The Price of Power

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Stepping through the portal as the connection and presence left her mind Lucile stumbled towards the figures waiting on the calcified webs. She recognised Alex instantly and had seen Viktira once or twice before but she didn’t know the drow. That was until one of them, Qistra, walked at her with a blade drawn. A coin dropped in her mind and she could see the resemblance to the head of the Melarn family – wealthy silk merchants who did business with the surface world occasionally.

But the young drow quickly changed her pace as she saw Lucile. A look of worry appeared and then hesitation as she stopped completely. “What happened to you? You look horrible.” Qistra said.

“I don’t remember much,” Lucile began before a wave of tiredness took over her. “I remember following a voice that called me to the deep dark and then finding myself in a trance in another space. The chanting I was doing was in a language that I didn’t know but it left a foulness in my mouth that it must have been infernal or abyssal. But I feel fine now, just a bit tired. I think the presence lost interest in me. Where are the adventurers that were with you? I must warn them…” she began before being cut off.

“They went in to stop you releasing whatever was trapped in there. Last we saw them the portal closed and they were hurrying across the fields in the other dimension. But you don’t look fine, were you attacked or touched by the fiend or a creature in there?” Viktira said as she approached Alex.

“Lucile, you better look at yourself.” Alex said as he fished out a mirror from a bag. Lucile looked down at her reflection and couldn’t believe her eyes. She had aged significantly. It was like she had had her youth, drained by a ghost or spectre. Her youthful face was wrinkled and sunken, her eyes were cloudy and the colour from her hair was receding. The hair she could fix easily enough but the rest she just simply couldn’t believe.

“I guess, this is the price of power. I got too close to real power and it took all that it could and now I have to live with the consequences.” she said as she touched the image in the mirror. Somewhere behind her the portal shimmered as a battle raged on in the dimension and the visage of a fiend flickered and wavered as the heroes that Andrasa found fought for their lives, and the future of all.

The Mages Sacrifice

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Determining, with the aid of the priestesses, that the dimension was likely to collapse and spew forth its contents within the next day regardless of their involvement or not the party watched as the fiend continued to gain power, long wings now appearing on its otherwise large humanoid form. The portal would be one way and sealed after to ensure that they would not let the creature out, but regardless if they were successful or not they would probably find themselves back in the material plane shortly if the dimension was collapsing… probably.

Stepping through the portal wasn’t the weirdest thing, even the change in gravity where movement felt odd as they floated and bounced across the ground. Nor was it the creatures that dwelled here, strange oddities that appeared to have no reason for being other than to confuse who witnessed them. No, the strangest thing was the sense of being watched and the scattered images of battles that were fought once upon a time.

Every few minutes another set of mirages, broken images of people would appear. A man wielding a great hammer, a dwarf throwing bolts of light, an elf firing arrows from the flank and a human casting spell after spell after spell. Each attack was flung towards a winged creature that parried, dodged or endured the strike before lashing back. The images were scattered as if the battle was captured by magic and it was failing, fragments of the images were present at times and the fight was brief and sporadic.

The winged creature appeared most broken as if the magic wouldn’t dare to capture its form except for the vague human appearance and the great set of wings that sprouted from its shoulders. Other creatures appeared in the fight occasionally, mostly lesser fiends, as they rushed at the man, dwarf, elf and human before being obliterated by hammer, axe, arrow or magic.

Continuing further into the dimension the images began to tell a more frantic tale. The Elf was no longer appearing in the replaying battles and the dwarf appeared to be gravely injured. The man fought with a ferocity that seemed to tell of its wounds not slowing it down but the hammer was cracked, the armour was shredded and they witnessed as claw, blade and beak tore into him. The mage continued to occasionally blast creatures with spells but was otherwise standing still and channelling a spell.

Following the fragmented images they came to a stone shrine which was bathed in a calming warm glow. A broken Hammer, a holy symbol to the god Tyr and a jagged dagger lay on the altar along with their names “Bjorne, Grumbar, Carasedrieth” under each item. The fallen combatants that they had seen in the images had been laid to rest here and a shrine erected to commemorate their sacrifice.

“Hello. I was certain this day would come but I was hoping it wouldn’t have occurred for centuries more,” a voice said from nearby, distorted as if talking through a door or pane of glass. “But it appears that my seals have eroded away and the final stages of the fiends release are here. I believe that there was another from the material plane that has assisted the fiend, consciously or otherwise I am not sure but that matters not now. I am Andrasa, well a shade of what I was. In order to keep the creature here I poured my magic, my knowledge, latent power and connection to the weave into a ritual that was self-sustaining for a while. But it appears that the Giant Oskarg and the tribe that guarded the well of souls have fallen and so the seals were broken. A Pity”

The speaker of the voice was another mirage, but this one clearer, stronger and more defined. The magic that saturated this image was clear and still strong, yet fragments of the image floated away from the main body – as if the source of its power was failing. “The creature, a fiend of considerable power, will be free soon and it will raise its legions once again. I have kept it bound here, well my arcane essence – my astral form has powered the seal here for as long as I can. But the creature has overpowered my wards. I have a failsafe that when the ritual would completely fail that I would collapse this dimension and all that it contains. But it would only work if the magic within the ritual was stronger than the creature. Currently the creature is more powerful, a byproduct of consuming souls from the material plane I would imagine.” a thoughtful look appeared on the image of Andrasa’s face.

“If we could weaken the creature, defeat it so it’s on death’s door I could collapse the dimension and take it with me. But we would need luck on our side. I can complete the final components of the ritual if you can deal a killing blow to the creature.” Andrasa’s form stopped and looked towards a crater not far from where she and the shrine was. “We don’t have much time as it calls the shades of its legions to its side as we speak. What say you, do you want to save the world?”