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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 1605970" data-attributes="member: 11697">At the sound of the beep, you've been mazed...Clueless screamed and jerked back with a sudden flutter of his wings as they furiously swept at the ether. “Holy crap!”    “What? What do you see over there?” Aren’s telepathic voice reached out into his mind once more with alarm.    The others hung within the ether and looked at Clueless with a mixture of curiosity and fear as he flew back to within range of their voices. He was pale and shaking, his wings covered with an unhealthy sheen of yellow faerie fire.    “I don’t know what the hell this place is, but I’m not going near any of those things. There’s… blades… growing out of the stone on that pillar over there. And there’s only one place I’ve ever seen blades that look like that. And we’re not in Sigil right now…” Clueless shuddered as he exhaled. His companions blinked and turned towards the pillar.    Tristol seemed confused, but given the expressions on the others’ faces, his own ears flattened back against his head. “What do you mean? I’ve only been in Sigil for a day at the most, and I don’t remember seeing anything like that…”    “Her Serenity.” Nisha deadpanned with a slight tremor in her voice. Tristol didn’t spark a glimmer of recognition. “Her Dread Majesty.” Nisha made one more mention of the Bladed Queen’s various titles but the wizard still hadn’t connected the phrases to the blades that grew like leaves from the column some twenty yards distant, suspended in the tangle of solidified protomatter.    “I don’t…” Tristol murmured as he and the group drifted closer to the structure, Clueless hung back to their rear and only followed them at a distance.    “The Lady of Pain.” The tiefling shuddered and looked distinctly uncomfortable as she invoked The Lady’s name. Tristol jerked back several feet from the column where he had been slowly floating towards it before his mind tumbled to the dark of the matter.    “Mystra preserve me…” Tristol whispered softy, invoking his patron deity’s name like a shield against his uncertainty and his fear.    “Somehow I don’t think that’d be enough, given past history…” Fyrehowl inhaled deeply and turned away from the column.    A palpable silence descended over them as they hung motionless amid the tangle of ethereal webbing and the blocks and columns that seemed to emerge out of it seamlessly. They gazed around to gather the full scope of whatever it was they had wandered into. The region that surrounded them like a gigantic spider’s web with its own trappings of captured insects had to be miles across at the very least and still continued inwards. Deeper into the core of the cloud, the strands of ethereal protomatter grew thicker, denser, and seemingly more patterned.    The more dense the strands and chords of ether became, the more blocks and columns seemed to emerge from the mass itself. All of the discrete structures glowed with the same ghostly white pallor, each of them detailed with the same burning lines of runes, and more and more they sprouted blades.    “Turn around if you want, I don’t have that option. I have a week or so before I die of the poison in me. I don’t know what this is here, and yes it scares the hell out of me, but a frightening unknown is still better than certain death.” Tristol said with sudden conviction as he began to drift forwards.    “Oh hell, why not. It’s not like I haven’t done stupid things before… today.” Nisha glanced around at her companions and smiled. “That was a joke, but still, I’m in. How about the rest of you.”    “I’m not doing this for myself, but to save the life of a loved one. My own fright doesn’t mean a thing. I’m going through with this even if my own life isn’t at stake here, it might as well be.” Fyrehowl said and nodded towards Toras as he began to drift forwards after Tristol with a grim look on his face and his sword drawn.    “You all know how I feel already…” He said without looking back.    Clueless blinked, “I’m in. But I’m not going near anything that even reminds me of The Lady while we keep going. Not much scares me except the unknown, and that’s an even bigger unknown than what I’m being blackmailed with. Still, I can’t let you all go on alone. You go in there, so do I.”    The bladesinger flicked his wings to follow the others as Aren softly sighed to herself, touched her holy symbol and hesitantly followed along. “You’ll need me. Hopefully not as much as I think though.”    Together they all descended down into the murky depths of the cloudy, semi solid ether that spun out around them. Flies descending into a spider’s webbing. They altered course several times to keep their distance from the bladed structures that sprung up in greater frequency from the latticework of protomatter as they went deeper. While the area soaked up light and grew darker as they continued on with trepidation, there seemed to be a single point of light growing within the depths below. A single point of light that sparkled dimly like a candle seen through smoke or clouded glass.As they made their way downward still, the mass of congealed ether finally grew thin and evaporated as they entered a hollow within the center of it all. Within the cavernous open space was a massive, slightly egg shaped bubble that shed a pale, silvery luminescence. Hazy lines and flaws traced across its surface like afterimages on the eyes after staring at a bright light. They wandered across the egg’s surface like a patchwork of pipes, roads or bundled tubules. Nothing moved, nothing stirred. There was only the pale ghost light of the egg and the hollow bubble of space at the core of the semi-solid ether that surrounded the party.“What in the 9 Hells is that?” Clueless whispered to himself with more than a touch of awe in his voice. His sentiment was returned by similar comments from the others as they all slowly drifted towards the edge of the massive glowing bubble.Nisha put out her hand to touch the surface as they came into reach of it, then she hesitated and stopped. The surface rippled and warped like it was made of liquid as her fingers stopped within a few inches of it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t solid. As they watched the ripples pass through the surface, the hazy details that they had seen within seemed to move and jostle like things suspended in a liquid. The bubble was more a membrane than anything else.“Nisha? Where’s the portal that was supposed to be around here? Please check. This doesn’t feel right…” Fyrehowl glanced over her shoulder warily. She shuddered as the light from the egg glittered and reflected tiny motes of light on the surface of the blades that dotted the ether at the fringe of the hollow like stars upon a mist-covered sky.    Nisha fiddled with the compass for a moment before looking back at the lupinal, “In there… it’s pointing dead center of this… whatever this is.”    “Oh hell!” Toras swore as he looked at the surface of the bubble that gave back no reflection of himself, or the rest of the group. He slowly realized that fact and backed away from the liquid surface of the egg.    “So, who’s going in first?” Florian asked with a wry grin to offset his own fear.    “Tristol, can you tell us anyth…” Clueless began to say before the aasimar cut him off with a shake of his head.    “That thing, whatever in Mystra’s name it is, it isn’t magical…” Tristol said with genuine unease.    “Not magical? How so?” Aren asked and drifted closer.    “Just what I said. It’s not glowing with any magical aura. The spell works because some of us are lit up like candlesticks. But aside from us, nothing in this place glows of any magic. Not the bubble, not the light it’s making, not the strands of ether out there, not the columns, not the blocks and dare I say, not the blades…” Tristol lowered his voice for the final remark and turned back towards the bubble.    Fyrehowl breathed deeply and reached out towards the surface of the bubble out of instinct. As her fingers brushed the surface the surface rippled like the waves made from tossing a large stone onto the surface of an otherwise tranquil lake. There was a spark of light from the point of contact with her fingers and an abrupt sucking noise as the lupinal vanished from sight without a trace. Her companions jerked back, startled at the effect and worried for her safety.    “Well… umm… who’s next?” Nisha chuckled uncomfortably as she reached out to touch the surface. A moment later she was gone with similar effect.    One by one the others followed suit with doubt and fear running heavily through their minds before all of them were gone and vanished into the interior of the egg with not a mark left behind to detail their passage. All of them stood confused and disoriented on the dirty cobblestones of a city street. Buildings rose up on either side of them while the street extended for some way in either direction with frequent intersections. The air was stale and heavy with dust and age. The buildings seemed vacant, unoccupied and abandoned. The style was strikingly close to those within the Clerk’s Ward of Sigil, but the architecture was old and archaic. Many of them appeared in some manner of decay, with broken windows, rotted doors and collapsed roofs along with several buildings along the street that appeared to have been burned to their foundations. Imagine a section of Sigil spun off on its own, locked away, abandoned and moldering amid the aftermath of a war.    “We’re in Sigil… but…” Tristol looked up, expecting to see clouds drifting overhead, partially obscuring the familiar curve of the opposite side of the city high above. Instead, he saw nothing but a black, starless void hung above them. There was no other side of Sigil to see.    Awe, wonder and confusion strummed the air like a musician’s fingers upon a harp. The group stood there in silence, trying to contemplate just where they were and how the place had come to be. Not a sound echoed across the empty expanse of the city, only the soft noises of their own breathing and movements. Looming in the distance and rising over the rest of the cityscape, towering over the other ancient buildings like a black spear stabbing at the void above was a single, monolithic ebony tower. From their distance it barely stood out against the sky above, all of its windows as black and vacant as the void it reached out towards in either spite or supplication.    “What the?!” Nisha dropped the planar compass as it began to glow a harsh blue in her hands and hover on its own volition. The bauble gave a rhythmic hum as it projected a recorded message to its owners.    “Our apologies for this little deception. There is no portal here waiting for you. Rather, congratulations for having just now willingly mazed yourselves. If you have not yet realized this charming fact, you now stand within one of the mazes of The Lady of Pain, having just entered from its exterior in the deep ethereal. It took us some time to divine the exact location of this particular maze. Do not despair; there is yet hope for your escape provided you do as instructed. Listen well, this will not repeat.”    The group came to sudden attention and glared angrily at the hovering compass as it continued, “Several centuries ago, there existed a faction, now almost entirely extinct, called nowadays ‘The Incantifers’, then simply as The Magicians or The Wanters. They believed that magic, specifically arcane magic, was the key to power, indeed the only power that mattered in the multiverse. Gain enough knowledge of magic and skill in it and you could do anything. Even challenge The Lady…. According to legend, at least two members of the Wanters tried just that. They died, horribly and spectacularly. Legend also says that one of them almost succeeded.  Duke Rowan Darkwood was well aware of these legends. According to our agents within the Takers, some might say he was obsessed with them. At some point in the Wanters’ history they rose to such collective heights that the other factions simply played the game according to the rules the Wanters set, everyone grasping for table scraps comparatively.Then one day, they vanished. Cutters looked up one morning and the Tower Sorcerous, the faction headquarters of the Wanters was simply gone. Nearly all of their members vanished with it, though a scant few remain to wander the planes. Between the information the Duke gleaned from his obsessive search of Sigil’s darks, and others employed by us, you now stand in the maze to which the Lady damned the Wanters. If any of them yet live, find them and any information relevant to the mage Shekelor, once Factol of the Wanters. Engage any persons in combat only if hard pressed, and above all do not aid any of them in escape from the mazes.The Tower Sorcerous is likely to yet be magically guarded even these many centuries later. And one more warning: even the most apprentice Incantifer is at the very least an accomplished mage. Most, if not all of them, do not age and so many are likely to yet remain alive, pending certain variables, and they have both a high resistance to magic, and an ability to absorb spells cast at them.Upon finding any relevant information return to the spot of your entry using this planar compass, at that point you will be guided from the maze to the one exit that every of The Lady’s mazes carry. Assuming of course there is one. We are willing to take that risk. If you escape the maze and return to Sigil you will proceed immediately to the Styx Oarsman, a tavern in the Lower Ward.”    With that, the compass sparked with a release of its last bits of magic, sputtered and died. Nisha caught the now useless trinket in her hand and frowned at it. “Sodding mercanes…”    Toras grit his teeth, Fyrehowl snarled and Florian threw up his hands in the air before whipping out his axe. “Well, that history lesson aside, let’s get moving because I’m no closer to a cure otherwise. Tempus forbid there’s many of these people left…”    While Florian had been speaking, Tristol had wandered over towards one of the buildings that lined the street and crouched down to examine something laying in the rubble where part of its structure had collapsed inwards. He paused, looked closely at something there in the debris and stood back up. “I don’t think there’s going to be many people left here, if any…”Tristol pointed with his staff towards a withered, gnarled body lying in the rubble. It had once been a human of what could only be described as ‘advanced’ age, turned to stone by some ancient spell. The rotting remains of a wooden structural support still jutting out of the corpse’s chest from where the building had collapsed down upon it. Cracks radiated away from the point of impact and the head was no longer entirely connected to the rest of the body. Even had it been returned to flesh it would have been dead. However that would have been merciful given the apparent condition of the corpse when it was struck by the spell that had petrified it. At their death, the corpse, clearly that of a wizard given its clothing, had been starving. The limbs were thin and decrepit, the face’s cheeks were caved in, the ribs clearly showed through the flesh of their torso. Starving, anemic and withered.    Tristol pointed towards a crater opposite where the first figure had fallen. “There’s another corpse over there, looks like it was burned to cinders by whatever leveled that part of the building here. I’d say a meteor swarm or fireball cast by a very, VERY powerful mage.”    “Why do you think that nothing’s going to be left alive though? Ok, two people died fighting each other. Tempers flared when they all got mazed, I’m sure I would have been enraged as well. My temper can take down a room or two, an angry wizard’s argument can level the whole building, it happens.” Florian quipped as he walked over to look at the body.    “Think about it though. This place is as silent as a tomb, these buildings look like they suffered through a war. I think they did.” Tristol continued.    “How so…?” Aren asked.    “They all ate magic. They ate other people’s magic. Spells, items, anything they could buy, steal, or otherwise get a hold of. This place is sealed off from everything. There’s no way out and you’ve got an entire faction of magic eating wizard suddenly bottled up with each other and no food source… except each other.” Tristol prodded the corpse at his feet with his staff.    “Oh hells…” Nisha paled as she looked at the petrified corpse that appeared to have been starving at the time of its death.    “Sure, they could have eaten items they had stored up, but eventually they would have fallen over each other like a pack of wolves, the more powerful ones killing and consuming the magic of the less powerful. Most of the damage to these buildings looks like it was done by spells. I can tell you in a few cases just what spell might have done the damage, some… I couldn’t begin to tell you. These people starved to death and turned on one another. Who knows if there are any of them left… Certainly not if these two are any indication.” Tristol shrugged. “There’s not a spark of magic left in here. Even the tower over there is dead from what I can see with the spell I’m using. They ate everything they could, even each other.”    “Still, we have to find out. If there’s anything left, it’s probably in their faction headquarters.” Clueless said, pointing towards the tower looming off in the distance.    “Agreed, even if there’s not a living soul left from this mess there have to be books, logs, journals, notes taken by the wizards. We might find a library or faction records that have what the mercanes are looking for and…” Tristol trailed off as he stared at Fyrehowl. The lupinal’s ears were suddenly perked and twitching, she was staring off past the group towards the end of the street where it intersected with another branch of the maze.    “Fyrehowl? You ok?” Nisha asked curiously.    “Sssshhh!” Fyrehowl waved her off and narrowed her gaze towards the direction that her ears were so intently focused upon. An uneasy hush fell over the group and slowly they too began to hear what it was that had perked the celestial’s attention. First Tristol with his own more keen ears, then the others.Softly, coming in jerky spurts followed by a return of the deathly silence that cloaked the maze, there was something approaching from deeper within. Something that sounded, as faint as it was, like the scuttling of insects or the rustle of dead, dry leaves on a frigid winter’s morning.</blockquote>

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