# Spellchaser Chronicles (Pathfinder - Planescape) (Updated 11/19/10)



## Miles Pilitus (Nov 10, 2010)

This story-hour might be a little different then most. For our group's most recent game, one of the characters has in his possession the book "Chaser's Journal," in which the character, Abraxas Spellchaser, records the adventures that happen to him and his group of friends. Each episode is a week of game, and I write up an extended summary of the game between each session. The first post is a bit of prologue, several of the characters where brought into Planescape from another campaign and Episode 0 is their transition from one setting to another.

Episode 0 – The Last Fools

“Simon, I’m beginning to doubt the sanity of the designers of this hovel.” I hop over the mural of the twin lions on the ground, giving the pattern a sign of dire salute as I float over the trap that had just gotten the legs of my companion and his better half.

“This place reeks of arcane magic Abe. I’m coming to the conclusion that the use can not help but imbalance the mind.” Simon and Remé were kneeling down on the stairs to the next level each checking the scratches that the claws of the lions had left in their legs.

I tear off a strip of linen and help the pair tie bandages tight around their calves to reduce the bleeding, and grumble, “Says the person who needed a few weeks of personal time to prevent his thoughts from leaking out of his own head.” I offer them both a hand to help them get back to their feet. “Call it power or life my friend, I’m not sure there’s actually enough space in some-one's bone-box for them to actually be all ‘there.’ But I’m talking about seriously wacky, ‘I’m-touched-by-Gyron’ level of off, and –”

“I know what you mean, man. It’s all just soo... peaceful. My lord pancake has certainly blessed this house.” It seems Xallis had decided to head back into the house and gotten hit by the emotion control again. He was now slumping against the frame of the door just shy of the mural. He pulls himself off the frame and starts to walk forward, but I interrupt him this time and move back over to him and place a hand on his chest.

How am I avoiding the mural? Simple, I’m not touching the ground. My wings shimmer in the air behind me, blue constructs of magic holding me aloft. “Let me do something first.” I go back to the side of the mural with the stairs on it, land just past the mural and place my hand next to the mural, then close and open my eyes. It’s blurry for a few seconds as all of the flowing patterns of magic swirl and interpose themselves over the physical reality before my mind has seen enough to interpret what it’s seeing. I’m looking at the trap, and the trap is looking back at me, four pairs of eyes peering out from the magical pattern of the trap. Spirits of one sort or another, called to power this trap. Wait my eyes say as they add another level of detail to this puzzle, bound here to form this trap. “It’s a pair of snakes, worked into the stones of the mural.”

“Snakes, Mister Abe? Why make snakes into lions?” Remé had a point, but Simon answered the question for both of us.

“Lions are cats, and would probably be more likely to just lie there and sleep. Step on a snake and it will lash out, that’s its nature. Maybe you could just help Xallis over the mural and avoid this trap.”

“No, they’re caged here. And I may regret it, but I’m going to try and open their cage.” I lean a little harder into my hand and send trickles of my power through the magic. I feel into the magical construct, searching around until I find the catch. It takes some time, and I feel like I’m drifting there, disconnected from my physical form, but eventually, I find something solid in the magical construct. It feels like a pair of jaws set into the tails. Chains. Well, I know how to deal with those. I whisper the words of unmaking, pointing my will at the bindings that keep the spirits tied into the stone on the ground. I feel it as it happens, first one, then both chains dissolving beneath my power.

Now the stones of the mural begin to glow as the two lions turn into a pair of black and green patterned vipers. As one, they turn to me and speak, “Thank.” “You,” then begin to dissolve into light as their summoning spell expires. I let my vision drift down to my hand. Oh, right. Nature. It looked like I stuck my hand in a nest of feral cats. Or at least, that was my last thought before I passed out.

“Yohoo, Abe, you awake now?” I hear Xallis’ voice as I emerge from the black place.

“I am, thanks Xallis.” I look around me at the stone stairway. It seems I haven’t been moved since I passed out from the blood loss.

“Abe, those glowing, snake things said something before they vanished. What did they say?” Simon asked, offering me a hand to stand up.

“They thanked me. In Upper Trade. Must have been Beasts.” The souls of animals and a whole bunch of people who worship gods of the wild get reborn as animals in the Beastlands, and all of the animals there talk.

“Mister Abe, that word sounded emphasized. What do you mean, Beasts?”

“Oh! I know this one. I think.” It seems the emotion calming couldn’t completely beat back the force that was Xallis. “Servants of the Beast Gods, right?”

“Something like that.” I turned my focus in for a moment, making sure all of my own spell constructs were properly in place.

“I’ve taken a look upstairs. There’s a long hallway and a statue of a lion at the far end. Written along the floor is ‘Only the bravest of heart will not vanish before the Lion’s Glare.’” Simon was sitting on the stairs half-way up their length, holding the little crystal that was probably how he looked into the hallway above. I swear I could hear it purr in the back of my mind as he held it in one hand and it rubbed itself against his other hand on it’s spidery crystal legs. “Anyone have a mirror?”

There as those points when you can actually feel you life splitting down two different streams of fate. When Simon asked that question, I will swear to all of the nothing that I hold sacred that I felt fate diverge. “Don’t think so. Xallis, you?” The half-elf rubbed his smooth chin for a moment then shook his head. “Okay, Simon, your call. Do we see if we’re hard enough to stare down a lion, or do we wait until morning, take the two yutzes downstairs and knock the stuffing out of them before they shake off the effects of this place?”

“But they’re such nice people! Why would we want to hurt them? In fact, why do we want to hurt anyone?” If we ever find the high priest of the rasta lion that built this place, I will hold him down so Xallis can properly express how much he enjoyed having his emotions tweaked after it wears off.

“Push on, we may find a way to remove this effect. Remé, take the lead.” The woman nods her head as she moves up the stairs, stepping around Simon. Floating around Simon as well, I take up the position behind Remé, hoping to be able to break any traps before they do bad things to us. Simon nudges Xallis up the stairs in front of him and takes up the tail position. As Remé and I reach the top of the stairs, I see the etching Simon described, my eyes following it up the room to a – ow – really bright and shifting aura at the other end of the hall.

“Yep, it’s a trap. Or something. Whatever it is, it’s got a kick to it.” As the intensity of the light dies off, I’m able to understand what it is I’m looking at. The floor is designed as a trigger plate, setting off whatever dangerous... void. Whatever dangerous and powerful transmutation spell could use the word vanish. And I’m left with a small list of options, none of them good ones.

“Mister Abe, the statue’s eyes are glowing.” Okay, make that no options. I must have missed a air trigger for the trap. Which means I have to figure out how to divert the spell before it changes us all into particulate matter.

Change?

Could it be so simple? , I hope so. I plant my hands against the walls and the floor, driving my will into the trap. I need to do something, anything. I can feel my will chasing across the floor as the spell starts sweeping the other way. I shout the words to beak bonds, chanting them over and over in every language I know, feeling my will being pressed back by the disintegration spell, then being rolled over. I put one last bit of effort into my spell and the two begin to twist around each other, tumbling end over end towards us, screaming as the spell begins to eat away at the air itself, creating a growing black spot. I think I hear screaming behind me, but the blackness overtakes me before I can turn around and tell if everyone is screaming or just a selection....
[edit] It worked?

What happens next is a great deal of confusion. One thing I know it isn’t is death. I think. There was a feeling of great velocity, strange acceleration, and strange angles of turning and twisting. It goes on for what felt like an eternity before we land hard on a surface. And in the midst pain that feels like I’d just tumbled down the entire length of the spire, face first, I pull my head a few inches from the ground and ask, “Are we dead?”

And of course I’m the first one awake. I see that Simon and Xallis are next to me on the glittering tiles of whatever it was that decided to break our fall. I look up from my friends and gaze around. Hmm. There’s no sky, and pale blue spires reach all the way to the limits of perception. I shake my head real quick to clear my vision. Yep, still no sky. People walk all around us, conversing in every civilized language known. Plus a few of the less civilized ones, but you can’t expect fiends to speak Upper Trade, now can you? Infuriatingly, even as I’m finally awake and in one piece, some new shape of pain starts to settle in the back of my eyes.

“Abe? Where are we?” It seems they were beginning to wake up, Xallis was already asking questions. I looked at the lack of sky again, saw the blackness of undefined space shimmer for just a second, filling in the rest of the information my brain has been filing away from my senses.

“We’re in an Astral Demi-Plane that has a mild attachment to the forces of Order. That’s probably part of where your headache is coming from. You’ll probably not able get rid of it till we leave.” Xallis had brought his hands up to his head, but was lowering them without prayers as I spoke.

“Abe. What the hells does that mean? And does it have anything to do with why everyone is wearing bedsheets? And look like they all hatched out of the same batch of eggs.” Now that Xallis mentioned it, I saw that the people dressed in white togas and all seem to have been made out of a handful of molds. There were the ones that all classified under the ‘tall, dark and powerful presence,’ a few ‘fiery redheads,’ and several more that just placed themselves into categories all their own. I turn around to Xallis and start explaining what exactly is going on, first standing up and sliding my journal back into the pouch on my back I keep it in, then helping him up and pointing out the indicators of what indicated that this was a seed dimension created from the realm of thought, and it was probably the nature of the inhabitants that drew it into the fold of order and how those who valued freedom as a first virtue would be uncomfortable. I’m in the middle of the nested spheres concept to help explain what separates a demi-plane from the prime world we can to when Simon groans and sits up.

“Where are we?” It looks like the transit hit Simon harder then the other two of us, he was grimacing like a big spike was being driven into the back of his skull.

“A World in a Box.” Xallis grabs Simon and then pulls him to his feet. I’m about to correct him, but realize I’m probably not going to be able to encompass nine years of apprentice-ship into a short explanation and wave it off.

It’s just as we’ve all finally gained out feet someone seems to have taken notice of us. A woman, with skin and hair the color of a hazelnut walks up to us then starts speaking in Sigil’s trade tongue, “Excuse me, is this your native tongue?” It seems she takes my focus on her as a confirmation, I’m sure Simon and Xallis are looking confused behind me. “The collective thanks you for your generous offering. We have not yet introduced anyone from your world into ourselves, so it is a most interesting mind. If you head down three plazas, turn left, head another three plazas, you will arrive at a portal that will return you to your crystal sphere of origin.”

“Offering? What do you mean?”

“Exactly what has been stated.” Remé. It finally clicks that she’s not here. Hey, she’s in Simon’s shadow so much of the time, it happens.

“That’s not going to work, on several levels. First of all, I need a different portal, we’re not going back.” I had no idea how we escaped the first time, I’m not risking heading back there.

“My apologies, my master only gave me instructions for returning you to your crystal sphere of origination. If you will excuse me, I am needed by the collective elsewhere.” With that, she takes a few steps back and starts to shimmer with a strange cascading pattern of light before vanishing, which seems to be how the brain-bender’s dimensional distortion magics work.

“Abe, what’s going on?” I’m about to turn around and answer Xallis’ question, when Simon provides an answer.

“They’ve taken Remé. They’re going to turn her into something the people holding her are calling an Elan.” A whisper of memory in the back of my brain. The Elan are the Psionic version of the Shade, a transcendent race that seeks to improve on humanity by infusing it with energy, Psi or whatever ectoplasm it is in the mechanics of their magics instead of shadow. One thing about these procedures I definitely remember, they tend to taxidermy a person’s old personality and stick it on a shelf.

“That’s not good. They’re going to kill her. Or as good as, I know these kind of experiments, though I don’t think anyone knew where the Elan came from. I guess we know now.”

“It’s worse then that Abe. My mind and hers are deeply intertwined, and transforming her will kill me.”

“So, we stop it then? Let a little bit of the unpatterned way into this little crystal box. Sounds like a good idea to me.” Simon and Xallis turn to each other to talk about what’s going to happen. I step away from them and grab the shoulder of one of the redheads walking by speaking trade.

“Excuse me, Miss. Would you happen to know the location of the nearest portal to the City?” After a brief second of confusion on her face I realize I need to specify. “Sigil, the city of Doors?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know.” She rolls her shoulder to shake my hand free, then jumps away from me like a rabbit, running for twenty or thirty paces before she starts walking again as if I’d never disturbed her. Okay, time to gain some perspective. I let my will flow into my wings and lift myself into the air, seeing if there’s anywhere with a big ‘Headquarters’ look anywhere in this little demiplane.

Uniformity. An endless expanse of unpainted blue spires stretching out in every direction. Okay, the place loops on itself: I think I see the faint spec that is myself at the limits of my vision. But, looking at my own back included, nothing important. I lower myself to the ground, and my friends look to me to see if I have anything constructive to add. “I can’t see anything that could be important. If we have to hunt for Remé, it will take some time.”

Simon looks very pale as he shakes his head. “They’re about to start. We don’t have time to hunt. I’ve got an idea, but it is going to take me out of myself,” a grim smile crosses his lips, “for a while. I’ll be able to follow instructions, but I’m just going to be a walking weight.”

“Do it. We’ll need someplace to hide. I don’t see any doors Abe, did you see any?” I shake my head and Xallis continues, “Then we head down. I landed on some kind of grate that headed down, could you break it open?” I look to where he pointed, a crystal sewer grate.

“I can. Unmake!” I throw my will behind the words and point them at the crystal grate. It comes out in a rush, but it feels like I’m running into a brick wall, only the new feeling of adrenaline behind my will breaks through the wall and shatters the grate. Just barely. And then it starts flowing over itself, beginning to regrow. Xallis needs no other lead to jump into the hole, pushing Simon in. It seems Simon’s already doing his part, his eyes are glazed over. I’m the last one down the hole and I see the crowd has turned and is staring at the hole we opened as I dive in.

And pull up to avoid diving straight into the foul fluids that swirl down the center of the sewer. Xallis and Simon are on a walkway at the edge of the muck. I pull next to them, hovering over the channel. Everything down here is made of the same crystal as the city above, but discolored because every surface seems to seep with the foul humors that run sluggishly through the central channel.

Xallis looks up and down the perfectly smooth ceiling of the sewer, “There goes my idea of climbing up someones toilet and surprising them. So, how long do you think we’re going to have to wait for Simon to finish?” Before I can answer, a scratching sound begins to cascade down the tunnels towards us. “That sounds like Simon’s crystal spider, just bigger.” As Xallis finishes that thought, the first of the scratching things rounds a bend in the sewers. A scorpion made of crystal, the size of a pony. Not good. Xallis steps towards the thing as a second and a third join it at the corner. “Might of my lord root vegtable, grant me the protection of the dancing company!” I know what that prayer was supposed to do, bring up a small ring of magic blades to protect him in combat.

It brought up a whole wall of them. I lost sight of the creatures in the spray of foulness that got churned up and thrown into the air. I pull Simon back a few steps, keeping us both well out of the spray when I heard a horrible high-pitched sound begin to intrude upon the wall’s simple melody. The first of the scorpions had clawed its way through the wall. It was hurt, scratched up and down it’s length, but still intact. And the sounds continued, so it was going to have friends on this side of the barrier mighty soon. “Xallis, these things must be powered by law! Hit them with a chaos spell!”

Xallis preps himself to cast something, taking the crystal symbol of his lord in hand, then looks over his shoulder. “I can’t go offensive, I might kill Simon. Our lord of endless wonders, protect me from boredom.” I feel the shimmering field drop around us as Xallis’ prayers take effect. The first two crystal pony-scorpions through the wall start to approach the half-elf then seem to crash into something fluid, but impenetrable ten feet from him. “Abe, these things are constructs, that’s your field. What are they?”

I rack my mind for a quick second as the Crysmals begin to gather outside of Xallis’ protective field. There is it. “Not really a construct, but a living crystal called a Crysmal. They lay eggs in crystals.” Xallis gives me another brief look and tightens his hand around the Pandemonium Eye on his neck, gripping his axe with the other.

And that’s when the stupid things struck at us. I stopped for a second, dipping near the ground as wave after wave of pain sought to work its way into my head. It seems the bastards could get to us even through Gryon’s magic. I open my palm, gathering blue energy when I realize I can hold it for even longer then I could before. I can shape it. “Dream Serpent!” A snake made of blue fire leaps from my hand to the first of the creatures. But I still feel the fire. I pick the next closest Crysmal and point my will at it: the snake rushes out from the first and into the second. I manage another jump before I can’t hold the pattern anymore and the snake dissolves.

Not that it does me much good. It looks like I barely scratched the freaking things. And they feel obliged to offer a return volley of waves of agony and pain. I don’t fend as many off this time. I look to Simon, and he’s worse off then I am. A combination of blood and ectoplasm is leaking from his eyes, his ears, his nose. “Xallis, I don’t think Simon can defend himself from these mind-spikes. We need to run!” I grab one of Simon’s hands as Xallis comes back and grabs the other. He’s burning up, hot as red steel to the touch, but I just feel the heat as a bit of background data. Xallis winces as he grabs the Psion’s hand and lets the power of Gryon’s healings flow into our friend.

And we run. At first we are managing a retreat, firing off bits of magic, burst of sonic and dark energy from Xallis and an endless supply of blue fire from me. But we seem to be dealing with an endless supply of scorpions, so eventually we just start running. I let Xallis lead, trusting him to pick a pattern (or lack there of) to try and lose our pursuers. We get a moment every minute or so for Xallis to patch Simon up, trying to stop the bleeding as whatever it is that Simon’s doing tries to force his brain out of his skull. After losing track of how long we’ve been running Simon suddenly pulls his hand free of us.

“It’s done. We both survived, and Remé’s heading for us. Do you know where we are?” Xallis and I look blankly at each other, then turn to Simon who sighs and shakes his head. “Then we need to stay here. She should be with us soon. Do we have an escape plan?”

“I’ve been trying to keep an eye out. There’s the occasional grate that leads to the city above and a few swirling nexii that I think lead to the Paraelemental plane of Ooze. And I don’t think we’re yet that deep in  that would lead to that place being an improvement.” Of course, this is the universe’s chance to let me know just how much deeper we are then I think as a strange cacophonous roar vibrates the tunnel, drowning out the sound of the crysmals that have been dogging us for the past who knows how long. And then a sound something big slogging its way through the sewer. We pull back from the corner we’re hiding behind before the creature comes into sight.

It’s ten feet tall, bipedal with arms that reach all the way to the ground. It looks like a giant angry brain covered by a rib cage exoskeleton. With teeth. Footlong teeth.

“Cerebrilith. A Tan’ari of the Fifth Rank, one designed as a psionic engine of war by stealing a piece of Illsensine’s realm and infecting a Babau with the Flayer God’s powers. Strongly resistant to magical and psionic influence, it also cannot be damaged by weapons that haven’t been blessed by the gods of the realms above.” I look back at Simon as he rattles off the description of the creature. The same description that the dream spirits were whispering to me. Right. Figure that out later. Also figure out how he doesn’t have to relay that kind of stuff through his crystal anymore, cause that was all said telepathically. Demons first, they present the sharpest of the problems we face.

Xallis reacts before Simon or I as we’re both staring at each other in slight wonderment, “Dancing company of the Thousand Blades, protect your lord’s servant!” It seems Xallis is slightly more prepared to call forth the barrier this time and places it right on top of the Cerebrilith. It staggers in the blades but lands on the side of the barrier that contains three of my favorite people. I pool a dose of eldritch fire in my palm and toss it, but it splashes harmlessly against the exoskeleton of the demon. It stares at Xallis for a moment and it claws begin to shimmer with some strange energy field surrounding them, then takes a step forward.

And then drops back a step as a visible arc of mental energy leaps from Simon towards the creature, sinking into the strange pulsing grey matter of creature. Which stops pulsing and starts bubbling. Xallis roars a battle cry and leaps into the creature, knocking the creature back into the blades. This time, the cerebrilith comes out on both sides of the barrier, finely ground. We couldn’t see Xallis, but a second later Xallis breaks the surface and gasps for breath. Then gags. Simon and I both rush forward to give our victorious cleric a hand back onto the walkway.

As soon as Xallis regains his feet, he almost looses it as a series of roars echo through the sewers. The sounds of roaring demons mixed with the strange scratching silence of the crysmals. It sounds like the demons were engaged in combat with the scorpions, and I don’t think we cared who was going to get stung. Which means it would be good if we weren’t hearing less and less of the sewer guardians while the roaring, taunting threats of the demons never lost a member of its chorus. Trying to pick out voices, I think there were at least four of them. “It’s a hunting pack. We seem to just have the wonderful luck of being the softer targets.” I turned back to Simon.

“Define soon.” Xallis and I said in tandem.

“A few more seconds. How much longer is that barrier going to last?” Simon was getting his answer as he spoke because slowly the blades were starting to slow and stop. I was keeping my eye on one blade as it slowed, and upon stopping, vanishing. As the last blade disappeared I was surrounded by a cascade of shimmering light.

“Aah!” I dodge out of the light just in time to end up merely collapsing into the wall of the sewer in a tangle with Remé. I sigh. “Remé, I am very happy to see you, but I had thus far managed to remain out of the .”

We manage to untangle ourselves and stand up, with Remé giving me far too many “Sorry, Mr. Abe”’s for my comfort. I reach down to pick up my journal, which had fallen out of my bag in the tumble.

It wasn’t my journal. The paper wasn’t the type I had in my journal, it was the strange ultra-white blue paper that I saw...

In my father’s journal.

It’s his handwriting, I confirm as I lift the book to my eyes, flipping to the cover of the book, then back to the page it had fallen open to. There, in Nerick Spellchaser’s hand was written:

My Dear Son,
    Congratulations on passing the first test. Always remember, nothing is forever, even home. If you’re looking for a place that a few steps away from your enemies, there’s a portal about 4 blocks away: L S S R. Key: Fear. One final note: remember, To Serve Man is often a cookbook. 

I look up and see my friends starting at me. “Um. I have my father’s spellbook, and I have a way out. The way we’re heading,” I point down the tunnel, “turn left, go straight for two intersection, then turn right. There’s a portal there. We should probably be running.”

“One thing first.” Simon turned to his assistant, “Remé, delay the demons. If I understand what Abe knows, they’re weak against sound.” Remé nodds and walks around the corner. A second later, the sound of the world shattering rushes past us, with Remé running behind it. Chasing her were two of the demons rounding the corner hard. It gave us some time to start running. As we ran a burst of energy leaped from Remé to each of us in turn. As the burst lands, it settles around the feet and the target’s steps lengthen. First Simon, then Xallis, followed by myself, with Remé saving herself for last.

With the enchantment, we’re able to start putting some distance between ourselves and our pursuers. Enough that we’re a whole turn ahead of the demons when we run smack into a solid wall that I see glimmering with the latent energy of a portal. Why isn’t the portal open? We are running for our lives, why isn’t that keying the portal. Wait. I think I have an idea. I roll as much panic as I can into my voice, “naughty word. I don’t know the key.” All three look at me, a face of confusion crossing their face, morphing into terror as a demon’s roar echoes through the sewers over us. I see the solid stone shimmer and fade to blackness. “That’ll do.”

I fly through the portal, Simon’s voice clipping as I cross the portal, “You BAST–”
[edit] Now What?

This portal is a more familiar experience, a brief sensation of transit, no wild, cascading ride. No disorientation, no sudden wash of strange gravity. And my headache’s gone. I clear the event horizon of the portal as the others start coming through. They all give me a very severe look, but I just smile, “It worked, didn’t it?”

Simon and Remé don’t look pleased, but Xallis thinks for a second and nods his head. Xallis sits down on the edge of the stone box next to the portal to rest his feet, then jumps off it. “Abe, this is a coffin.” I look around us. It’s not a lonely coffin. We’re standing in a Necropolis, small ethereal light glowing from some of carved coffin lids giving the room a pale illumination. The room was huge, in every direction. The ceiling above was high enough to be shrouded in shadows, with tall columns reaching up into the shadows dense enough to make the edges of the room hard to determine. Xallis’ voice breaks my survey, “I see movement, close.” He’s now standing on the coffin lid, pointing to a spot in the middle distance that I had skipped over. It looked like a large feast sitting on the ground and eating, their heads just visible over the coffins. As I stood there watching, one of the group lifted a haunch of meat to its mouth and took a bite. It was a woman’s leg, the thing’s mouth tearing into the thigh and ripping off a piece of meat. My stomach turned, trying to find a meal to lose.

“Ghouls. A lot of them.” Xallis and I rush the ghouls, Xallis leaping from lid to lid as I got some lift above him, slowing a bit to steady myself by slapping each pillar as I pass. I was unsteady, so Xallis reached the ghouls first.

He jumps to the top of one of the coffins in their midst and tears the choker with his holy symbol from his neck to hold it above his head, “By my lord Banana, be purged!” For a moment the whole necropolis is illuminated by the flash of light from the crystal eye of the ancient high priest of Gyron. I’m blinking for a few moments as my night vision returns, but when I look down I see my friend standing alone with a cloud of dust slowly settling to the ground around him. As I blink, I swear I see a single instant of a hand grasping after a tome, my father’s arcane symbol. “Ooh, Shiny!” Xallis has an axe in his hands. As soon as he picked it up, the axe began to shimmer with a shifting, iridescent pattern. Xallis turns back to Simon and Remé and shouts, “Guys! Loot!”

I land next to Xallis, my magical senses engaging as I proceed to catalogue item after item, with each of us handing it to the person who consensus seems to indicate needs it. I find a set of shimmering clothes that take me touching it to realize that it’s a set of armor. As we’re sorting out what remains of the ghoul’s final meal, conversation starts. “So, you two are still with us? No taxidermied personalities?”

“We’re still here, though we have been changed physically. My master was correct, as always.” Remé nods towards Simon before handing him a silver headhand.

“I knew I wouldn’t survive the transition if I didn’t do something. So I deepened the amount that Remé’s mind and mine were woven together, then pulled us out of ourselves, allowing The Committee for the Physical Advancement of Humanoids to change our bodies, but not our minds. I’m just glad it worked.”

We continued sorting out loot for almost an hour, with a brief stop for some conjured food from Xallis (several dozen feet away from the ghouls and their foul meal). Just after the meal, I saw something that caught my eye, but held off on investigating until after we finished dealing with the possessions and remains of the company that the ghouls had torn apart. When I had a chance to investigate it, I found a filled in stone arch with blades worked into the stone of the arch and a pattern of stars in the space inside. I asked for, and received a piece of chalk from Simon and began to trace the pattern I saw in the stone. I was halfway through the pattern when Remé’s voice interrupted me, “Mr Abe, what are you doing?”

“This wall’s another portal, I’m just opening it. There’s an image hidden in it, and tracing it opens the portal.”

“Abe, we’re all pretty tired. This isn’t the best place to sleep, but we all need rest. Can it wait until we’ve all slept.” Simon was being reasonable.

I tossed him his chalk back, “You’re right, I can play find-the-lady later.” As I walked back to the place where we had eaten, I let the pair of Psions stare at the wall and the half-finished silhouette of a woman with what looked like long, spikes for hair. One more door, then I was home. Back where I belonged. I couldn’t stop the smile from engulfing my features.


----------



## Miles Pilitus (Nov 10, 2010)

*Episode 1 – "You call this place home, Abe? That explains so much."*

Opened the portal in the Necropolis (Or finished tracing the key) and went through. Note to self: double-check all portals that you can. The portal was unstable. I don't think I've ever actually been aware as my entire body was separated out and sent across the planes. Even through the maelstrom, we traveled in a single piece.

But, we arrived intact, though Xallis lost his lunch on the landing. We arrived in another necropolis, in Undersigil beneath the Mortuary (laws of sympathetic magic). Our landing seems to have woken up one of (the only) resident, a vamipiress named Camille. For the sake of her solitude (of mind and body), I told her we just needed to reach the streets and we'd be done with her. I still think Xallis has other intentions, but I forgive him, since cat-suits were so rare back home for him (Note: Mention to Simon the necessity of a hammer when Xallis runs into a Succi). Simon agreed to keep out of her mind, and let me know that he was going to need the language pretty fast if we were planning on staying.

Cammi lead us out of the mortuary, showing some of the signs of a fresh turned (tough given the behavior of the dusties, it's like a wolf walking through a sheep pasture without drooling), and we finally got the first real glimpse of home: The streets of the hive curving away in either direction to the limits of vision. Hearing me mention that I called the city home, Cammi asked if I could enlighten her a little on the wonders of the city of doors, though at a later time. We were a few blocks away from one of the gates (small g) that led to the lower ward, where Chasers Manse is, so I lead the way until we ran into a small pack of berks who decided that it was a good idea to play at bridge troll without half the brains of a bridge troll. Simon and Cammi fell over each other to decide who was going to get the lead in negotiations with the hapless idiots in front of us. I think Simon won that race because the group started to get angry (sure sign that Simon's been trying to talk to fools like reasonable people) when Remé ended most of the fools with a cascade of lightning. Simon must have not expected the speed with which they dropped, since the leader had a full second after his men before his eyes rolled up and he fell over, leaking brains out his ears. (Yet another wonderful reminder to all the stupid berks, Clueless does not equal powerless)

On the way home, I found my footsteps leading us to the Shattered Temple, home of the Athar, the faction I joined right before Nerick and I went on a 5-year trip to help me finish my education. Or, it used to be the home of the Athar. It seems that I missed some things that were happening on our trip (Note: maybe I should start picking up some of the news rags), like the fact that the lady kicked all of the factions of Sigil, to the rejoicing of the Free League and the anarchists. All this I got from one of the old faction engineers, a cutter named Ned. I thanked him for the info, double-checked my directions back to the Manse, and slipped him the jink for a drink.

There was still a little bit of life left in the house by the time we reached the Manse, still a two-story townhouse on a street of artificers. I knocked on the door, no answer. Knocking and asking for Montesquieu however, got a result. That got his attention. Dad's assistant rushed us in off the street and into the parlor. Whatever is going on must have been worrying him, because he immediately set to offering food. While the 21st (I'm going to have to find out who knocked Montesquieu out of the top twenty, the man is a master in the kitchen) greatest chef in the Known calmed down over some crêpes, we relaxed in the parlor and I grabbed a few of the pulp novels that I've been missing that I'd left in the parlor. Over food, Monti gave a brief description of what was going on in the city and offered us a place to put our heads for the night.

Then, after the others had went off to bed, he broke the news to me: Dad didn't come back after he dropped me off for my graduation test. He hasn't heard from him, —About that, tell him I'm sorry when you get the chance— but there are people who've knocked who seem to have been upset by something a Spellchaser has done. (or said, or been. Not sure yet) He arranged a meeting in the morning with someone who owed the Spellchasers a favor, Kylie, the head of the tout guild. I made sure the meeting was at one of the five better restaurants in Sigil, the Crashed Jammer, at an hour that would give everyone (except maybe the truest of party animals, which I've heard rumor about Kylie) enough time to get a good night's rest.

Once everyone was up in the morning, and showered (running water, how I missed you), I told everyone what the plan was. After explaining what the difference between a restaurant and an inn was to Simon, he remarked that it could due to be introduced to Octogoth. (That's just one of a long list of things) We made good time to the Jammer, and were shown to a back room. There Kylie had already ordered the 7 spheres meal for 6, with a Bloody Mary set at a chair for Cammi. Kylie said her favor to us was going to be an introduction, that someone else who owed her a favor should meet us as well. That, it seems, was the cue for the last of our diners to join us, though a small portal that dropped him right into Kylie's lap. The man introduced himself as Manuel, and we introduced ourselves in turn.

We had just finished the fourth sphere when Kylie said the meeting was over, and we needed to be leaving. The knocking and shouting of the hardheads outside the room's door confirmed this statement. Manuel pulled something from a key-chain at his belt and opened up a portal in the landscape painting on the back wall of the room, jumping through and motioning us to follow. Well, looks like jumping out window it is...


----------



## Miles Pilitus (Nov 10, 2010)

*Episode 2 - "Ragnarök? Let's roll."*

We had just jumped through a portal in a landscape in the back of the Crashed Jammer, without looking to see where it landed. Note to self: check all portals. One short transit later, we're standing on a mountain, in the middle of a battle between a bunch of big, hairy, men and a group of even bigger, even hairier men (read: Giants). It only takes Manuel and myself a few moments to come to the same conclusion about where we are, Ysgard.

And we've landed in the middle of a battle between the Einherjar and some Frost Giant Raiders. Since we aren't going to get any answers from any of these fools until they're done killing each other for the day, we decide to step in on the side of the group most likely to talk to us. So we proceed to quickly curbstomp the small force of giants, but not before their leader decides he's going to go rolling down the hill shouting a woman's name. I presume in vengeance because of his few words to us were loud complaints about the indignities that his people suffer at the hands of the giants. I don't think he can even comprehend the indignities that the gods are making him suffer, but that's petitioners for you.

Once we're free of our current problems with frost giants we get a chance to look down the mountain. And we're standing at the edges of a war. And the angry, hairy warriors of the Grey Wanderer are going on about Ragnarök. We needed to get out of there. It wasn't my pantheon, wasn't my fight, and I wasn't going to volunteer to see the end of their little world. But before we're able to get any answers about portals from the remaining berserks a white dragon flies overhead, driving them to cover. And once they recover their manhood, they rush down the mountain, because it is their fight. We head in the other direction, towards a cave I saw near the top of the mountain, right ahead of an avalanche that we couldn't have outrun.

And by head, I mean run like all hell. And almost trip over a corpse and a spear three steps inside the mouth of the cave. Well, Xallis almost trips. As the rumble of snow and rock roar behind us and close us in the cave, we finally have a moment to fully understand where we are, what day they think it is. Xallis contributes to this discussion, which given that he's spent all of a day outside his sheltered frame, should not be possible. (Then again, I suppose a god of chaos is permitted his little tricks)

One of the facts brought up in our argument is that most of the time, dying in this place means you wake up with a hang-over around dinner-time. So Xallis assumes that the dead woman is going to get up any minute now (Score one for his comedic timing, but I get ahead of myself). In the meantime, we take a look at the spear stuck in the ground next to the dead petitioner (Which at this point is my guess). Xallis goes to grab the spear, but recoils when a snap of energy beats at his hand. I proceed to make one of the more obvious mistakes of my life (at least it looks like it now) and turn on my sight. And proceed to again fight to remain conscious. The stick is a tool of a ing power. Point of fact, it's Odin's ing spear, Gungnir. This bit of knowledge advises the rest of us away from touching the hanging god's pig sticker.

Which is a perfect point for Xallis to be proven right as the woman vaults awake, alive, and to her feet, grabbing the stick without any misfortune. Oh, and she begins glowing. Aasimar, but still built to the local scale: tall, blonde, and shaped like something out of a dying man's last thoughts. She starts talking at us in the local tongue. We all respond in the typical way: Simon starts talking into her mind, and I try talking to her in the common tongue of the plane we're on, because I don't speak provincial languages. She understands Asura and I assume repeats her questions: "Who are you and what have you done with Helgi? What have you done with the All-Father?" With added accusations that we're Loki's spies for effect.

I try and reassure her that we serve no god in her pantheon, but my oath seems to pass over her head. Provincialism. One more sin that the gods commit against those that follow them. We try and explain what happened as ask if Helgi was the lunatic who went skydiving without a chute (of course). After doing what we can to try and reassure her (and failing), she starts marching off into the cave.

We follow her. What else are we going to do? We don't know where to go, and hope she might. After explaining this to her, we finally get to the round of introductions. She introduces herself as Kará when we hear a high pitched and terrified scream from one of the paths in the cave. Simon asks a stupid question and I answer him before I turn up the clock speed on our rescue.

We rush towards the sound of the voice and run out of the cave to a small valley in the mountain. The valley has a lake, some scrub, a great deal of snow, and a pack of wolves with ice-white fur the size of a horse surrounding a man screaming. Manuel twists his hands and suddenly the man drops from between the wolves and next to Manuel. It seems that Manuel has the ability to create small space distortions.

Half of the pack rushes us, while Cammi jumped the other way through Manuel's little ring gates to hold off the other half of the pack. Which was about the last actions those bastard sons of Fenrir ever took as Remé and I called forth fire to flash bake the pack.

The man, having regained his feet and his composure, introduces himself as Captain Jonathan Tiberius Oldblood of the ship Proteus. He has a problem with his ship though. All that he has is the helm of the ship, a small circlet around his head, and the wheel of the ship, currently sitting 60 feet under the water of the lake. Where it rests of a bed of over ten thousand gold coins.

    * You should have seen what was coming at this point, Abe. 

Hindsight father. That and everyone has a first time dealing with one of the wryms. Anyways, Manuel opens up a new set of portals, pouring the missing component of Jonathan's Spelljammer and the coins out onto the shore of the lake.

    * Which of course offended the dragon whose hoard it was you were emptying. 

Yeah. It did. He leaped out of the lake and landed right in front of Jonathan, starting the dance. Jon, Manuel, and Cammi all got close into it, but didn't seem to be able to get through its scales. Then Kará charges in, having summoned a horse from somewhere, planting Gungnir solidly in the creature's breast. Xallis follows this up with a brilliant flash of white light, blinding the beast. Enraged, it begins to tear into the Valkyrie (I'm assuming).

Which of course means it leaves it back open to the rest of our weapon-wielders, who proceed to eviscerate the dragon. Though I do have to step in and call forth a stream of fire to cut it off from casting any healing spells it might have known.

While the rest of us take a moment to breathe a deep sigh of relief on the defeat of our first dragon (and packing as much of its worldly goods into our bags as was possible), Kará shouts something then calls forth her own pair of wings, flying off towards the battle. After we finished packing the coins and other goods into our bags Manuel announces that he's found a portal, but it's back the way we came.

Once we reach the snow-covered cave entrance Remé begins to slowly melt away the snow and ice with a small flame from her hand. I tell her to step aside, because I finally get a chance to try out one of my father's favorite spells. As I recite the last words, the feelings of confidence and recent dragon-slaying must have gotten the better of me. The tunnel that I shaped out of the snow, ice and rock was lined with statues of us all. Which may have been a bit much. Which makes me slightly glad for the sight I saw as we emerge: A rolling wave of non-existence headed towards us. Not that I want to not exist, I quite like it. But I'm not sure that the tunnel is something worth signing my name to. Just yet.

Wasting little time, Manuel points towards the foot of the mountain and says that there's a quarter of a mile between us and the portal. Which is no distance at all once Remé and I grab a triplet of people and use Dimension Door to jump most of the way. What's interesting is that we land next to the Valk and her husband. We offer her a chance to see tomorrow (surprisingly, she accepts). Manuel is examining the portal, and has determined it will take us to Niflheim.

. . .

And either that's the key or Manuel did it while I was expressing myself, because our door was now open. To Niflheim, and the Gray Wastes. Time to figure out an escape plan.

    * Could be worse. My friends were once trapped on the deepest layer of the prison realm. I'm sure you'll get out fine. 

Thanks Dad.


----------



## Miles Pilitus (Nov 10, 2010)

*Episode 3 – The Luckless Fools Bogus Journey*

Running from Ragnarok, we escaped through the portal it seems the giants had used to enter Ysgard, a straight road from Niflheimr. Except it seems Manuel wasn't entirely honest. The portal was to Helheim, the personal kip of the lady of the hairy dead. Note to self: personally examine all portals. Analyze portal is your friend. The realms of Powers aren't. But we were where we were. Kára didn't seem terribly happen about joining us, offering violence to the person that pushed her through the portal. We all pointed to the horse, and the horse attempted to look innocent for its part.

But before we could get into a really nice argument (Why the hell did we stop to argue when we were in a divine realm?), we caught the attention of one of Hel's Handmaidens, the dark Solar Röta. She was polite and curious to us portal-trippers, asking why we had come to Hell's realms to wait for judgment. Funny enough, I didn't notice that we were standing in a queue until the Agent had pointed it out. By the twilight, I hate divinely morphic realms. Simon turns on the full charm to try and convince the nice lady with the black wings that we weren't there for judgment, that we had come here by mistake (Which actually would have worked, intention is a large part of the game after all). Rotá asks if we actually did come here blind, and if none of us knew where the portal out of a collapsing plane lead. Eyes swivel to Manuel, who gives some defense about collapsing planes throwing all logic out the window. I point out that it might have been a bad time for a Cipher solution before Simon suddenly snaps the mental network closed with a glare at the imposing Valkyrie (As opposed to the shell-shocked one still not considering blaming her horse).

    * You didn't have any other escape paths? What about shifting along the Great Road to the Beastlands, the Outlands, Shad– 

    Because Manuel had presented himself as a experienced traveler, and we thought he had the best option. 

The best Simon is able to wrangle out of Rótã is a expedited judgment (after asking the very stupid question of should we run). We agree and are told to move ourselves to Hel's hypocritical and self-serving judgment center, but we have to bring our Valk. Kára looks like she's about the try and throw down with a greater servant of a Power in the Power's realm, but suddenly she goes stiff and starts marching towards the front of the line. Rotå smiles, I roll my eyes, Xallis looks confused and Manuel nods to Simon in thanks.

We march towards the imposing stone keep, which is of course, gray. Everything here's gray. Even the Black Valk is monochrome, with nothing truly white in this entire ing plane. If I know I'm coming here next time, I'm going to bring a rainbow flag.

Just for contrariness, mind you.

Once we enter, we see that the entire place is built to the scale of Frost Giants, which appear to be the most numerous among Hel's servitors. Manuel makes a comment that the place has really good architecture. I look around at the heavy-handed stone work used to put this place together. About the only thing that can be said for it is they don't slather on the mortar, though the use of some would probably have helped. Remé and I point out all the ways in which the work is that of an overly-muscled toddler, and even a god should be ashamed to live in a place like this. It helped pass the long walk towards Hels throne/court room.

When we arrive to a grand hall, there's a big red carpet running down the center of the room up to a empty twenty-foot tall throne in a central position on a raised platform. We all hesitate (far too many cultures kill people for touching the red carpet if they aren't supposed to). Rôta (who is now behind us, but I'll be feebleminded if she was actually walking with us) commands us to walk halfway towards the platform, then kneel before the Goddess when she appears. Funny thing is, I have this problem with my knees. They don't bend that way on their own. But I walk with everyone else up to the halfway point.

At which point Hel's entrance is made. Her throne rotates 180º, revealing her sitting in her throne in all her half-perfect, half rotted glory. Everyone else kneels except for Kára and myself (certainly for vastly different reasons). I'm probably taking a bit long to decide whether to bow or stand straight up when the false face turns towards me and says I disapprove of Her existence. I'm about to go into a more precise explanation then the straw-man she just propped up, but suddenly I shut up and someone "helps" me kneel. Even money between Simon, Rotä, or Hel herself.

Hel turns now towards Kára and makes a motion with her true hand. At the beckoning of that rotted limb, Helgi is lifted up from Kára's arms and floated into a position halfway between us and the throne. Hel says that Helgi has been brought here for judgment, and the servant of Odin seems unable to contradict the goddess. Hel rips the spirit of Helgi out of his petitioner shell and asks how he died. Simon describes the fool rushing a Giant off the mountain with both falling to their doom. Hel says this is not the whole of the story and an illusion play forms itself from the glowing form of Helgi's spirit. It shows the man and the giant grappling down the mountain, with Helgi gaining the upper hand as they hit the final long drop and cushions his fall against the sharp rocks at the bottom with the giant, who arrives at the bottom of the mountain in a terminal fashion, leaving the body-boarding Einherjar mostly unhurt. Helgi stands, checks that he is intact, then begins to flex and admire his own muscles. At which point a rock flies from down the mountain and removes what's left of his brains. I flinch, and see my friends doing the same while Kára places her head in her hands with a deep and annoyed sigh.

Hel says that this is all the judgment that is needed, that Helgi did not die in battle, but in an accident and his soul belongs to Hel. Kára begins to sputter and looked to be trying to compose her thoughts. So was Simon. Damn it, everybody was trying to figure out the right thing to say, so no one was saying anything. The stupid bastard killed himself in that fall, just as cleanly as if he died. He started those rocks rolling, and his death was the final part of that act of violence. And I said as much. Hel sits there for a minute, pretending to think. Then she says that she may allow us to take Helgi with us, if we provide her with four impossible things: Sight of a Blind man, Virtue of a Liar, Plume of a Dragon and the Ghost of a Memory.

The ghost of a memory. heh. Well, I had planned on dealing with Hellbringer at some point. Honestly, I've already got ideas on how to collect most of these. I think it's a failing of the Norse frame of mind. There is no such thing as impossible. There is nothing that cannot be found.

    * You do realize that the Norse typically create artifacts out of those impossible things, right Abe? 

    So what? A falling pantheon leaves behind one more bit of debris for the Guvners to puzzle about in a few millenia. 

And then she turns her true face to the rest of us, offering us the ability to leave if we agree to assist. We agree, because really, what else are we supposed to do with our backs against the wall? I ask for permission to leave, and she denies us that, saying that we have to leave the same way everyone else does, through the tunnels. The tunnels, which are guarded by her own ur-Hellhound, Garmr. I explain this as we look down the entrance to the tunnels. (Because the god pulled off another one of those wonderful scene changes on us. Hate)

Kára rushes Simon as soon as she realizes that we aren't in Hel's presence anymore. She tackles Simon to the ground before the rest of us have a chance to react. Remé and I aren't sure how far our little Valkyrie will push this, so we both seek to restrain her with magic, with me using Shadow Pin to try and get her to stand still long enough to calm down. Kára shakes off whatever telekinetic hold is placed on her and slugs Simon before he can stumble out of her reach. Remé gets in Kára's face and says if she ever does touches her master again, Remé will personally destroy her. A moment of stand-off occurs before the valk lets of a burst of sunlight, blasting out her shadow and canceling my spell and walking back to her horse.

Which just leaves us with the Dog that's going to try and kill us. Yay.

Xallis says that there's a way to bribe the dog, but he can't think of it right now. Simon fills it in (from where I have no idea), we offer the dog a cake soaked in our blood. Ròtá interjects that that only works for those who have given bread to the poor and bids us farewell, leaving to go off and be a puppet somewhere else. Jonathon says he's not given bread per-say, but that his crew was not called the Chain-Breaker Pirates for nothing. Simon, Xallis, and I exchange a glance, thinking about our lives on Octogoth and decide to risk it. Manuel and Camille are the most hesitant, but eventually agree, assuming we have any food with which to prepare our offering. Xallis reaches into his bag, pulling out a small sack of flour, a rotten cucumber, 3 fresh eggs and finally a long string of fish with a triumphant ah-ha.

Debate ensues on how exact we need to be with the concept of cake. We eventually decide to give it a chance, each cutting ourselves to soak a fish in our blood. Cammi gets a real hungry look before hitting her little blood-bag hard. Xallis makes a comment about her drinking problem and Simon decides to play with that hand rather then explain that we're at a roulette table. The tunnel is straight, smooth, and remarkable short. And our passageway is blocked by the short stubby tail and arse-hole of a giant dog.

Xallis taps it on the back of the leg before stepping out of drop range. This seems to get the dogs attention and it turns around in the tunnel to face us, four red eyes glowing with hate and jaws dripping with blood. Xallis holds up the string of fish with a "nice doggy." Garmr lunges at Xallis, snatches the string of fish in one bit and swallows it down. It then growls in a discontented voice about kindhearted travelers and tourists. I smile, shrug and we ask if we can be on our way. It doesn't seem to please the guardian of Hel's gates, but he lets us pass. And so we emerge from Helheim into Neieflheim proper. It's not an improvement. It won't be an improvement until we're out of the Gray Wastes.

Manuel asks us to gather hands so he can try to get us out of there. We gather hands, he starts fiddling with his keyring, causing a great deal of nothing. I guess that it's because we're still in a divine realm, and are still under the command that we have to leave in the normal fashion. Manuel and I discuss for a few minutes what the best way to do that probably is, with him finally showing that he has at least some understanding of what it takes to walk the planes. We decide that the Styx, or its tributary in this region, the river Gjöll, is our best bet for "normal" passage out of here. We take a ferry to the top layer of some plane, outside of a divine realm and we just Plane Shift back to Sigil. I suggest Acheron to avoid any Blood War problems. We just have to deal with the Gereleth boatmen. After explaining this to Simon, he asks for a moment to check something, then sits down and comes the closest I've ever seen him come to performing a ritual.

    * Well, it is uncommon for them. I don't think that Psionics is good at the big and complicated things that you need rituals to do. They're better then most mages at the delicate mental things though. 

After a few minutes he gets up and says to follow him, he'll know what to do when we get there. It's a couple of mile trek from the cave mouth to the ferry station, during which we all get several lifetimes fill of evil gray scenery. Once we arrive at a section of the river with the boatmen lined up like taxis at an airport–

    ~Huh? 

–Simon veers straight for one and enters into negotiations. After using a few of the dragon's baubles to try and gauge the ferry-fiend's price (with a silent warning from Manuel and myself not to offer any silver objects), Simon pulls out the leather armor and puts it forward as his offer. The fiend says it's worthless to him, but he'll take us to a Mercane and if it's worth at least twenty-five thousand jink he'll consider it done. (It seems the horse is 5 thousand gold all on its own. Kara dismisses it and the price suddenly drops.) Simon bargains him into saying if it's worth more then that, we get change. We agree to his charge and load into the large high-walled barge. Kára goes as far away from the Gereleth as possible. Everyone stays as far away from the walls as possible.

After a quiet and tense hour of passage we arrive at a small hut at the edge of the river with a dock. Everyone walks into the HUTIS (It's bigger on the inside), and several of my companions get their first view of a Mercane, the tall, spindly, blue and four-armed traders in all things magical throughout every part of the known. Given that he may be the least weird thing to happen to us today, it seems that most of them have been shocked enough into accepting the strangeness that is the life of a Portal-Jumper. We present the armor (and all the trimmings that go with it, matched set) to the merchant. He places it on a scale and says the market value of the set is 35,000 gold pieces. Simon asks if he should try and haggle, the words "market price" sounding a little definite to his ears. I let him know that his instincts are guiding him right. We make the change, the 'loth taking his in Gold Bars that he caresses with the closest thing I've every seen from a 'loth to compassion or desire.

    * Barring Akin. 

    He's just ing strange. 

We take our payment in the form of 3 diamonds the size of a thumbnail after I confer with Xallis over what our worst-case needs might be (always be ready to raise both the roof and the dead). Our trade concluded, we all get back on the boat and start the proper journey towards Acheron. Our boatman keeps giving us all the hairy eyeball for about fifteen minutes, then sighs and rapidly pushes us down a fork in the river. The boat shakes for a brief minute as we cross currents and planes. After we all look up from gaining our footing we've crossed over and in the sky above us hang the country-sized cubes of iron that comprise the this layer of the plane.

Our dour boatman pulls up to the shore then tells us to get off his bloody boat before complaining that he needs to hire bodyguards. Xallis points out that they would probably be called brigands actually as the last of us step of the boat. The Gereleth agrees, pushes his boat off the shore, vanishing before he reaches the middle of the river. We all gather hands again so Manuel can fiddle with his keys some more. This time, whatever he was trying works: the distant sounds of constant battle are suddenly replaced by the loud sounds of partying. A quick glance around tells me that we're in the Civic Festhall and have arrived in the middle of a party. We're back in Sigil once more. I find the nearest tray of drinks and down the first one I can grab.

And then the doors slam open as a hundred new people rush into the party shouting "Master" and looking to Simon. oh boy.


----------



## Miles Pilitus (Nov 10, 2010)

*Episode 4 – Half-Truths and Telepaths*

Let's see where I left off last time. Ah, yes. A hundred slightly ripe berks bursting into the Civic Festhall right as Manuel's magic gets us home. To the great surprise of no-one, Simon is suddenly the center of attention for about half of the main room of the hall. After a moment of stunned silence, Xallis pipes in with exactly the right words to cut through the tension by starting to chant "Speech!" which the rest of the room picks up on. That diffusion of tension seems to be a natural talent of Chaosmen. Which is all the scarier because I know Xallis hasn't yet had time to run into any of the barking mad lunatics who comprise his natural faction.

    * You realize that he's found the old letterpress in the basement, right Abe? 

    No. I hadn't. Well Simon and I will just have to push up our plan to sell tickets. 

After a minute of a room chanting for Simon to grace the huddled masses with a gift of astounding oratory Simon cuts the wind out of the room with a simple "No." Simon later told me that he could feel the room was looking for something new and guessed that this would have been a new experience for them. He's probably right, but I wouldn't recommend him trying it again. Simon disperses the party-crashers, who are a group of people whose minds apparently operate at the same wave-length as his which means that they've ended up entangled with his own. He sends them away, then comments that he's going to need to do something with them, as he's now a leader of men. But not a leader of us, it seems. The pirate and the vampire have disappeared, probably because they found their own new experiences to go indulge in. Ah, the Society of Sensation. Given the number of spoiled rich brats who join for the hedonism, it's surprising Sigil has as rich a trade in the oldest profession as it does. But maybe it's because the spoiled princelings of Sigil don't really want to sleep with "Common People."

Contra to that previous thought, looking around the room for where our own wandering hedonists had gone off to, I caught sight of a most uncommon person that I knew. I saw Kylie's red mushroom from across the room and pointed it out to Simon and Manuel. It was made easier for them to spot when it started heading towards us. I give Kylie a brief thanks for the wonderful tour of the end of the world, and she breezes by us fast to reach the dessert table with a small hand signal for quiet. Manuel and I wander over to her and try to be surreptitious in our conversation. She says she needed o get us out of the city, because there were people asking pointed questions about Spellchasers, mentioning that Dad hadn't returned to the city in a year, and people might want to ask me if I knew where to find the old man. That he had let more political disasters in his wake then some (me) might suspect.

    * Ah. Politics. Hate the stuff, it's almost impossible to clean out of your clothes, but life does occur. 

    Maybe, but I get a sense that more then a few might have been after your true work-shop from the way Kylie phrased some of what she said. 

    * And they're welcome to get themselves lost in trying to find it. All other things aside, you certainly don't know where it is. 

    True, but Kylie suspects that I know how to get in touch with you. And if she does – 

    * More then a few of the others will as well. All I can say is: Do your best 

And after she finished bringing me closer to traveling speed about the politics of being a Spellchaser right now, she handed Manuel a sealed letter that she says was addressed to him, and to open it in a quiet place, and that she has to get back to her conversation with one of the Golden Lords, Shemeska the Marauder. Neither Manuel or I stopped her, since I think we both have our current quota of attention from the Lower planes filled up nice and proper. Simon joins at the dessert table (he had apparently been doing something to Xallis for the past few minutes while our half-elf got his tastes of the sweets at the table) and asks about Shemeska, having overhead the name mentioned followed by a spike of panic from both Manuel and myself. I give him another quick lesson in politics, explaining the golden lords briefly (which is where I think he's going to get the space for himself that he's looking for), and that it's a good idea to stay away from the King of the Crosstrade, a furred 'loth bitch who is not to be trusted. Xallis makes a comment about being a female called King of anything, suggesting something anatomical, and I file away a new comment that is likely to get me killed if I say it to the wrong person.

It's about at this point that Jonathan staggers back over to us, smiling like a drunken sailor on shore leave. We grab him and say we're heading somewhere quieter then this. Simon motions us towards the door, saying that Camille will join us later. I'm about to ask where our other god-bother is, but Manuel is already grabbing her from where she was standing, having seemingly gotten frozen stiff in a strict disapproval of everything while her world fell apart. We head out and Manuel and I lead us to a bar with a "Piratical" theme, being built out of an old sailing vessel. Simon motions for us to leave it to him and several moments later we're lead to the "Captain's Cabin" and given us of it, all without any coin having been exchanged. Until we order appetizers. Then we're trading over far too many coins.

    * Such is the way of all appetizers, in every plane and every frame. 

Now that we're in a secure location, Manuel opens up the seal of the letter, one that none of us recognize, to reveal...

A blank sheet of vellum. Manuel fiddles with the letter for a minute shaking it, holding it up to the light, et cetera before Simon suggests letting Remé take a look at the letter. At which point Simon's silent support breaks out a small alchemy lab from her bag and beings to examine the letter. She examines it, says that both letter and envelope are made of calf-skin, and the wax is made with ground gold, ground supernaturally fine. I ask to be handed the letter and envelope. And I see that the gold flecks in the dark green wax of the seal would have to been done with magic. And as I sit there, a thought strikes me. I close my eyes for a moment, collecting my will in my hands and my mind, focusing on the thought, "I am Manuel of the Planes."

As I release my will and a small trickle of magic rolls through the letter, words appear. I take a quick look at the letter before I flick it back to Manuel. The letter says he needs to head to Mechanus to make a copy of the key, Signed M. Xallis shouts that it has to be a letter from Manuel in the future to him in the past. There are times I regret explaining what I understand of Abraxas Hellbringer's existence to him, now "It's Chronomancy" is going to be his answer to every strange riddle we run across. But something's been niggling in the back of my mind. There's something fabricated about the letter, but I will praise a power if I could figure out what it was.

Simon decided to go with Xallis' wild guess, and asks Manuel for permission to interrogate his mind, to which he agrees, with a caveat that we are not to use his mind as pay-per-view. Xallis and I smile, as we're both sure that the thought has never crossed Simon's mind. (ever). And through a brief interrogation of the depths of Manuel's mind reveals the idea of a letter sent back in time as a likely possibility. After discussing our various options until we're out of appetizers, we head back home, as it's the safest spot we have in the city at the moment.

Monti is outside, washing the windows until we show up. He rushes us inside to the sitting room, followed by rushing me into the kitchen to help him prepare drinks for everyone. I bring him up to speed, and let him know that Simon's going to need to make a few meetings in the next few days, then we both head back into the sitting room with a round of drinks.


----------



## Miles Pilitus (Nov 19, 2010)

*Episode 5 – Jesters and Jihadies*

Back in the main room, we start discussing which of the city's movers and shakers, the so called "Golden Lords" of Sigil we should approach for Simon's purposes to try and obtain a warehouse the size of a small village. Simon protests once or twice that he isn't going to need that large a space that he only has a few followers, but Johnny's headband chimes in with the accurate count, which is big enough to surprise Simon when it's placed on the table. He now realizes that he's definitely not talking about a back room or an empty warehouse somewhere. I lay out the three Golden Lords that I know of who deal in large amounts of real estate.

I start with the dog-headed bitch, making blatant each of Kylie's insinuations against the King of the Crosstrade. The room agrees that we're likely to get fleas if get into bed with that dog. I move along to Zadara, expressing the simplicity of dealing with the Misers. Just hand them enough money and promise them more and they'll do what you want just fine. The last option I present is Jeremo, the Lady's Jester. And after explaining that yes, he does mean That Lady, and no, noone knows why nothing's happened to him yet, Simon decides that Jeremo is probably the best of our options as even a dragon's horde might not be enough to get what we want from the titan. We talk for some time about how to present ourselves after Monti mentions that we may stand out in the Lady's Ward without formal attire. Which is a very good point. So we're going to have to go shopping tomorrow morning for some better clothes. Manuel and Jonathan are already in possession of outfits, while Camille's clothes change shape according to her will, so she should be set. And Kará isn't leaving the house. So Simon, Remé, and Xallis need clothes. I though I stil had a decent outfit or two hidden away in my closet, so I was set.

We then send some time hashing out "Impossible" things, working ourselves round and round before we hit upon the conclusion that the sense stones in the Civic Festhall might have what we're looking for. The problem is, they are rumored to lose their magic if they are taken from the festhall. Well, okay, it would be the problem if we intended on stealing them. We plan to go there and try and procure a copy of the stones made by the sensates for the two that we're most lost on, Sight and Virtue. The other two we figure out a few solutions to try. And with our plans decided, we head off to bed, with me checking my closet for a piece or two to have Montesquieu resize for me.

    * And when you get to your closet, you realize how much your tastes had changed in the five years we spent traveling, didn't you? 

    It's not that so much as just how much all of clothes I had looked like apprentice's robes, even the nice ones. And I know I'm an Arcanist of skill, I don't need to wander around in a robe to prove it to other people. 

In the morning we send those who don't have to go shopping for a nice long breakfast at a place in the Clerk's Ward near the clothing shop that I take us to. And proceed to join in with the rest of the Octogothans in hunting for clothes. Simon asks for someplace to start with his outfit. I take a look at his simple traveling robes and suggest his first step should be to forget that clothes come in the color brown. He gives me a sharp look as I hand him off to one of the tailor's apprentices to help change his look. Xallis is already digging through the racks with abandon, handing clothes to Remé to either try on or hold onto for him to try on. My friends occupied, I start chatting up one of the journeyman tailors, congratulating Celandine on how far she had come in her craft since I was in the city last. She greeted me warmly enough, saying that even bad dating experiences are part of life. My pride properly wounded, my old Aaismar friend proceeded to be useful. I hadn't paid attention to style changes in the city, but she had and helped me out with designing a new wardrobe. I wound up wearing the best fits out of there, trading in my cloak for a coat that would provide similar protection in addition to helping negate some of the extremes of temperature. I had measurements taken, paid, then arranged for the remainder of my order to be delivered to Chaser's Manse.

When I emerge from my own reverie of shopping and reconnecting, I see that Simon has already purchased a new set of robes, trading brown wool with green accents for black and grey layered silk with green accents. I'm about to applaud him when we hear a small boom from the back of the shop and Xallis wanders forward dressed in a slightly scorched purple zoot suit. Remé follows shortly after, dressed in a dress whose color scheme matches Simon's (of course). She apologizes to Xallis, but reminds him that she's not a doll to play dress up with. Xallis smiles and shrugs it off, getting up and cleaning himself and his clothes. Everyone else pays and I say goodbye to Celandine before we leave the shop and gather up the remainder of the company and head off to the Palace of the Jester.

I'd never been to the Palace of the Jester. I mean, I knew where it was, but I never had a reason to spend too much time in the Lady's Ward when I was growing up in the city. It was impressive. It was positively the largest building I'd ever seen outside of concrete and rebar. – I wonder about that. – We could see it from several blocks away as we approached, the spires and their bladed pinnacles reaching hundreds of feet in the air and leaving off any need for me or Manuel to guide our group in as we approached close enough. The building was even more impressive up close and buzzing with people, both in and out of the building but also the courtyard that the Palace shared with the city courts. And the suggestion that we acquire some new clothing was definitely warranted, even with our new clothing, we may have been the worst dressed people there. Okay, no, Jermo's household were the worst dressed people there: strange garish clown outfits so varied one couldn't reasonable use the word uniform in describing them without removing all meaning from the word. We had just spent less on our clothing then any lawyer or noble wandering around here if you had combined all of what we spent. Even so, we were still dressed well enough that we weren't likely to be ordered around as servants or about to be arrested for public vagrancy and could actually conduct our business here. Without having to ask, Simon was able to identify the people who would be servants of The Lady's Jester and petition with them for an audience with Jeremo. Which we were able to get immediately. I suppose that's one of the good things about working with eccentric personalities, the lack of having to battle their schedule book. Of course, it probably helped that we had a dozen bottles of good wine to use as a lubricant in our endeavor.

We were lead into the Jester's Palace and Shopping Mall. I'm serious. It seems Jeremo's openness about his household had extended to allowing all sorts of street vendors operate out of small alcoves along the main hallway, including several franchise businesses that I hadn't seen since I was last in New York City. Though why is it always the crappy franchises that spread so far. I know there are several bagel shops that I remember serving better coffee then the green mermaid does. But I didn't have enough time to find out if they still served the same lousy coffee here, the sub-jester knew where he was leading us and not slowing down long enough for us to rubberneck. A few strange turns that should have lead us straight back to the front door, and then up a set of stairs that continued past the floor we took them to into the ceiling we were lead to a closed set of oak door with the words engraved in a most severe Blackletter font, "The Joke's On You." As the door was opened, we saw that TJOY was a restaurant done in a style that seemed to be trying to play to both to the name of the place as well as the somber style often associated with Her Serenity. Heavy oak finishing and candle lighting contrasted with strange table designs and servers in outfits even more garish then those worn by Jeremo's runners.

And in the center of it all, on top of the largest table, stood the Natterer. On his servants the mismatched colors and clown pattern seemed garish, but Jeremo managed to make all the chaos, with shifting color patterns buried in shifting patterns. Our mini-jester had left us at the door and was working his way towards Jeremo when I finally realized that we had a problem. We didn't have a name for this little gathering of lost sheep and fools. Okay, we had a name, but it wasn't one that I liked. It was originally an off-hand comment, not an introduction. But Xallis had seized upon it. I mention this fact to our assembled selves, and said we've got twenty seconds to think of one. Simon expressed doubt that we were going to need one. Eighteen Seconds. Jonathan says that his old crew used to be called the Chain-Breaker Pirates, but without a ship it didn't make much sense. Ten seconds. No, less. Jeremo was moving quickly towards us. Five. No one else was coming up with any ideas. I didn't want to label us Agents of the Spellchasers. Three. Two. "And whom am I speaking with?" Jeremo introduces himself with the question, his hand sweeping all of us, clear implication of looking for a company name. Crap.

I introduced us as The Luckless Fools. We were once again stuck with the sobriquet. Simon took over from there, I didn't pay too much attention for several moments as I let the thought sink in, only to be broken out of my fugue state as Remé tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to a table shaped like a star that we were being led to by Jeremo.

As we sat down, a wine glass rose through the table at each occupied position. Simon suggested that we crack open a bottle of wine, leaving a perfect straight line for the Jester, declaring his great sorrow at a lack of wine crackers at hand. Remé's mind served instead as our multitool and Jeremo told us all to turn our wine glasses upside down and for the pouring to begin. Simon had been handed the bottle and turned Jeremo's wine glass upright, but was chided for doing it wrong. Confused, Simon set the glass the way Jeremo requested and began to pour wine into the small basin at the bottom of the glass. Which proceeded to pour through some passage unseen into the bowl of the glass sitting against the table. As minor confusion and great amusement met this small magic, a table of wine was poured as we tested the bottle that Simon and I had acquired so long ago in an abandoned and haunted manor where we first met. The wine had held up through all the trials and tribulations it had seen, still not turned to vinegar. It was a little dry to be drank alone, but there were aspects to the taste that were interesting. We all savored the wine for a few minutes in quiet before Jeremo cut to the quick and asked why we sought him out. Simon worked his way around the crux of the matter for several minutes before I stated bluntly that he was a leader of men and needed a place to house his agents. Which was the opening line for an interesting philosophical debate between Simon and Jeremo about the purpose of strength which ended in Jeremo offering Simon two deals, with the decision of which deal being made by a game of chance which he produced from some hidden pocket somewhere. The game was simple, you would roll the dice and from the result of the dice would appear so many sticks. The winner of the game was the person who could build the largest tower of sticks with a single roll of the dice.

Simon took one look at the dice, then agreed to the game, taking the proffered die in his hand and beginning to shake it. Jeremo did the same, and after 30 seconds of rattling, both dropped their dice down between their hands, Jeremo with a slam and great fanfare, Simon letting the rattling die come to rest as he brought his hand down to the table. From there, the tower-building began. Jeremo's hands moved quickly, but he had not rolled well and had only a few pieces with which to build his town, managing a pyramid with the final piece a raised spike. Simon had rolled even worse and his entire tower consisted of a single stick sitting on its end. Jeremo laughed and scooped the dice up from the table, suggesting that perhaps Simon didn't want to win. Simon shrugged it off with some comment about consider it a gift to the universe and accepted the lesser of the Natterer's two deals.

Business mostly finished, Jeremo asked where Simon could be found until the space could be made available. Simon's answer of Chaser's Manse caused a sharp uptake in intrest from the seemingly random grand dealer of the Cage, and I decide to direct it towards myself by finally giving my name. At which point Jeremo muses that my father has been gone for a long time, his business doing no business. And mentioning that we left the city the day before the problems began in the Faction War. Oh yeah. I had well and truly realized that little fact in the past few days I'd been home. I'm not that dense.

    Am I, father? 

    * May I enter a comment of No Comment for the time being? 

    Sigh 

I brush the Jesters comments to some strange coincidence of timing of my final training exercises. With that hope-fully not transparent lie placed on the table, Jeremo stood and said he had business elsewhere and it seems that today's joke was a lunch meeting without food. Our business concluded, we left, grabbing a few sandwiches from a vendor on the way out while Jonathan and Xallis ducked into a bathroom to change back into their armor before we headed to the Civic Festhall.

Several minutes after leaving the Palace of the Jester, Simon said that he felt the presence of a following mind and asked us to seek a route that would make it easier for him to pick out those trying to track us. Manuel and I converse for several moments, decided to travel through the Lower Ward again and the Hive, since we would run into less problems if the trackers Simon noticed decided to try an ambush. Hivers are like to complain too hard if you blow up a building, or at least nowhere near as loud as a guild will if you've scratched the paint of any of their edifices. After fifteen minutes, Simon's tension visibly released itself as he felt our trackers fall off as we entered the less sanitary parts of the city.

Let's hear it for false hope boys and girls. We hadn't lost them, it seems they just decided they knew where to set up the ambush. We were deep in the Hive, walking down the alley of a Slaadii Ghetto when our pursuers decided to light the street on fire. Magical fire rained down from the rooftops, catching us all by surprise. Well, all of us but Jonathan and Manuel it seems. Both had dived off to the side of the streets and managed to hide from the conflagration just inside the buildings. That left four spellcasters and a vampire standing on the street as we got a brief taste of the Elemental Plane of Fire. It hurt. Manuel and Jonathan motioned towards the roof of a building, with Manuel opening up one of his mini-portals to a spot half-way up the building and ducking through. Before anyone else could attempt to use the portal a row of heads appeared over the lip of the building that had fire-bombed us. Remé returned the favor, releasing from her forehead a rushing wave of blue energy that I would later see had frozen several of our enemies solid. First Jonathan, then Camille rushed through the portal; Jon managing to scrabble his way to the roof while I used the portal to allow my to reach the skies above the buildings, where Camille ran through the portal, grabbing Manuel and hauling him the rest of the way to the roof then disappearing over the lip of the building. I finally managed to shake off the shock of several square feet of burns and dived through Manuel's portal, unfurling my wings as I passed through and reaching the meager skies above the tenements we fought in-between. I saw a dead man on the ground, a giant sword sticking out of his ribcage but still being circled by the new bladesmen (and woman) of the Luckless Fools. Simon's voice echoed through my head that there was still one more hostile up there. I'm serious. He used the word Hostile. Not knowing where to aim a magical bolt, I gathered up my will and fired a shimmering sphere of magical energy at the corpse on the ground. As the magic disco-ball exploded on the corpse, it covered everything in a 20' area in a thick layer of–

    * That's the visual signature of your Glitterdust spell? An exploding Disco-ball? 

    Yeah, that's always how I imagined the spell working when I was trying to imagine it. Now, that's just how it comes across. 

Anyways, the last of the enemy Arcanists now covered in more glitter then a ten-year old girls trapper-keeper, he had nowhere to run or hide. He was pinned between Jonathan and Manuel, with the thief of the planes dragging a long mark on his back to gather his attention as Captain Jonathan Oldblood laid him out with the basket hilt of his rapier.

Finally having a chance to examine our foes, I was confused by their nature. They were Githyanki, servants of the Witch Queen of the Gith race. Who I do not remember pissing off. We needed answers, but all were going to be gathering was questions if we didn't move off the streets to somewhere less public. Manuel stripped the bodies of worldly possessions before dropping them off the building into a pile of trash for the Dusties to collect later. Our lucky winner would be coming with us until we found a disreputable bar with a back room to question him in. Hard job, I know, trying to find a dive in the Hive. It took us all of two minutes to find a bartender who wasn't asking too many questions and had a back room. We lay the gith on the table, Jonathan tying his hands and feet under the table to make it harder for him to escape while Simon prepared himself for the questioning.

We didn't bother to wake up the Gith for the questions, it would have just been awkward. Simon could just collect his answers to our questions from his sleeping mind. And what an interesting set of answers he gave. It seems the Gith wizards had noticed Simon and came to the conclusion that he was a tool of the Mind Flayers and decided to act on their own initiative to eliminate a threat the the freedom of the Githyanki s, pardon me, the known. He finally woke up at some point in the questions, and we got to meet the zealot instead of just his memories. Very pleasant, I assure you. Like a nice root canal at the dentist. After several minutes of working ourselves in a circle of trying to figure out a way to not kill him why he shouted at us that he would hunt Simon until he was dead we finally decided to give him what he asked for. Camille and Remé stayed behind after we left the tavern, with Camille saying that she could take care of the mess. As we walked away, Simon informed us that there was no additional body to find and had us stand still so Remé could transport Camille and herself to our location.

And with that fun new barrel of questions heaped upon us, we finally managed to reach the Civic Festhall. A bariaur greets us at the doorway with a disapproving look. It seems we've been remembered for the havoc we caused yesterday, which means we are unwelcome until Simon applied a bit of golden charm to smooth over any problems his people caused yesterday. That solved, she introduces herself as Annali Webspinner and we are able to ask her to help us, that we potentially need to commission a copy of a pair of sense-stones in their collection. This seems to raise us to the top of her "My Problems" Queue, and she pulls us into a small meeting room just inside the main doors of the festhall. When she asks why, we look at each other for a brief second before deciding to give her the whole story, and ask for her help in peeling a power. She looks thoughtful for a second then grabs a runner from a hallway, bends him down to her level then whispers a few words into his ear before she releases him to run off. She now looks at us with a level of seriousness that could sober a man three days dead of drink, and swears us to secrecy. We oblige, and she begins to relate how the once-lively Sensates have begun to grow dour under the leadership of their new factol, the once-lover of Erin Montgomery who lead the faction before him but disappeared with all of the other factols in the opening days of the Faction War. Annali says that she knows a dark about the disappearance of the Sensate Factol. She did not vanish into Her Serenity's mazes, but instead jumped through a portal into Carceri and hasn't been heard from since. At this point, her story abates as the runner has returned with a pair of stones carried into the room on a cushion. He sets the stones on the table and then leaves, bowing deeply the the goat-woman on his way out the door. These are the stones she thinks match what we quest for: The Virtue of a Liar and the Sight of a Blind Man. Xallis and I agree to evaluate the sensations so reach out for the stones. My stone is a pale white frosted glass sphere and even before my hand touches the stone, I can feel it's magic begin to pull me in and take over my senses. I touch the stone....

    I'm in darkness, yet I can feel the world around me. I've lost my eyes, my ability to see the world, and yet I continue onward. I'm standing in the Clerks Ward, listening to the hustle and bustle of life pass around me. But nothing is truly pure, and as I stand there listening and feeling the world around me, I see/hear a loud shout of a merchant off to my left, I see the flashes of the cobbles as my feet hit the ground and I feel it around me. My eyes have been taken, bu still the riot of the world can reach me. 

As I remove my hand from the stone I cough a little, I've never had the chance to use a sense stone before, and the experience is like a sudden hit of some wonderful drug. I'm able to translate the confusion of senses that the old man who recorded the stone experiences since I've dealt with it ever since my magic first sparked, all my power rolling across my finger-tips, my senses extended well beyond their appointed places to feel the ebb and flow of the world's energy around me. It's what where looking for, I say to the other Fools as I see Xallis nod about his own sense-stone. I rotate the cushion to bring A Liar's Virtue closer to me and place my hand on the transparent glass sphere whose surface is covered in so many tiny cracks it seems to fragile to touch. But my mystic senses tell me better as I bring my hand closer, this stone could probably withstand being thrown against the stone walls of the room we were in. I bring my hand gently upon the second stone....

    I'm frocked, tending a small congregation of a costal town. Days and weeks blur together as I see myself doing all those things that are expected of me, but I can feel the hollowness of my actions. Even though I'm responsible for these people's souls, I no longer trust where I'm sending them. Yet, we're at the mercy of the winds and the storms. The people must believe that there is something watching out for them, some reason for them, at the least, to go on living. 

I'm better prepared to emerge from this one, from the memories and regrets of a disenchanted priest. I feel pity for the man, struggling against forces he couldn't understand, thinking that because tradition demanded faith that faith was the best thing for him to provide his people. Xallis seems to have weathered the Sight of the Blind better then his first stone and he confirms that these are the things we're searching for, and Simon asks Annali to name her price. The bariaur nods at us and says that she needs to know what happened to Factol Montgomery, to have closure if not a new direction for the faction. I think most of us agree before she finishes her sentence, with Jonathan and I saying that we will try to bring her back, if possible. We agree, but send a runner back to Spellchaser Manse with a list of supplies we need from the house, as well as the last member of our company.

She thanks us then leads us through the festhall, up several stories to a large set of apartments near the back fo the building. As we approach, I can see the magic binding the door shut, then see it fall away as Annali walks up to the door and places her hand against it. She tells us that no-one else has seen this room since the disappearance and to take what we need in trying to find her. Manuel enters the room first, pulls out a piece of chalk and starts marking the few portals that are in the room, including one which he marks the symbol for the Prison Plane on the stone of the portal's arch. The rest of us take time to search the room, using my memory as a guide for what personal effects work the best in trying to find someone. Most of my divinations are minor tricks, but I know the rules, so I'm able to guide Jonathan to an old hair comb of the factol, which still has a few strands of red hair sitting in it. Simon finds what may be the biggest prize, a book of prayers to Dian Cect, personally penned by the Factol. During this investigation of the room, Kará arrives, dressed in armor for battle instead of the simple white dress she's been wearing until now. She listens to our current quest, then nods in agreement with our decision, thanking us for our efforts to help her restore her husband to her side. Now loaded up with our supplied for travel, we place the divination keys we've located in our bags to keep them safe. I turn to Manuel and offer that it's about time we got on the road. He nods and does something to the archway marked with a chalk symbol of damnation. It howls open, and it's only because we're trying to get there that none of us lose our footing as we pass through the portal.

    * Abe, if you don't mind my asking, what was so bad for the girl about your dating experiences with her? 

    Celandine? Well, the biggest might be the fact that I just disappeared without telling her where I was going; vanishing right before one of the most wild times the city had ever seen. She even told me for several years she blamed me for the Faction War, as absurd as it seems.


----------

