The Unravelling of the Portal
Three thousand orcs descended from the The Sunset Spine and surged over the hills towards Daring Heights. With them was a smaller force of a few hundred Xvart, magically enhanced by shards of the Infinity Spindle into much stronger mutated forms.
In defence, Aurelia Archselon had raised a fortress from the earth, an entire structure just for the purpose of stopping this army, and they had filled it with every defensive force they could muster, bar just a few. A few souls who stayed in the much frailer walls of the abandoned Daring Heights with Aurelia to secure the most important feature of the city - The Portal. Coll of The Three-Headed Ettin, Rholor, Dorian, Leocanto Regalo Costoso, and a handful of others stood with Aurelia and Jenna against whatever may come to them.
It turned out to be nearly 300 Xvarts, almost the full force, led by the hulking bulk of their leaders. The heroes could have fled into the streets and attempted a guerilla-style defence, but instead they stood on the walls of the city gates and hurled spells and arrows at them, knocking down a not insignificant portion of the force before a titanic spell from the lead Xvart mage shattered the gates utterly and they walked into the city, heading straight for the portal.
A brief regroup back at the Ettin let people get their bearings, but then they had to move - the Xvarts were going to twist the portal to their own ends - something about finding their god? The heroes snuck through the streets, over the rooftops and around the plaza where the portal stood. The Xvarts were patrolling, and their mages had already set up a barrier around themselves to protect them as they worked on the portal with strange magics.
Needless to say, the heroes attacked. Striking with coordinated precision the majority of them took out the surrounding guards while Dorian and Rholor teleported inside the barrier and eviscerated the mages with their own more powerful spells. In a matter of moments the day was won. They had saved the portal and protected Daring from a terrible fate.
It was at that moment however that a bell rang out from the fortress on the hill. A bell that sounded defeat - the orcs were taking the fortress and thousands of them were swarming past the defences towards the city and the portal back to Faerun. In a desperate final move, Aurelia ushered everyone through the portal before using her years of study of the rift to tear into its connections and patterns in the Weave, wrecking much of its power and completely shutting off the stable portal between Faerun and Kantas.
This is why now there is no 'portal' in the previous sense. What stands there now is a teleportation circle, which Aurelia has carefully tied into those same powerful threads which had created the actual portal and uses them to power the circle easily, making it one of the most active in the world. But that war cost the whole world of Toril one of the great wonders of the world - a stable hole between two points in the Material Plane.
Comments