Portal Problems Chapter 5 - the Final Chapter

After several minutes of walking, the party found itself at the door of the portal room.

They opened the door and saw the portal.

It was huge, a circle with runes on the outside, contained inside a giant mechanism that allowed the circle to spin, until the proper runes were in the proper places.

Before they could do a survey of the rest of the room, one of the bodies on the floor stood up.

He was dressed as a high-level mage, but on his head was some kind of creature.

He pressed one of the runes, and the circle flashed.

A number of strange creatures came out of the portal. There were two that were a little like a beholder, with red skin, but with only one eye, and they spat fireballs as they floated toward the party. Another looked similar, but was brown rather than red, and when it spat, it released a flaming skull.

These were followed by several creatures identical to the creature on the mage’s head, and then the portal closed.

The party scrambled for cover and began making ranged attacks at the enemy. One of the red-skinned creatures went down, as well as a flaming skull. The small creatures jumped towards the party, but were intercepted by one free man, who sliced through two of them with his great sword.

The remaining red-skinned one and the brown one tried to fire at Sandy, but she was too agile and dodged both of them.

Nola fired her crossbow at the possessed mage, bringing him down and ending the lives of both the mage and the creature on his head.

The creatures closed, forcing the party to switch to melee weapons, but these proved just as effective. Solis killed one of the little creatures, while Lim killed the other red-skinned flying creature. Finally, all the creatures were dead, and the party had only sustained minor wounds.

They started looking around the room, and One Free Man waved Nola over to the body of the mage who had opened the portal while possessed.

“That’s Breen. He was the head man here.” Nola said. “And look! He has a book with him, perhaps that is the one we were hired to find.”

A quick check confirmed it was what they were looking for, and they decided to get ready to leave and go back to Bran.

Sandy cast a detect magic spell on the portal, and said, “It's now totally drained. I wonder why the creature made Breen activate it.”

“Perhaps the man himself, fighting for one last moment, decided to use the portal now so no matter what it would never present a threat.” LIm replied.

The party decided to take his body and burn it, hoping the man’s spirit would be free in the afterlife, and then they began to make their way back to the entrance.

Perhaps it was in their imagination, but it seemed to them that the area was lighter, and calmer than when they had arrived, like the end of the portal had removed a burden on the land.

They made it back to Bram’s home, and presented him with the book, and he thanked them, and gave each of them gold, jewels, and precious gems as their reward.

Gorga said, “I think we part ways for now. Do you think we will ever meet again?”

“Who can say?’ Jade replied, “The future is not written yet.”

“I hope so”, Jillian said. “This was fun!”

The rest laughed, and so were going their separate ways.

For now . . .

End