Surprised but not shaken by the sudden onslaught of noise, Judoc slows himself down to a crawl before touching his feet down on the ground.  With an immense presence of mind, Judoc separates his thoughts from the sound.  He knows that it is magical in nature and that like any magic, the best resistance against it is strength of purpose.  As he alights upon the stone path, Judoc feels the screams and voices ever so slightly retreat in his mind, allowing him the space to think and act in a normal fashion.

Younger Judoc seems to take a cue from his other self and slows down as well, his face scrunched up into a pained wince as he stops and steps his feet onto the ground.

"Gods that's awful!"  Younger Judoc shouts, hunching over slightly as he tries to cover his ears without letting go of his staff.  "It's no good!  I've got to keep going!"

Younger Judoc lights off again, speeding down the tunnel and towards the gate ahead.

OOC:  Sorry for the lag.  I've got company in town and the kids are on spring break, which has proven to be an enormous distraction.

I used your Crit success on the IQ roll as an auto resist on all the spells.  You've also added a hero point to your stock.  Younger Judoc doesn't seem to have faired quite as well, though at least he isn't running screaming from the area.  He's already on the move again heading up the pathway.

You do still hear the screaming and wailing, though you aren't in any danger from it at the moment, and can act normally.

The mental cacophony is powerful, but Judoc shrugs it off after a moment, his mental abilites no doubt resisting the spell's power. As the voices recede to ambient background noise, the young mage glances around him. No doubt the spell was protective in nature, meant to dissuade interlopers from further approach. Could orcs still inhabit this area, or are they still in the demons' domain?

But Judoc can spare only a moment for reflection. His double does not seem to be resisting as easily as the elder Judoc has. When the younger continues flying forward, Judoc takes off after him. He has no desire to become separated from himself, not when so many questions remain about what exactly happened to him.

OOC: Lift off and fly after the other Judoc. Slow down before he slams into the upcoming gate.

I guess Wikia doesn't like hotlinking. Here's the final page of that Uncle Scrooge story:

https://www.imgur.com/Z5dSd2X.png.

Lighting off again from the path, Judoc follows his other self farther down the corridor, noting that for each passing stone, the voices churning in his head seem to diminish ever so slightly.  First the screaming falters to a wail, which softens to a symphony of low moaning.  By the time that Judoc puts down, just before the gate ahead, the voices are gone entirely, with only a dim ringing in his ear to mark their passing.

For Younger Judoc's part, he lowers himself with a stumble to the ground, his face still wound up in a grimace and shaking his head like he is trying to expel water from an ear.

While his other self regains his composure, Judoc looks forward, beyond the bars of the horrific gate.  Ahead, just after a small outcrop on the far side of the gate, is another lake of blood-water much like the one they had seen farther below.  However, this lake has no paths nor routes criss-crossing its surface, only a single island in its middle where what appear to be several wooden stakes and three large monster bones, perhaps twice as long as a man's femur, thrust upwards from the ground.

The only other feature of the room is a crimson waterfall that appears to cascade downward from the ceiling, crashing into the surface of the lake with an ongoing roar.

"Can you still hear them?"  Younger Judoc's face is still twisted up into a scowl.  "I still hear them wailing and screaming.  But I can't make out what they are saying... it's just awful noise!"

OOC:  Picture below.  You are not nearly as close as the picture depicts, instead you are at least twenty or thirty yards away and it's hard to make out clear details, especially with the dim lighting your stone is providing.

Younger Judoc seems to be suffering lingering effects from the spell which are not affecting you.  The gate depicted in the last post is between you and the lake ahead, and is barring you from moving on, though not from seeing everything in the room beyond.  After a moment's thought, you recall this gate from the imp's premonitions, as well as a brief scene of a tiny Judoc bending down and holding his hands over his ears.

Shaking his head in the negative, Judoc replies, "No, the voices are gone for me. They've been slowly fading as we approached this gate." He looks with concern at his double, adn then at the gate ahead. Perhaps if they can get beyond it, his other self will be free of the voices, too.

The sight of the gate up close gives Judoc pause now. So the visions from the pool were not completely deceitful. The spikes, the screaming face, the gate. Is Agares waiting out there, past this point? The island out in the dark looks familiar. He remembers a similar image from the pool.

"God's body. If Agares is out there in the dark, waiting..." In spite of himself, Judoc realizes he is afraid. He had blustered in the past about defeating the demon lord, but he knows, deep down, that he only just escaped by a whisker. Meeting Agares now, in this place, with his twin still in pain from the spell... But they are two against the demon, and Judoc feels hope that they can beat him, if he is there.

But first things first. He examines the gate, looking for a mechanism or a keyhole that could allow the gate to be opened.

OOC: Search the area immediately around the gate. Investigate the gate. Try to get a sense of how it opens and what might be the key to opening it.

An unsettling chill passes over Judoc.  His previous confidence that the pool was a sort of mirror of fears, reflecting back only the worst in the mind of the viewer, had been proven misplaced.  The spikes, the screams, the gate...  They had all come to pass, though Judoc at least felt safe that he wouldn't be impaled on the stalagmites anytime soon -- so neither had the pool been entirely truthful.  It still left the lingering possibility...  Was Agares out there, now, just waiting for him?

The question, though haunting, made little difference to the immediate present.  After all, if the two Judocs could not get past this gate, they would never know what would lay in the cavern beyond.

Judoc started simple, searching the gate itself and the adjacent walls.  As for the portal itself, though made of centuries old bones, it is of surprisingly sturdy construction.  The ivory bars seem to be joined with cord, though they do not move independently, even in the slightest, as if they are fused together by some other force.  The bones too seem thick and solid rather than brittle, a testing whack with Judoc's staff makes the weapon rebound back with force, rather than injure the gate in any way.  As for a lock, or other opening apparatus, there appears to be none.  The stone above is set in with a grooved slot, as if the portal can be raised up into the stone, though there is no lever to raise it that Judoc can see.  The stone of the tunnel walls is smooth and unblemished, without so much as a cubby-hole to hide a catch to open the device.

Finding nothing on this side of the gate, Judoc shifts his attention to the far side, maneuvering his light so that he can see out on the ledge beyond.  The ledge is mostly flat, with only a few wayward stones here and there that break the smooth surface.  The only other decorations on the ledge are several sets of bone...  One full skeleton that leans up against the gate at its edge, seeming more human than anything else, and a pair of partials that are scattered to the side not to mention several skulls, both in tact and broken that are scattered about the ground.

Shaking his head yet again, and finally pulling himself from his stupor, younger Judoc leans his staff against the wall and grabs a bit of the gate with both hands, heaving upwards with no visible effect.  "Any bright ideas?"  He asks, his expression still wincing slightly.

OOC:  You don't note anything close to you as a way to open the gate.  Roll vs. Perception-5.

The gate proves fascinating to Judoc. As ghastly as it is, there is a certain beauty to its construction. How long had it stood here? Whose bones had these been? Who had passed here before in the perhaps centuries it had stood here? Had some magic been used to preternaturally harden the bones so they did not crumble to dust?

Somehow, the gate has been fashioned to withdraw upwards like a standard portcullis. There should be a lever or something similar somewhere. It depends on if this were made to keep beings from penetrating deeper into the Path of Ancestors or to keep something else restrained within. Surely not the demons within its depths, but perhaps victims left as offerings?

More skeletons lie on the far side of the gate. Likely not reanimated skeletons, but if they are, the two Judocs should easily deal with them. Shining his light this way and that, Judoc attempts to see if he can spy a lever or a switch that might open the gate from the other side.

"Not really, no," he murmurs in response to his fellow Judoc's question. "There must be some way of opening this gate. We can't go around it or climb over it. A pity we don't know Earth to Air, or we could simply dug under it."

OOC: Is the huge skull at the top of the gate on the other side?

"Or body of air even."  Younger Judoc responds, turning his body towards the near wall and feeling the stone with one open hand in intentional, lethargic motions.  "Though I have to say I never saw much of the draw towards the air college...  Alevius was an air guy right?  They always seemed about flashes and theatrics but turned flighty when real trouble showed up."

But before Judoc can make any sort of retort, something catches his attention on the far island...  Something about the bones thrust upwards from its surface.  While they had seemed odd from the get go, as large as they are they likely belonged to a giant either humanoid or otherwise, something else was now niggling at his mind.

Their ends.

While he had thought at first that it was simply an oddly shaped and worn joint, now Judoc can't shake the impression that there is something else there, some carving etched into the raw ivory.

Judoc lifts his lighted stone, shifting it to the left and right, hoping that the subtle movements of the shadows will bring some clarity.  And it does.

Hair.

Though he can't make out any of the detail, it seems clear to Judoc that what is carved into the monstrous bone is a face...  and he wonders if it is one he has already seen in the depths beyond...

OOC:  Nice catch.  The picture above is indeed the gate from the other side.  So you can't see the details of the demon skull, but you can tell that it is there from the view underneath.

"What is that?" Judoc says quietly, straining to make out the distant bones. Faces? Carvings, or some new monstrous creatures?

"Those bones are odd," he continues. "What kind of creature would have left them? A giant, I suppose?" Why stick giant bones in an island in the middle of a blood sea? Judoc thinks. Why carve faces on the bones? Why doesn't this place make sense?

His younger self had already tested the bars, but Judoc gives them a tentative lift as well. Perhaps with enough force, this gate could be raised. "Or Body of Flames," Judoc muses. "That's if there's a switch on the other side. What do you think? Is it worth it to take the risk?"

OOC: Approximately how heavy is this gate? Does Judoc think he could lift it with Apportation, or is it simply too massive?

Younger Judoc looks through the gate, staring for a moment at the bones on the island beyond.  "Dragon I'd thought."  The mage states.  "You see something on them though?"  Younger Judoc pauses for a moment, glaring through a gap in the bones.  "It's like they are carved at the end.  I can't tell though."

When Judoc talks about body of flames however, his counterpart stops his movement entirely.  "I didn't even think of that."  He says simply, turning his head to look at his his older self.  "It should work...  I don't think there's anything we have that we couldn't fit through the bars.  We could both do it if we needed to...  I don't see any levers to open the gate, but there's more chance that they are on the other side than on this side right?"

Not entirely sure of his own plan yet, Judoc lays down his staff for a moment and puts two hands under the bone gate, trying to test the weight.  Even with the full force of his strength though, the bone portal does not so much as jostle back and forth.  The thing seems entirely set, and he's not sure that he has the magical strength to prove otherwise...

OOC:  In game terms, you've attempted to lift the gate using two hands and four times normal time - so you should have been able to lift anything up to 160 lbs based on your own basic lift.  You didn't get so much as a budge.  If you wish to use apportation, state how much fatigue you wish to put into the spell and I'll let you know if it succeeds.  4 fatigue can lift up to 200 lbs (though you would think you would have been able to at least get a wiggle out of the bone structure if it was this light), 8 fatigue can lift up to 300 with +4 fatigue adding another 100 lbs after.  In theory the two of you could add your spells together as well though it hasn't been made certain through practice.

The gate feels heavy, perhaps too heavy for Judoc to lift by himself. But could both Judocs, working together, lift it? Impressive if they could pull it off, but a waste of time if it didn't work. "I'll try Body of Flames, then," he says. "I'll go first and look for some kind of lever or button on the other side. If I don't see one, then you can go through as well."

He unslings his backpack and drops to a resting position. The spell is a difficult one and will be very draining. He remembers saving Terri from those invisible blood-sucking hornet creatures back in Perdition and how exhausted he was after casting it. "Just once, I'd like to go full supernova," he says, chuckling. "Body of Flames, Flame Jet, and maybe Flight. That would be glorious."

OOC: Yes, Judoc's final form is the Human Torch.

Judoc will rest until he's at full fatigue (minus the FP lost from missed sleep). He will place his gear next to the gate (including his staff if he can't hold that in flame form), cast Body of Flames and attempt to go through the gate and look for a lever on the other side. If he can't find one, have Judoc Jr. pass their gear through the gate and then do the same.

However, if it looks like their gear won't fit, we can try both casting Apportation, but resting up first to be able to put 12 FP into the spell.

Younger Judoc nods at the suggestion, chuckling slightly at his counterpart's choice of spells to become as close as a man could to a phoenix, a flying personification of flame.

"I can only imagine how Brother Hilath would react to seeing a Human Torch flying around the grounds."  The youth chuckles.  Almost makes me want to do it just to see how the old stick in the mud would react.

It's clear to both the Judocs that the next round of spellcasting will be arduous, and so they take their seats again, resting after the casting of their flight spells while each are absorbed by their thoughts.

Some twenty minutes later, Judoc stands and begins to remove his gear, only to realize that his other self has drifted off into sleep in all the quiet and dark.

"I'm awake."  Younger Judoc protests immediately as he shakes himself back to wakefulness.  He rubs his face vigorously with his hands, then stands abruptly to his feet, perhaps overcompensating for his momentary lapse of vigilance.

All his equipment and his pack by the side of the gate, Judoc removes even his armor, as he knows that only his undergarments will turn to flame along with his body.  Younger Judoc steps back along with Aiah, and Judoc begins the arduous process of the spell with all of its intricate intonations.

Within the span of a quarter minute however, Judoc has accomplished his goal.  His skin, innards, bones and hair have all morphed into a bright, orange flame that licks up from the depths of his soul.  Without so much as a moment's hesitation, Judoc steps to the gate, his incorporeal body passing through the bars of bones without so much as a mild protest.

Alight with the flames of a six-foot torch, Judoc turns to look at the area around him.  Free from the bonds of the portal, Judoc now sees clearly the ledge and its surrounds, though there is no obvious pull or lever to move the gate into the up position.  The ledge itself is only twenty five or so feet across, and only stretches out twelve feet or so from the gate before the bloodied waters of the lake lap up onto the shore.  The handful of skeletons decorating the ledge do nothing as he appears, only lay in their eternal slumber.

The skull above the gate too is in much finer detail here on the outside.  Perhaps younger Judoc was right, and the bones upon the island were dragon, as the skull here certainly seems to be so.  Horns spiral outwards from the top of the head and the long, lizard-like maw extends into a row of razor sharp teeth.  The bottom of the jaw however, seems to have disconnected somewhere, or perhaps was never put up with the skull in the first place, leaving the effect oddly disconnected... a sort of half-horror.

Thinking of the island, Judoc turns his attention towards the lake and again sees the area with a finer detail.  The three bones appear to be lined up all in a row where the wooden stakes appear in much more a haphazard fashion.  Judoc notes also that the deteriorated wooden stakes extend out on one end of the island, where he can see five or six rotted remains of them thrusting upwards from the crimson water.

OOC:  Nothing obvious yet.  Let me know if there's anything you want to do here or if you just want to wait for your spell to end, pass the gear through, and have younger Judoc cast the spell as well.

Is this how stars feel? An eternal burning, every atom of their bodies on fire? Judoc had expected to feel nearly overwhelmed by heat, but the fire is warm and comforting, almost like a old, familiar cloak. An added bonus was the greater illumination Judoc now provides, but he knows that this also makes him easier to see.

The gate itself is intriguing, particularly the dragon skull at the gate's apex. The teeth in particular look impressively dangerous. Judoc wonders where the bottom half of the jaw is. Perhaps that was the key to opening the bone portcullis, but casting about, he does not seem to see it.

The island is a mystery, with its stakes and bones giving it an unnatural look, heightened by the reddish water that surrounds it. Judoc can see no other pathways or passages leading away from the lake other than the gate he has just past through. He looks up at the waterfall and wonders if again they need to take to the air.

Turning back to the gate, Judoc says quietly, "I don't see any latch or lever on this side. I'll let the spell expire, and then we can move our gear through the gate." He stifles a yawn. They need sleep, but he still hasn't found a place that might be safe enough to bed down for the night.

OOC: Look for what might be the bottom jaw of that dragon skull. If Judoc can't find it, he'll allow the spell to expire and help the other Judoc move their gear through the portcullis. Then, he will rest to recover his lost fatigue.

Judoc spends a few moments searching the ground around him, but even with the light of his self-immolation, he doesn't spy anything on the ground that resembles the jawbone of the dragon.  Instead, the bones around all seem generally humanoid, though some of the skulls and teeth are clearly orcish.

Judoc allows his spell to expire, plunging the cavern back into a semi-darkness, with only younger Judoc's lighted necklace behind the gate to lighten the way.  Over the next several minutes, younger Judoc passes the equipment, both his own and his other self's, through the gaps in the bones.  Everything for the most part fits with ease, up until the point where he attempts to fit through the leather cuirass, which protests as he attempts to smash it through the gaps.

With enough effort however, the two finally manage, and Aiah is one of the last things to pass through the gap before younger Judoc begins concentrating for his own spell.

~I'm anxious to be rid of this place~  Aiah thinks as she alights on Judoc's recently rearmored shoulder.

In a matter of minutes, younger Judoc too has passed through the bone portal and donned his equipment, though it's clear that he is just as exhausted as his counterpart.

"Really takes it out of you."  Younger Judoc gasps as he sags back to the floor.  "At least it doesn't look like there's anywhere else to go...  Unless we have to climb up that waterfall too..."  But even as he says it, Judoc knows the other isn't really serious.  Unlike the room before, there is no mist obscuring the peak of the cavern, and it's clear that this room stops abruptly in a rather uniform surface twenty feet up, though admittedly there are shadows that obscure finer details here and there.  The waterfall must come from somewhere but it at least appears to come from a gap between the rock, which would be hell to climb without serious water magic, which Judoc does not have.

"Or maybe there's something on the other side of the island."  Younger Judoc finishes the thought, seemingly more satisfied with this last possibility.

OOC:  Everyone is down 12 fatigue (11 from the spell and 1 from loss of sleep).  Let me know if we're resting more before moving on.

Judoc is disappointed when he does not immediately locate the bottom half of the dragon's skull, but he considers it unlikely that such an obvious key would be lying around right beside the gate it would open. Here on the other side, it seems like the gate is front-facing. This still does not tell him if the portcullis was intended to keep beings out or trap them within. A castle's portcullis normally serves the latter function, but the demonic denizens within The Path of Ancestors probably would have appreciated having their prey trapped inside. Judoc finds it odd that they had not met more evil creatures within, but he is relieved to have gotten this far with all his limbs still intact.

~I feel the same way, Aiah,~ Judoc sends to his doppelganger's familiar. Again he feels the pangs of losing his own Aiah. What had become of her in the half a year he had seemed to lose? Might she be dead now? The morbid thought chokes the relief he had felt just a moment before.

He nods in agreement with his double's assessment, both of his currently fatigued state and the difficulty the waterfall possess. "Let's check out the island, then," he says. "But before we do, let's rest up here. I really need some sleep, but this place doesn't seem that safe to me."

He looks at his alter's familiar. "Perhaps Aiah can see what else might be out there beyond the island." ~Aiah, how do you feel about flying around the rest of this cave to see what else might be around the lake?~

OOC: Let's rest again to recover our lost fatigue.

If Aiah is willing, I'd like to have her scout around this lake area if there's room to fly.

Were the leathers damaged when we shoved them through the gaps in the gate?

"Right."  Younger Judoc agrees, nodding to add emphasis.  "A hour or so and I'll be right as rain."  Though Judoc himself knows that the rest they will need will be much closer to two.

But before they move on, Judoc intones to Aiah his intent to use her to scout and the familiar readily agrees.

~Anything to stretch my wings!~  The bird thinks, flitting off from Judoc's shoulder.  ~Does the air here seem fresher to anyone else?  Less stale?~

Aiah circles the room, which is quite large enough for slow flight even if the ceiling isn't high enough for much maneuverability.  She overflies the island and comes within a few feet of the waterfall, circling around back again before coming back to sit on Judoc's shoulder.

~The water's coming straight down from a gap the rock.~  The bird starts, ruffling her feathers with her beak to nudge off the small beads of water that have collected there.  ~There doesn't even look like enough of a gap for me to get through it...  maybe a water sprite.~

Aiah shoves her head under a wing, jousting her beak deep within her feathers.

~As for the small island, there's not much to say of it.  Those three big bones you are talking of are sitting in holes in the rock.  They seem intentionally placed, though the wood on the rock and in the water seems rotted and fallen like an old man nest long abandoned.  There's nothing else on the other side though...  No other caves.   It definitely smells fresher though.~

"Nothing like the glimmer of hope to really make the despair felt."  Younger Judoc quips aloud as he rolls his head back lightly.  "Damn this place."

OOC:  Let me know if you want to fast forward through resting and where to go from there.

Judoc perks up when Aiah says the air feels less stale. "We must be nearer to the exit," he says. "Or entrance," he adds after a moment. Aiah's report regarding the waterfall is disappointing. Judoc had thought it possible that the underground stream might have carved out a tunnel through the bedrock. However, if such a tunnel did exist, it was hidden.

"I wonder if the exit is camouflaged somehow?" he says. "We can investigate further after some rest. I want to get a closer look at that island. Perhaps the "old man nest" has further secrets we can uncover."

"For now, let's rest," he says. "Keep an eye on me, and don't let me fall asleep."

OOC: Okay, let's rest to recover our lost fatigue. Once we're back up to full strength, Judoc will cast Flight and go investigate that island.

"Right."  Younger Judoc nods, shifting his pack to use as a bit of padding for his back as he lays against the stone of the cave.  "Might as well be rested up."

Again, the two twin mages sit and rest, soaking up the fel mana of the caves to assist with their own natural replenishment.  Judoc glances over at his other self a few times as he thinks, though this time it seems that younger Judoc is overly alert and possibly self conscious that he had fallen asleep just a short time ago.

In perhaps an hour, the two feel ready to move on again.

"Odd place."  Judoc stands, gripping his staff in both hands as he touches the tip into the crimson waters of the lake.  "I guess they wanted people to go through the lake?  I wonder if there's some trap there too like the pit we were dropped into from the start?"  He stirs the staff for a moment, like a witch stirring a cauldron, though he quickly withdraws his weapon and places it on the ground, leaning on it with both hands.

"I'll stay here for the moment.  If there's anything over there, I'm sure you won't need my help finding it, and if there isn't at least I'll have saved a bit of reserves in case we need something for another fight.  I didn't much like the last one we had with those skeletons."

Judoc casts his own flight spell, and he feels the tug of fatigue on his body.  There is little more he wishes to do but rest... or rather to be free of this place so that he can sleep.

Aiah flits off his shoulder as he rises, making her own flight along side her master.

It is a quick journey over to the small island, perhaps a second or two, but the closer distance makes many things much more clear in Judoc's mind.  The three large bones stand about chest high in a row, and sit in grooves that are dug within the stone of the land.  Judoc takes a moment to look at the faces, for indeed they are faces carved at the end of the ivory, and realizes that these too must be orcish heroes, or perhaps even bad and faded copies of the same gods depicted down below.  Either way, they are clearly levers of some sort, arranged in a row as if they work together.

At the other side of the island, Aiah's man nest seems to gain a little clarity as well.  The wooden posts thrusting straight upward from the water seem to be some sort of deteriorated dock sticking out from the edge of the island.  Other planks and posts seemed to have washed up on the edge of the shore, though there is nothing left with which to walk on.  Judoc briefly cycles to the far side of the room, and looks up briefly near the waterfall, only to come to the same conclusion that Aiah did.  While the water clearly comes down through the rock, it doesn't seem like there is any gap for air with it.  Barring strong water magic to keep him from both drowning and being washed back down with the current, which Judoc does not have, the mage surmises that attempting to climb back to the surface using that route would be impossible...


OOC:  The dashed circle on the map depicts where the water comes down in a falls from the ceiling, and where it washes into a swift flowing current adjacent to the tunnel you just walked through.

Judoc had expected some kind of exit from this room back up to the surface. The orcs had passed this way many years before, and surely they had some method of navigating these caves, unless they used magic to come here just as the two Judocs had.

"Perhaps the way past this cave lies beneath the lake," Judoc offers. "Or it is camouflaged, and we need to find some kind of secret door."

Casting his Flight spell, Judoc launches himself into the air for further reconnaissance. Once at the island, Judoc's mind works quickly. Grooves and levers. For the gate, then? Perhaps this was the apparatus that enabled the portcullis to be opened. Or might it open a secret door to grant egress from this room? He looks carefully at the faces for any hint of who they might be.

The docks next attract his attention. A dock was here at one time, indicating that boats had regularly used this place. But what had been the boats' starting point? Had there been an underground river at one point that had been blocked up? The docks surely did not connect to the area with the gate, or they would have faced that side of the island.

OOC: Does Judoc recognize the faces on the bones?

Judoc will first travel in the direction the docks are pointing, roughly ESE on the map, and see if he can find a camouflaged exit or a place where boats would have entered the cavern.

If he cannot find any camouflaged opening, he will try pulling the levers. He will first pull the left-most lever, then the middle one, and finally the right-most lever. He will pause if anything seems to happen from moving a lever.

Judoc briefly looks at the bone levers.  Did he recognize them?  In truth, he wasn't sure.  They could have been Felclough, or some other orcish demigod.  These three sculptures weren't nearly as large as the ones near the flaming pit had been, and though the three faces looked like they were the same, they were worn enough that identifying them was a daunting task.

Wanting to use his spell to the utmost of his time, Judoc flies quickly to the dilapidated dock and past, trying to decide if there is anything of note in the far reaches of the cave.  However, the dock structure seems to end after only ten or fifteen feet, leaving no other hints as to its purpose or history.  The crimson water below seems to be slowly swallowing the dilapidated posts, perhaps hiding any other clues as to the boats that used to travel here underneath the cloudy surface.

Judoc flies onward towards the far points of the cave, though it does not take him long to tell that there are no other exits on the water's surface.  Instead, the glossy wet of the smooth cave walls reflects back the light of Judoc's stone seemingly from every direction.

Judoc flies back to the island, alighting just before his spell has expired.

With nothing else he can think of for the moment, Judoc takes a deep breath, grips the left most lever and pulls.

The surface of the red and muddy water in front of him churns.  Judoc releases the lever, grabbing his staff with both hands in case the lever held the bonds of some monster chained below the surface.  Instead, Judoc watches as the surface curls and breaks not just at his own feet, but all the way to the ledge where younger Judoc stands, and a forty foot length of stone slab rises up out of the water.

The bridge is narrow, perhaps only two feet across, and wet.  It rises barely a half a foot from the water, with thick pilings or pillars supporting it from underneath every five or ten feet.  But undoubtedly this slab will serve as a bridge and younger Judoc gets its purpose immediately.

"Will you look at that!"  Younger Judoc claps as he grabs his pack and pulls it back over his shoulders.  "I'm coming over!"

Aiah takes a single look at the slick, wet surface and flaps her wings, lifting off from the younger mage and flying across the length of the water to Judoc.

~Not that I don't trust your balance!  The bird thinks as she lands.  ~but I figure you don't need any distractions while you're on that.

Younger Judoc takes a tepid step on the slick stone, then carefully begins making his way across...

OOC:  Lever A (left most) raised a long and narrow bridge just on the left side of lever A.  Judoc is walking his way slowly across to you.

Judoc smiles in satisfaction as the ramp rises from the water. So this had been the means by which orcs long ago had entered this place. No doubt another lever opened the gate. But how had the orcs entered this chamber? His cursory examination had revealed no clear ingress, but the dock clearly spoke of some means of water transport. Perhaps the third lever reveals a hidden opening in the cavern wall, large enough for a boat to pass through.

The ramp is of curious construction. Had orcs been able to build it, or was it a remnant of the older elf culture that the orcs had exterminated? Perhaps dwarves had aided in the ramp's construction, for Judoc finds the concept of orc engineers to be dubious at best.

He watches silently as the younger Judoc makes his way down the ramp. The bridge looks slippery. Magic would be safer to cross the lake, but in this case, feet are a fine alternative. Magic allows almost limitless possibilities, but a wise wizard knows not to always rely on the same tools.

OOC: Once the other Judoc is safely across, try the middle lever. If nothing happens, try the right-most lever. If there is still no movement, move the left lever again to see if that retracts the ramp, and then try the middle lever.

Younger Judoc makes his way across the narrow causeway slowly, and though the surface is soaking and slick, his slow pace keeps him from losing his balance at any point over the water.  It isn't long before the other mage has slung his pack back down on the ground and begins looking at the levers along with his other self.  Not wanting to wait any longer than needed, Judoc pulls the middle lever, expecting the gate of bones to begin to lift at the far side of the cavern.

Instead, Judoc finds that he feels the same dulled mechanical rumbling, and watches as the red waters churn again...  This time on the right side of the levers.  Again the muddy water eddies and breaks in a nearly identical fashion, revealing a nearly identical twin footbridge to the one on the left.  This one too, crosses the span of the water all the way to the opposite shore where the gate lies, parallel to the first and only spaced two yards apart.

Judoc frowned.  After the first lever had raised the causeway, he had been convinced there would be one lever to open the gate, and another to show the way onward or else out of the caverns.  The second lever raising a second bridge ruined the theory, and made Judoc far less confident that the way onward would be easy.  He was tired.  Surely by now it must be morning?  They would need to sleep, but how could they in this place?  With skeletons lurking and demons around every turn, where could they find that was safe?

But perhaps he was over worried.  It was possible that the last lever opened the way forward and there was some other device to open the gate.  He would need to find out, one way or the other.

Judoc grabs the last of the levers, pulling it towards him, and sighs with disappointment as he hears the sound of clinking chains coming from across the waters.  A dozen yards ahead, the bone portcullis slowly rises upwards, disappearing into the hard stone of the cave.

But that isn't all it does.  Several other things all happen at once.

A sound like the cracking of a whip erupts from a few paces behind Judoc as a soft percussion wave rolls across his back.  The acrid smell of ozone pierces though the scents of a wet and musty cave.  On his shoulder, Aiah clinches her talons sharply and without thought, her eight claws piercing painfully into Judoc's shoulder.

Next to him, Younger Judoc turns his head and immediately raises his staff, the color of his face draining as his eyes set into a hardened glare.

It is the voice though, more than anything, that sends Judoc's heart plummeting down into his stomach.

"Well...  Isn't this a surprise?"

It belongs to Brother Loke.

"I'd been waiting to kill you for all the inconveniences you've caused me, though now I get to do it twice!"

OOC:  No sweat about posting.  I've been on and off with time and motivation, though I am a little curious about post not showing up.  I noticed you'd been checking the game, so I thought maybe you were just agonizing over your next step (a favorite pass time of mine in my games on RPoL).

Loke is clearly behind you, though his voice sounds as if he is several steps away.  I'll get a map up on the next post if I have the time, though for the moment, there's no immediate need to worry about tactical implications about position.  Loke seems docile enough for the moment, despite the clear intent of killing you eventually.

God's body, but Judoc is tired. He has been up all night, fought demons and the undead, and drained himself repeatedly from spellcasting. What he wouldn't give for eight hours' sleep, even on cold, bare earth.

But there is no rest for the weary. Abruptly, the shockwave hits him, and even without turning around, Judoc knows what it portends. The smell suggests an oncoming thunderstorm, but twisted somehow. Not the sweetness of oncoming rain, but venomous, ichorous.

He hears the voice of Loke/Agares, the being Judoc fears more than any other, even more than Graves. The young wizard immediately recalls the vision from the pool. The images it scryed were real, though perhaps they represented the worst case scenario. His double lives, he knows, or at least has good reason to believe. However, Judoc knows no such temporal causality protections exist for himself.

Turning, he grits his teeth. "Not today, Agares. We have not come this far, through fire and bone, to be killed now, by you or any other!"

OOC: Wait.

Judoc whirls around, taking in the view of his old nemesis.  The old man does not seem to loom quite as large as he does in Judoc's memories.  The demon, Agares, Judoc knows cuts a much larger figure, and Judoc wonders if he had perhaps conflated the two with his fears.

~It's not human!  Aiah screeches within Judoc's mind.

Despite Judoc's precautions, Loke does not make any immediate moves, but laughs pleasantly at Judoc's response, the edges of his lips curling upwards to a smirk.

"So headstrong."  Loke starts, his arms and hands relaxed as if the twin Judoc's present no real threat at all.  "Do you really seek to begin this fight so quickly?  No vein of curiosity pulls at your conscience?"

Beside him, younger Judoc steps widens his grip on the staff, his eyes darting in all directions as if expecting a trap to close from every direction.

"Perhaps you still have not learned your first lesson Judoc?  Do you remember?  The first day we met when we had walked the banks of the lake at the college?"

Loke flits his eyes between the two Judocs, his piercing gaze and self satisfied smirk bludgeoning younger Judoc into response.

"I remember, what of it?"

"Do you."  Loke's words are flat and without inflection, less of a question than a simple response.  "Fitting, it seems, that our journey ends in such a similar fashion to where it began I think.  On the bank of a lake that served as the very foundation of an order.  The start of a journey.  That one of the order of the Templars, of baptism, the earning of the Knight's Cross.  This one the Blood Lake, the beginning of the Road of the Dead, where Felclugh pulled his victims down to an eternal damnation of drowning..."

Loke's smile grows upon his lips as he locks eyes with Judoc.  Clearly he is enjoying the interaction, the moment of power, the indecision of the two mages.

"Of course, it's not real blood I suppose, but rather a mix of sediment and hematite that gives the water its color.  But as we learned nigh on two years ago, when I showed you just a sample of the drowning death, not all things are entirely as they seem."

OOC:  Combat map below.  Each grid square is 5 feet, so just under two hexes across.  I want to thank you for playing as well as you have in this thread.  I'm really enjoying this, as much as it may seem like I've been toying with you as I dangle you over a certain death.  Hopefully you realize that I wouldn't force a character into a such an outcome, though I have definitely shoehorned you into the position you are in now.

Loke isn't making any movements towards combat.  The ball is in your court, feel free to attack, or to continue the conversation as you see fit.

Judoc still grips his staff tightly in his hands. Agares is toying with them, and it is enjoying this. Multiple battle plans flash through Judoc's mind. He and his double could rush Agares, overwhelm him, not allow him a moment to get a spell off. Judoc could cast Flight and rain down fire from above. He could summon an explosive fireball and envelop Loke in flames. But Agares's mastery over water diminishes fire's attraction.

Of course Judoc is curious. Does Agares intend to make another attempt to replace Graves, this time with Judoc as the demon's stooge? Judoc hadn't been able to sense Aiah back in Azer.  Does she die here and his younger self somehow escape? Is escape even possible if Agares remains alive? Why is the demon here? The Path of Ancestors is a hive of demons, but this doesn't explain why Loke is here, in the middle of this Blood Lake. Is there hidden meaning behind his words? What is not as it seems?

"Of course I remember. You gave me a taste of death then, but why? To assert your power? To derive sadistic pleasure in another's pain? To make me distrust and hate my teachers? To let me know how much of an asshole you are? What lesson did you seek to teach then?"

OOC: Thanks, Raddek. I always enjoy these solo adventures, even if this one might be Judoc's last. It really is like playing out a movie or novel, and you do an excellent job of making this all seem real.

"Are you still angry about that?"  Loke responds with the hint of a laugh.

"Fine, if that is what you wish to know, I shall tell you...  I can't pretend that I didn't enjoy the moment, more so because of the delicious mix of your indignant self-righteousness and complete powerlessness."

Loke smiles, taking a step along the shore, not closer, but parallel to the two Judocs.

"But no, that was not why I did it.  Instead, I did it for the same reason I did everything at that school.  I had a job to do.  I was to feel through the students, to see which ones were strong of will and which could be easily bent.  Which students were gifted, and which were weak.  I would find whom would be useless and whom could be used.  And then I would steer those most desirable to the order."

Loke frowns, and turns his gaze back to the two Judocs.

"It has been quite and inconvenience that I can no longer execute that task...  Though I suppose the upside is that it has given me some time to plan your demise.  Which itself comes with a new purpose much more enticing..."

"But enough."  Loke stands up straight, placing his fingertips together, forming a sort of tent with his hands in front of his chin.  "Now it's your turn to answer a question."

"I have heard you have been to Solitude yes?"  Loke quirks an eyebrow when he receives puzzled looks from the two, though he continues on never the less.  "But I know you have.  It's the ancient prison of the elves which used the bound souls of elementals to nullify powerful magics within its walls...  You killed Sadda there, a useful tool but too weak for the task he was given."

~How does he know that?  Aiah squawks within Judoc's mind, the claws digging in slightly again to Judoc's shoulder, though this time he senses anger rather than fear.

Now Loke faces directly to Judoc, his eyes boring holes into the mage's face.

"Tell me everything you know about it.  The longer you talk, the longer you live."

OOC:  Technically, you are at range 2 (and thus within melee range now for a normal step and attack even without a flame jet).  I opted to interpret your direction as "if he steps closer, then attack" as the if/then statement didn't really make sense when the condition was already set (otherwise it would have just been written in the post).  If I got that wrong, then apologies, though it hasn't cost you anything for the moment.