal ignored them, preferring not to overhear. Zerith and Rathine were also talking, apparently debating the benefits of one of the spells Zerith had used in the prior battle. "Sure, a corkscrew of current on the disintegration will provide a cloud of gobbets, but what use is that in comparison to a polymorph, something that would cause your opponent to be pelted by a hail of bunnies, or something equally as distasteful?" Rathine stated, his arrogant expression apparently angering Zerith, who threw up his arms in digust. "I've told you already, polymorph doesn't work on Tamriel proper! It was forbidden by the gods, if you read the old journals!" Zerith turned away in disgust. "Oh, hello Betrayal. What's going on?" Zerith asked, seeing Betrayal approaching the duo. "Well, I think he's ready to go." Betrayal said, pointing back at Balefire, who had finished his weapons checks, and was already on his way towards the castle. Zerith started, grabbed his pack and jogged after the big warmage, the rest of the party stringing out after them. Reaching the citadel, an awesome sight met their eyes. The twin doors, taller than the adventurers cared to imagine, were tightly closed, sealed by a thick, metallic bar. Affixed to the center of the bar, was a wheel, spinning loud enough to create a humming sound. The wheel was large enough to guard the bar, protecting it from any interference the heroes might enerate. It extended into a slot in the earth, and was wide enough that it spanned the entire door, and enough beyond to cover the ends of the bar. When the tail of the group caught up to Balefire, he stepped forward, towards the spinning wheel, and threw back his head. "EMERALD VEX!" he roared. "COME, FOUL SLAYER OF CHILDREN, RAVISHER OF THE HELPLESS, FILTHY SPAWN OF ALL THAT IS EVIL!!" his voice echoing to the sky, Balefire continued. "FACE YOUR DEMISE, YOUR ETERNAL DOOM, AS IF YOU HAVE SOME FORM OF HONOR!" At this, Rathine winced. Skudge looked back at him and nodded, understanding the depth of Balefire's insult. As the warmage's mighy cries echoed and resounded off the walls of the keep, the wheel kept spinning.. almost as if taunting them. Betrayal winced. Judging from what he had seen of Balefire, what was gonna happen next could not be pretty. As the red-eyed Archmage bent the local forces of Magicka to his will, summoning power that few mortals, and some gods could not hope to match, Betrayal's eyes, along with the rest of the party, grew wide in fear. for something was wrong. Some twist, some off-putting taint or sense of the nature of the flows that Balefire was forcing into his grasp, so inflamed at the thought of some obstacle coming between him and the rescue of Nyxalinth (or a mug of the Porcupine's finest ale) that he did not sense the inherent wrongness with the spell he was forcing into being. Tenaka leapt forward, his own Magicka flaring into being, also twisted by whatever hellish forces Emerald Vex had wrought around his castle. "Balefire, STO=----" the world erupted. A titanic explosion threw the group in a shambles, hurling them far from the citadel's doors. Balefire landed neatly on Betrayal , who caught himself to avoid landing on Alyssa. Alyssa had been thrown nearly straight sideways along the ground. Balefire ended up on top of the young elf, and was dazed by the force of the concussion. Kriella, Rathine, and the others were likewise strewn across the landscape, blown away by the force of the blast. Tenaka, who had sprang to warn his brother, had been thrown upwards, and was caught in one of the scrubby trees adorning the wasted area. "Foul artifact, demon spawned dark creation, barring me from entrance" Balefire mumbled, shaking his gauntleted fist in the air. "I WILL NOT HAVE IT!" "Uhm, Balefire?" "What, young Betrayal?" "Could you, well, GET OFF ME!" Betrayal shouted, his arms shaking with the weight of the big warmage on his back. Balefire rolled off to the side, coming back up onto his feet, and Betrayal rolled from his lifted position, protecting Alyssa, onto his back on the other side of her. Balefire turned towards Betrayal, meaning to inquire about the harsh tone in his voice, when he saw Alyssa, sitting up from where he had nearly flattened Betrayal into the ground. "ow, my arms-GASP- hurt" Betrayal gasped, massagin his strained muscles. Alyssa shook her head, marvelling at her close call. "Impressive, young warrior." Balefire said as he regained his feet. "Very difficult thing to do, to manage to protect the lady in the midst of that confusion." Balefire said, with a nod of his head at the young elfling. "Thanks, Balefire. It's really nice to hear compliments from such an experienced warrior.. " Betrayal said as he rose. "Now if we could just figure out a way past that ward of Gramarye, back there" Betrayal finished, nodding at the citadel while rubbing strained arm muscles. The scarred warmage grunted, but his smile was a sincere one rather than the vulpine one he more often showed. "I call them as I see them, Betrayal. I never flatter; 'tis a dangerous thing to compliment a warrior undeservedly, it may breed overconfidence, which is the first note in a death-knell. Forsooth," his grin widened, as he worked his shoulders' stiffness out with ripples of great ropes of muscle, "experience -- since it comes willy-nilly whether we like it or not -- is nothing to be proud of, methinks...'tis *surviving* the experiences that should fuel pride. What's more," his grin turned wry and his deep voice ironic, "this 'experienced warrior' has just made a fool of himself. Your point about Gramarye is an interesting one, however..." "Gramarye?" Zerith asked, picking up on the strange pronunciation the two had given to the word. "Yeah.. it's another one of the strange things that my mother.. err.. step mother, read to me as I was growing up." Betrayal said, wincing and rubbing his arms. "We had a huge library." nodding to Zerith, Betrayal continued. "Gramarye is an ancient lore, used by a group of people, chosen at birth by Destiny, to protect the world from the rising of the Dark" Betrayal said, a grin lighting his face. "It's a very compelling group of tales, usually centered around a boy named Wil, who was the last of the 'Old Ones', as these guardians were called... it was a pretty good bunch of stories" Betrayal finished. Rathine shifted himself, where he sat on a clump of mossy rock. "All very well and good" Rathine said wryly. "But what does that have to do with our current predicament?" Rathine asked, gazing directly at Betrayal. "Well, it's like this. In the third story, I think, there was a great Wheel, much like this one, that was turning guward a tower, in which a dead king lived." Betrayal recited in a singsong voice, his eyes growing distant. "The two adventures, Wil, and the bastard son of a great warrior chieftan, had to use the power of a magickal hunting Horn to stop the wheel, and enter the tower." Betrayal stopped his recollection of the story, and gazed back at Rathine, before turning his glance over towards Balefire. "Perchance we have anything like that with us?" Betrayal asked, a sad note in his voice. The group camped near the wheel that night, stymied by the impassible barrier it presented. Tenaka and Kriella tried one of their supernatural abilities, but found only the back of a door, facing a long, empty hallway, with a rapidly turning post through the middle of it. The wheel apparently had no means of turning, and nothing propelling it, yet it still turned with a mighty force. This force was proved when it threw Balefire a good twenty yards when he grappled with it, trying to stop it by sheer brute force. The rest of the crew had no better success, with Zerith being rather amusingly strung up into a tree at one point. "Y maent yr mynyddoed yn canu, ac y mae'r arglwyddes yn dod!" Betrayal cried, his voice rising on the last note. The wheel continued spinning, unimpressed by the conviction in the young elf's voice. Betrayal turned back to the group and shrugged. "Well, that's the verse I remembered from the tales, but I'm not even sure what language it was in.." Rathine grinned, his point proven. "Told you that irrelevant similarities to some forgotten tales wouldn't help us here.. What we need is a way to either overpower this thing, or play it against itself." Rathine stated arrogantly. Betrayal dropped his head, muttering, and stepped away from he wheel, back to the rest of the group. "Well, Rathine, if you are so keen on overpowering this thing, perhaps you would like to craft the spell, fueled by all of us, that will break this thing?" Zerith asked, a calm experssion on his face. "I do believe that is a wonderful idea" Rathine said, spinning aroud to face Zerith. "Apparently, I am the only person capable of dealing with the nature of Magicka in this foul place." he finished haughtily. "You are the only one of us that has ever _been_ to this place, Rathine!" Balefire growled, levelling a finger at the arrogant Dremora. "True, true.. Shall we begin?" Rathine asked. Recieving assent, he instructed the group on the nature of the spell he was about to pull off. "We shall have to all be in physical contact with each other, during the power gathering stage of the spell." Rathine instructed. "A clasping of hands, like that at an oathgiving, should suffice. However, all hand armor, gauntlets and gloves, will have to be removed." Rathine stripped off his fine leather gloves as he said this, and tucked them into his belt. "While we are handclasped, I will cast a small spell that will link us enough for you to give your Magicka to me, for this spell. Be careful of your thoughts! Even though I am shaping this spell for a particular purpose, the thoughts and attitudes" here, Rathine levelled his gaze at Betrayal, and Balefire, who he was standing next to. "Of it's participants _will_ affect the outcome." Rathine stepped back, considering the group before him. "Shall we begin?"