[Game Thread] Chapter 1: Fractured Reality

[BrokenPlayer]

"I saw them!" Sydney exclaims, showing her youth as her voice squeaks to a higher decibel. Looking around embarrassed, she plays with her hair for a moment before adding, "I mean, I.. tried to attack one. It looked like you, Beau," Sydney gestures towards the gnome, "except.. taller." She smiles. "No offense."

[Jinx_Greyflower]

[Ophelia]

Fending off whatever offers of aid and support come her way, Ophelia struggles to her feet on her own. She still looks the worse for wear, with beads of sweat covering her exposed flesh and carrying herself as if she suffers from a stab to the belly.

OOC: Can she see both Beaus?

[Pojo]

"Oh, my, seeing things, not a sign of a stable mind, dears. Why, I once had a cousin, he used to have this damnable idea that a Tarrasque was following him around. Watching him while he slept and all that. Not sure how the thing managed, seeing as it was over 400 feet tall, but you know how it goes..."
As Emma chatters her eyes track carefully around the area, clutching her bird close to her chest as she searches for additional dopples.

[LordJecks]

"Perhaps the stress of the days events have gotten to you?" suggested Brother Damian, having ignored the own voice he had heard in his head. "There have been cases of people manifesting their mental problems into self perceptive images only and other who hear sounds. Their are even more extreme cases where one's mind tricks one's body into believing them and wounds can occur seemingly supernaturally."

The cleric turns to the elder wizard whose chamber they had entered only recently, "Been a busy day I'll explain later. So how was your day?".

I just want to go to sleep and get this day over with... he thought miserably.

[BrokenPlayer]

"Excuse me, sir," Sydney pipes in as she approaches Karlon with a piece of crumbled paper in her hand, "but this paper said that I was supposed to meet someone at the inn tonight." She holds the note out towards the dwarf, although she appears reluctant since she is unsure of whether or not the dwarf is supposed to know of the note.

[Timeless Prophet]

Emma paces around the room chattering to no one in particular. She doesn't seem to find anything of interest, just volumes and volumes on magical theory, theology, history, herbalism and the like on the shelves of the study.

"What do you mean two Beaus? What are you talking about? And where have you been for the last two days? And who are these two?" Karlon says indicating Emma and Nariel on that last statement.

Nariel still quite flustered manages to untangle herself from Sydney and the younger woman crosses to dwarf and hands him the note. As he opens it to read it, the thing suddenly bursts into flames and the dwarf drops it with a yelp.

"YEEeE gAD! Girl this is hardly the time to be playing practical jokes on people. " Karlon shoots Sydney a dirty look. He walks across the room to Nariel and stands offering a hand to help her up. The elven woman accepts and stands brushing off the front of her dress.

"Jeese you sure know how to show your guests a fun time shorty." Nariel comments while straightening herself out. "I am Nariel and that over there is Emma, my godmother. We were staying at your fine inn when all of this chaos broke loose and somehow we got ourselves dropped right in the middle of it."

Karlon's jaw is aghast at the shorty comment. He quickly stands with his best posture and glares up at the woman. "How inconceivably rude! And what possible chaos are you talking about? With the exception of Ashara and the lot of you going missing, nothing has been out of the ordinary around here for the past week."

[Pojo]

"Don't believe that unconscionably rude young woman. Her name is Genevieve," says Emma, waving a hand distractedly as she tilts a book off the shelf to peer at its title. "and she does like to play mind games. Those others, though, they know what they're about, and they've shed blood to prove it."

She gestures at Damian without looking away from the shelf. From her stance facing the books the red-stained scythe at her back practically dominates her gangly profile.

"There's a fair share of magic going on about here, to be sure, but as to how much of that is out of the ordinary, I suppose that would depend on your definition of what "ordinary" is, now wouldn't it?"

[LordJecks]

"So the Inn still stands above us then?" asked Brother Damian, the day, or days according to Karlon, getting more and more confusing. "To us it was destroyed in the vortex that sucked us into a world of madness... I'd run it all up for illusions and bad food but it wouldn't explain how we just got down here... Any ideas wizard?"

[BrokenPlayer]

Almost as surprised as Karlon, Sydney backs away from the burning piece of paper and stares sheepishly at the floor. She is embarrassed for making the dwarf mad; she had no idea the note was going to do that.

"We were wandering around in a forest just outside that door," Sydney says as she points towards the door she walked through. "We managed to find our way out and into.. wherever we are now."

[Jinx_Greyflower]

[Ophelia]

"There were two of me, and there were two of Beau. Could there have been two of Karlon, too? Which one is this one? He heals, but it could be a trick! A ploy to cloud my mind or put the others at ease...."

Ophelia contributes nothing to the conversation, simply puts her back to the nearest wall and glares at every one and everything in the room as if every object within reach is plotting to do her harm. She keeps her weapon in hand, ready to ward off whatever attacks come her way, from whatever direction and is cautious not to let anyone too close to her. Her paranoid inner monologue continues.

"I saw and believed the other me, even though it made no sense. Clearly I can't trust the evidence of my own senses. Any of the other could be illusions. Phantasms! Boogums! Maybe ... maybe even ALL of them...."

[OwenQuillion]

"Pardon me, dear Karlon, but apparently we've been privy to some strange pan-dimensional magics that have left you and the rest of the inn unaffected thus far. Shortly after I was awakened and met Ms. Ophelia, things went all wonky and we wound up in some dank, dark, damned dungeon," Beau begins explaining as he weaves through the larger people, pacing slowly and approaching Karlon.

"We then came out somewhere distinctly more verdant, fought some kind of horrible chain-monster, met these people," he says with a wave of his arm to indicate Damian and the rest, "And now we're here again. Apparently subject to attacks by invisible doppelgangers, too."

"It may sound like a tall tale, but I swear it's the truth so far as I know it."

[Timeless Prophet]

"Genevieve?" Karlon looks to Emma then Nariel who shakes her head at this statement Karlon turns from these to women as if deciding they are not worth the additional head ache beyond what the current situation is. He turns to Damian, Beau and Sydney, "I think both the elderly woman and Beau make an excellent point. There is definitely an inordinate amount of powerfully odd magic at work here. With all you have seen and experienced I can't explain it any other way. Perhaps it is a convergence of two or more of the ley lines...no there would be more faeries and fornication. Perhaps an ancient demon prince is awakening...no we dealt with that not 20 years ago. What about vampires?" He stops for a moment pondering this statement. "No magical but not nearly magical enough. What could it be?"

Suddenly the room begins to shake and as it does the wall next to Ophelia begins to warp and fade. It is replaced by a hellish looking cave. One that is filled with sharp and cruel looking black and red rock formations and the smell of brimstone assails all of your nostrils. It stays this way a moment before returning to its simple bookshelf state.

Karlon's jaw drops.

It takes a few moments but the dwarf is able to collect himself. After he is calm, he rushes to one of the book shelves and scans the contents. He pulls a tome off the shelf and begins flipping through the pages of the black leather-bound volume. He eventually stops and plops the tome down on the reading stand right next to him.

"Ahh here we are. I knew this entirely didn't seem out of place. Some of the earliest settlers of Sharanal's second rebuilding reported similar happenings during the reconstruction of the east wall some 400 years ago. The city was plagued by strange portals and weird happenings for about six months until the local mage guild discovered an outcropping of Astral Core north of here and neutralized the problem. Probably due to the Astral's Core's more intriguing properties I imagine." The dwarf smiles to himself.

"Perhaps if we find some more Astral Core then we can stop this portal craziness from effecting our lives any longer." Nariel chimes in. "I don't know about the rest of you but I am quite ready to be done with this insanity."

[BrokenPlayer]

Wobbling a bit, Sydney Rose somehow manages to keep herself upright until she is able to plop-down into a nearby armchair. "This is ridiculous," she says to herself as she slides her greatsword off her shoulder and places it down onto the ground by her feet. "How did I get myself into such a mess?!"

"Weakling."

Startled, Sydney looks around but is unable to see anyone talking to her other than Karlon, and she knew that the voice she heard didn't come from him. Still, given the recent events, Sydney decides to just shake it off. Who knows - the voice could have just came from her own imagination.

"We.. we should go," Sydney says as her strength and wits start to return to her. "I want this nightmare to be over with as soon as possible."

[EnixH]

Allan looks over at Damian and Ophelia before standing up again and leaning against the wall,rotating his staff in his hands. "It wasn't her imagination. I saw a twisting mass of red arcane energy inside her,and around her. Then it just...dissapeared."

The younger wizard is jolted a bit as the demonic-appearing cave came into existence then dissapated soon after, grumbling a bit as he listens to the older yet shorter wizard talk about Astral Core. "Question is...how can we determine its location before we go completely insane?".

He huffs, trying to dig up any possible knowledge of Astral Core from his own memory and days at the Academy.

[OwenQuillion]

Beau finds himself quite relieved that the situation seems to be improving to where he's not insane. He waits patiently through Karlon's hypothesizing, becoming more and more excited at the prospect of greater and greater adventures, until the shock and then relative let-down of the issue being about the Astral Core and this planar-hopping nonsense. Heroic enough but rather irritating.

After composing himself and wiping his nose in a futile effort to wipe out the smell, he steps forward and clears his throat. "So, we just need to take a jog north and, uh, do something to this outcropping? What, pray tell, was it that the Mage's Guild did to fix the problem?"