Where hope dies (Afina, Surarruthru, Calleigh)

[Iron Dragoon]

"That wasn't very fun. Hopefully it ripped a good piece of the city out, too."

Surraruthru wobbles as he tries to recover, the pounding in his head making him much less inclined to be friendly, and looks at the portal, starting to head into it, and making sure to keep his eyes closed once he does.

[Yuthirin]

Tryll and Calleigh follow Afina's advice.

[Anastasia]

"Thanks," Sylvie begins, before her eyes widen. "Wait a moment," she floats over to Afina as fast as can be, grabbing her wrist before the gate scroll is used. "Are you mad?!"

> roll 1d20+50
<Kobot> Kotono rolled 1d20+50 --> [ 1d20=5 ]{55}

[Ebiris]

"What?" Afina looks oddly at Sylvie at this interruption.

[Anastasia]

Sylvie closes her eyes and breathes out slowly, "Afina." She gestures, "Tannin's right. It feels like the Astral," she floats up and down a bit afterwards, "Flies like the Astral and looks like Limbo around us," she gestures at the mess above the party. "That's three planes after some sort of cataclysmic accident. To say the area may have planar instability is an understatement. Opening a portal could be like putting a bag of holding in portable hole, only with uncontrolled explosions."

That gets Tannin to whistle, "Seriously? Well, things do look rather out of order here. That bad?"

[Ebiris]

"Lots of strange things accumulate on the astral. I saw a giant corpse as big as an island once, and a tower that looked like a cake," Afina says blandly. "But alright then, we'll just have to fly through that duststorm. How far before you think it'll be safe?"

This being the case she doesn't bother to dispel her planar bubble as planned. But she does cast moment of prescience!

Spoiler: ShowHide

Afina: 166/208, heroes feast (CL 20), greater mage armour (CL 23), resist energy (cold) (CL 23), resist energy (acid) (CL 23), mind blank (CL 25), moment of prescience (CL 23), planar bubble (CL 23)
AC 60, spell resistance 38, blindsense 30, immunity to fire, water, disease, poison, fear
Spell charges: 6/9/0/6/8/2/2/2/0/1

[Anastasia]

"Until we find a more stable area or get an idea of what's going on," Sylvie replies.

[Ebiris]

"Alright then, lets go," Afina says, deferring to Sylvie's judgement even if she thinks it's overblown. Her planar bubble interfaces two planes together all the time and it doesn't have any negative effects on travel. Still, she only has the one scroll. "Straight up," she declares, deciding it's as good a direction as any, starting to fly up at a slow enough speed for everyone to keep together as a group.

[Yuthirin]

Calleigh flits along tiredly, sort of slumped over in the air as she trails a sluggish mist.

[Anastasia]

The party flies straight up. As you do, through the dust storm, "You saved me from a terrible fate," Cresiel replies, "If your Crusade needs me, it will have me. If it needs more, I will ask my father for aid."

The dust storm goes on for perhaps 50ft up, before you fly into freezing cold. A broken street is here, fragments of Hopelorn's buildings. All around shadows float, wailing in strangely weak, barely audible voices. Above you is solid stone, though behind you is a sunny plain where you can see several skeletons standing around a pile of ash.

[Ebiris]

"We'll probably take you up on that," Afina tells Cresiel, smiling a little as she sees pieces of Hopelorn scattered about. Though it fades a moment later - they don't really want to make enemies of random yugoloths, that was the whole point of the infiltration. Continuing to fly upwards she starts moving to the side to get around the big block of solid stone, keeping her distance from any undead in the area.

At least any cold is easily obviated by her nice little bubble of Fire around them. Also makes timekeeping easier to handle!

[Anastasia]

"Yeah, we could use more warm bodies," Tannin remarks glibly, "A Crusade needs lots of arms, you know. So there I was, facing down Hell's legions in Avernus, and do you know how many I counted?"

"Too many," Cresiel replies immediately, "Too many to smite as one can only do so much."

You go around the stone block, none of the undead terribly interested in the party. Coming up and around it, you find the top full of trees and forest. Black trees, the soft chanting of Infernal within. The sound of Necrolytes. Above you is writhing fires, behind you is a massive chunk of obsidian, topped with a few buildings.

[Ebiris]

On one hand, killing devils is always fruitful. But like Tannin just said, they're practically numberless anyway, so the only ones Afina really cares about killing are the ones that took part in invading Lifasa. Destroying Finality was enough for her without hunting down and killing every last devil that works for Lixer. Ignoring the infernal chanting she plunges upwards into the flames, having no fear for any mundane fire so long as everyone's been protected by her earlier spell of resist energy.

[Anastasia]

The party breaks through the flames.  You now stand in the Astral Plane, below you a roiling mass of chaos. As you - oh my.

Far ahead is a massive gash in the Astral Plane. Miles wide if you don't miss your guess. From parts of it grayness and shadows spew, endlessly spreading out and further. Great tendrils of it, mixing in with chaotic, uncontrolled energies from other parts of the gash. Chunks of Hopelorn float all about, some slowly going away from it all and others slipping into bands of the chaotic energy.

> roll 1d20+76 (+22 inspiration) K:P
<Kobot> Kotono rolled 1d20+76 (+22 inspiration) K:P --> [ 1d20=2 ]{78}

Sylvie stops and whistles, "Oghma's mercy," she whispers, a hand to her lips.

"Fuck," Tannin says, emotion in that single word. He stares ahead at it all.

> roll 1d20+34
<Kobot> Kotono rolled 1d20+34 --> [ 1d20=16 ]{50}

"Gehenna and Limbo are both bleeding into the Astral Plane," Cresiel announces, "At a rate I've never heard about. Hopelorn and everything else looks to have been tossed through this newborn rift."

"What's worse is that it's not collapsing. It may be a stable portal," Sylvie announces grimly, "The worst of Gehenna's flowing into the Astral and mixing with the energies of Limbo."

[Ebiris]

"Well, the Limbo part should cancel out some of the Gehenna part?" Afina says based on her understanding of the Great Wheel. "It's not something we have the resources to fix right now. We can bring Aurora around to sweep the area later and work on a solution if it's truly dire," not to mention it'd be good exercise for their troops. "But for now we need to head back. Is it safe to make a gate here, Sylvie?"