A new hill

[Ebiris]

"Information is limited," Alicia admits once they're able to speak freely. "But I have it on good authority that there is one in a place called the Askarel Tomb, in the deepest part of Pandemonium. If we were to start at Hanged Rock in Agathion and proceed ever downwards we should be able to reach it."

[Anastasia]

"It's no light day trip, but one with a reward we cannot ignore," Sulia agrees.

Queen considers, a hand to her chin before, "Another Guardian," she repeats, lowly, "Yes, I'll join you for this." She rises, clad in breastplate and armor. A wooden longsword is at her side, just like yours - the exact same type of wood.

[Ebiris]

"Beyond the guardian we also need to take care that others may have learned of it and be seeking the same prize. They might even have beaten us to it," Alicia admits. "But as Sulia says, we can't ignore it. Do you have any doors from here that can take us close, or shall I gate us?"

[Anastasia]

"There are as many doors as I need," Queen strides forward, as space twists again.

"A deity who rules an Infinite Stair," Sulia goes on, "Once your desires and portfolio become known, not all will welcome you with friendship and rejoicing."

Queen forsakes a helmet as she goes forward. Her hair is long enough to brush against the heels of her feet, a radiant, rich wood brown. Great waves of it, yet none that seem to slow her in the least. "My portfolio is the lillends, courage, endurance, healing, justice. Art too in the fullness of time, but I have just begun. Those who oppose that can try to stop me. I fear none of them, for they are no Guardians."

[Ebiris]

"That's an admirable portfolio," Alicia says as they move through the twisted space. "Which is part of why you have Sylica's friendship and support. Being able to get an early leg up with another of these seeds will help. But yes, the guardian... we don't know what form the one in Pandemonium will take, it will be different than the one here in the stair. It may not even involve battle, though I suspect it will. They aren't bound by simple magic as we are but there's still a degree of fairness to the challenges whatever form they take," she explains for Sulia's benefit a bit of what to expect.

[Anastasia]

"The seeds are meant to be found, then? The challenges are possible." Sulia observes.

"Barely," Queen's voice has a hint of an edge in it, "Possible spans from the trivial to the greatest depths of improbable challenge."

Meanwhile you come to a leafy, sunlit platform. Here a single door sits, ice an stony rubble around it.

[Ebiris]

"The point is that the guardians are a scaling threat, empowered by the Incarnation of Balance to challenge any who come seeking. They might have a lower threshold but I doubt they have a meaningful upper one," Alicia says smoothly, stopping on the platform. "Now before we go through, are both of you protected from casual divinations? I think we'll be served using an illusion so any locals don't see us for what we are."

[Anastasia]

"I am," Sulia concurs.

Queen merely nods, "I am protected."

[Ebiris]

Alicia then alters reality slightly to give the three of them the look of nondescript people wearing dirty hooded robes, the illusion seen right through by them but sufficient to fool most casual scrutiny into seeing them as the sort of suspicious looking cultist sorts common across the lower planes.

Alter reality for Veil basically.

That done, she opens the door onto Pandemonium.

[Anastasia]

Tight.

There's barely enough space to stand as you step out of the door, a narrow, rocky cleft ahead onward.

"It shouldn't be far," Queen declares as you all step out.

Empress Sulia merely readies her staff and strides on.

[Ebiris]

Fortunately they can all fly. No deadly howling winds yet either. "Downwards is the rule here," she says, squeezing on down that cleft.

[Anastasia]

Give me 1d100+20 here, Alicia.

[Ebiris]

[17:43] <@Ebiris> roll 1d100+20
[17:43] <Penuche> Ebiris invokes Penuche's magic: < 105 > [d100=85]

[Anastasia]

Tighter and tighter. You have to work to go - or simply a tiny bit of divine will. Either way. On and on you go, until you come to a turn. It's then that it slams into you - a screaming roar, a gale wind that scythes through the tiny cleft like a howl of agony.

[Ebiris]

That's unpleasant. Alicia exercises some control over the winds to dissipate them around the trio.

Alter reality for Control Winds. She can reduce wind strength by 11 levels but she'll drop it down towards 'bit blustery outside' rather than calm just so they don't stand out quite so much.