Victorious advance

[Anastasia]

That would've revealed it earlier, yes. You can play off that instead if you like.

[Ebiris]

Okay, it would take a day or so to fly it from the valley to Sylica's border at minimum so strike the previous...

Alicia and Emmaline teleport to the valley where a guard detachment has been monitoring the area and also watching over the mysterious portal stone. "Marie tried to teleport it back to Sylica earlier and got a bad headache for her troubles, so we'll try a gate from here to the astral plane and see how that works," she says after dismissing the guards.

Unfortunately she just gets a jolt in her arm. "A different transitive plane, then?"

Another gate is opened, this one to the ethereal plane before she tries again.

[Anastasia]

No good.

Emmaline studies the stone after, "May I?"

[Ebiris]

"If you have an idea..." she hands it to Emmaline while also thinking to herself where the closest natural portal to any other plane is from here.

[Anastasia]

There's one to Arborea not too far away.

Emmaline studies the stone carefully, "Is the stone itself extradimensional?" she asks, "It may be like putting a certain things into a bag of holding, they don't mix."

[Ebiris]

"Hmm... it's trying to open a portal somewhere but failing, isn't it? Hold it next to my gate," Alicia gestures at the gate she's still maintaining, the mists of the ethereal visible through it. "If it does another pulse before my spell ends, it might change the destination to somewhere else, or make the gate permanent."

[Anastasia]

Thus it is held - and when it pulses, you see it. The magic latches onto the portal, flying out of Emmaline's hand and into the ground just before the portal, sinking in. You find your own concentration is torn away from the spell, yet it maintains without it.

[Ebiris]

"Ahh, we might be onto something now. Wait," Alicia asks Emmaline.

If it's just maintaining concentration the gate will still vanish just after three minutes from when she cast it. If the gate persists after that, then they've got something really exciting here.

[Anastasia]

> roll 1d100
<Penuche> Kotono invokes Penuche's magic: < 43 > [d100=43]

Sure enough, the gate endures past its chosen time.

[Ebiris]

"It should have ended by now," Alicia says. "This may be a way to easily make permanent gates, or at least ones that last as long as we need them to. Just one at a time, though?"

She squats down and grabs the stone in both hands, fingers sinking into the dirt as she gets a grip and then pulls it up.

[Anastasia]

"What a useful thing," Emmaline says, kneeling next to you as you pull it up. The moment you do, the gate vanishes. "Is this how the demons did it, and this stone ended up left behind?"

[Ebiris]

"Unless we know what they did on the other side we can assume so," Alicia says, hefting the stone out of the ground. "Though that does leave the question of how they got it to Ysgard. Perhaps it can be teleported when inactive? Do you have much skill with using magic items outside those linked to your own arcane magic?"

I'm asking if she has ranks in Use Magic Device basically.

[Anastasia]

"I do," Emmaline says, "What is your will, Alicia?"

[Ebiris]

"Simply see if you can turn it off and on again," Alicia hands it back to Emmaline.

[Anastasia]

Emmaline holds the stone, focused on it.

> roll 1d20+50
<Penuche> Kotono invokes Penuche's magic: < 55 > [d20=5]

Emmaline focuses a time, a longer time and a longer time yet and...

> roll 1d100 vs ???
<Penuche> Kotono invokes Penuche's magic: < 77 > [d100=77]

"It's done," Emmaline says, "But I fear the stone is damaged. It feels wrong."