Through The Realms

Welcome to Eustacious

Sanguine red clouds darken the sky above. Cliffs inland reach jut up to meet them, and in the distance where we would expect a river, molten rock and fire flows from an unseen volcano. It's hell.
 
"We are in the realm of Portalmaster Sera", the Vespula siblings joked.
 
Our portalmaster felt the pull of the weave, and as she opened her mouth to point out the opening another portal, the extraplanar gate opened on its own and spat out a horse-sized beast. Almost canine, on four legs, with one terrible, blood-red eye instead of two, and spines running down its neck and tail -- just like the wicked talons on its paws. Scales seemed to patchwork with the fur --
 
"The scales... are new...." Bee noted. Sera leapt (misty step'd) into action, as Milo and Jarek froze in fear. As she engaged with the creature, webs began to cover the ground and its feet and twist up its form.
 
The creature simply teleported into the middle of the group. Milo fired wildly with spells, missing everything as the creature nearly knocked Jarek to the ground, growling and ready to devour him. Kajura the snake leapt at the creature, sinking her jaws into the beast as Jarek readying magic to channel, but it was all to no avail.
 
Sera sent the beast back to its home realm, and we picked ourselves back up.
 

The Archway

We took refuge underneath a gigantic stone archway (where the path led onwards). As Milo setup camp and something to eat, we noticed a strange assortment of stones with letters -- G, E, O, and R -- with corresponding indents for stones.
 
Bee pointed out "ogre", and Milo "gore". Sera was convinced we're missing the rest of "George", and Jarek "Ergo".
 
(Canon has realized that Tiberius is the "good guy jock", aka Corbin Bleu)
 

The Stones

We waited until a good rest and the next day before handling the stones. There was discussion, settling on the unfortunately "ogre" as an answer. As Sera and Jarek put the stone into the archway, the translucent stone and gems began to dangerously glitter and shine. Magic pulled from the ether, and soon another portal filled the archway.
 
Examining the portal, it seems we must enter the portal or not at all. It appears stable for now.
 

A giant hill... giant

The archway disappeared behind us, and the colors of the weave twisted to leave us atop a hill, surrounded by fields and plains that extend for years. A similar archway is nearby, with lo and behold an ogre. Sera tried to approach stealthily, met with a roar of the ogre, which turned to slowly lumber towards us. Menacingly.
 
We made short work of it.
 
The next archway had stones with letters again: S, D, A, E, E, S, I. Bee offered: "seaside", and Sera and Milo put the stones in without pause. "We could have put in 'disease'," Sera joked.
 
The archway brought us back to the previous landscape. It dawned on us that this could be an elaborate puzzle. Bee tried "ergo", to no avail, but of course "gore" worked. So we entered.
 

See hellside

We all shuddered at the very air as we entered. Ramah granted us Saldar's grace, and though Milo was overpowered by the sheer horror of it all, Bee, Jarek and the rest were okay. our halfing was doubled over, vomiting.
 
The landscape was hell. Bodies of flayed and destroyed creatures were piled everywhere. Even the very dirt was wet with blood; the air was humid and cloying.
 
Off in the distance, an arcanomechanical golem was sifting through bodies. As it approached, its gemset eyes seemed to scan over us before moving on. We all froze, ready, but the construct seemed intent on an unseen mission.
 
As we recollected ourselves, we searched amidst the hellish landscape. Sera was of course the one to find the portal, already active, and we entered quickly.
 

Abrupt decay

Jarek and Sera were the first to keel over when we stepped through the portal: all of the nearby vegetation has withered and died from corrupt magics. The rest of the party was able to see the only living thing -- an oak tree -- while the two tried to keep their stomachs from retching.
 
Bee, keeping her wits about her, noticed the unseen horror: small swarms of insects or other creatures had bored through all the living matter nearby (similar to emerald ashbores or locusts).
 
Bee and Tiberius approached the tree. As they drew near, to everyone's horror tendrils seemed to rapidly sprout from the ground and wrap their way up the pair. Shuddering, a malevolent energy seemed to flow from them -- stealing the very energy from their beings. With a cry,, Bee pulled at the forces of nature to summon a blight. In a dark burst of power, the magic erupted at the tree. Thought it did not seem to change, the tendrils holding the two of them quickly withered, but did not cease to threaten, once more growing upwards.
 
As we backed up, Milo tried to polymorph the tree into a beast -- a mouse. This only revealed the tendrils beneath, which in the blink of an eye engulfed the mouse and mounded where the tree once was. Lingering magics collected on Milo, and Bee mentioned that "no longer is he a snack; Milo is a whole damn meal."
 
Bee was next try something: with gaseous form our druid shifted into a form of a gas-like cloud of bees. Unharmed, she traversed the corruption to investigate the archway, again with letters to slot in: M, D, D, N, A, and E. With little else to investigate, she returned.
 
Tiberius offered "demand"; Jarek, "madden" and "damned". We agreed on a "demand", and that we would make a run for it.
 
Bee had planned without us -- floating to the archway, our druid prepared for the moment she dropped out of her cloud of bees, rolling on the ground to snatch the stones and sprint towards the archway. As the tendrils lashed out one last time, she threw in the stones to spell "demand". We all followed in a mad dash, leaping and dodging away from the tendrils as one by one we dove into the portal.
 

Rock on

We all landed flat on the ground in a new place, a rocky landscape with stone spires and difficult terrain everywhere. The archway here was about two-hundred odd feet away, but a gigantic blue dragon sat curled around the dormant archway. It was clear it knew of our arrival.
 
It seemed that the dragon lost interest in us, shambling away to take respite in some rocks. We approached the archway, cautiously. There, we found D, N, and U -- and four slots to fill.
 
A loud voice rumbled across the rocky landscape: "Is this what you're looking for?" The dragon had the last stone. "I will give you this -- for a price." The group pushed Tiberius and Jarek to the front of the party -- those descended from dragons -- as well as Milo, "back to snack levels".
 
The dragon offered us a trade, demanding us to show it what we had for trade. Showing our gold, it complained of "coin mites", creatures that appear to be coins but instead eat previous metals as well.

Jarek offered his holy symbol to Saldar; Tiberius would not allow this, offering the unbreakable rope instead.

Milo offered his licking stick

For those, we recieved the stone "E". And backed away for the dragon. Bee hastily slammed "nude" into the portal before letting everyone else through. "Fuck you and your mites!" she yelled as she left, throwing the coins from herself and the rest of the group angrily before leaving the plane.
 

In the nude

As we disappeared through the ether, all of our clothes and items and equipment disappeared. Everything. The landscape was rolling hills dotted with trees -- nearby several wolves could be heard prowling.
 
As Bee handed out foliage to the group, Tiberius broke the awkwardness: "where's the leaf for my licking stick." Laughter ensued, lightening the mood.
 
Bee wanted to pet the wolves, but the feral beasts they are, the canines attacked. Sera ran to fetch some kind of improvised weapon as Tiberius unleashed dragonfire (acid) and Jarek let forth a holy draconic roar as he willed Kajura to fight for the group. Together, with much punching and bees, we took them down.
 
We decided to rest by the archway before continuing on. As we sat, with Jarek reciting a prayer of healing to Saldar, we found the next set of stones: E, M, G, and A. "Mega", "mage", and "game" were all discussed. Jarek also mentioned "a gem", which won by popular vote. Unfortunately, the gate did not react, so "mage" was the next try.