OK, fair enough. However, I don't see any reason in the guidelines to believe that an CrIm illusion would be dispelled by having something come into contact with it--if that were the case, a Touch illusion couldn't work very well. The only thing that remotely hints at such an outcome is the ReIm spell Wizard's Sidestep, but in that case, an image struck by an attack reappears somewhere else because it's designed to do so (and there's an extra magnitude paid for that effect).
So can you break the ring without disspelling the illusion? Maybe, but just as you don't like the idea that it can't be broken by any mundane means, I'm not fond of the idea that simply waving your hand breaks it, like a laser burglar alarm.
It's not a question of the illusion being dispelled - it's still there (assuming we've now moved on to the illusion of a circle being cast with Ind target and Sun duration - if it was Ring or Circle based on itself it would never have come into existence properly in the first place). The problem is that the spell it's acting as the Ring/Circle for has had its Circle broken, and has therefore ended. It's (broadly) like if you cast a Circle spell on a metal ring, pull it apart and then push it back together again - the metal's still there, but the spell breaks as soon as the circle does.
I think there's the fundamental problem that Imaginem has no inherent substance, so whilst it's really hard to do it permanent damage, it's really easy to temporarily override it.
That's doable in principle (assuming that the circle either produces a column of effect, or it's a large enough sphere that you still produce enough effect at ground level - exactly how that works is one of those things that I don't think is well defined, but I'm willing to say the latter would work in this case anyway so it doesn't really matter).
Viola will have to physically trace the Imaginem ring whilst casting her Ring / Circle spell, though.
Is there anything that actually says a Circle/Ring effect is spherical? I don't remember.
In any case, yes, she has to pace the circle, but that will take under a minute. Creating the ring doesn't require a roll.
I said above that the spell to turn the air into thick, black, but harmless smoke would be MuIm, but I believe I meant MuAu, specifically MuAu15, from a base 5 guideline. You noted that Viola's total, after dividing but before adding a stress die, is 18, so here's a roll:
From what I remember, there's nothing that explicitly says a Ring / Circle spell has to be spherical. However, there are various "Ward Against the Faeries of the X" spells that say things like "Seen from certain angles at night, the ring appears as a [colour] dome" (for example, the ReAq one is light blue) which suggest they are at least some of the time. It's therefore a house rule as to whether Ring / Circle spells are always spherical or not (and if you rule that they don't have to be, you also need to decide what happens when someone turns one through 90 degrees and scrawls it on the wall).
Yes, but tracing the ring is rather trickier if it's 4-5 feet above her head. Not undoable, but trickier.
How about making it whatever height it needs to be so that she can reliable reach it with an extended arm holding her talisman? That should pretty much assure it won't be broken by accident.
Viola's small frame manifests in her being very thin, from what I remember, rather than short. Given that, I'll say that that plan will probably work - but it's not a certainty against the person with snakes waving from the top of her head.
[OOC: I'll roll a die and see how (un)lucky Viola gets.]
Probably 10%-ish? I'll roll a die and say the circle got broken if it comes up as zero.
There are definitely other ways Viola could do this (although the floor isn't solid stone on the surface, and anything she does will have to account for the heavy rain and randomly sprouting barley).
No, let's do a CrHe to create a continuous vine on the ground around the party--with a large enough diamater, that should be more or less impossible to break without intentional action (with sharp instrument). "Create wood in an unnatural shape" is base level 3, and making it Touch/Sun/Circle would be level 10. Let's actually make it a root, so that it's mostly embedded in the ground, and won't be tripped over.
Her CrHe total is Cr 8 + He 6 +2 Sta + aura 6 - Winded 1 = 21. That's enough to do it without Fatigue using Innate Spontaneous Magic, though we will require a stress die:
That should largely work (I'm assuming it's breaking the surface so Viola can trace it for the next spell). It'll be target Ind rather than target Circle (as things created ex-nihilo have to be either Individual or Group), but that shouldn't change anything.
I'll take your roll from earlier
(It probably needs to be level 20 rather than 15 for touch range, but she's still pulled that off).
Keeping track, I think that's three fatigue levels down?
Viola casts her spell, and a thick black smoke (smelling faintly of violents) billows up from the ground to fill the confines of the circle.
[OOC: Are you doing anything else, or just waiting for the gorgon?]
She's down 1 extra level of Fatigue for the MuAu spell, for a total of 2. The CrHe doesn't require Fatigue, since she's using Innate Spontaneous Magic (yes, I have to reread it every time to be sure how it works--dividing by 2 requires a stress die, but not Fatigue).
While we're waiting for Halia, let's make sure everyone knows not to leave the circle.
[OOC: I think she spent two fatigue levels on the second casting of the InIm spell to hear Halia sobbing, and then a third for the MuAu spell.]
The group huddle in the smoke - at least, Viola thinks they do. Certainly there are a number of people present - one of them elbows her at one point, even as stalks of barley tickle her leg.
The darkness seems to do nothing to diminish the intensity of the storm - if anything, it increases further. From beyond the circle she can hear above the howling winds the occasional "crack" of the pillars collapsing.
Calliope yells in Viola's ear "I don't think that wind dampening spell is going to last much longer! Can you do something with more vines to keep us in place?"
Um...we need to do something with vines that keeps us from getting knocked out without blocking off the circle, since Halia needs to enter, or at least she needs to be able to reach inside to get the brew. I suppose we could have the vines wrap around legs to hold people in place. The ReHe guideline for controlling a plant is level 4--how many plants are we dealing with here? Using Circle as the target is an option for multiple plants, but I'm not sure what happens to plants part in and part out--or I guess it would just control the parts of the plant in the circle? With Range Touch and Duration Ring, that would be a level 10.
I think you'd probably be using something like Trap of the Entwining Vines as a precedent, which would be Creo rather than Rego. Or you could use Rego, but you'd need to create the vines first.
You'd said vines, so that was what I was working on. The barley...maybe? Individual stalks are going to be weaker than a sturdy vine, but there are a reasonable number of them.
Negotiating tracing the ring in pitch darkness is a little tricky, but Viola manages it without major disasters - the vine's raised profile helps significantly. As she finishes, the barley ceases merely to tickle her leg, and instead twists round it, binding her in place.
[OOC: Strength stress roll of 9+ to break the barley. Affected characters can add 9 to their rolls to resist being knocked backwards by the wind.]
The barley growth comes just in time, as more cracking noises from shattering stalagmites herald a blast of wind that roars through the circle.
[Please make Dex + Size rolls vs EF 9 for Viola and Chryse, adding the +9 bonus.]
Viola thinks for a moment she hears "...children..." upon the wind.