The Aaran's face held some odd mixture of astonishment, deep thought, and melancholy. He shook his head slowly, muttered something, and bent down to the ground and placed the piece of chalk in his hand inside of his bag, where you see multitudes of wizard's equipment. He grabs it, stands back up straight, slowly and with much effort, muttering words you only catch barely, "...ol' boy's onto something there..." The man had a voice like crispy brown leaves, dry of everything but sound. "Now, do gather around the circle.", he says in what might be mistaken for a whisper. Various shuffling sounds indicate that everyone has moved over. It is quiet, for the most part, the squeaking of leather on buckles and the slight clink of armor all there is to be heard.

"As I said before, anyone standing inside the circle at the time the command words are spoken will be instantaneously transported through the dimensional lock on this castle, to the mountains of Blackstone. The atmosphere change and teleportation may be untoward for some of you, but I suppose it beats nearly certain death."

With nothing to really do, and casting glances askance at the small man with the artifact, everyone steps forward into the chalk, taking care not to smudge it even at the magician's insistence that it would not matter.

The words, from some language no one can really know, seem to slime their way through his teeth: "Yulzthees Keeyumla"

And with a fizz-pop, you are gone.

---

Silence overwhelms you. You open your eyes but cannot see, open your mouth but cannot speak, and indeed feel the air slammed from your lungs as if you were the bellows of a particularly bellicose smith. Choking on nothing at all, eyes bulging slightly, you reflect variously on death and dying, before you feel pressure and the air normalizing, followed by a glow. You are in a very, very, very dark place, the only light coming from the old Aaran, the air seemingly also provided, as he holds some nick-nack over his head that is hissing and appears to be releasing air into the void. There is no up or down, no sides, no surfaces, no gravity. You simply are, sustained only by one man's planning with what appears to be a bottle, endlessly gushing air.

"Now", he says, voice faintly carried on the thin air, "what I want to know is how they put a Dimensional Lock on the castle without having any spellcasters physically in the damned place. Ah well no matter, we'll break through in just a moment,hang on and don't dematerialize just yet..."

Even as he speaks these words, he pops out of view. You twist and turn in zero gravity, but he is gone. The air thins away, as it is wont to do, and without the bottle replacing it, you begin to despair once more. Many clap hands over their eyes, and some take large gulps of the remaining air. You feel dizzy...

---

The ground rushes up to meet you and, somewhat over enthusiastically, hits you full-body. There was some amount of unconsciousness, you're not sure if for a while or only a little, but you are alive now. For a while, most just breathe, though some enterprising individuals get up and do some stretching. The 3 scholar-magicians appear least shaken by the trip, chatting lightly while regaining their breath.