The group rises in the dawn, and girds loins both physical and metaphoric. The plan is to enter under cover of Wind Walk and go swiftly into the building and into the stairwell without pause. They rapidly ascend the stairs, pausing to peep into an art gallery before being dragged back on task by Dalliance and Barada. At the top of the stairs an open door. Beyond it a royal bedroom, and a spiral stair leading upward. At the top of the stair, an unlit room holds a platinum and steel framework. Within the twisted bars is a casket and resting within, a gray ovoid. Dalliance notices the invisible madman hefting a staff with which to attack, and she alerts the group. In the next few seconds, Demming lets fly with Finger of Death and slays the madman before he can do serious harm.
Right! Now, time to get down to plundering. A few disintegrate spells and there is a path to the object. As Barada reaches in to grab it, he feels as though he is flowing into the stone. Somewhat shaken, he falls back. Dalliance whips up a Material spell and a few moments later she telekineses the object to her bag of holding…where it promptly falls through. As this transpires, the building has been undergoing some violent rocking and the group is being pummeled by falling rocks and blasted by stone shrapnel. As Dalliance activates her Cube of Force, there is an exceptionally strong shudder and the entire castle collapses into a heap.
A wall of force is erected within the Cube and then the cube is deactivated. The group swiftly planeshifts back to Waterdeep and Barada’s manor house. There, they are met by the apparition that sent them upon their quest. He congratulates them and honors their deed. The group is uneasy and paranoid and suspicious and in the end they pass the stone off to him and he vanishes.
In the subsequent weeks and months it is increasingly clear that the world is changing and not for the better as far as the group is concerned. The world is drifting away from the rest of the planes. The high level clerical spells are the first to fail, then more and more divine power is lost – inaccessible. The mages are not able to move across the planes and it seems as though the group is stranded in a world that is becoming increasingly mundane as the magical creatures die off. It seems the group has managed to remove the magical linchpin that binds this world to the rest of the planes.
In the end, the group decides to activate the Space-Time Scepter to leave this doomed world and seek another. Dalliance offers the dozen souls she has at her disposal and the scepter flashes, yanking the group out of their universe. Well, most of the group anyway. Two members are left behind as the remaining four shoot across the multiverse like comets blazing through the deepest of space. They enter a strange world, devoid of magic. Devoid of magic, but full of radioactivity, mutated carniverous rabbits and plasma powered battle armor.
Adept though they are at living off the land, to suddenly be without magic is a game changer for the party. Within a matter of days, all have perished. Here endeth the story of the EFK.
***
Meanwhile, back in multiverse control – the crew breathes easy. A serious threat to the balance of power in the planes has been corrected and the gods will all feel just a bit more confident of their continued existence now that the EFK is no more.
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