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Your voice reverberates back to you as you shout out to your companions, however after a moment of waiting, it is only your voice that fills the silence of the place as you look around for more detail. Searching your body quickly for damage, you don't even see a scratch to denote the voyage you just survived. A fact that may or may not comfort you given your currently strange environment.

As you turn your attention to the room itself, you see that this is in fact some kind of central atrium. Chairs seem specifically placed in that usual back to back way used for public spaces to sit and wait. There is even a large marble desk built into the wall, made out of marble where you imagine a greeter might sit. In total this large space might be able to hold over 50 people comfortably. However, with only you there it felt somehow ominous. It didn't help matters that there was zero in the way of a torch or even a candle in this room. The only light coming from outside the glass ceiling, a rotating pillar of light, that had passed over your head twice now that you have started counting, and a soft orange glow from one of the many connecting halls.

In fact, as you used what light did draw your attention, you realized there was a number of halls connected to this central room, and as the light above you passed by once again you could see that the  of the door ways in front of you had brass lettering over them. One was named Raynolt, Veritas, Armand, and Valerie.

Besides having the names of people you knew on them, these doors were unique for other reasons had you not been looking for every detail you could. Gems, had been embedded into the center of the three of the massive doors. Each was the size of your fist, but they strangely did not seem to catch the light overhead. Instead, some of the gems seem to admit their own light, though you would have missed it at first glance.

1 of 5 in the Raynolt door
3 of 5 in the Veritas door
5 of 5 in the Valerie door

the door with your name seems to not have any gems, but unlike the others, it was your door that had the soft orange glow behind it, from the slit under the door, as if someone had lit a fireplace.

[Location: Unknown]

Less than a heartbeat after your warning the fog opened up directly over your ship, and filling the gap was a blast of electrical force so great that the ship was partially pushed under the water before the power exploded outward.

In a flash, half of the ship was gone and the three of you had been flung, with the debris, like fleas from a dog, out into the open water. The last thing you remember before losing complete consciousness was the sensation of sinking deep under the water as that buzzing sensation returned to your skin as if to get you to the bottom faster.

Location: Unknown
Time: Unknown

When you next come to consciousness, you are not greeted by the smile of your father, or the light of the divine gates, even the sounds of the ocean are gone. Instead you find yourself staring up through a glass ceiling atrium and a solid ground of marble flooring.

Without even needing to sit up you could tell that you were somewhere completely foreign to where you had been before, and inside some kind of opulent entryway.

["An eye on what?"]

Feeling the buzzing against your skin, and choosing to ignore the sensation of being watched, you make the active decision to go back to the captain's quarter. However, as soon as you settle on that choice you feel the air shift around you. Everything seems to slow around, suddenly Veritas' words slow drawing out the sound, and the fog against your skin suddenly feels as thick as mud constricting your body. Only the buzzing feeling remained the same, as it began to shift, concentrating from a wave across your body into a single force like a knife trying to claw its way deeper into your being.

As the power moved from your physical body to push to something deeper, it touched something at the core of your being, something that the primal part of your brain tried to protect with everything you had, and yet it meant nothing against this force. At that moment that it touched your very soul, a connection was made between you and whatever was the source of the power, if only for a short moment. The source of the power was too alien, too massive, for you to really understand what it was, or what it was trying to do by making contact.

However, you could taste their desperation, an almost child-like need to not be left alone, these feelings and more bled through the connection to your soul washing over you as if you were actively drowning, and then at then the anger set in, and before you could even understand why this thing was upset the connection broke. The buzzing ended then, leaving your body completely numb, except for a burning sensation in your chest where your heart was.

Whatever that power had done to you in that split second that time had slowed it had left its mark, and then as if the world was exhaling, time resumed. A hand going to your chest feeling a warmth under your skin. However, the second shoe was about to drop.

"An eye on what?" Veritas asked looking where you were pointing, "All I can see is white mist."

The look on both men's faces was one of obvious confusion, as they looked back at you as if worried that you hit your head. Neither one of them had experienced what you just did as they continued to watch you in concern.

[info]you have about one turn before the back half of the boat will be struck with a massive lightning bolt, partially destroying the ship and blowing the three of you overboard as your vision goes white.

I just want to give you a moment to respond to what has just happened before the next thing goes off.[/info]

["An eye on what?"]

"An eye on what?" Veritas asked looking where you were pointing, "All I can see is white mist."

The look on both men's faces was one of one obvious confusion as they looked back at you, as if worried that you hit your head in some way.

--
As you begin moving back towards the captain's quarters that buzzing you have been feeling intensifies as you threaten to break line of sight with the orb.

[info]if you want to ignore the feeling and break line of sight I'm gonna need a will save.[/info]

["The wind is acting weird in this fog,"]

"The wind is acting weird in this fog," Raynolt said with a grimace, "the sails stopped moving the moment we entered this place."

However, it was the orb, that held your attention. As you focused on that orb that tingle that had begun to crawl up and down your skin intensified till you could feel it in your bones. Whatever that light was, it seemed to be the source of the influence, the magic, that seemed to be drowning the space in power. A level of power that would make even powerful mages sweat with envy. As you continued to look at it, something in the air actively shifted, and a thought crossed your mind at that moment.

What if, while you were looking at the light, the light was looking at you?

With that thought in mind, you turn to speak to Veritas he chuckles with nervous energy. "We're all alive so far, so that's a plus. I didn't plan for a sea of fog, but I guess this is one way to start things off. But I think we have a bigger problem the wheel refuses to turn. It's like its frozen."

As you look out into the fog, trying to get a sense of the storm, you realize that you hear the storm still but the rain has significantly lessened around you. However, the thing that catches your attention the most is the lightning. Your boat seems to be traveling at a fast past, but the lighting that you see casting dark blue shadows through the mists of white seemed to be moving in slow motion. This is the first time that you have seen the actual structure of lightning, as it tried to claw through the fog. However, as you watch the lightning instead of falling in straight lines it curved oddly in unnatural circles right before your eyes. As if someone or something was actively bending the storm in the fog to their will.

One bolt of curving lightning arched across the sky drawing your sightline further into the distance, and that's when you saw it, like a second sun, A white orb floating in the sky. The first bit of real light you have seen in days.

["This fog seems to be an entirely different weather pattern, than the surrounding area. I haven't heard of anything like this. Even from the mast, there is nothing but white,"]

In your attempt to steady Veritas, you have to wrap one arm around his waist and the other around the wheel. You manage to keep him from slipping or hurting himself, but the path of the boat was too far gone to recover from as you made contact with the mist.

And you did make contact, with the mist. As the ship rushed forward, instead of slipping through the dense fog as you would have expected, instead it acted almost like a solid wall. As the waves pushed you forward the ship began to tip upwards. Like a cart struggling to climb up a hill, the boat continued to turn upright. Just when the fear hit you that the ship, for some bizarre reason, might tip head over heels in the process, the fog gave way like a knife through butter.

In one swift motion, like a knife cutting through butter, the ship literally split apart the fog. Your stomach was in your throat as the boat was propelled through the tear in the fog with a mightly slam. The fog quickly shifted to fill the gap that you left behind as you moved faster and faster as you couldn't even see an inch beyond your nose. Here in the mist, all of your senses seemed dulled, as if you were being surrounded by cotton. Despite the soft nature of your surroundings, every hair on your body stood on end, and a tingling sensation ran up and down your body. Though that might just be the adrenaline talking.

"This fog seems to be an entirely different weather pattern, than the surrounding area. I haven't heard of anything like this. Even from the mast, there is nothing but white," Raynolt calls as he climbs down.

["I can't keep the wheel under control!"]

Using the compass and the remnants of the map, you were actually able to get your general bearings, at least you hopped. Mapping the route that you were supposed to take and accounting for possible drift due to the storm you thought it might be possible to avoid some of the worst currents. Raynolt for his part seemed to have control of the sails. He had managed to climb halfway up the mast and secure the sails so that the ragging wind wouldn't end up tipping the boat sideways. However, all the stability in the world meant nothing if the person steering didn't have the strength to wrestle the boat under control.

Veritas was trying his best, but the half-elf wasn't even in the right weight class to be trying to wrestle a boat of this size. Your route was the only reason that the boat wasn't completely dashed by the waves. More than once Veritas lost complete control as the boat even despite the sail continued to pick up speed. The boat groaned heavily under the protest of the storm, making sounds like a dying whale, that was far from pleasant.

"I can't keep the wheel under control!" He screamed, but something else caught your attention.

A wall, no- a mountain, of fog, that consumed the entire horizon in every direction. With its stark nature seeming to merge the sea and the clouds it was clearly unnatural. And at the speed you were going, there was no avoiding, only a few seconds to think before being consumed.

[Follow the course--The Unicorn--We have provided you with plenty of--Sir Herlock-With this, our deal is done.]

The note is heavily charred from the fire, but the few bits that you could make out read as:

Follow the course-

-The Unicorn-

-We have provided you with plenty of-

-Sir Herlock-

With this, our deal is done.

These scraps are blurred and separated by the various amounts of charred spaces that remove most of the context.

Steady on your feet as you hear the snap of the trip wire, you manage to tumble back out of the room before you hear the smashing of glass and the lick of flames on your back. Turning around you see that the room had been trapped with a flask of alchemist fire centered on the desk and papers that had been your main goal.

[error]take 1 point of fire damage [/error]

Luckily, it seemed like the crew didn't have time to set up any kind of deadlier trap other than the single flask, so it was a simple matter to rush in and throw the papers that were actively burning out into the storm to extinguish itself.

Doing a quick search of what was left, easily accessible, and not horribly scorched, you find a couple of things, a compass, a half-burned sailing chart/map, a set of common lock picks, a broken trip wire, some dried foods, and a charred scrawled note that had avoided most of the fire.

There does seem to be a few places where things may be hidden, including the drawers of the drafting desk was at the center of the blaze, and a chest at the foot of the bed. However, to look deeper into any of these places would require time

Both your heart and mind were beating a mile a minute, as the fight or flight response kicked into high gear. The three of you had decided in that split moment to try to fight for your own survival. Powered by the sudden rush of certain death you watched the other two nod and begin to rush full speed on deck to their positions, with you hot on their heels the entire time.  Fueled by your emotions, and with a clarity of purpose, the three of you might be able to survive, your father always had stories of surviving impossible odds on sheer will power and a clever wit.

You had a plan, now it was just a matter of execution, and step one was to go hunting for clues before the ship went from bad to worse. This was perhaps your only chance to go hunting for anything useful before the storm would demand your entire attention. It was that knowledge that allowed you to climb above deck without even flinching as sheets of rain came crashing down on your collective heads as lightning wrenched across the sky like the claws of a massive dragon matched only by the ferocious winds.

In all the stories that your father told, he never really talked about the tunnel vision that occurred in these scenarios. At least not in a way that you had understood, until that moment, when you were really experiencing the full force of the storm for the first time. That tunnel vision to do what needs to be done, was allowing you in that moment to accomplish the most dangerous dead sprint you had ever done in your life without even registering what was happening around you. However, despite the dangerous environment you make it to the captain's quarters, drenched like a rat, winded, but unharmed.

Slamming the door open without a second thought and stepping through the threshold, without a second thought, that tunnel vision became a double edged sword. You were so focused on looking out for anything that might be useful left behind, you didn't even think to make sure it was safe.

The thought of traps never crossed your mind, until you felt the sensation of a tripwire snapping against the bare skin of your leg.

[info]give me a fort save for the sprint and a reflex save to try and get away from the tripwire.[/info]

["We've sailed before,"]

"We've sailed before," Veritas said, with a firm conviction, as he tried to stand with the rest of you.

"Your father's sailboat cannot compare, a boat this size requires more than three people to be run smoothly. That said, if we don't at least try to do something we'll be the laughing stock of the afterlife!" Raynolt smiled a genuine smile, that showed his razor-like tusks.

"We won't last long without a plan, and Armand, you are the only one with any kind of clue where we're going. If we're going to survive I think you'll need to take point on this. Tell us what you need and we'll do our best to help out where we can. To think we would have this kind of excitement so soon in our adventure!" Veritas said looking between the two of you with only a half terrified look on his face.
---
It seemed like the two men were looking to you for direction. You all knew the general layout of the ship, where the important mechanisms, were as well as to get supplies. Assuming that the crew hadn't laid traps or worse.

Veritas, taking a moment, rattled off everything he knew about boats in an attempt to help everyone understand the types of tasks that would need to be done to keep the ship afloat in this kind of weather.

[info]Skill Challange - Sink or Sink even faster.

DC: 15 Base
Veritas lists 3 major problems, that at least one of you will have to man if you hope to last any period of time.

Tasks:
Navigate the storm
Steer the ship
Man the sails

You can tell me how you want to do each task. Good descriptions and creative solutions with gear will modify the roll in your favor. Failing by five or more will cause complications succeeding by 5 or more will make other rolls easier. A Crit success and failure may also have unique effects.
[/info]

["Is there some kind of problem?"]

As you enter the galley in a dead sprint, both men were equally surprised to see you up and around so soon. Veritas looking you over for a moment, quickly smiled as he saw that you had in fact picked out one of his outfits. He seemed all smiles and sunshine, blissfully unaware of the life-threatening danger you were all in as he was in the middle of a solitaire card game.

However, Raynolt, quickly reading the look on your face stood, "Is there some kind of problem?"

As if to punctuate his question, your collective stomachs drop to your feet, as a sensation of weightlessness overcomes you all as the ship crests another wave.

[Location: Across the City]

Location: Across the City
Time: ???

Amelia was terrified about running into the thick of the flames, like she was riding a roller coaster approaching a massive drop. However, Amelia's waking mind was not in full control as the fox in the dream covered for those fears with a tacticians wit. After all she had a partner with her that both versions of Amelia felt they could rely on no matter what. The King was after all, matched her wit with his sheer brawn and power, making them an ideal duo. The narrative of the dream itself also provisioned with powers and equipment to match their roles, and to that the blessings of the waking world and they had a glimmer of a chance to change the narrative entirely.

Amelia watched from the sidelines as the duo came face to face with their first threats. A pair of hulking demon beasts able to bash and burn their way through their impressive defenses. However, the damage the king could inflict combined with his advisor's support far outpaced anything the intruders could muster. Their enemy was no joke if even one could physically match the king as they did, but this smaller encounter had given Amelia's avatar some much needed context. Mainly she learned that these creatures, outside of being brutes, only had one trick to produce black fire that could affect an area, that they would focus on the closest threat without worrying about their surroundings, and most importantly, they bared a striking resemblance to some shadow beasts tied to old legends from their homelands. Putting the strange connections between this new world and their homeworld aside for now she had a pretty confident understanding of the enemy.

The next step was to understand the battlefield as a whole, so that they could try to rally a proper defense. Spending a full minute, during which the king had to face several more demons alone, she cast a spell that allowed her to see from the sky like a bird.  The city was being besieged by three fronts in the north, east, and west. The west was where the majority of the civilians were being protected by the knights that had quickly had to organize a defense. In the east there was a party of six demons trying to sneak past the defenses to gain access to the heart of the city. Finally, the lion's share of the demons were in the north, along with their boss. She knew at a glance that the north would be where the king would want to go next. Wordlessly, she formulated  plans for each of the two other fronts, so that their combined attention could be focused on the boss in the front.

After all, it was only proper that the king greet foreign dignitaries with the accepted amount of pomp and circumstance.

Fueled by the storm of emotions shared between the fox and the girl, the dream shifted for a moment to allow the fox access to the Friends List blessing, so that she could armchair general the various troops in the west and those still scattered into a proper defense. The sneaking demons in the east needed a more violent answer, which the fox solved by summoning a cyclone to harass them signaling their defense. In less than two minutes, exactly the fox had managed to disrupt most of the attempts to destroy their home. The north however was another problem, by far the largest group of demons, if left alone they could easily have taken the city alone with the help of their boss, not an ideal fight when already winded. However, fatigue did little to stop the ruler of beasts from jumping into the swarm.

The fox cast what magic she could to slow them down and strengthen her king, even going so far as to making him grow to the point that he matched the rank and file demons in size, and covering him in dangerous thorns. Still, the best tactics in the world can be outdone by sheer numbers, and the demons had their fair share. They refused to think of anything else but killing the duo, even resulting in friendly fire as they tried to swarm the king and drown him in attacks. Their plan would have succeeded, should have succeeded as the lion was taken within in an inch of his life. However, the fox from the shadows was able to change the course of the dream with a high powered heal spell, allowing the lion to finish the minions almost at full strength.

This play however, caught the attention of the demon general, a creature of a similar shape to the others but even larger, and more intelligent. He took notice of Amelia despite her best efforts, and seemed ready to switch targets after calling out the fact they could use light magic. However, this revelation distracted the general just enough that before he could act the king had killed him where he stood letting his ax remove his head from the body.

Winning what should have been an impossible fight, new hope blooms in the waking Amelia's chest, along with a question.

What would happen next, now that they had somehow managed to survive?

["The Renards send their blessings on your travels! May your father greet you soon!"]

You make it all the way back to your room without much problem as the boat continues to rock violently. Throwing your dirty clothes and boots into a spot by your bed the boat rocks with a sudden forceful jolt. If it wasn't for the fact that your new gloves gave you extra grip, you wouldn't have been able to stay on your feet and would have ended up in a heap with your old clothes.

You got lucky.

One of the crew members did not get as lucky, as the sound of a loud scream directly outside your window drew your attention before being followed by a splash. However, you didn't just see one person falling outside your window. In fact, what you saw was the elderly sea dog of a captain directly meeting your gaze with a suddenly sheepish expression, as he and a laughable number of his crew, and only his crew, tried to cram their bodies into one of the two tiny lifeboats that the Stalwart had been equipped with.

The other lifeboat you could already see in the distance was equally packed like sardines as they sailed out back the way they came away from the storm being chased by the waves.

In the split second while all of this registered as if to put a period on the thought, the captain called out, "The Renards send their blessings on your travels! May your father greet you soon!"

And then you watch the boat plummet out of sight as, with a laugh, he cuts the line.