Bitter escape (Ithea)

[Anastasia]

The light of Ysgard is a welcome relief. The sheer vibrancy of the realm soothes your injuries, like a warm bath after a hard day. You land atop a rocky mountain, the fjords far below. You hardly have a chance to look before the portal behind you shudders and dissipates.

"Damn it!" Sylvie turns, staring at where the portal was.

[Merc]

"...They could still make their way back to Aurora. Muirfinn knows how to make gates," Ithea says with a faint tone of hope, yet heavily tinged with worry. "We need to get back to Aurora though, and see what we can find out. If we're lucky, they'll get their on their own. If not..."

[Anastasia]

"If not...if not...we'll do something," Sylvie's voice is quiet, face pale and eyes clenched shut. "I promise. Not again. I won't let this happen again. I just...what I saw on him with 21..." She stops, "Take us home, Ithea."

[Merc]

"...Yeah, small problem with that. Once a day trinket, remember?" Ithea motions to her bracelet. "I was hoping you'd have something to get us back, although assuming we're in the area I'm hoping we are, I can probably cast dimension door a few times to get us to a portal that'll end us closer to Aurora. I was mostly focused on getting someplace safe that wasn't Aurora just in case they'd planned for us escaping directly that way."

Ithea takes the time to look around a bit more in detail making sure she's where she thinks they should be, grimacing as she worries about Muirfinn and Lief.

[Anastasia]

"I can. Hold on," Sylvie's voice is terse, taking Ithea. Moments later you're back on Air, floating in the free expanse of nothing. A moment later Sylvie manages another spell and you stand before the gates of Aurora.

> roll 5d100 plane shift
<Serith> Kowork roll for Serith < 239 > [d100=29,51,74,48,37]
> roll 1d100 teleport
<Serith> Kowork roll for Serith < 26 > [d100=26]

[Merc]

"Alright, let's find out who's in right now and if we can divine what's happened to Lief and Muirfinn. We can hope that they're still alive and if they haven't beaten us here, then at least that they might be hiding or something," Ithea says before taking a deep breath and a moment of thought with closed eyes.

Opening them she calls out, "Elena! Can you help me call up a war council? Get anybody important that's around. Things didn't go well in our Astral trip."

[Anastasia]

Elena appears, dressed in a toga resembling Hanna's. "Alright," she says quickly, then pauses, "Muirfinn? Lief?"

Sylvie just shakes her head. "Just...just get all the generals and whomever else. Please." She looks down, eyes not meeting Elena's.

[Merc]

Ithea nods gravely. "If they appear any time soon, we'll all be happy. But right now, assume the worst and there's a reason to call everyone in."

[Anastasia]

"I'll gather everyone," Elena says. Once gone, Sylvie sighs deeply, "We'll do something, we'll get them back," she murmurs.

Go ahead and reply if you want, then I'm going to pause you pending lining up the other rooms. This may take a day or two.

[Merc]

"We will," Ithea says in agreement. "That was a mistake on the duke's part even if he probably sees it otherwise. If we all got out, at worst we'd probably be licking our wounds and thinking on our next step a bit. Now he's forcing an encounter, and him and Lixer aren't the only ones that know how to stack a battlefield to their advantage."