The Portal

Session 03

TLDR
  • Upon finishing their kalamari, the party runs through the weird purple portal, appearing in a sandy pocket dimension. After attempting to walk at through the forest in the white fog but making no progress at all, Bloo and Marcan climb a tree and hit what appears to be the ceiling of the dome that they are stuck in. Amoivada, Quill, and Skaga head back in the direction of the portal to investigate the weird shadow-y blob that they saw. Bloo successfully tosses a Cone of Stone at the dome ceiling and is able to crack it. Amoivada, Quill, and Skaga discover that the weird shadow-y blob is a samurai duck who was trapped in this pocket dimension. After some attempts by Bloo to break the dimension, the duck waddles off and stabs Bloo, almost killing them. At this point, the pocket dimension is unstable and everyone leaves through the portal. Shortly afterwards, the duck leaves.
  • PCs involved:
  • Previous session: 02 - 11.6.2022 - Investigating the Cave In
Important Points
  • The shining purple light was a portal
  • Inside the pocket dimension is Edwin, a samurai duck
  • The pocket dimension was once his home, but then the land was sectioned off, reduced to a bubble, and wasn’t stable as cracks appeared
  • Edwin was trying to preserve his pocket dimension, but portals were opening and closing
  • A warlock caused the portals
  • Ever since what happened at Thalanrod (likely 213 CE - The Falteran Massacre, portals popping up everywhere
  • Edwin’s land was refuge for people from Thalanrod

04.01.0347 | Canonbury, Fusilla

Cave down staircase
  • Finish kalamari, shining purple light, ominous oscillating light, steady hum, ringing coming from light
  • Marcan Beakoup throw a rock at the light and just completely misses
  • Bloo Mage hand with Rock with Light spell extend down tunnel, the light is getting shinier and shinier, and reacting to the rock
    • Bloo throws the stone towards the light, it gets brighter and brighter and then it nyooms and then it’s just pink light again
  • Amoiváda walks closer, sees that the room opens up, sees giant elliptical purple ring, hear vvvvvvvv, nowhere in sight is the yellow stone
  • Other caves over there
  • Amoivada stretches her jelly arm into the purple light, you keep extending it, you can’t see it, but feel warm on other side, feel what feels like sand
    • Grabs a fistful and retracts hand, has a handful of sand + my stone
    • Plus a bit of white hair (lorge d20 nat 20)
      • It’s not hair, it’s bits of a feather, duck feather
  • Marcan enters the cave with the purple ring, but not through the portal, so around Amoivada
    • Note that there are 4 stalactites that are in view, look normal
  • Skaga pokes Amoivada, it’s gelatinous / sticky / sandy
  • Amoivada: “Quill, duck!”
    • Quill sprints over
  • My mage hand is out of range when it goes through the portal
  • Can’t see any more paths from the big round cave
  • Amoivada puts 2 blobs with rocks through portal, and neck
    • See lots of sand in one direction, feel fine
    • Seems to be evening, sun is setting (crack of dawn when we entered the cave) but don’t see sun anywhere
    • No sound goes thru portal
  • Marcan goes to check through the portal, and as go through, your head feels bleehhh, your eyes are adjusting (much brighter), but see just sand
  • Bloo sticks head through other side of portal, see sand and forest in distance, and hear rock clicking
  • Marcan and Bloo walk through, underestimate distance from ground
    • Bloo lands gracefully with wings flap
    • Marcan not as graceful + a combat roll
  • A lot harder to see in this environment
  • Quill sticks head through and quacks
    • Something moving in direction of where Marcan went through, narrow tall round blob shadow
  • Quill jumps through, flops on back in sand
  • Amoivada goes through, Skaga goes through holding on to Amoivada
    • Inchworming through with Skaga on Amoivada’s back

Pocket Dimension

  • We all feel strange, smth’s different, standing up feels weird, feels like less gravity
    • I got jump boost, I fall slowly
    • DUMMY T H I C K FOREST
  • Feel gust of wind
  • Trees are a little over 30 feet away
    • Moving towards it doesn’t increase distance seen, going towards the forest is just white fog in my face
  • Amoivada blobs elasti-girls into a bubble , it’s a blob umbrella, big pillar in the middle walking for stability, like a mushroom
    • Surrounding the squad
  • Shadow blob not following us
  • We continue marching forward, can’t see anything more, vision does not get extended
  • Feel like walking forward for ages, walk backwards 3 steps, nothing changes
  • Marcan drag halberd on ground to mark ground with smiley face
  • The ground is still sandy
  • We continue walking until we see the smiley face on the ground again
  • Bloo hugs a tree, and then acrobatics upwards with jump boost, 20 ft. up and cast light on a piece of bark
  • Marcan attempts to climb tree, jump up with halberd, and stab it into tree, the tree seems to be already dead, dried up tree, no tree rings but sturdy
    • Marcan: “Guys this tree is weird”
  • Bloo uses Mage Hand to give myself boost, but boost too hard and hit my head on smth rigid and crystalline, something is falling from the sky, granular, looks like glass but doesn’t act like glass, doesn’t behave like anything we know
  • Marcan wants to come up, I help him with Mage Hand, do the ladder thing up, not too graceful but made it
  • Both look up, see smth that doesn’t end, it looks like, there’s a tiny crack in the sky where I hit my head
  • During this time, Quill is digging and sees absolutely nothing
  • Bloo casts Prestidigitation to make pepper on the thing beside the crack, but color is weird, grainy psychedelic wavy pattern on pepper, it’s bending and waving
  • Bloo does cone of stone + rope + mage hand, cone of stone lodged in the sky, see blue ripples concave almost like a dome, seems cracked blue / black, hear weird fan/humming sound
    • Sky has weird cracks
  • See weird whooshing thing but trees beyond it, can see sand and purple portal,
  • Amoivada, Quill, and Skaga decide to walk back
    • Amoivada walks backwards
    • Skaga turns 180 and walks forwards
    • Quill walks sideways
  • They make it out of the trees, Bloo and Marcan can see them
  • Passed smiley face 4 times heading into the trees, observed it once heading out towards the portal
  • Amoivada, Quill, and Skaga head towards the weird shadow-y blob
    • See figure, no matter how close, only see silhouette but not moving, gets bigger as it gets closer
    • Face-to-face, looks like shadow, can’t discern its shape, shorter than a human
    • Quill: “Quack”
      • Blob: Quack
      • Quill sprints towards it and attempts to squish it, and in that attempt, the shadowy duck fwooshes back
    • Skaga gives bread, Quill offers bread, the shadows fade away, perfectly round duck waddles towards them, poke bread, stares at us
  • Quill attempts to pet it, but the duck waddles backward (this is Edwin)
    • Puts bread in cage
    • Duck walks backwards
    • Quill: “Be my friend”
    • Duck: turns around
  • Amoivada attempts to touch it, it allows her to pet it
    • Attempt to Beast Bond but nothing happens
  • Quill quacks “Why are you here?”
    • Duck: Quack “Do you have a reason to be here?”
    • Quill: “We just dropped in here”
    • Duck: “I recommend you go back”
    • Quill: “Why”
    • Duck: “You shouldn’t be here”
    • Quill: “Why”
    • Duck: “It’s not safe here”
    • Quill: “In what sense”
    • Duck: “Look in the sky” and gestures to cone of stone and pepper in sky, “I suggest you go thru the portal again”
    • Quil: “What happens if the sky breaks”
    • Duck: “You don’t want to be here to find out”
    • Duck: “This was once my home”
    • Quill: “What happened”
    • Duck looks longingly, sits cross-legged, feathers in his lap, reaches behind it and lays the katana down
    • Duck: “I saw you go to the forest, you couldn’t get out right? You had to come back, did you not? This pocket dimension sectioned off, and this land that was my home, has been reduced to this bubble, and it is not stable, and it appears more cracks have appeared”
    • Amoivada: “We should take the duck with us out of here”
    • Duck: “No, I still have unfinished business”
    • Amoivada: “What business”
    • Duck: “No, you see, it is beyond your comprehension, but the truth is, I just like it here, I wish to fix it”
    • Amoivada: “Can we help you”
    • Duck: “IDK if you can, but I surmise that you can find the original warlock who did this, might fix my problems”
    • Amoivada: “What warlock”
    • Duck: “Why would I know, no one can understand me except for you, I don’t even think I can understand them, how do you understand me”
    • Quill: I learned the language of ducks from a young age
    • Duck: There are more of them where you come from?
    • Quill: Well not really, my parents killed them
    • Duck: “WAS IT WARLOCK?”
    • Quill: “No”
    • Duck: “I’ve been trying to preserve this place, portals not open for much longer, portals opening and closing, only decided to show true form to ppl who come here, most ppl just see an ominous shadow and leave”
    • Quill: “When did you last see warlock?”
    • Duck: “Last time I was happy, I don’t have much in the way of passing time, as you can see you’ve been here for 2 hours by your time, the sun has not moved, we are in a pocket dimension, things might behave differently from the world you come from, in this plane, time does not pass”
  • Bloo pulls cone of stone out, while Marcan and Bloo holding on to the tree
    • Yank it out, flash of blue and white light
    • Massive fwoosh loud bright hum
    • Bloo is flashed, otherwise is fine
    • The crack is actually there, the dimension is bubble
  • Quill: “They’re pulling it out, we should go thru the portal”
    • Duck: Oh don’t worry about it, it’s just an illusion, this thing shrinks on its own, many have come here not knowing what to expect, trust me, I have seen this flash several times
  • Marcan jumps with halberd to try to scrape the corner, parabola jump to my tree, we fall, but mage hand grab us and boost out
    • Skaga was sent to get us, sees dangling feet of Marcan
    • Bloo pulls Marcan up
  • Quill: “Do you have a name”
  • Duck: “I was never given one, I feel like it is pointless, but…you can call me whatever you like”
  • Skaga is at the bottom of the tree, who saw the legs
  • Skaga: “Hey guys, have fun dying if you keep messing with the sky”
    • Bloo, out of spite, does it again
  • Toss rock through hole, sound continuing to crack, the lines are stiff and rigid, the pepper isn’t wavy but cracked now, Bloo tries to throw the rock again
  • Skaga turns away, takes off chainmail and hangs it, fly up through the trees and bodyslams Bloo
    • Bloo gets flashed, Marcan remembers and turns has his eyes closed, and Skaga bodyslams Bloo, we all fall by the smiley face
  • Bloo uses cone of stone with rope to try to grapple back up
  • Amoivada: “The sky is breaking”
    • Quill: “We gotta name the duck”
    • Duck: “Well that’s different”
    • Quill: “Good or bad difference?”
    • Duck: “Normally it flashed blue, but this time it was purple”
    • Quill: “What’s your opinion”
    • Duck going towards portal
  • Suddenly, Bloo feels warm sensation, but it’s also kinda cold and metal
    • Bloo got stabbed by the duck ouchie, can’t use silvery barbs on it :/
    • Duck: “Quack quack quack” looks angry and disappointed, anime sheaths it, just leaves
    • Sky flashes again, but it’s even darker purple, almost black
    • Duck just walks towards portal
  • Duck quacks and jumps through the portal
    • Quill hears “You guys should go”
    • Amoivada: “We should go”
  • Duck + Quill and Amoivada
    • Bloo isn’t bleeding, totally conscious
    • Skaga and Marcun yeet Blue through the portal
    • Duck: “this is such a shame, I once loved this place…”
    • Kenku YEETS through the portal
    • Duck: “Well, I guess you do care for your friend after all” and stands up, “I should get going, which plane of existence am I”
    • Quill: “The normal one”
    • Duck: “So the normal material plane”
    • Quill: “The one we came from”
    • Quill: asking for Amoivada “What other planes have you been to”
    • Duck: “Nothing but endless fire, oceans as far as the eyes can see, met several interesting characters of fae wild, been to underdark”
    • Amoivada: “How did you get there”
    • Duck: “Various portals came and went”
    • Quill: “You left”
    • Duck: “can’t get revenge if dead”
    • Quill: “I can help”
  • Marcan and Skaga go through the portal
    • Marcan throws branch, fades thru portal, portal still there, but it’s shrunk, no one can get through now, not even the duck
  • Duck slaps Bloo with feather, quack
    • “Tell the orange thing not to mess with interdimensional travel”
  • Duck quack hella loud, and says “listen, ever since that event that happened at Thalanrod, portals have been popping up everywhere, I would know, my land was once refuge for ppl from Thalanrod”
    • Amoivada: Are you not from this dimension
  • Duck takes its katana, “which way is the way out”
    • Quill: “Which way is out”
    • Duck: “Well, I will find a way out, I am stronger”
    • Quill: “do you not want to accompany me”
    • Duck: “I’d rather work alone, if I need your help I’ll come back to you”
    • Quill: “How will you come back”
    • Duck pats Quill on shoulder, see pristine white feather
    • Duck: “This will be the key, use this to contact me”
    • Quill: “Is this one time use”
    • Duck: Doesn’t explain anything
    • Quill: “When will I know I need to use this”
    • Duck: “In time of great need, I will know”
    • Duck phases off
    • Quill cries
  • Sometime around here, the duck is named Edwin
  • Bloo naps, Amoivada naps, Skaga keeping watch
  • Lore exchange happens
  • EVERYONE LEVEL 2 HYPE