SIGIL AND BEYOND, A PLANESCAPE PBEM

Prologue - Broken mirror

	Large reptilian eyes snap open, slits expanding with unfathomable emotion. A forked toungue flicks out - once, twice - tasting the air. Above, in the gray pools of those eyes, the dregs of things best left unseen still swirl.
	A blue vial of liquid. A small girl with a crown. Three jewels. The Lady of Pain in a pool of blood. Sigil hurtling down the spire. A traitor. Demon and Devil warriors. A plot between factions. The axis of the planes removed, scattering the planes. A Deva by the name of Drax. Beneath it all, a sense of dread forces aligning within the planes.
	"Ssssssssss." The creature's anger swells and pulses in the gloom of the cave, swirling around the rough hewn walls. "An old leasssh sstrangles, whitcch way sshall he go?" The options, always the same. 
	Thoughts assemble, crash together like the dark sentient cubes of Acheron. Anger settles like dust on the beaten floor... "Ssidewayss thiss time, I think."
	It rises, a mountain of oily green scales swathed in muscles, peirced by horns of stygian darkness. "Sstool, to me." Sharp talons grasp what shall be needed from the sculpted bones of its dead servant. It girth its loins with tattered fur, encircles its wrists in decaying copper. Against its back it settles the crushing weight of sorrows not its own. Finaly, sharp instruments cut through scales healed in the night, rebirthing its third eye into the world amidst black blood and pain. As it shall ever be.
	"Sstool, clean. Guardianss, protect that whiccch iss mine." Heeding the call, bony reptilian heads emerge from the cavern's sides as their master's scrapping tread fades into darkness, their eyes of ethereal red hungering for the flesh they lack. 
	It ventures forth, away from the dim candlelight and the smell of acids, away from walls it clawed from rock seemingly so long ago. Away from home and towards the streets of Sigil.

	Distant thunder crashes and rumbles far above the ring. The air stirs as if in response, huffing through the mud-splattered streets of the Hive, then stops, hanging just as heavily as it did before... So like the breathing of a dying animal. The creature knows even this will come to an end, sooner or later, drowning them in the stinging tears of mourners; or the airy beast could rise one last time, rise to savage its ennemies, raining their warm blood on the small beings below. It has happened before. "Sso be it." Beasts will do as beasts will do. They keep their own councel and leave no bones.
	Out in the open air of the streets, somewhere below the thunder, the creature walks. People give the snake-fiend a wide berth, moving to the side as it strolls past, leaving its clawed tracks to slowly fill behind it. The thing pays the warm-bloods no mind, choosing to softly hiss words of wisdom to itself instead, to taste the breath of the airy beast with its flicking toungue. Through the Hive the creature walks.
	Three blocks down it angles its path inwards, towards a crumbling building shaped like a bulging wooden tent or maybe a primitive grain sillo burried to its neck in the filth that is the ground of this ward. Here and there, rivers of rust remind passerbies of spikes and architectural blades that adorned the structure in happier times. The blades have gone, stolen by time and grubby human hands. Indeed, nowadays the building barely manages to stay upright. 
	The present owner has swathed the exposed girthers in moldy green paint and suspended a wooden head above the door, marking it as a shop of sorts. Only when one gets closer does the leather cords binding the dummie's lips together become apparent, a sinister note perfectly at home under these skies. 
	Below the head stands the entrance. In a world where most things are made for beings of far lesser mass, this door would stoop the tall of even normal-sized race. It forces the creature to lean in and insert one massive shoulder, then the other, then to squeeze inside. There is the sound of scales scrapping against wood, accompanied by hissing. "A ssnake sslitherss into the rabbit'sss burrow." 
	A greeting? A warning? Whaever the case, there is no worry in the voice that answers, "Krotal, old boy. So what brings you from your cave on such a nice day?" The speaker is not working very hard to conceal his amusement, such is plain to see even in the smoky light of the cheap oil lamps scattered about the place. He is a small humanoid - all of a meter tall - dressed in muddy colors almost honeyed in their luster and brought off by cuffs and an undershirt of velvety blackness. In his hands he distractedly holds the tiny statue of a guardinal, carved out of red-veined wood.
	"Huuunger." comes the answer, its lips parting to show the serated darkness of ebony teeth. "...alsso, rumorss and unresstful ssleep." The giant eyes blink with lateral eyelids, the slitted pupils still visible in the flash of transluscent coverings. "But that iss of little concccern, friend Ssilenccerr. Have you sseen boness of interressst? Rodentsss and eggsss of tassty consstituttion?" He looks beyond his host and to the sides, where loom the irregular hills of debris the halfling dares call a store.
	"I've got some nice eggs in the back just for you, old boy. Also got a nice bit of chant about a Deva that deals a drug called Oblivion, if you want that as well. Wait a bit." The halfling leaves the main room for a moment.
	Krotal crouches aside the door, scaled muscles rippling in the lamp light. On Silencer's re-emergence, it turns from the burnt remains of a portable altar, steel grey eyes tracking the returning halfling, or perhaps the four eggs he now holds. 
	"Consider these on me. The chant on the other hand will cost you." He hands the eggs over with a smile.
	"Sso ssure I will buy, frriend Ssilenccerr?" it hisses, slyly curious. "Why sshould thiss ffiend care for devass or the breaking of ssmaller mindss?" Its forked toungue flicks out, tasting the smell of unborn lizards in their eggs, though it carefuly avoids reaching for the mottled orbs, knowing that doing so would commit it to this trade.
	Silencer feigns artful surprise, "You don't want to know of strange goings on in the Cage? This Deva has been doing some very - very! - undeva-like stuff... Ah well, thought you would want to know but I guess I can just put these eggs back and let someone else have them. I'm sure somebody in this dreary burg would just love Pseudodragon eggs..."
	That peculiar sideways blink again, lending a subtle disquiet to the creature's tilting gaze. "Well it iss true devass have been bussy of late." counters Krotal. "Iiif what I heard iss true..." 
	Outside, the beast breathes forth, pushing against Silencer's wooden tent with a rumbling creak. That is all that is heard, Silencer balancing his eggs nonchalantly, a knowing smile on his lips.
	"Sssss! Very well." concedes the fiend, small muscles contracting in its neck. Two clawed fists are advanced, the right uncurling ever so slowly as it whispers: "Thiss hand, friend Ssilencerr, thiss hand holdss a deva with hair of ffire and wingss but one. He wasssseen in the den of demonss, sspeaking as friendss... What iss held in your handss?"
	"Aha! Strange how these things work out. This Deva you speak of, his name is Drax. He's been working as a Mercenary Boss for various factions within the Cage. He also has been bringing in a drug called Oblivion. Yes, it is the same deva! You may not know this, being a respectable citizen and all, but Oblivion makes one's intelligence literally disappear for a small amount of time. Poof! Also causes small amounts of short-term memory loss. Very good for people who want to be abscent from somewhere they shouldn't have been, if you get my meaning. Very addictive stuff though and many people have begun depending on Drax's goods."
	"Ssss." comments the beast in mocking tones. "A lesssser name? Knowledge possessed by all? Iss thiss all Ssilenccerr knowss?"
	His host waves that away with a shake of his hand and a satisfied smile, "That is just the free chant, old top. Drax is also said to have a strange man under his hire (They say magic does not work near him at all, imagine that!). I also know that his devic employer has been looking for two things as of late: a crown without jewels and a young human girl from the Beastlands. Hehe. So... anything else I can help you with?"
	Krotal holds its toungue for long heartbeats... then bulging shoulders hunch its torso forward, pushing its head closer to the face of the diminutive warm-blood. "Perhapss it iss I who can help thiss halfling, um? You do sseem eager to sspeak of thiss deva, friend Ssilenccerr. Yess, quite eager. The nosse of perssonal sstakes sshowing passt the door? The curiouss gaze of shadowss taller sstill?" As if called from its slumber, its center eye swivels down to stare eerily through their host, secrets most dark swimming like leviathans in the lake of the distended pupil. "Ssome ssay three eyess ssee much that otherss might missss..." 
	Silencer forcefully shakes his smallish hand, "You know I hate it when you do that. Stop looking at me like that! Yes, yes I have something against him. He caused the death of a good customer of mine, and a friend... Poor bloke was a sensate,  wanted to experience this new drug. He got hooked and... died." He looks up from the memory, "I wish, I wish death upon this Deva." Krotal leans away, pushed back by the waves of rage and pain it sees in the hafling's gaze... 
	There is only the creak of wood for a while, only the subtle swaying of oil lamps and their attending shadows. Then the snake fiend's sibilant voice is heard once more, quieter somehow, more somber. "Your wound bleedss, friend Ssilenccerss, your wound bleedss and tearss itss twin in thiss flesssh. I will ssee what can be done, what can be sseen." It tilts its head, toungue softly probing, "Would you know ssomething more of thiss crown and human cchild, of thosse that would want ssuch thingss from our foe?"
	Silencer drops to a seat on a once level iron stool, shaking his head sadly, "I know Drax has been searching for those items for the last month. Rumor has it he found both. Probably not a good thing, even if you ignore talk of crown plus woman being able to put the Cage in the dead book... but that is all I know." 
	"Sssss... What of the ssource of thiss dreaded ssubsstancce he ssellss?"
	"Well that I do know something about. He imports it straight from Mt. Celestia where it apparently grows wild. They say he has a processing factory on some other plane, but that too has never been proven... or found." The hafling gives his guest an apologizing look, knowing he isn't giving it much to go on.
	"Sslim are our chancess," agrees Krotal "I will ssee what fate providess and then sspeak ssome more... Leaving but what ressides in thiss hand to disscuss." A black talon suggestively taps the remaining fist. "Ssay our next chat asss the price?"
	"As always I look forward to our chats. Maybe next time I'll get some real dragon eggs. See you the next time you pull yourself from your hole." Silencer returns to his back room, leaving the creature to look at its unopened fist, the carefully constructed secret contained within left unheard, un-needed...
	With a ripple of its massive shoulders Krotal shrugs and reaches for the discarded eggs, shoveling the unborn lizards into the magical confines of its tasseled beltpouch. "Tommorrrow. I will tell him tommorrow."

	Krotal pushes against the door's wooden frame, birthing its massive body out of Silencer's shop, out into the forgotten light of sigilian day. Above, the airy beast still lingers, rumbling in pain and hidding the depth of its wounds in clouds weaved from endless planes of ash. 
	A young half-elf wearing the symbol of Mystra runs past, cloak billowing behind him as he heads somewhere up the road. From that same direction comes screams and crashes, faint in the distance, but obviously pulling the elf to greater urgency. 
	"There liess the Den of Demonss." whispers the beast, visions bubbling and popping.
	(A Deva sitting among demons, talking. A door is opened, the silouhette of the opener in its frame. "Drax!" he cries and the deva turns, dragging the vision with him. Behind silouhette and bright door, a carved demon snarls in its chains, inviting patrons inside.)
	"Perhapss a cchange-" What looks like a Deva is jumping from rooftop to rooftop, away from the area of the screams...
	"Sssss..?!" Slitted grey eyes track the bouncing form with alien curiosity, noting the redness of the hair as it banners in the wind, the odd angle of one wing against the roiling clouds... "Sssssidewayss." It reminds itself as a wet shimmer engulfs its scales, pulling the creature into realms unseen. 
	Weightless in this place, it takes but the push of a clawed feet to glide up, up to pearch like a demonic bird on one of the squat horns adorning a nearby building. From here it watches as the deva's escape(?) is blocked by air turned solid. In his own defense he of the broken wing squirts clouds of darkest night, hiding himself and his would be assailant(s?). "SssssSS! Troublessome."
	But before anything can be done about it there comes a high pitched squeak and a growling roar, its deep echoes rumbling through the air. Down in the street below, near where the running elf dissappeared, a huge bear can be seen attacking a human dressed in gray scales. Shredded garments are spinkled on the tawny fur, colorful tears of previous victims...
	With an annoyed hiss, the scaly one turns its massive head away, back towards the darkened cloud. Its frame hunkers down on the horn and the large eyes close, as if admiting defeat. Undaunted the third watches still, events abscent from the world of mortals reflecting on its frozen exterior...
	Two shapes battling in a cloud of transparent ink. Two winged warriors, their auras clashing, eating each other in their rage. 
	One is facetted light, spearing her ennemies with a soul rigid and righteous. The one once invisible now wearring the body of a temptress. Eyes of blood, hair of void, armor all of curves. In her hands a sword tall with fury.
	The other is ever changing hunger, undying in its intensity, yet hungering not for she who attacks as he dances round her points and drops away, past the confines of the cloud. Drax, once lighted and now devouring what was worshipped.
	Below Krotal's starring eye, tears of stygian blood ooze from closed eyelids.
	Down in the alley it can hear the bear battling the man, crying in pain as the acrid smell of blood wafts upwards. Still it stares at the conflict above the creaking rooftops, off amid the roiling clouds. It is coming to a close.
	The one named Drax jumps down from the roof, twisting something on his finger he enters the gray realm of the unseen. But see him the creature still can, eyes long dead caring not for the light of the living. Scurrying away the deva runs, runs past the bent shape of a tortured light post, runs to a shimmering portal which opens... and then closes.
	The erinyes does not pursue.
	"Sstrange, sshe sshould have ssseen asss well. Sssss? Crippled perhapss, blinded by itss own goodnesss..." But she too is gone, blinked away with a bat of those bloodied eyes. "Ahhhhh, passionsss ruless her sstill."
	Another roar and the rumble of faraway thunder, beast talking to beast. Straightening on its horn, the scaled one peers down at last. Its eyes snap open, releasing rivulets of the blood trapped underneath. Slitted pupils quiver amid the field of burst blood vessels, then the eyes close, then open again. "SssssSSS?! How can nothing walk?!" 
	Then lips part ever so slightly and shine the ebony teeth as a forked toungue slithers a dance in the fetid air. "Fate." it says and there is a deep satisfaction coursing through that single word.
	The man is being tossed around like a rag doll, the huge furry paws swatting him down to bone-jarring impacts. Strangely, there is only pearls of blood where rivers should flow, only thin furrows where mighty claws should have torn flesh from bone. The smell of blood still lingers, but its source is crimson rivulets on the beast's hunched shoulder, burnt hair and flesh matted in the wound.
	Still this will not save the man who is not there. Shaking his head to clear it, his vision stabilizes just long enough for him to see the next set of attacks. "What has Drax gotten me into this time?" he moans. Then all is pain for him, pain and oblivion... if only for a while. The man crumple to the ground. 
	A push and the horn is left behind, left for a spot above man and bear. There the creature waits like an otherwordly vulture, waits for the shaggy beast to turn away. Just for a moment, for a single moment.... Now! Shimmering into existence, Krotal feels the world take notice and *pull*. Down it falls the three yards to the street, impacting on one knee with a bony thud and a splash of displaced mud. Massive muscles proppel its claws forward, crumpling the leather swathing the man and jerking upwards in a carefully rehearsed dance. The body follows, sailing above the street to an unkind landing on a nearby roof. The one it left just moments before.
	When the bear turns Krotal is already gone, having lept back into the gray realm of the unseen.

	The human lies crumpled amid the remains of planks and sharp edged paintings, one of several such constructions cluttering this rooftop -- altars to some god of weather perhaps, or perhaps simply the work of hands not yet confined to the Gatehouse. It matters little to this one for it is no more, having all but collapsed on top of its killer, crying its agony in a burst of dusty particules when his limp body slid into it.
	And suddenly so too cry the rafters beneath, a creaking chorus to the victor approaching. Through the bubble of nothing it presses, the Unseen ripping from its scales in long, tattered strips. Down it leans, sweaping debris away from the body of its prey, away from his bony face. (-a blue vial-). The ebony claws don't stop there. They start ripping at his belongings, are tearing at the fastening of the man's scaly armor when there is another creaking cry and the bear melts from thin air onto the rapidly crouding roof!
	He is greeted by the sound of sinister tea kettles reaching their boil, "Bearsss do not hunt!" roars Krotal from its crouch. "Bearss do not hunt lesst they are more than bearsss. What iss it you want from thiss one, troublessome creature? He isss mine!" Tendons shift as muscles tense below their oily green sheath: the bear will not catch it unaware.
	The bear tilts his head slightly, looking at the thing holding the Null. His voice is rough, shaped by a toungue not meant for this delicate a purpose, "He is to be taken for questioning in the actions below, and of his involvement with Drax. If you do not hand him over, you will be dealt with. I will not pull my punches as I did with the captor." It begins a creaking walk toward the body.
	There is no pause. Giant legs contract and the creature takes off, clutching its prize to its monstrous chest. "Wrong ansswer, ssilly bear."
	Unfortunetly the sudden movement is just too much for the aged rooftop. With a great crash the whole of it collapses into the second story of the house below, and then the combined weight of the falling fiend, bear, and unconscious human (not to mention the debris), is more than enough to blast through that floor as well! The ground floor is not so forgiving however and neither are the remains of what once was! The three find themselves buried in timber, plaster, razorvines and brick! Behind it all are shouts of surprised pain, grunts of impact and the overpowering taste of dust...
	The world is just begining to settle, the groans and crashes to subside, when there comes a loud whistling and the thud of many running footsteps out in the street. "Surround the house! The rest of you, move in on the bar and secure it. These troublemakers all have some explaining to do." 
	"Hardheadsssso far into the Hive?" Krotal's snaky head weaves as it blinks furiously, vision fixed upwards by rubble yet still trying to twist away, to escape.
	And maybe it should have succeeded for just then a shadow glides across the remains of crumbling walls and collapsed rooms. No one need explain that this shadow is woven from the fears of a million cagers for that fear becomes their own, all three of them. Above them, against the roiling sky, stands the towering form of a floating woman; her robe flutters, her face is cold, as cold as the blades sprouting from it in a burst of wickedness. Then, then Her shadown is upon them and there is nothing, nothing but darkness...
	With a crack of thunder the beast succombs, its mourners weeping frigid tears upon the streets of Sigil, the city of doors.


Chapter 1 - Maze of dark stone

	From darkness eternal comes walls. They creep into existance with heavy-handed innocence, as if they had always been there and one simply failed to notice them. Earth and stone curtains taller than sight, humid blocks the color of night pilled in bumpy rows and stuffed with pungent earth that is darker still. Here and there spots of glowing moss cast a gloomy, anemic light, a miserly light that barely outlines the three forms lying there in this newly-formed dead end.
	"Fate." says one of them and layers of resentment pile upon that single word. 
	Perhaps in response, the human begins to stir, to look around, bringing forth the hissing voice of Krotal once again, its deep sibilance echoing softly in the stillness of the passage. "Sssso, what iss thiss crime of yourss that earnss uss the Mazze, bald one? Wass it worth the pricce?" Bitterness in these words as well, but underneath, underneath pearl beads of nascent curiosity.
	"Fate my flaming bald ass!" The human says as he sheathes his jeweled sword, the blade somehow with him though it should not be. He gets up, shaking his head and leaning against the wall, "Something was going down that the Lady just didn't approve of. Or maybe she just didn't want all of us around. If it was any of us, she would have just sent that person here, not the lot of us, and anytime, not just now that we're here." His gray eyes click warily from scaly monstrosity to... a halfling, the latter having yet to stir. "Who... no scratch that. What are you two?" 
	"Ssss, a ccymbal crasshing in the ssilence... AND an exxpert on matterss beyond the grassp of mortalss asss well. Ssuch a pleassure it will be, trapped with thiss one till dissolution." The creature ponderously slides over to its own wall, propping its massive back against the wet of the stones. Its gaze lingers on the halfling, on the halfling's attire. Colorful hat, colorful shirt... "Asss to your sso delicate quesstion, man witthout name, let uss ssettle on Krotal, ssometimess ssaid Bonefriend." The long fork of its toungue peaks through the gap between its fangs, idly tasting the human's varied smells. "And yoursself? Who... no sscrratch that. What arre you?"
	"I'm exactly what I appear to be, Krotal. Not a common occurence in the Cage, I know. And you can call me The Null. Everyone does." 
	The beast's only answer is a soft, irregular hissing as shine the serrated edge of its teeth. Its gray eyes remain fixed on the man's bony face as visions flash, coloring what is. 
	(A traitor. A traitor looking as confident as a bargeman in the Stix, his body encased in gray reptilian leather with bony interlocking rings, bits of mummified muscle poking out from underneath in a grim display. Gray armor, gray eyes, bare skin above the gray caterpillars of the eyebrows. A traitor.)
	Shrugging at the thing's disbelief, the newly named Null turns to fully consider the third of their number, the halfling. What was only the knowledge of presence now shifts into instant recognition! "It's you, you sodd'n hardhead snitch! Why'd you attack me? The hardheads finally bought you out?" Even as he rages, the rogue is ever careful to keep Krotal within his field of vision...
	The little man suddenly comes to startlingly energetic life, words flowing and skidding out of his mouth like boulders down the endless slopes of Gehenna, "I didn't attack you!!! I ran into the alley and screamed cuz a bear was about to pummel the stuffing outta me, then I saw something black, so I ran into it so's I could hide, then poofers, here I was, I thought it was for filtchin those funky pies from the Sensates. But now yous guys show up here and apparently the Lady thought we should get together, he heh. Anyways, my names Bob. Shouldn't we be trying to get out or something???"
	But the human will not get a chance to answer. In a burst they are surrounded, five strange figures shooting through the floor and blinking into sudden life, half-formed movements completing!
	With a startled hiss comes the wet shimmer of scales. Krotal is no longer there. The Null's own reflexes go to a scramble across to Krotal's former position, pressing himself against the wall with a ready hand on the pommel of his blade... "What, the Bleakers ran out of room?"
	Such an assessment has its merits. From its crouch in the Unseen, the creature's gaze glides across feathers, pointed ears, gray claws, crimson eyes, none belonging to the same individual. But not all are strangers here. There, to the side, stands she with eyes of blood and hair of void, the erinyes who so wanted to hurt Drax...
	"So much for trusting the Hardheads." Taut grey skin clad in leather is this one, inhuman hands ending in wicked claws of a darker shade. His eyes are the bluish-green of the ocean, amusement dancing in their waves. "I don't suppose anyone has a key that will get us out of here?"
	"Gods, what happened?" cries a dark-haired elf from his spot on the floor, robes in disarray.
	"By Tyr, we have been mazed by the Lady! What did we do to warrant such punishment?" Echoes a bald human with piercing blue eyes.
	The spotted tan and white owl just rolls its yellow eyes and hops from feet to feet. "Whoooo... Whoooo!"
	"No," concludes the grey one with a raised eyebrow and a casual flick at the hoop of a copper earrings. "I guess not..."
	The blue-eyed one lapses into sudden silence, looking to the grey... then starts pacing to cover his embarasment, full of nervous energy. 
	"All of us seem to have something in common, that is Drax and the human." says he after a while, and there is a strange clacking to his approximative sigilian. "As far as this Drax goes, I can only see that he is fallen and it could only be a matter of time, before he is completely gone and his devoured by those that use him. But my only knowledge of this Drax was the human who I had warned was to meet Drax and that I was told he was very important in the scheme of things. The only thing I could think of the human as being different was there appeared to be a void, as if nothing non-physical could reach him... Does anyone else know anything about those two?"
	"Uh, excuse me," interrups the elven fellow whose since risen and is busily dusting his dark blue robes, paying special attention to the mystical symbols scribbed on the burnt-orange trims. "but before we get into that, does anyone know where we are exactly? Tchhh, I think that's going to stain."
	"Powers! Please don't tell me you're one of the clueless!" 
	All start at this new voice and turn to stare at the unoticed Null who stares back at the elf, disbelief filling his gray eyes, "We're in one of the Lady's mazes. And like the grey one said, if we wanna get out we have to find the key. Every maze has one. It's just a matter of finding it before the maze puts us in the deadbook. Then, after we're out of here and have paid Drax back for whatever he did, we can settle whatever score you have with me, ok?"
	Slitted eyes take in the group, the human, the erinyes standing with them... then the human again.
	The elf raises an eyebrow, shadows starkly marking the long scar coursing down his right cheek. "Pay him back?" He shakes his head. "I don't know why I would need to do that. I just want to find him to tell him of some foul play that occurred earlier this morning. I know not why the rest of you are in search of him."
	His formerly-pacing companion ignores these words, his blue eyes boring into their subject. Three determined strides take him to the Null as he shrugs off his entire form, surging upwards into a two meter tall vulture -- feathers, beak, skin and talons all a dull and very deep dark blue! 
	The Null holds his ground, glaring up into the beaky face but also noting the silver necklace around the demon's neck, the sharp-winged snake of the Red Death, once hidden in the man's dark robes and now revealed!
	Her chiseled features remain smooth and untroubled. Not a hint of surprise, not a move to draw her great sword from its sheath... Unseen muscles relax, slitted pupils sliding back to that which caused the alarm.
	"Well my friend," clacks the demon, his voice ancient and hollow. "it seems you are a part of this mystery that intertwines us all." He offers a hand tipped with talons sharper than the most finely honed dagger, offers it to shake. "My name is Clarinax Ceruflame. I would have to say it is an honor to meet you finally, although I wish it was in a better place than this." 
	"Then you should know better than to get this close to me! Step back, or you'll get a taste of steel." replies the man as the muscles of his vest ripple and tense.
	The offered hand drops away, blue eyes staring into gray as tension slowly mounts in ever growing silence... 
	"Interressting." whispers the wind. "Iss it alive to sshiver sso in your pressencce?"
	The Null ignores the distraction, as does the vrock, yet something has changed. The blue bird looks around and sniffs at the air for a while. The human looks on, seemingly disinterrested... 
	"Uhum! I have said it: all of us seem to have something in common, that is Drax and you, for me it was especially you." resumes the vrock, dark blue feathers rippling as if an unseen breeze blew by. "There was something very different about you. It is... as if you do not exist in the magical realm, only physical. In all my long life, I have never seen such a possibility... What use is it that Drax had in it for such a useful thing?" he asks with a quizzical look. "That is if you do not mind me asking you?"
	Tight lips twitch in reluctant agreement. "I figure we'll all have to sing eventually if we're to get out of here." He sighs, "My association with Drax is one based on business. He finds me employers and I work for them. He gets some jink in the process." His eyes narrow, "Now who told you about my meeting with Drax? And what did you want with him?"
	Bob the halfling perks up, "Well if all we have to do is sing: Oh there was a farmer had a gnoll and Barker was his name ooooh; B, A, R, K, er; B, A, R, K, er..... This doesn't seem to be working. Hmm, maybe if we all try it, and with feeling people. A one, two..."




	Clarinax looks at Bob with a serious look in his face as if saying, "Can't you see how serious this is?" and his beak curls up a bit, but just as he seems about about to burst into angry shouting, he laughs instead, "It was nice try, but I don't think it will work. Listen, right now we are all stuck here and we are going to need to trust one another. And you are right we do need a key to get out of this sodding maze. Now as far as my interest in Drax, there isn't any, my mission was to tail you and to protect you. Don't you realize it seems your exploits have gotten ahead of you or someone squealed on your abilities. You are a walking dead magic zone, if any of the other factions have a hold of you, who knows what they could use you for. You can upset the balance in Sigil very easily. So it will either be you join em or you die most likely." 
	The Null turns to look at him askance and says, "Well, if you see any recruiters, you can tell them that I'm... taken." A wolfish grin appears on the Null's face. 
	The vulture pauses and looks at him, right in the eyes. "Bahh, don't look at me like that. I may be a Justiciar, but I also have my faith which guides me." He holds up his hand with sports intertwined serpents, utterly failing to note the blank look such a symbol garners. "Which wouldn't be right to say the least. Would you be able to tell me the story of Drax, is he really a Deva or just something that looks like one?" He pauses again, deep in thought, "Actually, it may be that someone called in Drax to set you up, maybe that was why I was asked to tag along with Drax as well as you." 
	The Null looks somewhat annoyed at admitting that "Drax is a deva. Just not Good anymore. He turned his celestial back on goodness a long time ago. That's petty much what I or anyone else knows the rest's as dark as the plane of Shadows."
	Once again Clarinax looks around as if startled. "Null is right, we need to get out of here as soon as possible, before whatever is in here finds us. We are going to need to be as vigilant as possible. I also know it is quite awkward being out here together for the first time. But it may be better if we knew what each of us could do so that we may be aware of each other in case something comes up. I'll start with myself, as you can see I am a Paladin of Jazrela of the Mercykillers. If anyone has any questions of me, please ask me later on and I will be more than happy to." He pauses once again to look at everyone. "I am not asking for a history just so we can have common skill set to work from, otherwise it may be a bit harder to get out of here alive." 
	After wrinkling his face at the mention of the P word, the Null says "I'm a security expert. I can scout out and disarm the traps we're bound to find here, and neutralize the wards the others find, at least long enough for you to go by. I'm no warrior, but I can pull my own weight. If you'll excuse me, I'll start on it right away." The Null rumages around in his belt pouch and takes out a piece of chalk "I'll also mark the intersections we come across. I suggest someone in the rear does the same in the wall across from mine, in case they shift." With that, the Null goes down the corridor, looking for likely places to hide traps in this maze...



	The dark earth is disturbed behind him, gouged out, the midnight stones scratched, as if great clawed feet walked where only empty air exists. And the sibilant voice is heard trailing, hissing acidly to itself, "Ssuch friendly people, the oness who hunt you bald one. Sso polite oncce they surround you. And sso eager to organizze sstrangerss against thiss mighty corridorr. We sshould all have ssuch enemiess."
	The Null keeps a straight face and whispers back at Krotal "Yeah, well, I never much trust these do-gooders at all. But then again I don't trust anyone." He gives that wolfish grin for a second and continues "They're bound to burden us with some idiotic and unpractical scheme just to further their ideals. I figure you're a pragmatist at heart, like me, so watch out."
	The snake head silently bobs and could have said more when she with eyes of blood finaly speaks, her words in response to its own, "I never had any quarrel with any of you. I was just trying to bring justice to Drax. And the best way to do that would be get out of here, and we have much better chances of escaping if we work together."
	The treads pause, sinister twisting as the voice drops low and carressing. "Jussticce all of white, imperssonal... Iss it really sso, my temptress? I ssat in the roiling cloudss thiss morning, ssaw a different thing, ssaw a jussticce of blood ever sslashing, ever sseeking to tear the woundss of one'ss flessh into the hurting one... Where wass jussticce then?"
	Clarinax stops his own progress to say, "Drax has brought it upon himself, I had actually given him a choice. He is now cast out, I had meant what I had said about asking him to go before the Celestial Tribunal and ask forgiveness. It can be done, but only if one is willing to and wishes to make whatever sacrifices is neccessary. But most importantly, it must be in their heart. It is now necessary for him to pay for his crimes so that others may not fall victim to his deeds. As such when next we meet, he will be laid low and his soul will find rest in the place where it is now living, in Baator." 
	Krotal's tracks do not move even a finger's width. "Sso says he of the babbling beak. What ssay you, my temptress?"
	"I don't know what he did for the rest of these people to come after Drax, but he brought me upon himself long before today. He's been a scum drug dealer for a long time and he killed my friend."
	A peculiar sideways blink, transparent membranes squishing across the great orbs of its eyes. "A ssenssate, caught by hiss own curiossity..." It turns its back and the tracks resume. 
	Cold as Ocanthus, she speaks "Since the Null can effectively protect us from magic in the front I will protect our rear from magic as best I can." A nimbus of golden flakes rise and then fade from view if not from existence as she begins marking the opposite walls in different colored chalk.




	As the group follows the Null, the grey-clawed one smiles and says to the halfling: "Ah, Bob Fleet-of-Foot. It appears your quick escape wasn't all that successful."
	Bob is following right behind the Null, being as stealthy as he. "Hey, Null, you said something about the answer being done with singing, so how about we go left, huh. I like pretty girls, hey, maybe it's a siren, I've always wanted to meet a siren, did you knnow that? hmm, if it is a siren, we may want to go right or straight, since the others may not fair well and be charmed by the siren and die, or worse, attack us and die. You know what, that Krotal guy you popped in with doesn't seem too nice, what where the two of you doing to earn being Mazed with me anyway? Everyone else is tellin us all about him, but Krotal seems very secret and shy, always trying to go invisible, what if we need him and can't find him.... 
	[Gwen] "Krotals's Invisible? I never noticed. I guess if you need him and can't find him I'll find him for you."
	There is a muted hiss, the creature's only comment.

	"Hey, do you think that with all these Paladin's that showed up, they may get the Axe from their God, I mean, isn't being Mazed like a punishment, so does that mean they did something wrong. Hmm, that would suck wouldn't it."
	[Gwen] "Doing something wrong in the Lady's eyes does not mean we were doing evil, just something she didn't like." 

	"Hey, you probably lived in the Hive for a while, or at least passed through them, didcha ever see Crazy Bob's discount emporium, well, I don't like that Old flanders named his store after me, I was thinking about going in there and busting up some heads but oh well, now that Im in a Maze, I just want to see old Flanders again, he really is nice, and got some great Malt whiskey. Hey Tig, if we get out of this, do you want to go to Crazy Bob's with me and have a drink with Old Flander's?" Tig is apparently he of the grey skin and blue-green eyes.

	The corridor extends about 30 meters forward from the initial turn after where you all started and then comes to a four way intersection. 

	He then turns to speak to the Prattling Halfling behind him, with an innocent looking and concern filled expression platered on his face. "Bob, you know that some the denizens that inhabit some of these mazes can hear your hairs rub together as you walk. I'd hate to see one of them hear you and decide to have himself a small halfling snack. Please, let's try to keep it down, ok? Now, what do you say we work with me here? Let's check out what's ahead. You take the right half of the hall and I'll take the left one, ok? That way we can go faster. If you find anything unusual, let me know." The Null then turns away towards his designated space and tries to blen into the shadows as he ranges ahead, taking care to be silent and look aout for traps that may be there. When he passes the spot marked by Krotal's passage he whispers "You watch out for enemies and anything else suspicious down the hall." 
	A slight shake of the floor and the quiet patter of falling earth. In its gray space Krotal sails upwards, up past the section of lighted walls, up into the black void above.


	The Null signals Bob and Krotal to wait while he goes back. The others see him coming from the shadows and signal the others to shush and get ready for trouble. He then goes back to the intersection, signaling to Bob to follow him and keep a sharp eye and ears as he goes forward to get a getter idea of what they're up against. 
	The Null seems to literally melt into the shadows of the hall. Though you know he's there somewhere, you really can't spot him. 
	The walls go up uniformly for infinity it would seem. The moss only goes up for about 50ft. it gets steadyily darker the farther up you go. 

	As Bob moves off to obey the Null's directions, Tig doesn't answer the halfling's question.  

	Up above the lights it floats, in the silence of deepest night. Below, the moss spreads in ethereal pathways, inverted rivers of stars forced to cascade between sinuous canyons of rocky void. It floats and words drift upwards like smoke, words of homes far away, of godly servitute, of battles where shone vulture and maiden. "Veilss and curtainss." it confides to the dark and the dark nods wisely.
	The Null suddenly reappears, sliding from the shadows as if he were there all along, so with a powerful push Krotal dives into light, downward bound.
	"Here's the dark." whispers the rogue. "There's an illusionary wall up ahead, and past that there's a large room with voices and sound coming out of nowhere and a berk meditating amidst it. The room is an intersection of sorts. Could be the guru knows some of the darks to this place. I don't think he'd rattle his bone box to the likes of me, seeing that I'm not the most likable sort, but he might open up to one of you. Someone who looks normal and not that much like a fiend, mind you. Also, if I recall correctly, angel gurl here can disappear. Maybe she can get close enough to him to see if theres any bad vibes on him. The rest of you should wait nearby in case there's any trouble. Now, give us until Tig's counted to 50 to set up and then follow." Without waiting for a reply, he turns around and strides back into the shadows. 
	"Count to 50?" Tig says, looking at his ten clawed fingers. "Why do I get all the tough jobs? Oh, well, I guess it's the least I can do."
	Gwen: "I can go invisible and also I could polymorph into human and try to charm him. It used to be my specialty. I'll also try to see if he's evil. Don't go past the illusionary wall unless I tell you to go or you hear battle. I'll telepathically call you all if I need to."
	Clarinax looked up as he saw The Null reappear as if from nowhere, wondering what other abilities this strange person has, besides the most obvious one. He listened intently as he spoke about what he had found up ahead. Hopefully it was as he said, someone or something who may know the dark of this place. But he wondered why there seemed to be so many voices in the area described. He spoke in his strange voice, "I concur with you, Null. Sometimes our appearances may be disruptive to others." He looked over to Gwen. "I will be nearby, just let me know of the first sign of trouble and I will teleport right to your side in assistance." 
	The null just nods at 'Nax so as not to give himself away and keeps going down the hall.

	Krotal watches them go, one behind the other... 
	From around the corner the halfling went, as small Kobold walks out, looking at everyone, it's eye lids sliding sideways. It's dressed in a small loincloth, a sack at it's side, as well as some boots and gauntlets. It has no weapons out. It tilt it's head and speaks in draconic: "Hello, who you?"



	Gwen telepatically says to everyone "Apparently we were expected, come on in" 
	Tig stops his counting. Looking at Staren and Clarinax, he says, "I just got a mental message from Gwen. Did you two hear it, too?"
	Clarinax stops as if listening to a silent echo. He mentally responds, "Aye, best to be on your guard. Could you tell me who is in there with you?" Turning to Tig, "Yes, I have heard it as well. Let us hurry."
	Staren nods, hearing the female voice speak to him. "Oh, good to know you two heard it too. I thought I was going crazy." He grins a little. "And who is this Gwen? I guess one of the others in the group?"
	"I am not sure if you have met her, she is the one who wen up aheand of us to scout. She spoke to you telepathically." He say to him telepathically as well. 
	"Sssss, blockss falling in placce, their imagge sscreaming." It lazily slides to the entrance, grips the wall with clawed appendages and stands there, watching the others approach.
	The Kobold hops forward. In draconic, "Hear what? Where going?" The kobold will hop along with the party, looking at each of them. In draconic, "I lost long time, happy see new people."
	"Ssuch a sshame the halfling died, ssecretss left unheard."
	As Staren, Clarinax, and Tig catch up with the others, Tig asks out loud, "Where did that kobold come from?" 

	For the first time, Clarinax gazed at the owl not realizing it was more than just a bird. He found it strange it followed them in to the maze the way it did. He also deduced it had more than just average intelligence as it looked upon them with a purpose. It also didn't fly away considering the strange surroundings it had just founs itself. After Clarinax starts froward from Gwen's summons to go through the wall, he looked at the owl with his own strange eyes and said in its mind, "It is ok, we can speak to you through your mind. Our friend Gwen has seen that the room ahead is hidden by a fake wall and it seems safe beyond. If you don't mind, perhaps we can speak later?" He waited for the strange owl to follow...
	Beylanna seemed to almost find some comfort in being addressed directly and reassuringly by the towering bird-creature with the huge razor beak and colored plumage. She is able to contact Clarinax's mind in return: "Whoo-whoooooo. Beylanna follow you. Beylanna will help you get back to the round city. I will be here when you wish to speak." 
	Clarinax listened to Beylanna's reply. "There are owls from Mount Celestia who speak such as you. Are you from there? Also, if you do not mind me asking, do you not wish to accompany us, we are all going inside and it may be dangerous becuase of the unknown that may lurk out here. If not, please be rest assured, contact me as soon as possible for any need and I will assist you." He made ready to enter the illusionary wall with apprehension as he was always to well aware of what may lurk beneath the guise of others.	



<Fred> Land on the (solid) wall and stick just his head through the (illusionary) wall.

The room is very large. From where you're at, it's probably 100ft across to the other side of the room. The room is square, even on all sides. Two corridors lead off of each wall, including the one you're standing in. 


	All the group finally enters the room where the man sits crossed legged in the center. He is an older man. White whiskers have grown long from his chin with the time, and the wrinkles of age cross his brow in many places. He wears the simple white robes of some sort of monk order, or something along those lines. As all of you enter, you feel a sort of serenity to the place itself. 
	"Please, all of you, have a seat. Oh, I've been waiting for such a long time for you all to arrive. For a while I didn't think it would actually come to pass, but here you sit before me. The Lady knows all, bless her. So, I'm sure you're all wondering why you're all here, right? Well, of course you're all here to save Sigil. But I've been rude, let me introuce myself, I'm Jarx, keeper of the portals."
	The Null seems a bit irritated by the old man's prattle, but keeps his mouth shut and lets those more socially functional have a go at the man. 
	Gwen responds, "Umm.. Wouldn't it be a lot easier for us to save Sigil if we were actually in Sigil. So if you could kindly give us the key to get out we'll be able to save Sigil and we all have some business with a guy named Drax we were trying to take care of when we came here." 
	"Not all of us," interjects Tig. 
	Clarinax smiled (as much as could be seen) at Gwen's straight forward approach, which did make a lot of sense. He also agreed with her just as much.
	"Oh, the gates of Sigil have been closed to you all at this time. There's only one way to get back in. The girl is the key. You do have the girl, right?" The man looks over the assembled crowd and then his face darkens into a frown. "Oh, dear. Well this does complicate things. You don't seem to have her with you."
	The Null takes a step forward and asks the guru through clenced teeth: "What do you know of this girl? And the crown?" He then turns around to the others and asks: "What about you, have you had any dreams of a girl and a crown?" 
	"Dreamss? No. Vissionss."

	"Not I," says Tig, "but I'm willing to come along on your adventure, what with my being here already. It sounds like fun."
	The Null smirks as he says: "Hmph. Let's see if you still think like that after you've had your share of the Lady's blades. " 


	Staren purses his lips, "I think I know where our girl is. Slaadi took her. I tried to stop them, but they got away." He shakes his head. "She told me to tell Drax and that she lost the crown. Perhaps you can answer me that, Jarx?" 
	"Slaadi?" Tig says. "Well, she's sure to be safe among them. I haven't visited Limbo in years."
	The null smiles cinically and jokes: "Right, and if push comes to shove, we can always try to get to her before the eggs hatch."
	"The girl is in Limbo? She must be rescued. One of the other factions probably hired the Slaadi to capture her hoping to take her out of the game."

	Beylanna listens with some curiosity at the words of this strange old man sitting in front of the group. Then she hears the fanged man say something about a girl telling him that "she lost the crown." 
	"Whooo-whooo-whoooooo. Girl lose the same crown that walking metal box try to sell me in market ward? Walking metal box try to sell me crown, say it has power over all of round city, but gems in it were gone, and possibly man named 'Drax' had them. Beylanna not buy the crown, it looked like junk to me, and I did not have valuable enough gems to buy with, anyway." She peeked into the pouch strapped to her chest to look at the gems in there, and then looked back up and shook her head for emphasis. "Not worth 500 shiny round pieces of yellow metal."
	Calrinax looked at the owl out of curiosity, listening intently to what he had just said. He also wondered what actually brought him to this place as well, since it seemed it was not voluntary. "I think the walking metal box is called a Modron."
	A soft hissing in the background, irregulary pitched.



	"The crown too is lost. Things are alot bleaker then they seem." says Jarx. "You don't have either of the two parts to the key. Has anyone spoke to Drax recently? Has he found the location of the gems? Without the gems, the crown is pretty much worthless."
	"Drax wasn't particularly sociable," Tig points out. "He only seemed interested in talking to that obnoxious fellow over there." He points to the Null.
	The Null turns to sneer at Tig and says "Well, that's what's called privacy, and have to say, I love you too, pumpkin." As he says the last bits, he winks at Tig. The Null then seems to sober up instantly. Nobody else knew about the gems but Drax, and if this old man had been here as long as he said, there might just be enough truth in him to share: Drax said he was still looking into it, that he though he knew where he could find them, but he had a job for me before he rattled his bonebox." He then turns to adress the rest of the group, and failing to see Bob, looks around and asks: "Where's Bob? Has anyone seen the snitch recently?"
	"Sstrange when ssecurity exxpertss care more than paladinss... Lesst they know ssomething in their ssilencce?"


He [Clarinax] let the other introduce themeselves.
	Instead of introducing himself, Tig remarks, "It seems to me that a 'keeper of the portals' would be in the possession of a great deal of keys."
	"I have the keys, if you have the inkling to complete your destiny." 

	The half-elf bows slightly as he introduces himself. "Staren Cloaken, faithful to the Lady of Mystery." He smiles slightly. "Pleasure to make your aquaintance...I am curious, Jarx, on why you chose us to save Sigil, if you don't mind me asking." 
	The null's patience finally boils over and he snaps: "You're not listening, Dustie-pal. The LADY sent us here. She chose us, not him. He's just the messenger she happened to send to us. Let's get this over with. What do the prophecies say we have to do to get out of here?"
	"I didn't choose you. The Cage choose you hundreds of years ago. Kilgar walked the planes over 200 years ago and wrote about these times when he did. I have been waiting for you for some time now." 
	Clarinax straightened himself up a bit, achieving his full 7' plus height, his bones cracked a bit and his wings unfurled a bit as he relaxed, mindful of not touching anyone else as he was the last one to enter. "Greetings Jarx, I am Calrinax Ceruflame, what do you mean you have been waiting for us for a long time?" 
	Jarx glances around the room. Then looks at a spot just above his head and reaches into what seems to be a pocket therein. He withdraws a large book from the air and opens it to a page approximately in the middle of the book. "Quote from Kilgar, the all seeing dwarf of the Badlands. The strange ones will come with the means to turn the balance of the war within the Cage. They shall have in their number two fiends, redeemed, yet opposite, a half-bred snakish ogre, a very confused kobold, one of the undead, an owl of the planes, and a dragon-kin. And most of all they shall have the prophesied one. The prophesied one, whom magic can't touch. The one around whom the events of the Lady's demise revolve. The prophesied one and the key will be the keystone to the future." Jarx closes the book and puts it back in it's dimensional pocket.
	"Who fightss thiss war, inssulting one?" asks the circling voice with airy disinterest. "Who diess, who winss, and for what prizze?"
	"The denizens of the Cage fight the War. Darkwood himself seeks to bring about the downfall of the Lady herself. Who dies, who wins, this all depends on you all. The prize is the seat of power in the Cage itself."
	A snatch of silence, ripe with expectations... unfulfilled. "And sso? Rulerss rule, old Jarx, rulerss rule and rulerss fall. What hass Sshe done to command our sserviccess, what hass he done that we sshould bathe in hiss blood?"
	All the talk has Beylanna feeling a little frightened again. Talk of a war, a lady's demise. "Whoo-whoooo. Perhaps Beylanna should not have left home in Karasuthra. Quest to relearn my past maybe not worth all this." 
	"Exxactly."
	Upon seeing the Owls ruffled feathers (from fear) and mistaking them for mirth, being unable to perceive her speech, the Null says: "The old man managed to make even the bird laugh. Whose familiar is it, anyway?" 
	The owl blinks several times at the strange human's words, clearly not understanding what he means by "laugh." Was this a humanoid custom? Beylanna tilts her head to one side, seeming to ponder this custom of "laugh," then turns back again to look at the old man sitting in front of everyone.

	"Have you ever wondered what happens to the planes should the Lady of Pain fall?" asks Jarx.
	"A ssudden drop in the pricce of knivess?"
	(The axis of the planes removed, scattering the planes. Pearls on a broken necklace, floating off to become demi-planes of their own. Portals not working and no cohesion between the laws of one and the laws of another. Layers of other planes breaking free to become their own domains. Wars within planes breaking forth to rule the little piece of land they could. Chaos overcoming the whole planar structure.)
	The null takes the question more seriously, "Well, Sigil's gone, for starters. She's the only thing keeping the Powers out of it, and the Faction's would rush to seize control. Chaos for a while. Anarchy. And then The cage will most probably slide to the appropriate plane for whomever turns out on top. Wait. That wouldn't happen if the Lady chose a successor. Is that what the girl is for. Is she to succeed the Lady in ruling Sigil?"
	Clarinax stood back as he listened intently to the chant bandied about the room. With a serious look on his face, "No, the planes themselve would fall or collide, since Sigil would be destroyed" He looked and walked around a bit. "No faction would let such a prize fall and if they did, they would rather see it destroyed than have their enemies claim it. Remember, Sigil is the center, with the center gone, there is no separation."
	The soft, irregular hissing is heard once more. "Typicaly ssigilian. The outlandss sstill exisst, foolissh one, asss doess the sspire. Planess are not physsical, demon whosse knowledge burned with hiss nature, order doess not sslide into chaoss if chaoss ssuddenly iss gone... nor doess chaoss sstay absscent for long, belief itss eternal provider."
	"If Sigil falls, the planes all slide back into the chaos that created them." contradicts Jarx. "The whole planar structure collaspses. Think of Sigil as the weld on a key ring. The weld breaks, the keys go flying everywhere."
	"And there's a mess no one wants to clean up," Tig concludes.
	"Sssss, who imparted thiss fine knowledge to you, Old Jarx? Wass it perhapss the Lady hersself asss sshe lay her head on your pillow? The dancce of sspire butterfliess forming wordss of planar wissdom?" Still soft are the words, soft as the whisper of silken robes after the passage of courtly assassins.
	"This also is spoken of in many old tomes and also in the writings of Kilgar himself." 
	"Thiss I heard from friendss of mine, very knowledgeable in ssuch matterss. Trusst me, good ssir. Trusst me." That irregular hissing once more - louder this time, more akin to the sybilant roar of gathered vipers - but growing smaller as it drifts away and to the side.

	The null squints and asks the Guru: "So essentially what you're telling me is that the girl and I will somehow spawn something or event that will put the Lady herself in the deadbook?" Suddenly, the Null laughs, an empty, mocking sound that somehow conveys his scorn for everything an everyone "You must be barmy, all right."
	"Actually, the factions, including your own, seem to think you are the only one able to kill Her. The girl and the crown have their purposes if that should occur. Think of them as a backup plan."
	"So, Jarx," Tig interjects. "You're saying that if, for instance, the Null were to, oh, I don't know, die, then there would still be a way to resolve things satisfactorily? I'm speaking hypothetically, of course."
	"No, not satisfactorly. Depends on who ends up weilding the girl's power. To save Sigil, both the prophecied one and the girl with the crown must survive. There really is no other way."
	"Mazess of thought in mazess of sstone... Ssupposse we ssit in thiss placce, old Jarx - playing with boness, compossing ssongss - what happenss tthen?"
	Silence from the the old man. "What happenss then?"
	"One would think that if one was ignored the first time, one would not prod one with the same question. Especially when one won't even grace us with one's real presence. Imagine, staying invisible for a whole conversation. My word. And, your answer is not an option." 
	A crinkling at the corner of reptilian eyes, "Why sshould I be more than a voicce, Old Jarx? Why sshould I be more than the one decciding what iss an option, what iss not... but you don't know, do you Old Jarx? You read the wordss of thosse long dead and sspeak none your own, know sso little outsside their confine. Ssuch a ssad fate, to wait and then be disscarded. Ssuch emptinessss." A subtle string below the words -- taunt, sharp, darkened by splotshes of never drying blood. A trap set by memory, the bearer its only possible victim.
	"Good sir, you mistake me for one that has been sentenced. I choose to await you. I was once one of the Lady's advisors. When Kilgar told us of his seeings, I choose to go here and wait." 
	To this Krotal doesn't answer. There is no need.
	Tig says, "Clearly the Voice is embarrassed to show himself to us, and your taunting him won't help that. He was drafted into this whole situation, and I think he should be able to get away with a little rudeness. Or should I say 'she'? Did anyone get a look at the Voice while he or she was still visible?"
	The Null looks at tig before replying. "Don't ask me why, but I get the distinct impression that it's male, Tig. But then again, I'm not one of them lizard lovers"
	Clarinax looked around in the direction of the voice and nodded, "I have not seen the Voice either. Why not show yourself? it seems that we are unwittingly drawn together by whatever fate has meant us to do." 
	"Fate iss not my friend." snaps the hissing presence, no longer soft. "Fate iss my cagge, my cchainss, my tormentor, yet sso ssweet it ssmiles before I feel her teeth eating me alive... Are thosse the thingss you wissh to ssee, bird of ocean drowning, the thingss you wissh to hear? Sshow me your ssoul, the woundss of your sspirit and I will sshow you my body."
	"It's annoying being the only one who knows what he looks like, so since we're all stuck together we may as well all know what each other look like. Its only fair." So she activates her Protective Aura and steps next to the voice. The Globe of Invulnerability part of the Aura suppresses the Invisibility. 
	Nothing happens as Gwen walks over next to the voice. Nothing appears, nothing but a touch of acidic sadness in the voice, "Violencce foul, the breaking of wisshes made by otherss... Iss thiss a thing wortth doing, woman of curvess?"
	"Ohh, I'm glad you like my curves. I didn't really want to break your wishes, but I believe that if beings are forced to work together they should at least know what the others look like."
	Scales bunch at the mouth's corner, pulling teeth into light, pulling head closer to chest. "Attack your chainss if your chainss cchafe. Adding linkss, linkss of your own making, iss unlikely to lighten the weight we carry!"


	"Frankly, he sounds rather depressing," Tig interjects. "Maybe it's for the best we don't know what he looks like. Let's talk about something else, then. Like getting out of here."
	"Fate is never anyone's friend, it chooses as it wishes heedless of mortals and yes powers alike." He says heavily. He pauses and held up his hand, showing the holy symbol that was forever burned in to his right hand. "You know what I once was and now what I am. It is what I have accepted and held to myself...for thousands of years. What would you know?" 
	"I know none of thosse thingss, creature of sshallow waterss. Neitther what you are nor what you were. Of me you know even lesss... Yet you assk to ssee and offer a quesstion, a true ansswer. I acccept." There is the wet shimmer of scales and the vrock looks into grey eyes set in a serpent's face. Two heads taller than he stands the being, massive arms of muscled green scales, horny projections of deepest black. Set in its skull is a third eye, smaller than the two, rounder and looking where it wills. "Thiss poissoned gift I give you. The gift of perceptionss falsse, of knowledgge unffounded." Serrated fangs as dark as the horns, forked toungue slithering in their midst.
	"Do not presume that you are the only one with burdens to hide, we all have our secrets." Blue eyes show a bit of sadness, the same in his soft voice, "I was one of the True Tanr'ri, a Vrock, the overlords of the Abyss, if you will. Fighting forever in the damnable Blood War, that was the price I had paid for my life. A life which I thought was forgotten. For time immemorial, I reveled in it, fought and nearly died in it as have countless others, to no avail." He walks around a bit as if remembering something from long ago. His muscles ripple and his wings shudder as he does so. "The Abyss is a cruel and capricious creature, a living testament to Evil and Chaos, which makes Limbo look like Paradise." He looks at all of them evenly, "It is the living embodiment of all that wishes chaos and destruction, the ultimate testament to ones own nature if it ever takes total control for their selfish selves. It can also be subtle and have its own warped sense of humor to torment the ones that walk upon its flesh." He pauses, "That is what happened to me, I was played joke upon. You see when ones nature reaches whatever threshold the Abyss sets for you, you transform, for over a thousand years, I was a feared Ebon Assasin, a Babau in our tongue. At the time of a Blood War skirmish, my troop was victorious over the Baatezu, it was me and one other who was sorely wounded. I looked at it and tortured it more, by kicking it, slashing it, and anything else I could devise. Why do you ask?" With sadness and regret in his voice, "I do not know, it is the way I was, it was fun, I guess? for want of a better explanation. And at that time, I guess the Abyss judged me and transformed me to a Vrock, except, for the first time. There are few things in existence to witness the transformation of a Tanr'ri. I remembered everything that I had done, for thousands of years. Hundreds or even a thousand of your lifetimes, I was there," His eyes grow a bit wider as he looks at the gathered party, his eyes closing on each of them, his claws elongated a bit and his muscles once again tensed up as if in pain, his voice grows louder as if remebering what happened. "AND I REMEMBER IT ALL. The torment, torture, killing, maiming. And for the first time I felt **REGRET** at what I had done. And I relived every death I had brought upon to those which numbers in the thousnads, I had come across, and I went mad, yes even a Tanr'ri can be, we don't act the same way and I teleported to the Plane of Inifinte Portals and went in to a place I knew of long ago. I would give anything to be rid of these things, even more pain to remove the stigma and forget what I had done and I went to the Chamber of Torture for Tanr'ri and for whatever reason, I grabbed the Holy Symbol of Jazreal and it became one with my hand." He looks at his right hand for a moment. "And I changed... Now that you know who I was, perhaps in time, you will learn what I have become, but with that becomes trust. That is why I ask of this of you and for that matter for all of you, I know you have your questions and I hope this has answered them..."
	The Null looks at the Vrock's eyes pensively, then shakes is head.
	Beylanna stares blankly at the bird-creature Clarinax, clearly having no idea whatsoever what he is talking about. "Whooo. Perhaps when all this is finished, you come with Beylanna back to Karasuthra and I show you beautiful lake in a forest under a round moon. Dark. Peaceful. Plenty of voles to eat." She tilts her head to one side. "Much simpler than wars, and fighting, and madness, and being sorry. Miss Karasuthra sometimes, I do. Beylanna hope I can find what I look for, soon, so I can sit in my tree again and gaze out on the lake... and hunt in the forest for voles and mice and rabbits. Under the dark sky, the moon, the tiny specks of light in the sky."
	Clarinax smiled at Beylanna, regarding the petitioner of the beastlands. "I thank you for the offer, perhaps when this is said and done, you can show me, eh?"
	The Null asks the bird without turning around: "And what is it you're looking for, 'Lana?"
	The owl blinks her eyes quizzically and looks around for this person named "Lana." Was there someone around with a name similar, but not identical to hers? Still, the humanoid man did ask "What is it you're looking for," and Beylanna had said she was looking for something. Perhaps he was talking to her? He didn't say her name correctly, but the owl decides to answer him anyway. "Whoo-whoooo. Beylanna is looking for a past life, if I had one. I have reason to believe I lived another life, as another creature, in another place. This life may be key to understanding of life I lead now in Karasuthra, and understanding why I have strange powers of mind. Have been looking in round city for short while now. No success."
	Jarx: "I'm almost positive that you will find what you are looking for my dear in the quest for the salvation of Sigil."
	The Null grins as he answers: "So you're one of them mind benders? I knew there was no sodding way you could be just a bird"




	"You have sseen what you wisshed to ssee." says the scaly one as it fades from sight. "Talesss... taless gather round campfiress, whissper ssecretss asss food turnss on the sspit. Ssuch iss their natture."
	Gwen: "A story much more tortured and horrible than mine. For many years I roamed the mortal planes seducing many poor souls to do evil and then killing them so that they could be recruited to the Baatezu cause. One day a few years ago I was able to witness several of my 'children' being promoted to the ranks of Baatezu. In less than a week there was yet another Blood War battle and all of my recruits took part. I learned that every single one of them was killed in the battle as well as hundreds of thousands more. I realized the futility of what I had been doing and left to wander the planes. Eventually I decided the evil of my brethren must end and was visted by Torm. I became a Paladina and dedicated myself to him and to ending evil where ever I found it, but most of all to contain my evil brethren to the lower planes and kill any who try to spread to other planes. And to make every effort to hunt down others like me who seduce people on the mortal planes." Her voice is cold, rattling off uncertain facts that do not concern her.


BREAK 


	Clarinax looked a bit bewildered at realizing they were sent here it seems by the Lady of Pain herself. Not many blooods even heard of anything remotely related to this. It now seems they weren't really mazed at all, they were sne there purposely. "Excuse me Jarx, no disrespect, but who is this Kilgar and what did he have to do with anything? And by your mention of a lady, if you mean by Lady Gwen, she must be one of the two redeemables. Who then, if you do not mind, is this other lady that this prophesy is about and what coming war are you talking about?" He paused, "I relaize these are a lot of questions, but you have to realize things like this do not happen that very often especially when it now seems we weren't mazed, but deliberately sent here by the Lady herself to speak with you." 
	The Null turns to look at Clarinax and grins as he says: "That's what makes it so funny. Jarx here doesn't mean Birdgal here, he's talking about bringing down the Lady of Pain herself, you lemure! That must be what he is in here for. Spreading the dark on how to end the Lady's reign is a sure way to get mazed, even if those darks are as fake as gold from Limbo. And the war he's rambling on must be the Faction war. We're to influence something even the factols can't get a grip on! The man's hillarious, if you ask me! Next thing he's going to tell us we were chosen by the powers themselves!"
	"The Lady choose you through the divinations of the powers by Kilgar. You were meant to be the deciding factor in this power play. Yes, you were sent here by the Lady because of the prophecy. She has decided to let you determine the outcome of the War in the Cage. Kilgar was a great dwarf diviner that walked the planes hundreds of years ago. Most heads of the Factions and most religious orders are familiar with his prophecies, which is probably why you were sent to protect the propecied one."
	The Null's face turns deadly serious: "You're serious, right? Well. Then let's hear this prophecy of your's. Can I take a look at that book?"
	"No. And the prophecy only tells of the players and that their roles will be pivotal. The crown, with all the gems, is said to be a key that can open any door, under the control of the right person."
	The Null oggles at what the guru just said: "You're saying that the crown is some kind of Universal Key for Portals... The stones are obviously resettable, so the actual stone combination might just activate any given portal on demand... so that's why everyone's after it!"
	The creature's eyes widden, then narrow and flicks the forked toungue in prolonged tasting.
	Jarx: "He is a smart one. Watch out, you may hurt yourself with that type of thinking."
	The Null smiles, "But you never said I'm wrong... interesting"



	The Nulls grimaces and says to all: "These Barmy ideas must be catching. What I think is that the Lady's tired or maybe bored and she wants out. She has chosen the girl to step up after she's gone. If she were to just disappear and the Girl to take her place every power and factol with a chip on their shoulder would be looking for her.I think she wants to stage her death to be free. Talk about the CAGE, huh!"
	"Interressting tthought, bald one... But would Thoth be fooled by sso mundane a trick, would any God not know sshe walked outsside her domain and into theirss?" A pause, backed with the buzzing of deep reflection. Then Krotal resumes, his voice soft and probing, "Tell me, man of absscence, iss your ball proof againsst divinationss and portentss, proof againsst the call of Fate?"
	The Null squints in thought and says: "In the past, divinations have not been able to locate me, but as for other kinds of dweomers, who can tell, specially when dealing with Powers? So you think that's my part, to get her out without other's knowing about it. Wicked."
	"Or to kill, armss deep in the blood of She with knivess. Posssibly both in turn..."
	Jarx says, "The Lady's business is her own to keep but I believe there is a lot more at work here than just a vacation plan."


	The Null turns to the half elf and waves his hand dismissively as he says: "Rest easy, Staren, Drax told me he had found the gem I was looking for and that he had her cooped up somewhere safe. Now, he might not have been the most trusty being in the multiverse, but he has a nose for business, and he knows my chink's good. He has her still I'll wager."
	Jarx looks over at the Null. "What was the mission he was sending you on?"
	The Null seems to be thinking how much of the chant to spill, and finally he says: "He needed someone extracted from a fortress and brought to him. He'd have the info I needed by then."
	"Then that should be what you need to finish. I can send you where you need to go, then I'll contact Drax and let him know what has happened. Where was this fortress?"
	There is the moist clack of teeth against teeth as a fanged mouth closes and breathes forth no words.
	"The fortress repo gig I was talking about just then."
	"My aren't you enigmatic." says Jarx "I'll make it real easy for you, If you tell me the exact location of where you were supposed to go, I'll be able to send you there. Do you think I ask these questions just to hear myself talk? Sheesh!"

	Tig looks at the Null and asks, "So where is it that we're going?" 
	Jarx: "That is the answer I await from the prophecied one." 
	Staren nods. Even though he's been silent, he's been listening into the many conversations that have been going on. "Where does our mystery begin? Do we try and find Drax? The girl? The crown? The gems? We have quite the work cut out for us, it would appear."

	"Ssuch sstrange people."
	Jarx: "Drax apparently had the girl and the crown at one point, so the assumption would be that he was sending his little merc to get the gems."
	The Null smiles sarcastically and says: "Well, Drax did tell me to find myself a crew... How about it? You guys want a job? The target is extracting an orc in the Fortress of Shetring on Clangor. His name is Gram. Drax said that would get us the first of the gems."
	Jarx: "The orc general has a gem. Why am I not surprised."
	The Null asks calmly: "Well, he doesn't have it, more like he can get it for us. What do you know of this orc? Besides the fact that he's a general?"
	Jarx: "If we're talking of the same general, he was taken prisoner by the goblins nearly a month ago. He is rumored to be a choosen of Grumsh from the primes. He's definitely not a petitioner. The chant is that the goblins are going to sacrifice him to their god in about four days. Of course, they've been saying that for weeks. The orcs have been sending over platoons to bring back this general. If I know Drax right, the general doesn't have the gem. Grumsh probably has the gem, and Drax has made a deal with him to get the general out."
	The Null grimaces as if he just tasted a dabus' twisted rebus and murmurs to no one in particular: "Drax never said the demon was also a Power..."



	A void, filled with answers abscent. 
	"If that iss sso, tthan perhapss the river sshould ssplit; casscade down to woman cchild, flow in the valley of glittering ggemss."
	"I would like to go after the girl first," says Clarinax "as it seems she was kidnapped in to her present fate."
	The Null grins, and says sarcastically: "Yes, you would, wouldn't you?"
	CLarinax smiled back at the Null, "Of course, would you expect no less?"
	The Null, "Alas, we know not where she is now. All we have to go on is slaadi and a portal in the cage. I say we take care of the orc first. He might know more about this. Besides, I don't know if Jarx here can send us to sigil."
	Jarx: "There are some things I can't do, this is correct."
	The Null makes an I-told-you-so motion and says: "I kinda knew, but I had to find out. Besides, he never said he couldn't, just that there are 'some things' he can't do. Or won't."



	"Hmm, precisely," Tig says, crossing his arms across his chest. "Let's go if we're going," he tells the Null. "It appears to be your show." 
	"I say we go for the orc. Then we get to Drax to deliver and see if he knows where the girl might be. If anyone wants to go the other way, maybe the old man can take you to sigil. If not," here the Null takes out a large jingling pouch " there's something in it for the jinx oriented. For the battle oriented, Acheron holds the best fights you'll see, and for the honorable do gooders with us, I think you'll have to come up with your own reasons."
	"We are drawn together now, whether we like it or not." Clarinax nods to the Null and bows his head in agreement. "I am ready to move forward, do you know which cube the girl is? I know Acheron, I have been there and trained in the fortress of Varekhan. It is a very dangerous place, but as long as we follow the laws laid down by the battling armies, we should be left alone..."
	Null, "I have no idea where the girl is. It's the orc that's in Acheron. In the fortress of Shetring. In clangor. That's all I know. There was a halfling named Silencer who had more chant, according to Drax. Has anyone else been to Acheron? Whatever knowledge you have of it may be invaluable to our survival."
	Clarinax looks at them for a moment. "Remember, it is the plane of battle, whose armies fight for no reason except for plunder glory and acceptance. Keep to your goal and avoid anyone like the plague. If you are captured offer your services if there is no way out. They will let you keep your leader as a merc troop although you will be kept on the front line. If you can find out anything on the other side as intelligence, that is as good as jink. Gold is near worthless, food and weapons are worth more. Lastly, if you need to, make your way to Varekhan, the Mercykiller fortress and speak directly with Tall Talley, he is a Bone Devil who is Coomander of the fortress. Tell him you are here from Clarinax and his Factol, they will clear it with him, since I was directly sent here by him. Tell nothing else of what you know. They follow strictly to the law, if someone insists, have them clear it with Tall Tally. Remember that and good luck." Looking to the others, "Does anyone know anything about Limbo, I have some knowledge, but I am not a Chaos Shifter. We may need a Githzerai guide to help us get around there. I don't feel like swimming in soup. Does anyone know a cutter for this? Or does anyone here know?"

	"I've been to Limbo," Tig volunteers. "I've a few contacts there."
	"Excellent," says Clarinax "this will help immensely in our quest to rescue the girl. I feel that once we accomplish our objectives, we should meet back here. We should give our selves at least 30 days." 


	After delivering a heart rendering speech, he turns to the guru and asks: "Now, what else do the prophecies say about me. Any other steps I should know about before I leave. Or is there a way back here, short of asking the Lady herself?" 
	"There is nothing more to tell at this time. Here, take these." Jarx hands each of you a simple ring with a gold band. "Put these on and they shall get you through the portal from the other side. The portal will be where you left it and only those that bear a ring will find it. I will open a portal as close to the fortress as possible." Jarx concentrates for a moment or two and a glowing blue portal opens up in one of the corridors to the north. "Whenever you are ready, you may leave. May Tymora's luck go with you."
	"Tymora?" Tig says, then stops himself from continuing. He watches a few others don their rings, and seeing that none of them immediately die or disintegrate, he puts his own over his thick, clawed finger. "Do you wish to lead us through the portal?" Tig asks the Null. 
	Krotal doesn't wait, doesn't pause. With a push it is off and through the portal in a discrete spray of magical particles.


CHAPTER 2 - Warrens of the cube

	Krotal rises from the portal, inverted comet of dark jubilation in the greyness of the Unseen. "FRREEE! I - am - fffreee!" Ebon teeth bare themselves to the wind, the carrion winds of Avalas, first layer of Acheron. In this air is the taste of death, of food, of freedom! 
	Further above, the silver whorls of a sky where dark cubic islands tumble. Below, a crater-marked plain spreads its war-torn beauty. Bodies scattered about (dead goblins, mutilated orcs, crushed formians), intersped with more exotic corpses (undead ripped beyond the power of their unlive to sustain, a sampling of humans, the mighty carcass of a black dragon). In the distance there are weeling flocks of vultures, the dark shapes of orcs battling goblins, goblins battling orcs. Everywhere, the echo of battles being fought, the crash of distant cubes banging together. "Gloriousss!"
	Directly underneath resides an angular mesa of scratched iron, the only rise in the entire plain, perhaps the summet of a smaller cube stuck into the surface of continent-sized Clangor. The portal is nowhere in sight... Then is again as the Null steps through. The human peers at his surroundings then vaguely angles toward the mesa's edge. He will not reach it.
	Down comes the scaly one, down in the whistling wind. Once comet now an arrow seeking its prey. Clawed feet impact with a scrape, so close the Unseen is ripped away, shed like an old skin, leaving the muscular mountain that is Krotal to tower over the man; claws spread, eyes of thunderclouds. "Now that I am ffree! Now that I can refusse! Now, bald one, NOW we can disscuss termsSS."
	The Null startles at the sudden appearance and his eyes go wide, wide as the gears in Mechanus. His hand then reaches out, dropping out from the protection of his buckler. "Prty skn. Shin. Price?" he babbles, running his hand over the scaly surface and giggling at the feeling...
	Hissing slowly rises from the silence, alien muscles strangling its flow into sinuous segments. Segments which meld into words as the intense gray eyes smoothly find the blue, holding them fast. "Ssuch a joy iss rarely felt, rarely exxperiencced, asss the joy a boy feelss when a sserpent sseess itss dinner and ssingss ssweetly what itss heart containss, ssinging as it ssmoothess the featherss of sstartled ssongbirdss." Claws light as those feathers walk up the human's outstretched arm, keeping time with the deep rhythm of the tale. "On thosse sstarlit afternoonss the ssun itsself ssmiless wide, wider than sseven ssaphiress sset in a row, asss the coilss of the ssunny river flowss above, flowss below, watery ssnake of tender embracce." Up the arm and to the shoulder where the stichings holding strap to pack pop one by one, in time with the words, till that pack is held in a clawed hand and dropped back to the creature's side. "Who can ssay what the ssparkling teeth have sseen, down the coursse of a ssmiling river by the ressting scaless? Only the ssongbird knowss, ssayss the river, and the ssongbird ssingss no more."
	The Kobold pops out and surveys the atrocious scene. "Hmm, Not good" He then hops away from everyone and colors whirl around him, sizes change, and there you see the Halfling, wearing the exact same closes and everything he was before. As soon as the Halflings eyes form, they nearly bug out of his head "What the heck happened here, and where are we?? Hmm, wonder if they have something useful."
	Turning he meets Krotal's lingering gaze, rife with thoughts unheard. "Sso endss thiss tale, bald one. Go play."
	The Null shakes himself and seems to see the scene anew. He rushes close to the halfling and mumbles, "Bb's ack. O mor obld fer ya, ittl un." He then takes a step back and reaches to ruffle the halfling's hair, and on touching it, turns around swiftly enough and has Ripper in his hand, and he seems to look for someone - some thing - there. He then smiles and mumbles incoherently before resuming his vahue wanderings, idiot grin in place.
	Without pause the pack is ripped in twain, its content a sonorous and short-lived rain on the iron of the mesa: cloth bound packets of greasy food, coils of hemp baided into rope, metal tools of a trade best left unknown, blackened torches clattering away, a thin wooden box cracking a corner and spilling an azure vial from fabric swathings before being quickly buried in empty sacks neatly folded -- There, last of all, the familiar pouch of cured leather attempting a ponderous rolling escape, fat as the fatest of eggs. An escape doomed to failure.
	A voice drifts down, cold as ever. "I think that he would really like to keep his money and his equipment. Could you please not take advantage of his condition? If you were only keeping it for him while he is out of it, that is acceptable, but know this: If you don't give it back by the time he has regained his right mind - if he ever does - I will make sure you do."
	The snake-fiend turns sharply, fixing on the spot of sky where words fall from unseen lips. "Your hate iss sstronger than I thought, my temptresss!" Its toungue licks that which is not water from its own teeth, eyes shining bright. "Your principless flexxible asss new-born willow."
	"Oh? How is that?" A frozen bladeling, frigid and wickedly sharp.
	Answered with a swipe of ebon claws, "I ssee you crying for gold that slipss through fingerss you swore to ssee cold and dead, sssmiling while Gruumssh's sspawn clingss to your bossom assss you lay him tenderly before hisss grinning father. Ssuch a joy to watcch you. Ssuch pleasssure... Perhapss it iss your wissh to keep half ssafe from evil oness?" The pouch clinks in the scaly palm, enticing.
	"I do not hate you, why would you think so? As for my principles, they are not flexible in any way. I will eventually bring justice to Drax, but apparently he is essential to the continued existance of Sigil, so I can forgo justice temporarily because I can see the greater good needs him for just a little while. As soon as we are done with him, justice will be served. I do not wish to be kept safe from evil ones at all, I wish for many encounters with my evil brethren so that I might destroy them all because they cause such strife to innocent mortals with their depraved pleasures." 
	"Ahhhhhh" breathes the scaly beast, its eyes loosing some of their shine. "Missheard, misstaken and missundersstood... all in sso few ssentenccess." A pause, a thought rising from the depths, a realisation: "You trusst, ssight unsseen. Trusst in Jarx!" Its jaw gaps wide and for the second time resounds the roaring hiss of the creature's toothy laughter. 
	Deafening silence. 
	"You are not thiss sstupid, woman of curvess. Not thiss sstupid! What iss it you know of the bearded liar, what truthss have you failed to sshare?" Grey orbs seek what cannot be seen; wicked claws flex, eager to rend.
	"I don't listen to anything unseen, I can see you perfectly right now. I can describe exactly what you are doing should you wish. I do not trust Jarx absolutely, but he was not evil or I would have known and I always try to do the right thing and help people in need, thus far I know that the city may be in danger, and the possibility to stop that from happening is enough reason for me to help. If it is proven to me that this is not for real or that Jarx is evil then I will take appropriate action. And I will bring justice to Drax as soon as I can without endangering all of Sigil."
	Subtle hissing, acidly mocking. "A cchild! A temptress innoccent of treachery!" The hissing softly bursts into small torrents, waters full of dark glee. It nods to itself, somehow satisfied, and flicks the money pouch into its own, the former shrinking impossibly as it plunges into the gapping maw of the latter. Then the tiny leather flap drops down, sealing the content within.
	"sSo what iss the future, woman?" asks the scaly one, keeping its eyes on hafling and man. A casual claw picks one of the vials from its fabric craddle and cracks its waxen seal, releasing the acrid scent of flowers crushed for their juices and... something else. "Ssssss" the vial is brought near to its snaky snout, to pear and flick at. Finaly, Krotal extends a careful toungue, sinking it into the narrow opening to lick traces of iridescent blue. Nothing happens.
	"Woman?" An abscence of reply, just the breath of carrion winds with accents of distant crashings. "Ssssss. A frigid burning iss thiss one," it hisses softly to itself "gone when facced with truthss unpleassant." Sharp fingers dance in boneless contortions, trailing runes of faint pixie light before flaring the eyes in deep purple and vanishing...
	"SssssSSS." The creature chucks away the fragile container in its hands, but then pauses... (A blue vial of liquid grasped in human hands, iridescent liquid splashing into a welcoming mouth) ...gathers the remaining three in their box and feeds the tiny maw once more. 
	A look to the quiet gate, to the vaguely wandering Null... Then, then its gaze settles fully on the colorful little being that faces it across the mesa, pupils closing to slits, opening again. "You, halfffling with eyess of confussion, why not explore Clangor, ssee what sshould be sseen. Iss that not your ffuncttion?"
	No answers. "ZzombiesS, the dancce of Ssilencce." swears the beast with narrowed eyes. Still it turns and its scraping gait scratches across the iron ground, the heavy thread of a predator sure of its prey. The eyes say as much, a hunter's lust burning there as they track and fix on the Null...
	"I choossse whhhen and whhhere I go, nott you." says the smirking voice of Bob behind him. "Bessidesss, I believe sssome one elssse hasss offffered to exxxplore the area. Dooo not asssume my ffuncttion, ssscally one, elssse I'lll assssume yoursss."
	"Ssso noted." rasps Krotal without slowing. "I sshall come and insstruct you laterr."
	But just then the Null shakes his head as if proded by some interfering god, shakes away the clinging madness like a nearly-drowned dog shakes away . "How, how long was I out?" His eyes clear quickly, too quickly, and then shrink to slits once he takes in the scene and feels his abscent pack. "Stay right where you are, scalehead!" His sword grip is firmer as well, more knowing.
	"HAaaaah." Krotal's heavy frame smoothly halts, an arm and a sword away, demonic snake tilting to look, to taste its prey's new resolve. "You sshould have waited, bald one, waited but heartbeatss..." Claws peel furrows from the screaming air, strange emotions venting. "But the battlefield iss reached, the troopss hired -- all for the pricce of a pouch, the cosst of a box, the sspeaking of the truthhs that concceal. We are in readiness!" Grey orbs, staring down their challenge, "What isss the future, Null?"
	The Null's eyes suddenly tense and become black slits that suggest caution, and he answers. "I'm sorry, friend, the guru with the prophecy book stayed behind on the Maze.... That said we should see to getting to the fortress. I heard Gwen before, so I assume she's still here. From what I've seen, she should be able to find us a way there, so that we can avoid being drafted by one of the armies."
	The Null turns, not tearing his eyes away from Krotal's, "How about it, Gwen? Would you go and see if the fortress is anywhere nearby?"
	"Sure, I'll go look for it." says she and is gone.
	"Find a way? Find Shetring?" Serrated teeth glint darkly, air hissing through in poisonous amusement. "Tell me... What iss thiss beneathh our feet?"
	"Well, if we hadn't been mazed, I would have gotten to Silencer and gotten the dark on the fortresses location, but as things stand, I have no idea where on Clangor we are. Has anyone taken a looky? Otherwise we might have to get some of the locals to tell us how to get there. I think just getting a whiff of scalemouth's breath would do the trick..."
	 Hissing dies as if it had never been and a massive foot thunders against the metalic plane, eliciting only a muffled thud and the scrape of dangling claws. "Fortressess of iron on obssidian cubess, thiss iss Acheron! Tunnelss and warrenss built to kill, thiss is Sshetring! You thhink too small, human of moderate sanity, too small! For below you tunnelss twisst asss goblinss crawl, below you ssprawlss the entrancce to warrenss foul," Spread arms trust out, surrounding the scene of their talk. "below you sstandss Sshetring!" 
	Silence as  echoes those words... then Gwen's voice, starting without warning, "The only things of note in the area is that huge dragon skeleton fused with the ground and the lake of silver water to the north. There seems to some sort of waterfall at the far end of the lake as well. I think that the fortress may be underneath us here since there seem to be a lot of caves in this mesa. Or we can just go around questioning various people until we find it."
	The Null nods towards the lizard, "Krotal here thinks so too." He walks towards the ledge, seemingly intent on observing the terrain for himself but on a course that would brush past Krotal. Rending claws rip sideways with casual cruelty, forcing him to quickly tumble left. The Null come up with rapier pointed, sadistic steel versus daggers of dark ivory...
	The human bruskly breaks his pose, circling the scaled one before moving on to the mesa's edge as if nothing untoward had happened. There he leans foward and takes in the field. 
	Krotal moves behind him and does the same, smuggly camped outside the range of a whirling stroke, outside the ball of Nothingness. Its third eyes tears itself from its prison of stillness and resumes its errant course over sky, over crattered plain.
	The halfling just looks on with a look of confusion.
	"I just don't think going into the caves is such a good idea. We should get a guide. One of the Goblins, most likely, since it's their fortress..." he looks at Gwen sideways, so as not to miss any of Krotal's movements "or maybe enlist the help of some of the orcs, if you don't approve of our forcing a goblin to rattle his 'box. They might be interested in getting their general back and stopping the goblin's sacrifice." The Null's eyes seem to harden, and he says "Or one of each, to ensure they don't trick us."
	"Rememberr. Remeemberr that it plungess roaring into darkness, plungess till itss waterss lap at the feet of dread Maglubiyet. Sso too plunge the offeringss of goblinss, forever sscreaming." Dark slits drift to merge with the human's gaze, body still facing the plain. "Would you like to fly, bald one?"
	The Null just looks sideways at Krotal and gets ready for any attempt to push him over the edge.
	"Sssss... not that ssimple." A step back and it shimmers and fades, swallowed by the Unseen. "Frressh goblinss come ssoon." With a scrape of claws it takes off. 
	The edge sails past, the ground drops and is gone, leaving a yawning abyss in its place. From on up it looks down on the approaches, the tunnel openings, the ledges that connect them all... Not a mouse is stiring. 
	"Sssss." The forked toungue licks out, waving slowly through the air. Silent holes, their threatening darkness facing the plain... 
	In the middle distance sits the lake and there too rests an eery quiet, the waters a sullen reflection of the silver above. Barren shores, watery beasts ready to pounce. Of creatures or settlements there is no sign. "Sswallowed while thhey sstruggled..."
	Down to its left are the ruins of the dragon, somehow melded with the metal below them. As if the ground opened and then closed around his mid-section. Wings and legs are splintered and spread far and wide, scattered by a powerful shattering, a desire to make sure he never bothered his killer ever again. 
	Krotal settles besides a tremendous forearm, bending to consider it with arms dangling between spread knees. The scales are dulled with dust, scrapped away by scavengers, yet still remains the memory of their rutilant darkness. The claws jut out, skin peeled back, boiled away by putrescence. A hand grasping at life from beyond the gates of its own death. "Poetic."
	At the creature's prompting there is (A black dragon swooping down as goblins scatter for cover, loosening a hail of missiles in their panic. A disintegrating column that parts but leaves its core intact: a group of goblins who do not run. They stand their ground, clustering round a snarling orc bound in rune-encrusted chains. The leader gesticulates madly, a brightly colored goblin in brightly colored robes, and calls streaks of molten rock from the silver sky to smithe his enemy. The impact is tremendous, rumbling throughout the plain like earth bound thunder, and yet the dragon slowly rises from its fall, lantern eyes still burning with a mad yellow light. The goblin shouts imperious words, and the very ground obeys, cracking, parting into a gapping rift where the dragon's hind-legs drop while it scrambles for purchace, ripping huge furrows into the metal ground. But the goblin-mage shouts one final time and the rift slams closed, crushing the dragon's life in an iron fist!)
	A small movement from inside the skeleton! The demonic eyes burn and hunt, hunt and burn. Then the giant body settles on its haunches, the great eyes close and its breathing steadies. In the middle of the skull, the third eye stops its wandering and... vanishes.
	(Darting course over a field of carnage. Looming hill that is the corpse of a dragon, cracks and crevaces in its flanks. Cathedral of the ribs, sighing with the breath of the plain. Ground stripped bare of flesh, the nicks of swords on bone. Marks of a battle, recent? long past? A sagging gullet, low to the ground. A skull, empty, its mouth a daggered window onto the plain. Teeth whistling past to look down on a lonely hill of dead scales, stetching away.)
	"Sssssss..." Annoyance beats its hissing commentary and the giant snaky head whips towards the iron cube, staring hard with eyes closed, with the gapping hollow in its forehead.
	(As a thrown rock, arching towards the target. Rounded tunnel, growing. Impact unexpected! Straining against a void that will not let pass. Rounded escape towards another hole. Impact! Another. Impact! Straight line, the blur of tremendous speed. A hill of oily green scales. Swallowed by a gapping hole in its skull.)
	The grey eyes snap open and great muscles clench convulsively. Labored breaths, getting deeper with every passing moment, every thoughtfull twist of the inhuman toungue....
	Krotal turns and stalks away, its gaze searching, its path an expanding circle around the dragon's remains. What it seeks is quickly found. 
	Reaching no taller than Krotal's knee, the goblin now lies in a contorted stretch, his belly torn asunder. Once his skin was a dusty yellow-brown, his hair almost black. The usually dangling arms lie awkwardly thrown away, the right partialy covering the broad skull and its slanted brow. 
	Krotal kneels, giant hands carressing as they turn and position, a demonic mother tending her fallen child. Tiny features are revealed. A squashed face with a wide nose, wide mouth and deep sockets for the eyes protected by heavy bone all around; to each side juts the pointed ears of a bat, rends marking where rings once adorned them.
	Three slashes, the grate of claws against bone, and then a downward triangle of coarsely cut flesh can be peeled from the dead forehead, small tools extracted and the carving begin as the cold light of the Unseen glints off sharpened steel. When it is done a vertical eye stares out in low relief, neither human nor goblin but eerily similar to the creature's own. 
	Tools are returned to their place and claws meet at the back of the goblin's neck, propping the body upwards, his feet dangling within reach of the ground. "Risse."
	The little body shakes as dark energy pours from Krotal's grasp, tearing at its very nature! The head tilts back, screaming jets of darkness from mouth and eyes! The shaking worsens, amplifies, threatens to break articulations... diminishes, stops. The head slowly faces front, feet reach for the ground with eery confidance. Krotal's hand opens and a new undead stands before its master, eyes empty yet somehow aware. Oh so aware.
	"Disscard your flessh, my Hound." Fell utterances in the unholy blaspheme that is the toungue of demons.
	Tiny hands reach up, insert themselves under the borders of the cut triangle and tear away, peeling flesh away from the head and calmly discarding its face, its hair, gouging out what remains of its eyes and its putrescent organs till all that stands there are bones with clinging bits of muscles here and there.
	"Ssssssssssuch joy." dances the forked toungue. It lowers itself to the ground, one knee raised, the tattered fur around its waist laying in the dirt that marres the surface of the cube. "Where iss the orc ssequesstered, my Hound, the one whosse name iss Gram chossen of Gruumssh?"
	The broad jaw hinges open and from its emptiness slithers the worms of words long dead, "Bottom of Waterfall."
	"Ssssss..." A tilt, then the plucking of olden flesh from the pile at the skeleton's feet, to be tossed into the serrated maw and chewed at leisure. "Where then dwellss the god of goblinss?"
	"Bottom of Waterfall." 
	Eyes narrow and there is the snap of troubled thought in the scaly one's voice, "When iss the orc Gram to be ssacrificed?"
	The silence of a blank stare, a mouth left hanging. 
	Krotal is half-risen, eyes flashing as it looms dangerously over the small bones in their immobility. "Ignorancce or eventss passt! Tell me, my hound, tell me all you know of the colorfull mage who downed the dragonn black."
	"Vesper. Very powerful mage. Chosen of God." The clack of pointed teeth against pointed teeth. The mouth is shut.
	"Haaaaaa." Satisfied, the beast grips Hound by his squat little skull and presses him to the muscles of its upper arm, pulling him into the Unseen as it does so. "Grip tight, my Hound. We go to meet... alliess."
	With a push it rises up and away from the cratered plain, sights set on the mesa.

	Twin scrapes on metal ground, the impact of something heavy beyond reason. From it the Unseen drifts away like a discarded cape, leaving oily scales and ebon protrusions in its wake.
	On the scratched iron surface, not a soul is to be seen.
	"Impatiencce. Impatiencce and abandonnnement." declares Krotal and its teeth shine wetly as air hisses softly between them. Crouching, the scaly one observes the area, massive head tilting this way and that... Its eyes see only wind gusting from the plain. Its toungue smells only sand, dust and the ever present tang of metal splashed with blood. "Ssssssss..." The edge of the mesa lies to the left...
	In front of itself it places a thin wooden box, holder of vials three, and a brown leather pouch, yellow string strangling its neck. Black talons dance slowly in the air above, hesitant and savoring, then pluck the pouch from its place and pour out its content. A bursting flow of gold: jinx and golden toruses from Sigil, the blunt-toothed Cogs of Mechanus, here and there squared Kokus with pierced centers and flashes of light off the blank plates favored by shadow lords. All of these in purest gold, all showing the wear of a thousand hands, all tumbling from the pouch to pile, tumble some more and then still with the last comer rolling to the end of an ever diminishing spiral.
	"Ssit, my Hound." invites Krotal from his crouch. "Ssit and we will hide what iss real under the ink of numberrss." It flicks the empty pouch over to the new-born skeleton. "One coin iss taken from the pile, one coin iss put in the bag. The ssame repeatss untill all have ssuffered their fate." and for every coin Hound's jerking grasp delivers, another joins it, proppeled into the leathery abyss by a twitch of green-scaled hands. 
	The pile shrinks - slowly, surely - until finaly there comes the last clink, the last shine of gold in darkening Acheron. "Ten of hundredss," states the fiend. The pouch is full, the box that hid underneath bare to the winds, the mesa empty.
	A lingering gaze to the edge nearby, a gaze broken by words, each seperate in meaning yet each seeing the baring of sharper and sharper teeth. "Palladin. Infformant. Generouss Null." Words culminating in the sybilant roar of gathered vipers...
	"Come, my Hound." Spoils return to their master, a tiny body climbs astride a bigger one. Both remain for the length of howling scratches, the dropping of a single coin, then the wet shimmer of scales swallows them both, one after the other. 

<EDIT>
	Krotal hustles along the plains, Hound grasping his arm as before. He finds more bones and scattered bodies everywhere as he goes. The waterfall is on the other side of the lake. He tries to skirt the lake as much as possible. 
	Cresting a hill after about an hour, he is surprised to find a goblin regiment in wait. In the back of the lines, he can see the goblin from his vision. The one who downed the dragon. He screams something in his language and the whole phalanx charges. 
</EDIT>

	"The krack of light blinding! The ssizzle of melting flessh!" Krotal's outstretched arms are engulfed in a roaring column of crackling energy, energy that pours upon his enemies charging ranks, carving a trough of burned flesh and smoking metal (and incidentaly blowing away the grey nothing that does not protect). Its spell done the fiend jerks back, a weightless hop that carries it down to the hill's shoulder, down behind the protection of sand and earth. From there it pushes itself sideways, drifting away at speed yet facing back. 
	"Ssuch hosstility, friend Vessper," it murmurs to itself "Ssuch poor planning if ambussh wass your goal." From the tiny tasseled pouch grows a mighty bow of bone and sinew, three arrows clasped between the fingers of that same hand -- But then goblins come pouring over the hill, not running as expected but instead filling the sky like a swarm of dark-clad locusts. Their middle ranks trail thin wisps of acrid smoke, each a soldier that fell seconds earlier but now snarls and plunges with the rest of them, fully unharmed!
	Clawed feet gouge the earth as Krotal stops and plants itself firmly. Air fills the mighty lungs then spews out as a cone of howling blizzard. The goblin's front rank are swallowed up, tiny bodies falling back to earth encased in glittering ice, but the rest keep on coming, burrying the fiend under an avalanche of clinging hail.
	Flesh and armor tear, red blood flows over ebony claws, over obsidian teeth as goblins go flying in all directions, shaken off from this limb or that but never from all at once as they keep rising from the plain and jumping back into the fray. So Krotal can but watch and hiss his rage when Vesper rises over the hill like a grinning sun and casts down his power upon it. 
	A red aura surrounds the half-fiend, crimson manacles clack around heavy wrists and ankles, bloodied chain burst forth to bind each to the other and then tighten with irresistable force. "SsssssSSSS!" The dark swarm recedes, settling round their fallen foe. 
	Vesper's grin widens. 
	Then he turns towards the lake that sits in threatening quiet beyond the eastern hills, "My Lord. We have captured the arrogant one as you've commanded. What is your wish that we do with him?" 
	The waters began to bubble and boil and Krotal's subtly waving fingers still as if suddenly frozen, the building spell unreleased.

as the biggest goblin that krotal had ever seen rose up out of the water and looked at him. A cheer went up in the arena. The goblin was at least 40ft high and looked mean enough to eat krotal and any hatchlings he'd ever have at one sitting. 
	Goblin god: "He shall join his friends in the games. If they survive then they win their lives. If they die, they die a death deserving trespassers. And you too shall join the games against them for your hand in bringing them here." 
	Vesper: "But, master! Have I not served you well!" 
	Goblin god: "Then kill them in the games. The nightcrawlers shall help you. You will take care of your mistake now!" With that the goblin sunk back down beneath the surface of the water once more. 
	Vesper: "Come, scaly one. You shall be the fodder of the games." 
	Even bound as it is, even pressed into the dirt, still Krotal's toungue flicks and the soft hissing pours forth, smooth as poisoned honey. "Asss sshall you, friend Vessper."

Vesper disappeared, and then reappeared inside the Arena but across the floor from where Bob and the others were. Krotal appeared next to Bob, and then his shackles were gone.

The three of you enter the gates and step forward into what seems to be a very large Arena. Thousands of goblins surround you on all sides, cheering as you enter. On the far side, way up in the bleachers, you see a seperate box decorated as to indicate a royalty of sorts. 
	The goblin then turns and leaves the box. You hear the sounds of popping as haggard looking humans and other races start popping up on the other side of the arena. You lose count after about 50. Just then another popping noise is heard and standing to your left is a huge orc. 
	The orc is in blood red armor and wears a patch over his eye. He also weilds a nasty looking flail. He looks around and growls at the group of you, then looks around and sees the creatures at the other end of the arena.



	Gram: "It appears we have one or two more to enter into the equation. So it's to be Chosen against chosen without your magically regrowing army, eh Vesper. Let's see who's God is the strongest." 
	Vesper: "Prepare to die, Gram. You and you're followers of Grumsh that you led here." 
	Bob grins to Gram, "Then a dance is what he shall get!" 
	Bob then turns to Krotal, "So nice of you to join us. It appears you can't live without us." 
	The beast considers him with cold reptilian eyes, the slits eating at the grey. Even the third one drifts down from its usual contemplation to stare at things that swim in the darkness of the halfling's skull. "Thhink. Thhink on promissed freedom,  generouss giftss to our biting teeth. Thhink on a battle daily fought yet built again, a candle burning amidsst endless flamess. Thhink mosst of all on powerful creaturess dissplayed on a plate of veined stone." The great arc of bone sweeps over the gathered thousands, "There will be death here, little informant, a feasst ssteeped in blood... but who feasstss and why?" 
	"Y'know," says the Null "This prophecy thing is turning out to be a real pain. How we ended up in this mess, though, is clearly the fault of lizard face here." 
	Serrated daggers bruskly bare as air hisses and abscent fires reflect in shiny grey orbs. "Blame iss sso conforting, iss it not bald one?" The hissing stengthens, becomes mockingly irregular... then vanishes as tortured syllables run screaming; the sound of grinding bones, of agonized pleasure. From it Krotal shapes a vertical disc of transparent yellow skulls, its twisting fingers whirling them madly round and round till they flash an ethereal golden tone and fade beyond the sight of mortals. Yet still the knowledge of their presence remains, a hungry void whispering to those who draw too close.


Bob then turns to the approaching enemies, "You do not know what your have gotten yourself into!!!" Bob then begins to grow, a look of appology to the Null and Gwen, fur sprouts, claws extend, muzzle appears and once it is all over with, a Massive bear is standing there, in the remnents of Bob's clothes. He then takes a step forward and adopts a fighting stance 



	The Null turns to Gram, their new companion and says, "Welcome to the party Gram. You're probably not going to believe this, but we were actually looking for you. It's a long bloody story, but right now, we got some Grumsh-haters to blast to pieces -- the quicker the better, I guess." With that said, the Null's vest bulges and ripples, something most of his companions have already seen, and he points his narrow blade at Vesper, and makes some motion to activate it.
	Krotal just looks on, head tilted ever so slightly to the side.
	Gram starts to charge towards Vesper.
	Gwen teleports next to Vesper and starts swinging. She just unloads as many attacks on him as possible and if the zombies surround her and Vesper she'll Whirlwind attack.

FINAL BREAK

-----------------------------------------------------------
UN-USED SCRAPS

	"How could you not know, bald one? Did you not hire the broken one to find girl, jewel and crown? Would you not pay good chink for them? What iss sshe without the crown? What iss the crown without a purposse? What iss a mercenary without a patron?"

	"Freedom iss my greatesst wissh and yet you would add to my chainss? No, little mortal, no. It will not be sso eassy. I care notthing for your ccity, notthing for itss sself-important inhabitantss, for itss suppossed sseat at the ccenter of what all otherss ssay iss infinite. I will not pussh it towardss itss inevitable fate, no, but neitther will I bloody my claws pulling it away from dissasterss of itss own making. Not lesst every drop iss paid for in full!"

blood shot.
Tasting its own blood.

Too many spoons for so secret a porridge

Below the grey orbs and their burst vessels, dark blood has dried into unoticed war paint...

Swwwsh goes the arrow as it plunges towards its target.

a looming hill of scales amid all these hills of junk. 

ringing them on three sides and spilling onto the walls and curved ceiling.

A battle without meaning, without cause or spoils to fight over.

eyes it would not care to meet lest *they* have kept the power that is theirs...

On his back sits a pack that has travelled halfway to Baator and back, on his left hand a gauntlet is wrapped all the way to the elbow, and at his side hum a rapier, black gemmed, its segmented blade ending in a wicked point.)

"Tell me then! What thhreatenss the ccity of doorss?"

Lissten well, my temptress. The one wisshed dead: Drax, whosse coinss you sseek to protect. The one resscued: Gram, chossen of evil godss. All melding into that which bendss princcipless and bringss you here: hate sstronger than firsst thought. Twicce helped are thosse you sseek to desstroy. Twicce heard their dark laughter. Oncce sseen the ssmile of Krotal, asss reasson dancess itss blinding dancce and the bent ssword iss called sstraight."

	It turns its grey orbs on the vaguely wandering human, "And now to sstrip what sscraps can be had on thesse boness you left uss, bald one." It strides over 

Yess, the ssword and the sstrangely living armor."

our commander of moderate ssanity

Sstill, a good thing you hired thiss head of sscales. I have sspoken with the halffling, with the unsseen woman of innoccence. Never have I enjoyed ssuch ."

"Itss ssurface entire carved and tunneled iss Clangor. Sharp towers, barracks piled high and nestled in their midst: Shetring. Through it flows mighty Lorfang, spanned twice thrice less one before it plunges roaring into darkness, plunges till its waters lap at the feet of dread Maglubiyet. So say the stories."

The vision bursts forth almost immediatly and Krotal smiles.

Meat yet remainss on thiss bone, to be sstripped by clawss ssharp and toungue ssharper sstill." 

The grey orbs blink in their peculiar way and movement returns to Krotal's frame.

Bony columns burst from the floor, each a tentacular arm ten feet long, arm bones put end to end over and over and toped with a single grasping hand.

-----------------------------------------------------------
PERSONAL NOTES

Current Date: 2nd Hive of Catechism, 2307 SR (Sigil Reckoning)
>A meeting with the factols all present under the presence of darkness.
Jarx's gold ring burried near goblin cube.

MEANWHILE IN SIGIL:
Alisohn Nilesia(Red Death) convoles with Rowan Darkwood(Fated).
Harmonium tries to push out Indeps.
Skall has Glabrezu familiar.
Skall gathers an undead army because all must die for any to reach the true death.
50 years ago, Omar rose to Hardhead factol before revealing himself an Anarchist.
The sensates don't seem to like Darkwood very much, at least on a political level.
Fated have been gathering troops in their headquarters (2,5K). Taxing twice a year.

THOUGHTS:
[The Lady Mazed all three of us because we were in the nullzone.
[Mazed the other because they were sent to get the artefact.
[Mazed us all because we were mentioned in Kilgar's prophecy.
Jarx observed us remotly in the maze. That's how he could ID us and claim prophecy.
    Info given: existance of Kilgar, crown, girl and jewels. Nothing else.
Jarx unites all the seekers under his own hat, making them work for him.

Gwen, Clarinax + Tig are ennemies of Drax.
   They met the Null before, at a meeting with he and Drax.

The Null was hired by X (Darkwood?), then hired Drax to help him.

Nobody seems to care about Missing Bob or the an undead in the ranks. (Why?)
Gwen trusts Jarx enough to help evil on his say so. (Why?)


JARX'S PROPHECY
	Cannot get back in the cage without the girl. (Reason? Way for the Lady to force the issue of the girl's recovery?)
	Kilgar, a Dwarven prophet?
	"The strange ones will come with the means to turn the balance of the war within the Cage. [...] The prophesied one and the key will be the keystone to the future." (What war? Between whom? For what prize?)

Krotal knows of no one in particular that has escaped the mazes. The point is not to be escapable. There are always rumors though that speak of riddles or keys that open a door back to the cage. Most also talk of the person being aged beyond years when they escaped also. Nothing real specific.

KNOWN PORTALS
Pluton, last layer of the gray waste
Mungoth, 3rd layer of Gehenna (acid snow)
Karasuthra, 3rd layer of the Beastlands (eternal night)
Infinite Portals, 1st layer of the Abyss

CONTACTS
	Silencer is a well dressed halfling from the prime world of Oerth. The halfling decided that business was better in Sigil and stayed after the rest of his adventuring group headed primewards. He runs a pawn shop of sorts. Most of his merchandise is the chant off the street though. He is a chant broker and a blood that knows the dark of most things going on in the Hive. Silencer has a dark secret behind his name, maybe linked to his past as a collector for the dusties (after he left his adventuring group but before he got a store?). Store is furnished by his old (and new) collector connections. Silencer has a need for protection from both his old and new contributers. He has come to you in the past to make guardians for his store, which you've done in turn for information or goods. His back room is lined with sarcophogi that contain skeleton warriors you animated for him.
	Justus the Downward, a doomguard specializing in moral entropy and so a scholar and tracker of fallen beings. "Fallen" here means "changed radically from what it formaly was" so he knows about archon's going bad, Glabrezu joining the forces of light and Slaads toiling in Mechanus.


BACKGROUND NOTES:
	Doomguard initiation: Shattered his hammer on the walls of the armory, cracking a structural stone.
	Doomguard resistance to healing: energy of healing is actually used to power the blood oath.
	Creation is the greatest act of entropy. Study the Positive material plane, NOT the negative. PEM is the source. (Expansionist sect had a citadel in the PEM. Recoup for sinkers?)
	What attracts dead souls to the outer planes? Could their final destination be *below* them, the Gods/planes intercepting much of the souls before they can fall into total entropy, their true destination?
	What if Sigil was outside the corridor of worship energy, explaining why deities would not want to enter there, though they could send representatives, sort of beaming their power into a dark corner? If people worshipped the Lady of Pain, she would become a god and without direct access to worship, she would die.


POINTS OF NOTE:
- Sigil points of note:
    *Sigil is a god, the lady is her proxy, the dabus her petitioner.
    *Portals = wounds in the fabric of the 'verse.
    Hive: Behemoth, Suicide Alley, Goblin Quarter
    Lower: Lost Bridge

- Outlands points of note:
    The Drifting Stones
    The Gith Confederacy 
    *Growing spire in middle of a zone where magic fails. Accumulating belief?
    *Shrinking spire feeding material to outlands, then outer. Fed by inners?
    *Hollow spire with entire plane inside.
    *Hollow tube funelling energy to other plane.
    *Hinterlands = Lands of disbelief?

- Gray Wastes points of note:
    Field of the Asphodels (Pluton), where the Ba of egyptians gather to be judged at the 10th hour

- Mechanus points of note:
    Library of Babble
    Circular unity, the town of fate
    Gear Thiefs

- Dust points of note:
    The footprints
    The library of dust
    Mote, border with vacuum

- Ash points of note:
     Ashen Blood spell


ADVERTISEMENT
Title: The actors are all here, but where's the playwright? <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sigilandbeyond>
From: The players of Sigil and Beyond <fred.fleury@lycos.com>

	We've all seen it happen. The announcement was exciting, the DM responsive to your ideas, you were really looking forward to playing in what promised to be an off-beat, dynamic campaign. Then, just as the harduous task of character creation drew to a close *snap* no more DM and the games goes down in flames. Well a few of us have decided not to take it lying down.
	The setting is Planescape, set originaly in Sigil as the title implies. The cast of characters is off-beat to say the least: we have a sinker half-fiend/oni diviner with a snaky motif, a vampiric priest of Mystra, a gray-skinned bleaker of mysterious origin and an eagle petitioner from the Beastlands. Despite appearances these people are all of non-evil alignments, having been created to work alonside not one but two paladins -- a vrock mercykiller and an Erinyes sensate. The story is NOT set, even the Sigil location can be changed to anywhere in the planes, leaving you totaly free to work your own DMing magic. 
	Have a plot or plannar locale you always wanted to explore? Hankering to do something a bit different with comitted players and high-level characters? Then you are the DM we are looking for. Please drop us a line, either at the e-mail address above or go directly to the yahoo list, join and say "hi" (open membership, instant approval :).

---------------------------------------------------
CHARACTERS

sigilandbeyond@yahoogroups.com

DM, "Allan Duke" <arthurduke_2000@yahoo.com>

------------------------------------------------
Beylana, Owl Psion - Platinum Rook <PlatinumRook@aol.com>

AFFILIATION: Unknown

PHYSICAL: A spotted tan and white owl roughly the height of a dwarf, with a plain-looking brown leather pouch strapped to her chest.

EQUIPMENT: None known 

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Bob, Halfling Rogue? - Ryan Wilis <brujah9898@yahoo.com>

AFFILIATION: Unknown

PHYSICAL: Bob is a chubby halfling who moves very fluidly for one his size, he is dressed in a rather comical mutlicolored shirt and hat, to accent his dull grey cloak and pants quite poorly. He seems very friendly and smiles A LOT.

EQUIPMENT: Boots of Springin & Stridin.

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Clarinax Ceruflame, Vrock Paladin - Robert Krawchuk <rjkrawch@mail.asb.com>
                                                    <robert.krawchuk@gs.com>
AFFILIATION: Mercykiller

PHYSICAL: Clarinax change from a tall dark robed, hooded and bald man with piercing blue eyes into a raging creature that resembles a 7' tall Vrock, except that its feathers, beak, skin and talons are all a dull and very deep dark blue.

EQUIPMENT: None known

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Gwen, Erinyes Paladin - Mark Hulsman <hulsmanm@purdue.edu>

AFFILIATION: Sensate

PHYSICAL: Gwen usualy walks around as a tall human female with Black hair, red eyes and large white feathered wings. She wears a set of full plate that is somehow designed to be very beautiful.

EQUIPMENT: Greatsword.

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Krotal Bonefriend, Half-Fiend Diviner - Frederic Fleury <fred.fleury@lycos.com>

AFFILIATION: Doomguard

PHYSICAL: A mountain of oily green scales, nine feet at the shoulder. I say shoulders for they are the tallest part of him, his demonic snake head jutting forward like that of a dog. Claws and horns pierce the scales, black like his powerful fangs, black like frozen Styx water and glistening with something that is not saliva. A third eye sits above the sharp grey pools of the other two -- smaller, *harder* is this eye and eerily independant. As for clothing, he wears nothing but a loincloth of tattered furs, with heavy bracelets of corroded copper decorating his wrists.

EQUIPMENT: Sorrow, his two-handed hammer. Bracelets of Entropy. Tiny tasseled pouch at his waist.

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Staren Cloaken, Vampiric Cleric of Mystra - Michael Russo <maddog015@yahoo.com>

AFFILIATION: Unknown

PHYSICAL: A dark-haired half-elf, his pretty face disfigured by a noticeable scar on his cheek, running from right ear down to chin. It looks like a dagger has caught him pretty badly. He wears dark blue robes with orange trims and at his waist is a thin sword and at his neck a pendant of seven stars surrounding a stream.

EQUIPMENT: Unknown

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The Null, Human Fighter/Rogue - rabbijonathan <rabbijonathan@yahoo.com> 
[Formerly: Dr. Carlos A. Medina Soriano <dr_falter_noir@yahoo.com>]

AFFILIATION: Fated

PHYSICAL: The human looked as confident as a bargeman in the Stix, with his body encased in gray reptilian leather with bony interlocking rings, carrying a backpack that looks like it has been halfway to Baator and back. You notice the gauntlet on his left hand, wrapped all the way to the elbow and the rapier hanging on his right side, with the black gem in the pommel and the segmented blade ending in a wicked point. The real eye catcher's the bit of mummified muscle that pokes out from under the armor.

EQUIPMENT: Ripper, his rapier. 

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Tlenctigk "Tig" Greyclaws, Half-Dragon Psion - Bil Boozer <vlatismir@yahoo.com>

AFFILIATION: Bleaker

PHYSICAL: Tig appears as a 6'8" tall, brownish/grey-skinned humanoid with bright, blue-green eyes. Though generally of average build, Tig has large shoulders and thighs, giving him the appearance of a formidable fighter. Both his hands and his feet end in grey-black claws. A copper hoop earring dangles from each of his pointed ears, and he typically wears brown or green robes or leather armor, as either color complements the color of his skin. Tig's weapon of choice is the dagger, although he's pretty good with a short bow as well. He's been very active in the charitable works of the Bleak Cabal. 

EQUIPMENT: None known

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