007. Ticket Taker

[katzepaw]

(2:27:48 - 2:42:48)

The Mighty Nein walk through a hallway, dimly lit by glowing orange yellow arcane orbs, pursuing someone through the ruins of an underground ancient city. They walk thrumming with nervous energy - aware they're likely closing in on whoever they're chasing, and confident about the fight but also quite nervous. In some parts of the hallway there is rubble or the remains of ancient mummified corpses; in others, there are strange tubes filled with monstrous beasts, odd arcane experiments.

They walk into a new room, and Caleb peers in, and can make out a doorway with the text "Immensus Hall" on a placard. And right next to the doorway, he suddenly notices the faint pulsing glow of a hovering, triangular, pyramid-like device. One he recognizes as an intuit charge.

There's a moment where he starts to try to shout or curse, cut off by the intuit charge's detonation. There is a flash of white light, but it is completely silent, but it feels as though there is a thrum of energy that fills the room and Caleb's brain is rocked with a searing white echoing pain. For a brief moment, it is impossible to think of anything but the pain, as the intuit charge does massive amounts of psychic damage to the entire party. Yasha, the tall barbarian woman, is knocked unconscious immediately; Fjord, the green half-orc man, is stunned on the ground. The rest of them are rattled, but the tall pink-haired firbolg cleric, Caduceus, begins to heal them. Caleb manages to block off the chamber they just entered from, as some of the prowling creatures from the ruins come to investigate their cries of pain. They sit for a while and lick their wounds, cursing that their enemy learned to do a trick that they had once pulled on him.

The group manage to dispel a second intuit charge, but they are aware there could be more, and in their current condition, even one going off will probably kill most of them. Eventually - carefully, watching for more intuit charges as they go - they creep down the hallway toward the Immensus Gate. Water is flowing into the room, and they begin to have to wade through water to make progress. Through the door is a massive chamber, filled with mist, and in the center is a 10-foot wide ring on top of a dais; it looks like a portal, and in the middle of it is a blue, glowing, crackling line weeping water.

The party debates what to do; they suspect even though their enemy, Lucien, is immune to psychic damage, he won't set off intuit charges if he's close because it will kill his companion Cree, but they aren't sure he wouldn't sacrifice her.

But as they're debating this, Caleb hears a telepathic voice in his mind, with a soft Irish accent. "Oh, don't be shy. Let's have a conversation. I've made some precautions, but I think it's worth a talk, right?"

They can hear Lucien and Cree in the chamber now; Cree seems to be working on some sort of spell, whispers 'I think I've got it,' but Lucien hushes her.

"Shh, wait, we've got company. We don't want to be as impolite as they've been."

They agree to send Beauregard in while the rest of them lie in wait, try to find the intuit charges and dispel them. Under the water, Caleb is looking for more charges - he can see the glow of color from a few of them, but can't pinpoint their exact location. But as Beau walks in, Lucien's voice speaks again.

"I think that's far enough, for I've my thoughts on turnabout should you take another step."

Beau stops.

"I know how you figured these little scramblers work, seeing as how you murdered most of our crew with them, so you know that if I think so much as a greener color shade, you all go. And you bleed from every memory."

Caleb, in his head, hears Beau's voice. "He's ready to kill us. Stand down."

Caleb stands up and steps out of the water, approaches Beau in the threshold. Now, he can see the two figures on the dais next to the Immensus Gate, which is sparking, glowing, and occasionally flashing in the center. The light source is just a faint glow backlighting them, but Caleb can recognize the tabaxi woman Cree and Lucien.

"Sorry we're late," says Beau.

"I'll say you're quite quick in some ways," says Lucien. "I'm impressed."

"How long have you been here setting up the party by yourself?" asks Beau.

Cree grumbles, as Lucien says, "Not terribly long, maybe about a better part of an hour. But we had to set up some precautions, since you tend to follow and nip at our heels, and well, you taught us a few tricks along the way."

Caleb watches Lucien, tensely. "Isn't this the part where you kick back and tell us all your clever plans?"

"Sure," says Lucien easily. "Step in a bit."

Caleb steps in and looks around for more intuit charges. He can spot two, blinking, right at the entrance of the chamber. He and Beau share a look, wondering if he's bluffing, if he would really set these off, but they can't risk it. They both step in. The others, hiding in the water, begin to step out of the water as well, realizing their plan to hide will be too risky. Caleb can also see heavy satchels on the platform next to the ring; those are the supplies Lucien needs for his plans.

Lucien holds up a hand to stop them, once they've all taken a few steps in. "I've not been a poor host," he says, in a playfully put-upon tone. "I lent you my personal reading." He chuckles a bit at this. "And taking what I was owed, I borrowed a few things with intent to return them, though some of these pretties intrigue me." As he runs his hands across each other and apparating from his hand you see a small, glowing yellow orb that he begins to spin through his fingers, and then it vanishes.

"We defended ourselves when assailed and even then I invited you to come see what we've been working on. Letting bygones be what they are and still, you treat us with such animosity. Shame." He starts to sound genuinely put upon now. "Manners are important and the last thing to go when an age runs dry. I do still very much want to show you what I've been working on, but I feel like you've shown me how hard it can be to trust. So I need you to earn it."

Cree at this point seems completely exasperated, and snaps, "Why don't we just kill them, Lucien? Stop the games."

Lucien puts the hand up. "Shh." He is still looking over in the direction of all of them. "Because try as I might, a part of me still likes them."

Beau gives Lucien an irritated look, as though she just said something to him with telepathy, and Lucien twitches a little, like it struck a nerve. Taking the cue from that, and from the odd thing Lucien just said, Caleb decides to try something as well.

"Well, tell us more, circus man," Caleb says softly.

Lucien's hand twitches again, and he looks confused for a minute and for a brief moment there's a hollow confusion in his eyes.

"Molly?" asks Jester. But he shakes it off again, and instead launches into his crazy villain speech about why he's planning to bring back an ancient city from the Astral Sea.

"Long ago, there was a group of people who had an idea to get away from oppressive minds and pursue their dreams. And when destruction came, not of their making, they were ready, or so they thought, as they shunted their people across the planes to safety, in the astral plane where they knew they could make their dreams a reality. Unfortunately, what they didn't account for was this terrible psychic storm that awaited them, that racked every mind and spirit and shattered them until they became one with their own city. Death would have been a sweet mercy, but instead, thousands of people and the Somnovem that guided them, were broken. And over time, slowly reformed, powerful. The instinct of their dreams driving them in a place where they could will their dreams to be, were their will not so fragmented. They needed help. But it was hard to push through the hunger. For now, the city was alive and things that live need to eat. I was lucky to be a mind free, one to speak to it and there's so much that they could do, but they just lack the guidance. It's a waste of potential. But I think I can show them. And maybe if you decide to be more friend than foe, when all is done, I could make your dreams come true as well."

He glances over towards Cree, and Cree gives him a nod. "Well, like I said. You've got to earn your path. Show me that you really have what it takes, beyond being a thorn in my drawers."

Cree does something to the gate, and water now begins to pour into the room.

"This door can go many places," says Lucien.

"And you want us to go on a little field trip?" asks Beau.

"Well, I'm certainly going on one," he says with a smile. "I guess it's a shame to work so hard, and, I don't know, not to have anyone who really understands it, who's right there to see it. But I've seen potential in at least a couple of you. You're already walking the right path."

Caleb watches him, and says, "And you plan to go and stay there? Or bring something back and make this world better than how you found it?"

"Yes," says Lucien, unmoved.

"And you want us to be an audience?" Caduceus asks.

"Well, I'd love an audience," says Lucien, "but I'd like for you all to earn your ticket. Come join the show."

"Maybe you should take your bodyguard," Beau says, gesturing to Yasha.

The water that poured out of the lip of the gate begins to undulate and begin to gather, like something that spilled through the sliver of a doorway, at which point, Lucien says "On the other side perhaps." He takes a bow, and as he stands up from the bow, he pulls the lever up with him and that thin line tears open to an entire portal to fill the central ring and where once there were glimpses of this endless watery, oceanic expanse, now there is a starscape, filled with waves of purple and gossamer, silk-like silver. And in the center of this space, there is a city, hundreds of beautiful towers, rising up with arches and bridges that connect, streets that line through. But as you watch, some of the towers twitch, like they're made with flesh, and on other points of the city, red eyes blink open and shut.

"Well, I think it's time you paid the ticket taker," Lucien says. Both he and Cree turn and grab the satchels, and they both leap through the portal and begin to drift through the starry sea. Lucien looks back at them, his now longer purple hair drifting, waves and then rockets off.

As Caleb and Beau start to chase after them, the central whirlpool in the center of the chamber shoots up into a mass of twirling, angry, elemental liquid, tether like tentacles whipping around. A terrifying, octopi-like elemental leviathan rises up from the ground, having escaped from the elemental plane where it was waiting for a chance while Lucien had briefly opened the gate. And it converges and attacks the Mighty Nein while Lucien and Cree get further and further away.