Rock looked around for what seemed to be the thousandth time. Behind him the spire with its donut city hovering high above, ahead where Sylvania should be was nothing but charred forest. A thin haze of smoke surrounded him. He laughed to himself, Humph, ‘Rock’, how that nickname stuck even in his head. His little sister could not pronounce his real name – Sirocco, calling him Sir Rocko. His friends condensed this to Rock to tease him about his hard head. Rock could beat the best of them at their head butting contests as their tribe wandered the Hinterlands. How simple it had seemed back in Sigil to travel the Outlands once again and find his old tribe, reconnect with his brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends. Those that did not want to explore the planes like him. Who were content to live the lives of simple Bariaur frolicking in the Hinterlands and ignoring the swirl of the planes around them. No, Rock was an explorer, a seeker of something, he knew not what. When he finally discovered the City of Doors he finally felt like he had found the place he was looking for. The Sensates taught him that to achieve ones destiny he must ‘experience’ many things. Rock explored the planes with gusto, visiting not only those planes that were ‘safe’ but also those lower planes where the Demons and Devils laired. He experienced many things both terrifying and sublime. Each time he returned to Sigil he recorded those experiences at the Civic Festhall for any who were too timid to actually travel to the places he had been. Once Factol Erin Montgomery even suggested he become a Factor of the Faction. Rock declined thinking that position would restrict his travels. All was well until the portals started going barmy. Some stopped working at all and some went to places they had not gone before. Was the Lady herself going barmy? The Bleakers thought so but they did not risk her wrath by publishing their theories in the Tempus Sigilian. Rock had friends and acquaintances in most of the factions, although he tended to avoid the Mercykillers and the Hardheads. Even more determined to return to the Hinterlands, Rock worked with Lissandra the Gatekeeper for weeks until they found a portal that would take him to the Outlands. He gladly paid Lissandra her jink and after securing the gate key from Alluvius Ruskin, he leaped through to the Outlands. What he found there was not what he expected. Instead of the land he remembered with its infinite variety, he only found decay, death, and destruction. Even travel from place to place seemed to take much longer than it had before. He was about to give up and find a way back to Sigil when…..