As the door closes behind Sweetcherrie a cloud of dust floats up in the air. She sneezes as she walks through to the back office where Gryphon is working on some guild documents.
"We really have to do something about this, and soon. It’s getting out of control, I mean, I saw massive spiders crawling around one of the portals the other day."
The thought of the spider makes her shudder, and she sits down at the other desk, and looks at some files. Gryphon looks up.
“I've not heard of any giant spiders around the Pen grounds... maybe they slipped through one of the portals down there. It'll be a good test for some of our applicants to go and clean them out.”
Sweetcherrie nods in reply.
“You're right though...,” Gryphon continues, “we really do need to clean up down there. It's almost as bad as Wyvern's office; it's no wonder we don't get many applicants. There's probably some down buried under the dust waiting for membership status.”
Getting up, Gryphon grabs a tome off a nearby shelf on opening methods for the portals.
“Let's head down and have a look... we've not tried any of the portals that are down there since we took over looking after the guild. I agree, it's definitely about time we checked things out.”
Chuckling about the idea of those poor applicants buried in dust, Sweetcherrie turns around to leave the office.
“oh... hold on - you mentioned spiders,” He grabs a few items for defence just in case they encounter something nasty, “Right, lets go.”
Another shiver runs down her spine at the thought of the spiders, but Sweetcherrie nods bravely and follows him out the office
They walk the corridors of the AVV, their footsteps echoing in the silence of the lonely halls, descending slowly past the catacombs into the cavernous area beneath The Pen known as The Underground heading for the portal rooms. When they arrive at the portals the whole site is covered in spider webs, which in turn are half covered in dust. The portals themselves are barely visible under the thick layers of dust, and Sweetcherrie sneezes again as some of the dust creeps into her nose.
"I now wish I had brought a broom already," Sweetcherrie says as she wipes a spider web out of her face. “What does that tome say about activation of these portals?
Opening the heavy book Gryphon glances at a few pages then flips to the first few pages reading carefully...
"It looks like some are activated by item, some by spell... some *are* items! We've got a huge range of portal types down here. Maybe if we open a couple of the larger ones into some empty areas the breeze will blow some of the dust away and clean things up a bit."
Sneezing again Sweetcherrie replies, "Sounds like a good idea, instead of harvesting ideas, one could harvest an allergy down here..."
She looks around and sees what looks like a futuristic laser gun on the floor. As she picks the gun up a spider crawls away, and she drops the gun. The trigger is activated and a portal door opens.
"I guess I've just found one portal..."
“So you have. I wonder where it leads...” Gryphon shakes his head, “No, we probably shouldn't get distracted into exploring.”
A soft breeze enters the portal room, and Sweetcherrie breathes in the smell of trees that drifts in.
With a mildly disappointed look she shakes her head, "Probably best not to...at the moment, we should first get this place clean."
Gryphon and Sweetcherrie watch for a moment as the alien breeze stirs the layers of dust causing some more smaller spiders to scuttle away into dark corners...
"Well, shall we have a look around and see if we can find a couple of big portals to deserted places that we can open up?"
Sweetcherrie nods and smiles, "There should be a lot more of these around."
Gryphon turns and trying not to kick up too much dust to choke the air he moves further down the hall moving towards a massive stone portal set off to one side of the corridor. After examining the runes set into the portal carefully, he pronounces a series of liquid syllables and a glow appears in the centre of the portal, quickly rippling out as the portal opens fully with a silent explosion. Without a sound the couple is being pushed backwards. Sweetcherrie tumbles backwards against some shelves in the corner, and as she hears the plonk of a coin falling down a loud whoosh starts dragging her into the portal that the coin opened.
"Gryphon! Something is slightly wrong here!" She shouts as she manages to grab hold on something.
Part way through activating a second large portal Gryphon glances back over his shoulder to see a fourth portal burst open next to Sweet. Unfortunately he's unable to stop speaking the words of opening as the magic it's self keeps drawing the words from him to complete the opening. Sweetcherrie struggles to stay in the portal room, but is being dragged into the portal that opened with the coin. She looks at what she managed to grab hold on and sees that she's holding a sword in her hands. With a quick move she sticks it in between the stones and holds on tightly, but on her right another portal starts opening as the sword swooshes through the air.
Magic ripples and strains and Sweetcherrie finds herself temporarily in a calm spot as the pull from each of the portals creates a calm spot around her. Suddenly being thrown back to the floor in the calm, Sweetcherrie quickly scrambles out of reach. Inhaling deeply she looks at Gryphon.
"Wow, that was close."
Turning towards Sweetcherrie, his own second portal now fully open Gryphon fails to notice a resonance coming from another portal further up the hall as the waves of magic caress it. Quietly glowing other portals start to activate themselves.
“It was... we really should see to it that these portals are contained with some kind of safeguard so that they cannot affect each other like that.”
"Yeah, this is...err...what am I hearing?"
Further distracted by plans of magically insulated rooms for each portal Gryphon turns at Sweetcherrie's question with a puzzled, "What?"
Zig zagging to avoid being dragged into one of the open portals Sweetcherrie moves towards where the sound is coming.
"I think there's something else down here, besides us I mean."
Gryphon peers into the shadows and listens carefully, but distracted by seeing several portals open that he had not activated he fails to notice several dark shapes creeping out of the first large portal he opened, their eyes gleaming a faint red in the darkness.
"Ah Sweet..." Gryphon begins, his eyes widening with worry as he sees a few more portals reacting to the chain reaction and opening themselves further down the corridor. "I think we might have more to worry about than there being something down here with us."
"Huh?" Not taking her eyes off the creature that slinks towards her, she moves backwards, "What do you mean?"
With growing horror Gryphon watches as portal after portal opens. The air begins to thicken with the feel of magic running wild and slowly Gryphon backs towards Sweet's voice, away from the magical storm building in front of him.
"The portals are... I... I think we've got a few too many portals open at once."
Backing into Sweetcherrie, Gryphon casts a quick glance over at her, not comprehending at first that she's staring at something behind him.
"Sweet? Are you even listening to me? We've got a big problem here!"
Sweetcherrie swings at the creature with the sword she's still holding in her hands, but swooshes straight through the shadow. Quickly she looks up to see what on earth Gryphon is talking about and her eyes turn big as she sees all the open portals.
"Maybe we should try to get out of here?" she says with a small voice.
Realising that Sweetcherrie wouldn't have her sword out because of the portals Gryphon quickly turns to see the horde of shadow creatures slinking towards him and Sweetcherrie.
"Oh no." He whispers, half to himself as he rapidly tries to bring up shields to cover him and Sweetcherrie - somehow forgetting in that one instant the incredible build-up of magical energy happening right behind him.
Taking another swing at one of the creatures, Sweetcherrie feels that the floor under her feet has started to shake.
“What’s happening?”
Her voice quivers lightly as even the creatures seem to back away from them.
The stars overhead shimmered red, and Sweetcherrie was looking at them fondly....wait a minute! red?! She shook her head, something was completely wrong here.
Upon moving she noticed that she had a banging headache, and when she looked next to her she saw that Gryphon was out cold. What on earth had happened? And where was she?
All around her it felt similar enough to where she’d just come from, with the difference that she could not see any trace of the pen keep. Something must have gone terrible wrong during those last moments in the portal room. The images rushed over her, but all she could think of was that something must have gone wrong when all those portals opened at once.
With a soft nudge she tried to wake up Gryphon; wherever they were, she couldn’t leave him there like this.
With a groan Gryphon clutches his head, keeping his eyes firmly closed.
"Oooh my head. I feel like..."
He stops as he realises that something doesn't feel right.
"What happened... Where are we??”
Sweetcherrie grins meekly.
“I know as much as you do, you ok?”
"I think... No, no I'm not. Let me lie here for a few minutes until my head stops feeling like it's going to fall off. Then we'll see what we can make of this."
Carefully Gryphon lies back down, closing his eyes and willing the pain coursing through his head to go away. With a small nod, careful not to move her head more than necessary, Sweetcherrie scrambles up herself. They would have to find a way to get back to the penkeep, there was more work to do, and besides that she simply wanted to lie down. The headache buzzed through her head, and the buzz was becoming louder each moment. The buzz was now so loud that she couldn’t even hear herself think anymore, suddenly she was pushed against her shoulder, and almost fell over again.
She flicked around, and her eyes grew wide in horror. A wasp the size of a crow was flying straight at her. Just a moment before this had been an almost empty plane, and all of a sudden there were these giant wasps. Were they even real? Or had her headache created them?
A persistent buzz woke Gryphon as his headache began to diminish. Opening one eye with care he noted that a faint mist was beginning to rise from the ground, obscuring the few details of the otherwise featureless expanse.
A sudden cry of alarm from Sweetcherrie causes Gryphon to suddenly turn and gasp as his head swims with pain. Through the throbbing he can barely make out Sweetcherrie waving her sword at something dive bombing her from the air.
The mist was now cloaking them, and Sweetcherrie already had difficulties to make out Gryphon’s form, let alone hit the wasps.
“Gryphon, I don’t care if your head hurts, get us out of here!”
As the mists clear Gryphon notices a nearby cave. Cave? Where did that come from?
"Sweetcherrie, quickly, into the cave!"
Another wasp cracks open, splashing more green ooze down her clothes, and turning on her heels she runs towards the cave, pulling Gryphon with her. As the two rush into the cave the buzzing sound fades rapidly behind them to be replaced by an almost eerie silence. Ahead a silvery shimmer breaks the darkness but an outcropping of stone hides the source.
The wasps are circling the entrance, and they have no other option than to go deeper into the cave. Slowly, to not stumble over any rocks they advance, after a couple of steps the source of the shimmer reveals itself. Against the rock wall stands a man-sized mirror; it’s edges hold some of the most precious stones Sweetcherrie has ever seen, and her mouth drops open in awe.
Gryphon carefully approachs the mirror noticing that the light seems to be coming from within the silvery glass which ripples like it's a kind of radiant liquid.
“I think... I think we can use this to scry and maybe even communicate with those back at the pen. I can sense a kind of communication magic in it.”
Sweetcherrie walks closer to the mirror, and puts her hand on the surface. It wrinkles slightly and then changes; in it she can see the pen keep. At that same moment she hears someone stir further down in the cave, and in the corner of her eyes she sees movement. The next moment half the wall seems to move forward.
Gryphon leans in examining the magic woven into the mirror, momentarily unaware of the looming danger. "As far as I can tell, all you really need to do is concentrate strongly on who you want to talk to as you speak into the mirror. From what I can tell of the enchantment, as long as you maintain your concentration your message should get through loud and clear."
Sweetcherrie keeps her hands on the mirror and starts talking, concentrating hard on what she’s doing. In the corner of her eyes however she sees the mass of stone coming up to Gryphon, and suddenly she sees the stones taking shape. With her hands still on the mirror she shouts a warning to Gryphon. He turns around just in time to see a rock hand swinging towards his head. Desperately Sweetcherrie turns back to the mirror and starts shouting for help, hoping that someone will hear her…..
“Urgent message to all pennites!!! *sshsshsh* stranded on an unknown plane *sshshss* Help us!! *sshsshsss* beware *sssshshsh* We- *ZAP* I can’t hold them off much longer, Sweetcherrie!! *shshssssss* The Alliance of Vagabonds and Vanguards needs your help! *sshssshssh* Almost done here, Gryphon! Aaaaarggg…..Trolls!!! I hate trolls, get us out of here!!
*Shsshsshshsshshsh……*”
