Dark Way

(See also: Darkfire) This spell instantly brings into being a ribbon like, weightless but unbreakable black bridge. The matte black strip of force is straight, 2 feet wide, an inch thick, has no side rails, and can be as long as 20 feet per caster's level. Its length may be only inches, or it may stretch to the maximum allowed by the spell range but the dark way must be created so that both ends are anchored to stationary, stable, solid objects such as roofs, walls, or cliff faces, not dirt slopes or tree branches. It cannot bend, but can climb or dip if the caster desires.

A dark way spell need not span a chasm, but can be created inches above the floor of a room (running from wall to wall) to allow its caster to take advantage of its other properties.

Once created, the dark way is immobile, and withstands all known spells and attacks. It cannot be destroyed (even by will of the caster) before the spell ends. It can be traversed by all creatures and does not conduct electricity, heat, or magical effects. The caster cannot fall from or be struck or swept from the dark way (though he can deliberately jump), and while in contact with any part of the way, can lift, carry, and wield any weight (of beings, items, or both) as if they weighed nothing.

This allows a caster to stand on the way in defiance of gale-force winds or even elude attacks by walking on the edges or bottom of its span. The “weightless” property of the span has been used by some priests to dupe others into thinking that the caster possesses mighty strength (lifting a horse, for instance, while standing on a dark way hidden behind an altar).

This property does not apply to other creatures. Any being who overloads the way (stepping onto it with a total burdened weight half again as much as the caster's burdened body weight at the time of casting) falls through the dark way, even though it remains solid to all other creatures. In other words, if the caster of dark way plus what the caster is wearing and carrying weighs 100 pounds, and he flees along the span, a pursuing monster who weighs 150 pounds or more plunges through it. Obviously, creatures other than the caster can fall from the way, as they could from any narrow bridge.

The material components of a dark way spell are one of the caster's hairs, some spider web, and a shard of black glass (man-made or obsidian).