Portalble (14/05) - Wanda
May 14, 2020 8:48:51 GMT
Markas Virnala, Ian (Menace), and 2 more like this
Post by andycd on May 14, 2020 8:48:51 GMT
Wanda had been in Port Ffirst for a few days now, getting the feel of the small town blossoming not far from the more familiar Daring Heights, and she had to say that it was really working for her. The young port, from the constant sound of yelling from the wharf to the rambunctious crowds in the creaky taverns, was far more Wanda’s speed - most days at least.
Today was not destined to go well though, she thought to herself as she stood in the chill air in a queue outside a new attraction in town. Standing still was one of her least favourite activities, up there with haggling and going to meetings, so it didn’t help that she was in this queue to have a meeting with someone to discuss the price of her next adventure. It was an Autumn day as well, which didn’t help her impatience.
It was a great relief then, when a young man arrived on scene and introduced himself as the contact for the meeting and gathered Wanda and a number of other queuers into the cafe to talk business ahead of the rest of the crowd. She ordered a suite of drinks and sandwiches to try the selection and listened idly to the discussion. When the orders arrived, Wanda was delighted to find that someone had managed to make a cucumber sandwich that had flavour, and so only really joined the talk about the quest when Paul or whoever mentioned a volcano. That sounded really exciting, and the only reason she had picked up the notice in the first place. She downed all of her drinks and started getting her heavy pack together to head out.
The journey there was made interesting by the chance to talk to a fascinating priest of Sylvanus. Religion was more of an amatuer sport for Wanda, so it was always interesting to meet someone so devoted to a single concept. The only reason Wanda was able to devote her efforts to Corellon’s holy name at all was their absolute fluidity and mercurialness that mirrored her own.
They were an interesting group really - a wayfarer (half-Drow, which was unusual), a mage (not an elf? There was some confusion there) and two priests, though Wanda never caught the faith of the second, presumably some sort of devil worshipper given the imp that followed on her shoulder. Still, you couldn’t be judgy in adventuring company.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a meat-shield amongst them. Aggie had a shield but that was it. You can’t have only a backline, so as they headed into some old place Igrainne had been before, Wanda’s mind was weighing up the heavy package her unseen servant was carrying behind her. It wasn’t great, but they needed someone to step up.
They found the volcano - or somewhere close to it underground with a great big portal in the floor, and Wanda stepped behind a rock to change, pulling off the leathers and unwrapping the golden scale mail to put that on instead. Stepping out with her brown and orange hair flowing awkwardly over the back of the armour, slipping the shield into place, it felt weird. She wasn’t feeling very physical to do today, but needs must. She kept the sword sheathed though - spells would do just fine.
Stepping through the portal was exciting - you never quite knew where you would end up. Oddly, all that was there was a small circular chamber, a stone pedestal in the centre with a series of symbols around the edge. It was eventually determined to be a guide to the planes - but with only 2 symbols active, the Material Plane and another represented by a horned skull.
Activating the skull portal was frankly, a disappointment. An empty, dirty office greeted them, and Wanda sighed and walked to the door beyond to keep an eye out. It was locked, so another of her skillsets came in handy - picking the lock with ease despite the disconcerting feeling of Autumn doing Winter’s work in Summer’s clothes.
What happened next was weird. A long series of tunnels with large spherical chambers, each themed on the Nine Hells. Wanda - restless, caffeinated and confused in several regards - decided to charge across the first few ahead of the rest to find out what the challenges were. Screams of pain threatened to overwhelm her in the first one but was able to persevere and help the others across. Searing heat that left her exhausted and panting made the second sphere a nasty place, which was compounded by then volunteering to hold a rope for others to use to cross, but it didn’t go too terribly wrong.
Eventually (thankfully), they found a service tunnel - a path onwards without going through each of the challenges that lay ahead. It had been mounting to a truly scary task, and bypassing them let Wanda relax a bit.
The sixth chamber they passed was the important one though - a portal in the side of the sphere looked out into one of the hells (presumably the sixth - someone mentioned Glasya?). As they went to look at it, a huge green-scaled devil leapt out at them to attack. Wanda leapt forward flinging a bolt of fire at it as everyone else hugged the wall and the devil cast a magical sphere of darkness over the group and flapped its huge leathery wings to take to the air, knocking her to the floor.
The next moments went by in a flash - the creature dived down on top of Wanda and unleashed a violent flurry of blows at her which somehow, miraculously, left her with just one cut into the side of her arm. Scrambling up, a ball of flames detonated behind the creature, who chuckled unaffected by that or her earlier bolt. Switching to lightning, she swung at it with a crackling hand and missed. Arrows and spells were flying fast towards the fiend and within seconds - and a few more desperately countered swords swung at Wanda - the creature was defeated.
It was - exhilarating. The death-defying dodges filling her with adrenaline, the thrill of conquest, the fear, the caffeine and at some point the definitely-elven wizard had cast some spell on Wanda that made everything seem to slow down - her hands were trembling. To burn off the energy she started sprinting laps of the room while the others gathered themselves and inspected the portal further.
Eventually, a quick wave of thunder from her hands collapsed the portal, closing the hells off from this space it seemed. They headed back slowly, wondering what all of this could have been about. It had all been strange and mysterious and rather alien. Fortunately, as they arrived back at the portal room, Aggie managed to spot some papers tucked away in the deserted office, which helped shed light on the situation, but Wanda was only half-paying attention, her mind still focused on the battle behind them, adrenaline still only just subsiding.
She’d heard there were fighting pits in Port Ffirst. Tomorrow felt like a Summer’s day based on today’s events, so maybe she’d give those a try. In the meantime, as the portal room was set back to the Material Plane and they all headed home, she was glad to have hopefully made some friends.
Today was not destined to go well though, she thought to herself as she stood in the chill air in a queue outside a new attraction in town. Standing still was one of her least favourite activities, up there with haggling and going to meetings, so it didn’t help that she was in this queue to have a meeting with someone to discuss the price of her next adventure. It was an Autumn day as well, which didn’t help her impatience.
It was a great relief then, when a young man arrived on scene and introduced himself as the contact for the meeting and gathered Wanda and a number of other queuers into the cafe to talk business ahead of the rest of the crowd. She ordered a suite of drinks and sandwiches to try the selection and listened idly to the discussion. When the orders arrived, Wanda was delighted to find that someone had managed to make a cucumber sandwich that had flavour, and so only really joined the talk about the quest when Paul or whoever mentioned a volcano. That sounded really exciting, and the only reason she had picked up the notice in the first place. She downed all of her drinks and started getting her heavy pack together to head out.
The journey there was made interesting by the chance to talk to a fascinating priest of Sylvanus. Religion was more of an amatuer sport for Wanda, so it was always interesting to meet someone so devoted to a single concept. The only reason Wanda was able to devote her efforts to Corellon’s holy name at all was their absolute fluidity and mercurialness that mirrored her own.
They were an interesting group really - a wayfarer (half-Drow, which was unusual), a mage (not an elf? There was some confusion there) and two priests, though Wanda never caught the faith of the second, presumably some sort of devil worshipper given the imp that followed on her shoulder. Still, you couldn’t be judgy in adventuring company.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a meat-shield amongst them. Aggie had a shield but that was it. You can’t have only a backline, so as they headed into some old place Igrainne had been before, Wanda’s mind was weighing up the heavy package her unseen servant was carrying behind her. It wasn’t great, but they needed someone to step up.
They found the volcano - or somewhere close to it underground with a great big portal in the floor, and Wanda stepped behind a rock to change, pulling off the leathers and unwrapping the golden scale mail to put that on instead. Stepping out with her brown and orange hair flowing awkwardly over the back of the armour, slipping the shield into place, it felt weird. She wasn’t feeling very physical to do today, but needs must. She kept the sword sheathed though - spells would do just fine.
Stepping through the portal was exciting - you never quite knew where you would end up. Oddly, all that was there was a small circular chamber, a stone pedestal in the centre with a series of symbols around the edge. It was eventually determined to be a guide to the planes - but with only 2 symbols active, the Material Plane and another represented by a horned skull.
Activating the skull portal was frankly, a disappointment. An empty, dirty office greeted them, and Wanda sighed and walked to the door beyond to keep an eye out. It was locked, so another of her skillsets came in handy - picking the lock with ease despite the disconcerting feeling of Autumn doing Winter’s work in Summer’s clothes.
What happened next was weird. A long series of tunnels with large spherical chambers, each themed on the Nine Hells. Wanda - restless, caffeinated and confused in several regards - decided to charge across the first few ahead of the rest to find out what the challenges were. Screams of pain threatened to overwhelm her in the first one but was able to persevere and help the others across. Searing heat that left her exhausted and panting made the second sphere a nasty place, which was compounded by then volunteering to hold a rope for others to use to cross, but it didn’t go too terribly wrong.
Eventually (thankfully), they found a service tunnel - a path onwards without going through each of the challenges that lay ahead. It had been mounting to a truly scary task, and bypassing them let Wanda relax a bit.
The sixth chamber they passed was the important one though - a portal in the side of the sphere looked out into one of the hells (presumably the sixth - someone mentioned Glasya?). As they went to look at it, a huge green-scaled devil leapt out at them to attack. Wanda leapt forward flinging a bolt of fire at it as everyone else hugged the wall and the devil cast a magical sphere of darkness over the group and flapped its huge leathery wings to take to the air, knocking her to the floor.
The next moments went by in a flash - the creature dived down on top of Wanda and unleashed a violent flurry of blows at her which somehow, miraculously, left her with just one cut into the side of her arm. Scrambling up, a ball of flames detonated behind the creature, who chuckled unaffected by that or her earlier bolt. Switching to lightning, she swung at it with a crackling hand and missed. Arrows and spells were flying fast towards the fiend and within seconds - and a few more desperately countered swords swung at Wanda - the creature was defeated.
It was - exhilarating. The death-defying dodges filling her with adrenaline, the thrill of conquest, the fear, the caffeine and at some point the definitely-elven wizard had cast some spell on Wanda that made everything seem to slow down - her hands were trembling. To burn off the energy she started sprinting laps of the room while the others gathered themselves and inspected the portal further.
Eventually, a quick wave of thunder from her hands collapsed the portal, closing the hells off from this space it seemed. They headed back slowly, wondering what all of this could have been about. It had all been strange and mysterious and rather alien. Fortunately, as they arrived back at the portal room, Aggie managed to spot some papers tucked away in the deserted office, which helped shed light on the situation, but Wanda was only half-paying attention, her mind still focused on the battle behind them, adrenaline still only just subsiding.
She’d heard there were fighting pits in Port Ffirst. Tomorrow felt like a Summer’s day based on today’s events, so maybe she’d give those a try. In the meantime, as the portal room was set back to the Material Plane and they all headed home, she was glad to have hopefully made some friends.
