There will be no further players joining this game. Good luck!
“Kane, pass me that piece of chalk. I have one more arc to complete before we can move to the next stage.”
Alexander took the chalk, completing the innermost ring of the pentacle. Handing it back to the darkly-clad man, he stepped outside of its boundary and allowed him to work. Kane drew, with the utmost care, a series of interconnected criss-crossing lines, forming within the pentacle its inner bindings.
Once he was done, he stepped aside to allow two women, one pale-skinned and crimson-clad, the other garbed in a multi-coloured robe, to move to opposite points of the pentacle’s ring. They began filling the gap between the rings with an inscription, the characters uncommon to human writings.
When, after a few minutes, each woman met the other’s script, and they too retired with Alexander and Kane, a man of Italian birth stepped forth to place the incense candles at precise points around the pentacle’s edge. Finally, the eldest of the six unravelled a timeworn scroll and recited words of imbuement.
The chalk lines began to show a faint emerald shine.
Moving into position, the six seemingly ordinary people stood equidistant from one another around the pentacle, careful not to smudge the lines with their feet. Starting with Alexander, they started to chant in low voices the words of opening.
The lines grew brighter. With each uttered syllable, the sorcery strengthened. The planes began to draw closer. The flames around them flickered, but there was no wind. The lines grew brighter, and brighter, until their light overwhelmed the entire room.
The last words were spoken. Everyone looked to the direct centre of the pentacle, where a dark hole in reality was beginning to open. Drawing a small dagger, they each allowed a single drop of their blood to spill upon the pentacle.
Howling voices filled their ears. They spoke of horrors, delights and much more, but the one thing that was clearest among the cacophony, was “opening…”
They knew they had succeeded. The portal had been opened. Now limitless power was theirs to command, the strength of spirits and the dread of demons would be at their disposal, for they had brought through not just a single entity, or a group, but the entire contents of the Sixth Plane, in the first Ritual of Merging ever to be attempted.
But then they realised things had gone horribly wrong. From the ever-expanding opening reached an almighty clawed hand, its fingers each as large as any of the humans in the room. Although it moved slowly, they were helpless to react to it, as it extended towards Alexander, clasping him and dragging him down into the portal.
Terrified, the humans could do nothing as they too were pulled in after Alexander and the hand had disappeared.
They saw nothing but darkness. And then, they hit the ground hard.
It wasn’t the wooden floorboards of their meeting place they peeled their shocked faces from, but rather, a foul-tasting dirt-laced plateau.
Rolling over, they immediately noticed a huge structure towering over them. Gothic architecture twisted its form, seemingly made of obsidian. After a moment, it became apparent that it was a giant archway, spanning from one end of the plateau to the other. All about them lay the ruins of what appeared to be similarly styled buildings, long since destroyed and scattered.
Beyond that, just as the plateau began to decline, walls of swirling colour encircled them, obscuring anything beyond from view.
As a final bonus, it quickly becomes apparent that Alexander is nowhere to be seen.