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That was… you hadn’t taken the time to try and decipher whatever it was the Nightrunners were trying to accomplish, the urgency of the moment had not permitted that, but it looked very much like a ritual of calling. They had been attempting to draw on powers from the outer planes, possibly a devil or demon lord or even worse. Wayward souls attempted such things all the time and typically succeeded in nothing more than summoning their insides to their outsides, or conjuring some fiendish frogspawn that promptly devoured them before buggering back off to the lower planes. Such matters are beneath the attention of a seventh-order archmage. At first you hadn’t believed Anya’s insistence that these ones were any different. But this lot had serious power, and the knowledge to act on it.

Whatever their aim, they did ultimately manage *something,* as evidenced by your now no longer being in the ritual chamber.

Well, time to get moving. You hop up, Prestidigitate off a cloud of dust and dirt, and get your hair back in its neat braids, then hold out your arm and call for Shadow, your familiar. A moment later the oversized raven winks into being on your forearm and gives you a whisper-thin croak. You flick your eyes upward, and without further instruction he flaps into the air. Leaving him to it, you find your way to your sister, and after considering the kindest method of waking her, pour a healing potion on her face.

“Wha…?” she mutters. “What the- OW, FUCK!”

Her arm makes a rather unpleasant noise as the bones knit themselves back together.

“Morning,” you say nonchalantly.

“For fuck’s sake, Alyssa, you could have warned me,” Anya replies, cradling her newly-mended arm.

“It would only have prolonged your suffering.”

She gives you a familiar evil look, but quickly softens. “What’s this about morning? Wasn’t it midnight a moment ago? And- wait, where is this?”

“I have no idea.” You close your eyes and take a look through Shadow’s. “There’s forest all around, but there could be farms to the east. Not seeing much else.”

“Damn. East it is, then,” Anya says as she pulls herself up. Once upon a time your mirror image, your twin now keeps her dark hair much shorter and out of her eyes in a haphazard pony-tail, lacking any hint of the highborn refinement to which you were raised, in sharp contrast to your ever-elegant braids. So too her speech, as plain and coarse as a mortal sailor’s, and her dress, a simple tunic with the sun-disk of the All-Father over mithril half-plate. “Who else came through?” she says, examining the clearing.

>>6182756

You look with her and see five other figures. The whole party is here, it seems. A rather exceptional gathering of talent in this day and age: an archmage, archpriest, and archdruid all of the seventh order, along with four others of commensurate ability. But the Nightrunners proved dangerous enough to warrant it.

Anya mutters a spell under her breath, and with a wave of her hand the faint light of a Mass Cure Moderate Wounds washes over everyone present, setting them to rouse in the process. Further relief seeps into you as aching muscles mend, and you feel almost back to normal.

First awake is Soren. At just over seven feet, he’s none too tall for a goliath, although plenty broad, and has rather more hair on his head than most. He’s a paladin and a colleague of Anya’s among the faithful of Pelor. You’ve worked with him twice before, and felt him to be a solid reliable sort.

Less certain is Senna, his young protégé. As to what sort of life that girl must have experienced to make her a world-class combatant by the time she came of age, you can only speculate, but it’s left her distinctly skittish. Such is all too often a Changeling’s lot. A shame, really - she has some latent talent at spells and in another life might have had a chance at being a real wizard. When she wakes, it’s all at once, and she bursts off the ground as disappears so swiftly one might mistake her for having become invisible.

The other two of Anya’s hires are human men, musketeers you know only vaguely by reputation. So far they’re pulling their weight. Emíl the Bard is a skilled enchanter and illusionist as well as sharpshooter, while Lukas is so taciturn you know only that he is good with figures and has a keen interest in artifice.

While Anya moves to confer with her colleagues, you leave her to it, instead turning your attention elsewhere to your party’s druid, with whom you have worked with many times before.

Stretching out where she lays languid as a cat is Eva. Barefoot, red-haired, and dressed in the plainest brown tunic, the diminutive little wood-elf is the autumn forest come to life.

“I’m guessin’ we won?” Eva says, “Seein’ as we’re all alive.” A flicker of doubt crossed her face “We *are* alive, right?”

“I’ve been to the Hells before, and this isn’t there,” you reply, offering her a hand up, which she accepts. At her full height she doesn’t quite reach your collarbone. “I don’t think this the Seven Heavens either, nor the Fey-wilds or any of the primordial planes. As to victory? I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“We did ‘em a real number though!” she says cheerily. “Just like those vampires in Corinthia. I bet they won’t be tryin’ whatever that was again for a good long time!”

“If only we should be so lucky.”

>>6182759

“Alyssa!” you hear your sister calling your name, and you turn your attention to her again. “It’s not working,” she says, holding up a small object you recognise as a sending stone. “I can’t reach anyone.”

It’s confirmed, then. A recipient might simply refuse to hear a Sending as from a spell, but a joined stone could fail only if obstructed by special-purpose wards or if a stone were to be in different planes of existence from the others.

“I don’t suppose either of you thought to prepare a Plane Shift yesterday?” you ask.

Both Anya and Eva shake their heads.

Even had they though, there’s a good chance it wouldn’t have helped. Interplanar navigation is rather more perilous and imprecise than teleportation across a single plane even at the best of times; attempting to plane shift on the fly without even knowing where one is in the first place is just asking for trouble. And that was before considering the possibility of travel restrictions imposed by local - or Higher - authorities.

You pause to consider your next step. You have one Greater Teleportation available, and you can see what looks like a settlement to the east through your familiar’s eyes. But you also have a Galder’s Tower prepared, in case you want to shelter here instead.

1) Shelter in place until the morning, wait to prepare your spells and rest up a bit from your recent battle.
2) Go to town now. If you’re lucky, you may be able to procure some help, and if not you’ll likely still have some strong city wards to shelter behind instead of a flimsy conjured shack in a forest which could be inhabited by gods-know-what.

>>6182755

Oh, a couple housekeeping things I should mention:

First, the adventurers' world and its magic rules are based on 3.5e DnD/Pathfinder 1e, but their world is not a game, it just has magic and superpowers as if it were, and the characters themselves would not speak of rolls or hitpoints or skill points or enhancement bonuses.

Secondly, I've gotta play a bit fast and loose with canon sizes in Westeros. The continent itself and all sorts of things in it are just way too damn big. The Wall, 700 feet high? Have you ever stood next to a 700-foot cliff? That's like 0.78 USS New Jersey lengths straight up.

>>6182762
>2) Go to town now. If you’re lucky, you may be able to procure some help, and if not you’ll likely still have some strong city wards to shelter behind instead of a flimsy conjured shack in a forest which could be inhabited by gods-know-what

>>6182762
>1) Shelter in place until the morning, wait to prepare your spells and rest up a bit from your recent battle.

A wizard always needs to always be prepared. Going blind into something without preparations is how a wizard ends up dead. Summon some horses to make up for the time we will lose, but a wizard must prepare. Planar travel can be perilous, and we will need a guinnea pig, so I should create a duplicate to take the brunt of any mishaps.

Plan Tinco: Rest up, ride to town, get directions home, use clairvoyance and scrying spells, mass teleport home. Barely an inconvenience.
Plan Parma: We're on another plane. Ride to town, rent lodgings, prepare duplicate, use scrying and clairvoyance magic to get information on our planar whereabouts, consult with local mages for more information, use duplicate to test the weave currents, use clairvoyance and scrying to make sure the duplicate arrived safely, plane shift home.
Plan Calma: Something else. Use contact other plane and limited wish to ask the Gods directly for instructions on getting home. Test instructions with duplicate and then follow them.
Plan Quesse: Begin to consider the Unthinkable.

"How much coin do we have?"

>Spellbook (assuming 20 INT):
>0th Level Spells
Read Magic (free), Detect Magic, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Mending
>1st Level Spells
Mage Armor (rest cast x1), Mount (rest cast x4), Feather Fall x1, Magic Missile x4, Comprehend Languages x1
>2nd Level Spells
False Life (rest cast), Mirror Image x2, Summon Spider Swarm x2, Rope Trick x1
>3rd Level Spells
Water Breathing (rest cast), Phantom Steed (rest cast x3), Clairvoyance x1, Lightning Bolt x2, Fireball x1, Haste x1, Gentle Repose x1
>4th Level Spells
Mneumonic Enhancer (rest cast), Scrying (rest cast x4), Arcane Eye x1, Polymorph x2, Rainbow Pattern x2
>5th Level Spells
Contact Other Plane (rest cast), Passwall x1, Cone of Cold x1, Telekinesis x1, Dismissal x1
>6th Level Spells
Planar Binding (3 unicorns; rest cast) Chain Lightning x1, Tenser's Transformation x1
>7th Level Spell
Simulacrum (1300gp all day rest-cast), Limited Wish x1

>>6182831
(replace 5th level spell passwall x1 with Teleport x1 for Plan Tinco.)*

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>>6182762
>2) Go to town now. If you’re lucky, you may be able to procure some help, and if not you’ll likely still have some strong city wards to shelter behind instead of a flimsy conjured shack in a forest which could be inhabited by gods-know-what.

Gee I sure hope QST doesn't vote for the short-sighted options 100% of the time as usual.

>>6182762
>1) Shelter in place until the morning

>>6182762
Alright, gonna call votes here so I can get to writing. It's a tie, so I flipped a coin, and came up with tails for option 2.

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>>6182762

>2) Go to town now.

You close your eyes and focus through your familiar’s to examine the settlement more closely. The city is a dense huddle of timber and thatch sitting low on the fork of a river, and above it on a hill is a many-spired castle of dark granite with which its walls are linked. Rather rustic, to be sure, but you see what look like humanoids from a distance and nothing obvious to suggest demonic or otherwise unsavoury influences.

“Any objections to making for civilisation?” you ask. “There’s a city nearby, and I do not feel particularly inclined to stay here.”

“How far?” Anya asks.

“A few miles. Close enough to ride.”

“I have no objections, though we should still be cautious.”

“I’m ready! I even got most of my spells still, in case of trouble,” Eva says, raising her hand.

“And I for one never say no to a chance at a warm bed and a hot meal,” Emíl supplies, giving voice to what looking around seems to be on everyone else’s mind.

A consensus reached, you tap the heels of your Boots of Mount together, and a fine horse swiftly materialises beside you, pouring into place like liquid smoke. Normally you would have used a much more powerful Phantom Steed for occasions when teleportation would not suffice, but you neglected to prepare that spell the previous morning, and Mount is one of those spells any regular traveller learns or acquires a means to produce if they have the means; even an archmage like yourself keeps her trusty boots around for just such an occasion. The rest of your companions follow suit, and soon enough you’re riding hard through the forest and fields and banks of half-melted snow.

As you travel, you examine the city closer from above, and find a sense of concern building in the back of your mind. There’s something off about it. For one, the wards that defend a city are typically powerful enough to be felt at some remove, but no matter how close you send Shadow, you can’t sense them. The castle does have an aura, albeit not a strong one, and nothing stops Shadow from flying close enough to make out individual faces.

By the time you reach the gates it’s clear that the city is at best a barbarian frontier outpost. The astonished reactions of the gate guards are rather telling - with the slack-jawed stares you receive, one might think they’ve never seen an elf before. Perhaps they haven’t. Their eyes linger especially long on Soren, for whatever reason.

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>>6184929

Anya gives you a look as if to say ‘you do the talking’ - your normal arrangement, where diplomacy is required - and you ride ahead to talk to the guards. They say something in a language you don’t recognise. You reply in every humanoid language you know, then in your own Cuvan elvish, then highborne Eladrin elvish, and then various forms of Draconic, Celestial, Infernal, Abyssal, and Sylvan, even Primordial. Still nothing.

Finally you relent and reach into your bag of holding to withdraw a scroll of Tongues, your only such on hand, and turn away to use it without coming off as too threatening. It doesn’t work. The two men look ready to bolt after watching the scroll dissolve into light and dust.

“Gods be great!” one swears.

“Maegi,” says the other.

“Pardon, sirs, but I’m afraid my companions and I are terribly lost,” you explain at last, ignoring their consternation. “Would you please tell us where we are?”

The two men glance at each other. “… Wintertown?” the right one hazards.

“And where is that?”

“The- the North.”

“Of?”

“Of the… Seven Kingdoms, m’lady.”

Unfortunately, the name means nothing to you. “Right… could you at least direct us towards an inn or hotel, then?”

“The S- Smoking Log, m’lady. It’s right in the centre of town, on the main street, if you please.”

No wards react to your passing through the gates. Riding down the muddy streets, your hopes of finding help in this city are fading fast. Even using active detection reveals no sources of power anywhere, not a single one, not so much as a trinket or fine dagger, and the inhabitants reflect general material poverty such as you have not seen in many years. They like the men outside openly gawk at you all as you ride by, and some even follow a ways to get a closer look.

As the guard said, in the centre of town stands a three-story building with a sign depicting a burning log. Outside are a trio of humans chatting with one another. The two older men - soldiers, you think, judging by their demeanours - react much as everyone else has, but the youngest of the three, a boy not yet grown, instead freezes only for a moment before approaching you.

“My lady, I did not know my lord father was expecting guests, or I would have been there to receive you,” he says with a polite nod. The boy is dressed in a fur cloak and a brown woolen coat and breeches, and wears a sword on his hip, and up close you see his hair is more red than brown.

“Your lord father?”

“Lord Eddard Stark, of Winterfell. I am his son and heir, Robb.”

“Well, fear not, for we aren’t expected,” you tell him. “In fact, we’re rather lost, and would be most grateful if your father should be willing to see us on such short notice.”

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>>6184930

“I believe he will, lady…”

“Alyssa NicNivara, of Cuva.”

“‘Cuva?’ I am afraid I am not familiar with the name, lady Alyssa.”

“No, I daresay you wouldn’t be. It is rather far from here. Will you take us to see the lord?”

“Follow me, my lady.”

You quickly explain the exchange to the rest of the group, then fall in line behind him as he clears a path through the narrow streets.

The walls of the castle - Winterfell, the boy called it - loom above you like a cliff as you climb the hill to its gatehouse, the snow-covered spires of the buildings within like jagged mountain peaks. Again, no wards react as you ride through the gates and over the drawbridge.

“The stables are this way, my lady,” Robb says once you’re all through, directing you left across a broad grassy courtyard.

For a moment you’re not sure what he’s talking about, until you notice him staring at your mounts. “Oh! That won’t be necessary.” You don’t bother dismounting as your horse dissolves back into the aether beneath you, and land on your feet with practised grace.

The boy, his guards, and a few other onlookers let out startled gasps as your party’s mounts all disappear in turn. You tilt your head in confusion. “They were merely summons,” you explain.

“You mean- magic?” Robb says, wide-eyed.

“… Yes.” Admittedly, you’ve never been entirely certain what that word refers to; you’ve known mortals call almost everything magic, and with little consistency one moment to the next or one language or people to another, but it is used for spell-casting often enough.

“You’re a maegi,” he says, eyes suddenly sharp.

“I’m a wizard,” you clarify. “Do the Seven Kingdoms not have wizards?”

He shakes his head, still wary. “Not like you, my lady. I have never heard of a hedge wizard making a horse disappear.”

You suppress a groan only with great effort. You’ve found yourself in the plane of ignorant barbarians who don’t even know about first-level spells. Dealing with primitive peoples may be old hat to a seasoned traveller such as yourself, but it’s a ragged and threadbare hat that does nothing to keep the rain off, and these barbarians are clearly more isolated than most. “Are we to wait here?” you ask, returning to the point.

This seems to put Robb back in more familiar shoes, and his former dignified bearing returns. “No, my lady. The Great Keep is this way.”

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>>6184932

He leads you across the yard to your right and through another gated wall. The Great Keep as he called it is as spacious inside as some cathedrals, with a similarly high vaulted ceiling, the timbers of which are stained black by centuries of hearthsmoke. Dozens of tables and benches are arrayed throughout, and on a raised platform opposite the oaken doors is a throne of the same granite as the rest of the castle. After bidding you to sit and rest here while he informs his father, Robb disappears through a doorway, leaving your group alone but for the two soldiers.

You take the moment to gather your party closer. “I imagine you’ve all noticed by now, but these people know nothing of spells or spellcraft,” you say. “I have little hope of finding help here.”

“Where else?” Anya says. You can see the tenseness in her body plain as day. This is her mission, charged to her directly by the High Council of Cuva, and she’s never been one to take responsibility lightly. “All we need is rest - we can figure this out ourselves.”

“What kind of plane is this though?” Eva wonders aloud. “I haven’t ever heard of any places without spells.”

“I can only imagine this is an isolated corner of an outer plane,” you reply, guessing on the fly. “They are said to be vast beyond imagining.”

It’s not much of an answer, though, and doesn’t get you any closer to going home.

Before you can discuss anything further, the door across the hall opens again, and a man in (what here passes for) finery appears and takes the granite throne, followed by a few other men, Robb, and a woman who looks strikingly like Robb, perhaps his lady mother. The Lord Stark is a human of brown hair, dark eyes, and a neatly-trimmed beard, and carries himself with a stiff air of dignity.

“It is not often we receive unexpected guests, here in the North,” he says, eyeing you all carefully, “least of all visitors from distant lands.”

“Believe us, we are as surprised as you to be here,” you say, advancing towards the throne platform. You bow politely. “I am the Archmage Alyssa NicNivara of Cuva, honorary High Councillor and wizard of the seventh order. We are currently on a mission of some urgency, but find ourselves lost far from home; we ask only for your hospitality for a time, that we might find our way again.”

“Wizard… yes, my son did say something about that,” the lord says. “He claims you - what was it, ‘made a horse disappear?’”

“With all due respect, that is quite literally the least I can do. An archmage is one who makes the impossible real.” You mutter a spell under your breath, and slowly lift into the air. Another elementary spell - as a talented transmuter, you first learned Fly when you were fourteen, nearly two centuries ago - yet Lord Stark and his retainers can only look on in awe.

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>>6184934

Although not all the sort of awe you were expecting, the lord doesn’t seem ready to throw you out. “You ask me for my bread and salt, and the safety of my roof. Can you promise the same - that you will honour my household, and the safety of my family and my people?”

You smile as you descend back to the floor. “I promise, my lord. Though, if you prefer, I am also capable of conjuring a tower for us outside.”

“Of course you can…” he shakes his head in exasperation. “That will not be necessary. Let it not be said Winterfell turns away honest guests. You will have rooms and the kitchens will see you fed. And you will tell me more of where it is you come from, and how you came to be lost.”

“Naturally - though, the spell I am using to understand your language will only last another hour, so conversation will need to wait until we have had a chance to rest.”

Clearly neither your presence nor the lord’s decision are met with much enthusiasm among Winterfell’s household. Several retainers including the lady who must be his wife start to voice objections, and for a moment you’re concerned a serious argument is about to break out, but before it can the doors behind you burst open, capturing the attention of the hall.

The man to enter is flushed and hurried-looking and dressed in less-than-clean riding leathers. He pauses when he sees a party of strange heavily-armed foreigners, but surprisingly turns away instead and proceeds towards the lord’s platform. You don’t quite catch what he says to Lord Stark, but the news is clearly not welcome, and generates some more hurried discussion among the members of the household.

“My apologies, lady Alyssa,” the lord says at length. “I’m afraid I must ride at first light - a deserter from the Night’s Watch has been captured on my lands, and it falls to me to administer justice; I shall be away most of the day.”

“If all goes well, we will be gone before tomorrow is out,” you say. “If not, we will await your return.”

“Hm. Vayon, please show our guests to their rooms.” The signal for the close of the meeting is unmistakable in his tone.

One of the retainers, Vayon, most likely, walks forward with obvious reluctance. “Come with me, my lady.”
>1) Prepare a wide variety of spells to infer your location. (Feel free to suggest methods or specific spells to use.)
>2) Attempt a Limited Wish to return to the Material Plane. (300xp) (Will require a high-DC Intelligence check.)
>3) Use a Limited Wish to discern your position. (300xp) (Lower but still high DC.)
>4) Write in. (For example, if you want to accomplish anything before passing out, confer with your party, et c. You have an hour or so of Tongues remaining but no castings of Comprehend Languages.)

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>>6184935

Gods, that was longer than I planned. someone help me write less.


Also first character sheet finished. Others to follow whenever.

Alyssa NicNivara (Alìssè nich Nìvharrè), aged 193
High Elf Wizard 13 (Transmutation; enchantment and necromancy opposed)
XP: 81,500/91,000

Str 10(±0) Dex 12(+1) Con 16(+3) Int 26(22)(+7) Wis 14(+2) Cha 16(+3)

Spells per day: (5) 7, 7, 7, 7, 5, 4, 3

Feats: Scribe Scroll, Craft Wands and Staves, Craft Magic Weapons and Armour, Craft Wondrous Item, Forge Ring, Combat Casting, Twin Spell, Quicken Spell, Invisible Spell, Persistent Spell

Special Abilities: Minor Alchemy (Su), Transmuter’s Stone (Su)

Equipment:
Pistol +1
Dagger +1
Rapier +1
Choker of Nondetection (2/day) and Intellect +4
Ring of Protection and Endure Elements +2
Ring of Change (as a Phylactery of Change, unlimited duration Polymorph with back-and-forth transformations at-will, 1 new form per day)
Periapt of Resistance +3 and Protection from Evil
Medium Rod of Extending (Bracelet)
Medium Rod of Sculpting (Bracelet)
Pearl of Power (3rd; mounted on a ring)
Bag of Holding (Belt)
Pluripotent Shiftweave Garments (robes that can shapeshift into other clothes 3/day)
Boots of Mount (at-will, 1 active mount at a time)
Lexicon (used to record non-magical books and documents)
Orrery (shows the position of the planets and stars)

As a long-time adventurer and world-famous craftswoman who supports herself by creating heirlooms for kings and merchant-princes, you are fairly item-rich for your level, but you also don't have access to your tower and its resources here in Westeros, and as you were not expecting a sustained campaign you are also short on both cash and expendables.

Cantrips are considered at-will, but not limitless- overuse to the order of >40 per day will still impose fatigue or exhaustion.

Spells which list experience point costs do have those costs. You have around 3,500 points to spend before reverting to level 12.

The rest of your party should be assumed to be of broadly average wealth-by-level. All have items that can cast Mount 1/day or more, a staple for any habitual adventurer.

>>6184935
>3) Use a Limited Wish to discern your position. (300xp) (Lower but still high DC.)