To Live in Magical Times (Pathfinder/Rwby)

Deep Ethereal, the Ethereal Plane

You are Shayla Barakiel and you are flying through the endless fog of the ethereal plane on a holy mission.

This is the first time you've ever been on another plane and you know it will haunt your dreams. The ghostly silhouettes of Gundrun and its inhabitants, the too real ether spiders weaving webs in fog, daring you to stray close enough for them to attack. The ghosts that blindly wander the mists and the horrors you know prey upon them. If it weren't for the guidance of whichever god asked Pulura for your help you'd have been lost the moment you left the border region behind.

But they are with you, your path forwards marked by uncountable golden threads that shine through the mist in a strange and unfamiliar pattern. At times the threads merge into mighty streams of light and power that you suspect would be a beacon to all sorts of horrors if they didn't fade the moment you were past them. At other times they divide into smaller and smaller ribbons, sometimes curving around invisible obstacles and other times turning at strange angles in an endless procession of straight lines.

Guided by one god and protected by Pulura you have nothing to fear from the ethereal plane. And as you see the golden threads spread and terminate in what looks to be a veil woven entirely of shadows.

As you pass through the veil you feel gravity once more pulling you towards the ground as ghostly mountains suddenly loom before you. You fly through the, noting that the mist here is darker than it was in the deep ethereal or the part of the plane bordering Golarion.

Surely you hadn't been led through the ethereal plane just to reach the Shadow Plane? Both are transitive planes that overlap the material plane, reflecting the normal world in strange ways.

The mountains give way to forest and you find yourself following a road through it, a dim and distant star ahead leading you to your goal. Strangely the road is fenced off from the forest, a decision that makes more sense when the forest gives way to hilly fields.

From high above you fly towards the star, knowing it to be where you'll transfer to this new plane. You have but a few moments to look at what occurs on the road before you become visible and tangible to those below.

You see a hooded woman crouched in the middle of the road, seemingly searching for something she dropped. Another woman stands a few metres in front of her, reaching for weapons strapped to her belt. You can see another crouching in the field, presumably readying their self for an ambush.

They must be bandits, likely with more hidden ahead and behind to keep their victim from escaping. But which is the victim - the woman on her knees presenting an apple? Or the woman reaching for her weapons with obvious nervousness?

Just before you emerge the hooded woman leaps backward, sending her horse running off in a sudden panic as she reveals a staff that couldn't have been hidden beneath her cloak. The other woman charges with a weapon in either hand, flashes of light marking her attacks - are they some kind of magic crossbow?

You can see the man that had been hidden in the hills on his feet and running towards the road, clearly intending to intervene. The hooded woman had blown away the other and the two were waiting for the other to move first.

Until you appeared. For but a moment you glow with the light of the heavens as the mist burns away, your arrival blindingly obvious beneath the dark and cloudy skies. The three below stare up at you in surprise, their battle momentarily forgotten. You look down at them, almost distracted by the colours that have been absent from your sight for hours.

But not so distracted that you don't see the gleaming arrows that fly at you from further down the path. You let yourself fall into a dive and watch them pass over you, soaring towards what must be the other bandits. The hooded woman seems capable of defending herself and you'd rather not leave yourself open to further volleys.

You see a woman in red and gold scowl at you as she gestures, shards of glass forming before her and flying towards you. You spin and swoop low to dodge, holding your hammer in one hand and raising the other to your brow.

"You may not harm me."

You intone in thassilonian, your voice echoing as your form blurs and divides into four - your mirror image spell will prevent the woman from harming you.

The woman tries to leap away from you as she looses two more arrows, foolishly leaving her open to your strike. One dissipates one of your duplicates but the other flies wide. Your answering strike catches the woman's leg, fouling her landing and forcing her to roll away from you.

You pursue with a final swoop, drawing on the lightning hidden in the clouds far above.

"Suffer my ire."

Is how you cast Shocking Grasp and lightning crackles along your hammer as you bring it down, striking the woman's back and thoroughly electrocuting her. The runes inscribed on your hammer shine with baleful light, ensuring the impact will the conducted along the woman's body.

Your land with your momentum spent, watching the woman struggle to her feet with surprise. She clearly felt your blows but it doesn't show on her body - no broken bones or scorch marks like you'd expect.

"Yield. You don't have to die." You say to her.

She responds in a language you don't recognise, but the words sound surprisingly familiar. Rather than ponder the mystery you step forwards to continue the attack, the woman's bow splitting into twin blades as she responds.

Bereft of the element of surprise and the advantage of flight you are forced onto the backfoot as the woman swiftly dominates the fight, deflecting your every blow and managing to leave glancing cuts on your arms and legs.

Only your mirror image spell saves you when she jumps into the air and ignites her blades, the spiraling maneuver dissipating both remaining duplicates and forcing you to step back again lest you be struck as well.

Suddenly she vanishes, silence falling across the battlefield. You glance behind you, seeing the hooded woman looking unharmed as she holds her staff protectively in front of her, the other two bandits nowhere to be found.

You don't recognise the spell but you've fought enough demons to guess what'll come next. You twirl your hammer around you as you settle into a deeper stance and cast Gale Blast, wind swirling around you and revealing a trio of arrows that had been flying towards you. Instead they're dashed to the ground, detonating in fiery bursts a moment later.

Unfazed you step forward, trying to escape the dust and smoke that clouds you. But the cloud follows you, dust fusing into glass and surrounding you in a brief whirlwind. You gasp in pain as your skin is slashed to ribbons, trying to escape by leaping into the air and beating your wings.

Though you're now above the glass you feel spikes of pain as some hidden assault bounces off your armour. Moments later you feel something hit your head, sending you crashing to the ground and fighting the urge to fall unconscious as dark spots form in your vision.

Instead you take a moment to breathe deep and ground yourself before looking up, seeing the hooded woman standing defensively in front of you. Her eyes glow gold as she rises into the air, a wall of wind blasting away from her and revealing both of the bandit woman as the green haired one is blown off of her feet.

Someone says something harsh from behind you, causing you and the hooded woman to turn and see the man just behind you, the bizarrely shaped heel of his boot inches from your face.

You respond by feebly reaching for his boot, unwilling to let him do whatever he's planning.

"Suffer my ire."

You say with what defiance you can muster. Lightning leaps from your hand and into the bandit, leaving him completely open to the hooded woman's staff stabbing into his throat.

Unfortunately you hear the hooded woman grunt in pain, followed by another set of explosions. The bandit woman clearly took advantage of the man's distraction.

You struggle to your feet, only to see the green haired bandit pointing her odd weapons at you, twin flashes of green light and two loud bangs presaging two red hot stabs of pain in your face as something hits you. You can't stop yourself from falling to the ground again, grunting in pain and feeling the weight of your mistakes. Pulura should have chosen someone else.

The woman in crimson advances with an evil grin, raising her hand to the wounded hooded woman's face and grinning as her victim starts to stir, her dazed expression showing how futile any struggle is at this point.

A strange black and white bug emerges from the woman's glove, limbs twitching in what looks like anticipation.

But you didn't come here alone. Bella had climbed out of your pack the moment you fell, moving as stealthily as a ferret with prismatic fur can.

As the bandit woman is saying something as the bug twitches and spits at the hooded woman. But Bella saw it before you did and no beetle that size can be anything but prey to her.

Bella leaps from your head to the hooded woman's back, a healing light infusing her paws and bringing clarity back to the woman's eyes before leaping from her shoulder and intercepting the bug in midair, tearing it free from the glove.

The crimson bandit doesn't get a chance to respond as the hooded woman reaches for the sky, pulling a bolt of lightning down before the bandit can react. You roll over and see the bandit man ready for another strike, his attention on the hooded woman.

Rather than give him a chance you slam your hand into the ground, barely managing to say the incantation to Tanglefoot properly.

A sap coated vine immediately sprouts and wraps itself around his leg, fouling his jump and leaving him open to a blast of fire from the hooded woman that sends him flying. You hear the green haired bandit yell something but the hooded woman responds with more lightning.

You turn and realise your foes have once more vanished, presumably the work of the green haired bandit considering the spell failed when she was struck earlier. Invisibility and silence, a potent combination. Somehow you doubt you'll get a chance to ask her how she did that.

You can feel Bella's satisfaction as she jumps up and nuzzles you. The only thing left from the bug is a patch of oily black smoke that rapidly evaporates.

After a few minutes pass with no further assault the hooded woman turns to you and speaks.

"I can't understand you." You say with a frown. The language sounds a lot like taldane, the same way sylvan sounds almost like elven, but it isn't the same.

The woman frowns at you and says something else, presumably saying she can't understand you. You quickly cycle through hallit, elven, dwarven, celestial and thassilonian, fully expecting the confused expression she looks at you with.

A sudden wave of realisation flows into you from Bella as she moves to your backpack. You sit up rather than remain on your hands and knees and accept the book she hands you, seeing the black leather cover and the silver sihedron rune that marks it as your spellbook.

It was a gift from Fethrymil when you were ready to move on from cantrips, an eclectic collection of her research notes and plenty of room for your own. But a new rune is shining at the centre of the sihedron, a golden assortment of lines, circles and squares that reminds you of the threads that guided you here.

"Try this." She says with a smug look.

When you take the book you half expect it to glow or explode or something. But nothing happens.

"Is that a phrase book or something?" You hear the hooded woman ask as you look at the rune in confusion.

"No, it's my spellbook. But I don't know what…" You trail off as you realise what you heard. "I understood you? What is this, a rune of comprehend language? Is that even a thing?"

You look at the hooded woman, who seems to be torn between confusion and relief.

"So you can understand me now?" She asks after a moment.

"And you can understand me." You respond, feeling very confused. This had to be the work of the god that sent you here, but why didn't it work until you had your spellbook?

"Great. I'm Amber by the way." She says after the two of you stare at each other for a few more moments.

"I'm Shayla and that's Bella." You say, gesturing at your familiar as she cheerfully waves to Amber.

"Thanks for protecting Shayla." Bella says happily.

"She helped me first. And you saved us both. Pretty sure that means I should be thanking you" Amber says with a tired smile.

"What even was that? I assumed they were bandits but they were fighting more like assassins. And that bug thing. " You pause to try and get your thoughts in order.

"I think it was some weird summon. It started to dissolve the moment I pulled it out of the glove and the glove was disappearing too." Bella says. "It tasted weird too. Like a corrupted rabbit that somehow had no substance."

"A parasite maybe? Something like a vermlek that needs a living host to control?" You speculate. Vermlek demons were horrid worms that could crawl inside a body and reanimate it, impersonating their victim and bringing all sorts of harm to those who didn't notice.

"They were after me." Amber says after a moment. "I don't know what they were trying with that bug grimm but if they'd just been out to kill me they might have succeeded."

"You get assassins sent after you often?" You ask with surprise. That wasn't all that common during the crusade since most demons didn't have the patience and discipline to wait for their target to reveal themselves and make themselves vulnerable.

"Any more than zero is more than anyone should have to put up with." She says. "I want to say this is what I get for not waiting for my backup, but they probably would've been more dangerous in a town where I couldn't go all out. Are you ok to travel?" She asks you before you can ask any more questions.

You quickly examine your body, finding the cuts were bloody but mostly shallow.

"Yeah I've had way worse. Just let me bandage these up." You say as Bella hands them to you.

"I'm surprised your aura broke so fast. The way you were moving I was expecting you to be a classic tank." Amber says.

"It's my own fault. I should've cast mage armour while I was in the ethereal plane and properly protected myself. I wasn't really expecting to find a fight the moment I crossed over but that's no excuse. No point preparing a spell if I don't cast it." You say as you get to work, wincing when you touch the still bleeding cuts.

"I was going to say that you have a surprisingly versatile semblance, but you're talking like you're a maiden or something."

"Please. The only maidens in the crusade were the ones who believed it'd protect them from succubi." You say with a snort. You pause and replay what Amber's been saying to you in your mind.
"Wait, what's a semblance?" You ask with confusion.

"What's an ethereal plane?" She counters with a frown. "Heck, what crusade are you talking about? You're just a kid."

"Right, you wouldn't know about that considering how I got here. Where are we anyway? I thought it was the shadow plane at first, but that doesn't really fit. We on Arcadia or Casmaron? Maybe Sarusan? That might explain the different veil." You ask back.

"We're on Sanus, half a day's travel away from Keshi." Amber says.

Okay, not a continent or island name you recognise. But it was a long shot that you were still on Golarion anyway. Still, she's talking like she doesn't know about the planes, which was weird. She's clearly some kind of spellcaster and you thought knowing about the planes was a rather fundamental part of magic. Sure it might be primal magic but that just means she'd know more about the inner planes than the outer planes.

"What planet are we on?" You ask, watching as Amber gives you a profoundly sceptical look before thinking about it. She was human so this was probably the planet Baba Yaga was from. Ert or something.

"We're on Remnant." She says eventually.

"Then I owe you a proper introduction." You say, wracking your brain as you stand up. Remnant isn't the name of any of the planets in Golarion's system, nor has it appeared in any of the fantastic tales the Pathfinder Society swears are true. You hadn't really believed the story about elves being aliens before but if this a world so distant you had to traverse the ethereal plane to get here…
"My name is Shayla Barakiel, an aasimar of human descent. I come from the nation of Sarkoris on the continent of Avistan, from the world of Golarion." You say, holding your hand out to her. "I travelled a long way to get here and never considered what I'd do once I did."

"Amber Andromeda. I'm a huntress from the kingdom of Vale." She says with a confused smile.

"Great. Should we go get your horse or just go wherever you were going on foot?" You ask. "Because all I can really do here is follow your lead."

"We're getting Chalk, all my things are in his saddlebags." Amber says with wide eyes.

"You named your horse Chalk? And I thought Iomeneigh was bad." You say as the two of you start walking back to the forest.

"I named my horses Chalk and Cheese. They're a matched pair." Amber says with a smile.

"I don't think that's how that works." You say.

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You and Amber have a few hours to get to know each other before her backup arrives. Choose three conversation topics that you discuss:

[ ] Amber's Magic - You know magic when you see it. Amber might not have said any verbal components but the somatic and material components were obvious, as was the glow of her eyes. Is she an elementalist? A hyper specialised druid or maybe an oracle with a weather based curse? You think you've heard of those.

[ ] The Assassins - They got away but they could easily come back for another try. By comparing notes on your attackers you can both prepare for next time.

[ ] Golarion - You're from another world and Amber has a lot of questions.

[ ] Remnant - You're from another world and you have a lot of questions.

[ ] Semblance? Auras? You have no idea what Amber was talking about after the fight and you won't let your ignorance stand.

[ ] Why and How You're Here - Amber doesn't seem to know what the ethereal or shadow planes are. And even if she did, you should probably explain why you came all this way. As well as you can.

[ ] Your Magic - Amber isn't blind. She saw bits of your fight and while she could shrug most of it off as a versatile elemental semblance it wouldn't explain your mirror image spell. Or how Bella healed her.

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AN: Okay, I definitely need to reconsider how I'm approach combat. That flowed pretty well but was a lot more dice roiling than I expected. Expect the character sheet before the next update.

I also hate google drive for only having american and british english. Either way I get a bunch of misspelt words that actually aren't.