Maarten! Select power please. I'd like to keep the momentum going and I have enough plot map down to safely continue this thing.

My bad, thought I had already replied.

"Teleportation does sound like it would add to my 'skillset' "

Alaris smiles and says, "You have all chosen your powers and you shall have them." He extends a hand, buried beneath an inch of Draconic plate. Without even looking, a orb of energy starts to form, tiny dots of magic blinking into existence around him and coalescing into an orb on his hand. The ball of energy swirls and crackles, naturally unstable. Alaris, however, keeps the ball under control effortlessly. Flashes of light start to occur as the energies interact with the orb.

"Let's speed this up a notch."

Rather than pulling the magic directly from the environment around him like he was doing, he simply puts a minute amount of his own power generation into the orb. In an instant, the orb starts inflating. Ten percent larger, then fifty percent, then a hundred. The orb swells to the size of a wagon. Alaris stops feeding the ball and says simply, "That's enough." He grabs the orb and compresses the magical energies. The orb begins to glow aggressively before the ball shrinks to one inch across. Isariaz laughs "My lord, isn't that enough energy to level this city a thousand times over?" Alaris smiles at the Herald. "It is, but I suppose I'll just take the excess back."

Without warning, he throws the orb of magical energy into the air and claps his hands together, the orb in the centre crushed. His hands contain the blast, a hundred megatons of explosive energy trapped within, but when he opens them, five tendrils of magic reach out for the five physical party members. They drain into the people and soon they find that they have their new powers as requested. For a brief moment, their vision blurs and something new can be seen, a tremendous aura spreading from Alaris like a wildfire, with hundreds of thousands of branches spreading from the aura, including to the party members. His aura is so high and powerful as to seemingly fill the gap between the heavens and Traxis below, a veritable maelstrom of incomprehensible energies. Even the Wraith is affected by the aura. Their minds fall unnaturally silent as Alaris' defenses rise, shielding the minds of them all from any unwanted interference. It is clear that the aura can travel through even the thickest stone and across thousands of miles of broken terrain without hinderance. But there must be a method of breaking the connection as Alaris mentioned earlier, something that would break the shield on the minds of the party and stop their abilities till they are once again connected. Alaris says, "Your first mission is to go to the probability cultists. They've got something valuable. A vial of blood. It's hard to explain in this language but simply put, there is power in the blood of people in that it allows you to use it as a focus, a target, not by drawing power from it like in the children's stories. Isariaz will accompany you."

No posts? Time for travel, then.

Alaris switches into his dragon form and says, "On foot, it would take several hours to travel to their temple. I shall take you there much quicker." He scoops the entire party up into one of his hands. In comparison to his claws, grown people are like children. Even Isariaz is picked up. Alaris holds you all close to the front of his chest. "The journey shall take a minute. I can't go as fast as I normally would, not without incinerating you." The party are held against his chest by one claw. The Dragon of Death is surprisingly warm. The stories always painted him as being ice cold and killing all the fires and furnaces for miles around, that his aura would kill even the strongest tree merely by flying above it. Are the stories really that wrong?

As Alaris rises from the ground with the movement of his titanic wings, those with more attuned hearing can hear, even through layers of bone, muscle and scales, the pounding of Alaris' huge heart. "Stay still." In an instant, he accelerates to an incredibly high speed, the air whistling past him, across the party. Somehow, Alaris' claws manage to hold even the noncorporeal Wraith Bitter Pill, normally an impossible thing. There is a thunderous bang as all sound seems to stop completely and a shockwave blasts from the dragon. To Bitter Pill, it can sense that Alaris is now travelling far beyond the speed of sound and only accelerating. Alaris' wings are perfectly straight sideways, the air travelling around his wings. Bitter Pill, while all the others have to have their eyes closed and are cold from the wind, senses the immense build up of heat on Alaris' body.

In an instant, Alaris comes to a full stop. The biological party members vision fades for a moment from the sudden deceleration, while Bitter Pill finds the entire event quite intriguing as it scans how the party members react to the sudden deceleration. Somehow, their organs managed to not slam into their chests, something that Bitter Pill finds mysterious, since it's knowledge of physics say that shouldn't be possible. Alaris must've stopped it occurring somehow. Alaris sweeps his wings, folding them as he lands both himself and the party just south of the temple. Setting them on the ground, he says, "Head north of here, through the clearing. You'll find a cave entrance. That is the entrance to their temple. Remember, it's a vial of blood that's important, but you can take whatever you want. I have to go, CM is making a move."

The mighty dragon returns to the skies, but this time, he moves far faster than he did last time. It looks as though light itself bends around him for an instant and then, he's gone. Bitter Pill looks on in awe as it senses thousands of events beyond the scale of biological senses.

I thought I was still waiting on someone, whoops. This is a transition part. You'll have your character sheets updated on the next roll, don't worry. Transition parts allow me to move the story along without having to roll for the players moving, which I find kinda silly.


The party proceeds north, deeper into the forest. The canopy thickens and soon, barely any light is making it's way through the treetops, but the path remains clear and bright. They make good speed and it only takes a few minutes for them to get to the entrance to the cave. Calling it an entrance, however, insults entrances everywhere. Some people try their new abilities on the way. Amboss teleports to the front while holding his golem. It teleports with him, but only because he was holding it.

It is little more than a hole in the ground with stone staircases. However, two statues mark the entrance well. Both statues are a die, however they have different sides facing upwards. The stone is smooth, a contrast to the rough staircase next to it. The tunnel below seems to be lit quite well by both sun and torch. Suddenly, voices are heard from within the tunnels.

An old male voice speaks proudly, "Alright, so, the party reaches the Bridge of Nazku-Borbon an-"
A woman laughs and then says, "Nice name. Continue."

With a hint of annoyance, the man continues. "The bridge," there is the sound of a rolling die, "Looks to be clear."

A man whistles and says, "I get my ten foot pole and start tapping the bridge for traps."

More dice are rolled, then the old man announces, "You set off a conjuration trap. I'll roll on the spawn table."

"♥♥♥♥. I hope this comes out better than that dragon spawning at the beginning of the game. What was his name now?"

Someone else laughs. "I think it was...what, Taldooris? Bloody hell I don't know where you get these names from Bob."

"That's why I'm a Dice Priest of the Second Value and you're just a Roller." The woman from earlier asks, "Hey, anyone know when the DM is going to roll again?"

"Not a clue. I think he's waiting for more people to come along before the next roll."

It sounds like they are playing some kind of table top role-playing game, but they don't seem to have noticed you yet.

Game Maps

You send out sound waves, completely undetectable to the senses of any biological being except certain aquatic creatures. The waves are directed into the tunnels below. By interpreting the results, you are able to map out the corridor and room ahead, but you lack the finesse to be able to get it exact enough to determine what is what, but you are able to tell the floor from the walls from an object, a good place to start. You see eight humanoid objects, but whether they are people or statues you don't know.



Strangely, you find that there are six inlets on the floor, even if they are only an inch deep. There is also what must be a brick sticking out of the northern wall. Perhaps the brick, the inlets and the dice are related somehow?



On your command, Pubber grabs the heavy stone die and turns it around. The six dots have been filled with dirt but are otherwise intact.

There are now two Six dies.