Summon the Heavenly Portal

Cost: 35m
Target: Summoned Calibration Gate

Once a year, on the third night of Calibration, the Celestial City of Yu-Shan revels in the Carnival of Meeting. In ages past, mortal and Exalted dignitaries would be invited to Heaven to join the festival, but in these debased times, the gods of Yu-Shan neglect the world.

The starmetal Calibration Gate still appears in Creation once a year to admit mortals to the Carnival, though the gods send out no invitations. During that night, it cannot be summoned. For the rest of the year, though, a sorcerer may call it with this spell.

The sorcerer evokes a foot-wide patch of rippling gold, like sunlight on water, He reaches into it, feels for a handle, and pulls. A celestial bell chimes. A minute later, the Calibration Gate appears. It materializes with equal aplomb outside, indoors, underwater or even in midair. It remains open for five minutes before vanishing again, and it cannot be re-summoned to any place within a mile of that location until a day and night have passed.

No known force can damage the gate. Any number of characters can pass through the Calibration Gate, although they cannot leave Heaven by the same route. What's more, if they have no official place or legitimate business in the Celestial City, they need quite an argument to persuade the three giant orichalcum lions on the near side to let them pass. These celestial lions respect honor and justice but are nigh-undefeatable in battle and immune to mind-affecting magic. (And there are six more waiting on the other side of the door.)

Many of the Sidereal Exalted know this spell and use it to return from their assignments within Creation. A few Lunar sorcerers know it too and use it to confer with allies in the celestial Bureau of Nature. Sidereal leaders worry what Solar sorcerers might learn if they obtain access to Yu-Shan. Any Abyssal Exalt who tried using the Calibration Gate would likely regret it in very short order—nine orichalcum lions notwithstanding.