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Chapter 1 - Pain's Desire

When you live in the material world your whole life, you get used to the world being a certain way. You depend on knowing that if you misplace your pen, it's got to be around somewhere, even if you can't find it. Living in Sigil, things are not quite as…dependable. If you've lost your pen, it's more than likely that it has actually stopped existing simply because no one knows where it is. Why the pen would care whether anybody knew about it was still beyond Marienne. Living in another existence was difficult at times, but there were always people, events, and things to distract her from the difficulties…like losing one's pen. Marienne had spent a great deal of the past year in huge buildings that looked a great deal smaller from the outside, but contained huge rooms stuffed to the brim with books, on the inside. And more often than not, somewhere in the chaos and clutter, she would misplace her pen. She wandered over to the librarian knowing that somehow he'd be waiting for her with a smile on his face, ready to sell her another pen at the ridiculous price of 1 gold. "Made from the feather of an Avian. Sturdy, light, and glows with it's own soft light so you'll never be scribbling in the dark!" And somehow, despite its constant glow, she would misplace it. She had yet to find the same pen again.
Her studies had gone quite well. She had learned vast amounts of information about all of the Planes of the Multi-verse and how they interacted. There was so much information that it was just difficult to decide what was important enough to remember. Did she want to learn about the politics of this gate town, or did she want to memorize a rough map of that level on that Outer Plane? She realized that once she left this place, a key to being successful would be to have handy items of reference available at all times, so that she could have the chant on a place or existence at the tip of her magical fingers...
She was woken from her reverie by a tall form blocking her way. The tall robed figure floated about 2 inches off of the floor, and was well over 6 and a half feet tall. Strange hair and eyes viewed her with a strange interest, and yet, somehow, without caring at the same time...
"Oh, sorry, I didn't see you there..." Marienne said. She knew the creature to be a Dabus. The closest things to natives of Sigil, and agents of the Lady of Pain, the ruler of Sigil.
As she watched, it did not speak--at least not the way she was accustomed. Instead, a string of symbols appeared in midair next to its head. She looked at it. An eye. A letter S, with a dash, and a image of a small lamb half shaved. A letter A. An image of a paper with her name on it. A number 4. A picture of her. It hung in the air. The creature waited with an indifferent patience. It took her a moment to figure it out....
"You have a letter for me?" asked Marienne.
The creature nodded and held out an envelope. She took it. Without another...symbol...the creature turned and floated off. The letter was addressed to her:

Marienne returned to her home Plane via a magical staff that she had attained during her year in Sigil. It was a priceless artifact that enabled her to easily travel between Planes of existence. It had been a while and she was greeted kindly by Stamp and his family in the royal house of Cormyr. She asked him to send out messages to all of Keepers of the Realms, for they were needed again.
Only Zendrak and Thorlin could make it, but they each brought an ally. Zendrak brought a burly human warrior named Adus. Why Zendrak was bringing along the hair-brained warrior no one knew, but by the blank look on his face, some guessed it was as fodder. Thorlin brought Blaze. Zendrak and Marienne both hissed in warning as she entered but her situation was quickly explained and trust--or at least less distrust--replaced complete distrust. So, the 5 of them traveled to Waterdeep via Marienne's magical staff only an hour after explaining the situation. Stamp did not go, for he was no longer up for the stress of adventuring.
As they began to walk into town, something strange occurred. First a screaming woman flew out of the sky and landed upon the ground. Next, a man fell out of midair and landed upon her. No relation, really.
The woman was Tenchi. Familiar with Zendrak from her trip to Netheril, Tenchi explained about a Genie in a closet that sent her here in anger after he was finally released (no wishes apparently). She was quite happy to be so far from where she was, and still alive, so she joined the party, although it seemed her faithful dog had been confiscated by the powerful apparition that sent her.
The man was named Theoren. He stood and introduced himself as "Problem Solver Extraordinaire" and offered the party his services. He ignored the fact that he had just materialized out of thin air, and claimed that he came from somewhere that was no longer important, since he was here. He then offered to buy the party dinner.
After dinner the party, of now six members, scoured Waterdeep for rumors that lead them to a forest north of the town. Here, those of planar birth spotted a closed portal. Marienne said the best place to research this kind of thing was Sigil. No doubt somewhere there would be information concerning this portal, they just had to find it. And so, again using Marienne's magical staff, they traveled to Sigil.
They spent an afternoon in Sigil's Great Library doing research, but found little of interest. As they went to find an Inn, they first met a teifling cleric named Dema who decided to join them, and then they were confronted by another Dabus. It handed them a box, and then floated away. The letter said, "From the Lady of Pain". It held a gift for each helper upon this quest, and in turn each of the party investigated and found a magical item to assist them traveling around the Multi-verse. Blaze was the first to try her small magical cube, that transported the whole party back to Waterdeep.

Chapter 2 - Questionable Contracts

Back in Waterdeep, the party found out a little more about the portal. They decide to go through, but Marienne remembered that Thorlin had wanted to go with them, and they had to go get him. She used her crystal ball--complements of the Lady of Pain--and summoned an image of Thorlin--in Sigil. Apparently he had gone to catch up with them but arrived too late. The party returned to Sigil to meet up with Thorlin and spent the night there, as it was late in the day. While in Sigil, they were approached by three figures and asked to go to a meeting with an influential person named Spiral. They are led to his well defended home and asked inside. Spiral--who heard that the party required information about the portal offered his help in exchange for them going to the Gray Wastes and retrieving some battle plans from the site of a recent Blood War Massacre. The PC's requested an additional 5000 gold payment plus 800 gold for each ally slain upon the quest. He agreed. With the deal settled, the PC's go to the Inn to rest, before receiving last minute information and setting out to the Gray Wastes.

Chapter 3 - Bloody Hell

She woke up stairing at the stylized ceiling wondering where she was. Engraved jagged styles washed across the stone ceiling. She was in a moderatly soft bed, with moderatly clean sheets. She looked around the room and saw the other women. Right, she was in the Blender. The Blender might have tricked most 'clueless' into believing it was a normal Inn, as long as one didn't look too closely. She made eye contact with Marienne who lay awake in her bed twirling a daisy in her hand. Marienne smiled. "I keep finding these flowers near my bed every morning. You didn't happen to see who left it here did you?"

Blaze smiled, but shook her head, "No, sorry. I'll keep an eye out though. We wouldn't want some weirdo sneaking around our beds while we sleep." They both laughed together, waking Dema and Tenchi from their sleep.

Ten minutes later Blaze was downstairs in the bar dressed for travel, her bag at her feet, and her weapons resting on the wall next to the table. The party gathered around two small tables they had pulled together, and ate breakfast. The breakfast could be passed off for regular chicken eggs and pig bacon, but the source of the meat or eggs was suspect. It was wiser to just eat and not question. As they ate, a man entered the bar and looked around. He was carrying a box wrapped in brown paper. After spotting the party he approached. "Someone's coming." said Dema, and the everyone looked up from their meal. Hands snuck towards hilts muscles tensed. The man stopped at their table.

"Hello, I'm looking for a group of people that spoke to Spiral last night. Would you be that party?"

"Who wants to know?" asked Blaze tensely.

"It would be in your best interest to answer." said the man.

"Why are you looking for them?" asked Thorlin.

The man looked agitated, unsure of what to say, and frustrated that he could not get a straight answer. Blaze felt less threatened by him after this obvious show of emotion. She took on a tired demeanor and spoke flippantly, "Yes, we are the ones you are looking for."

The relief of getting a straight answer practically washed off of the man. "Good, this is for you." He put down the box and began to walk away.

Blaze watched him. It was always wise to be cautious. This man could be an enemy of Spiral, looking to wipe out his hired hands, or he could be from Spiral. Either way, Blaze decided to test him again. "Hey, should we just open this here, or maybe in private?"

The man turned around, slightly confused, "Um, whatever, you might want to in private though I guess."

He didn't know, or he didn't care. Either way it gave her no more information. The man left and the party looked at the box like it was a viper.

"Ok, let's take it upstairs and open it." said Blaze.

"Should we all go?" asked Theoren.

"Good point, if it's an exploding box, we might not all want to huddle around it." Blaze said. She was thinking, with her sword she was largly immune to fire, it would probably be best if she were one to open it.

"Yes, I will go upstairs with Theoren and Adus. The rest of you stay down here..." announced Thorlin.

Theoren gave a startled look, "I don't want to go upstairs with an exploding box." Everyone ignored him, and seemingly not willing to argue further about it, he trudged upstairs. Blaze wandered up the stairs and put her ear near the door. Inside were some ripping noises, and squeaking of wood, and then a, "ooooh" sound. "Is it ok to come in?" she asked.

Dema opened the door and walked past, "I'm not going to let them take all the stuff before I see..."

Sighing, Blaze called Marienne, Tenchi, and Zendrak up and they all went into the room. Inside, the others were crowded around the box. Inside were some scrolls, a note, two daggers and two vials of clear liquid. Blaze mumbled the words of magic suddenly could see the blue aura of magic surrounding the daggers and the scroll. She lifted the non magical note out of the box and read it out loud.

Keepers of the Realms, these items are on loan to you for your mission to the Gray Wastes. The lesser dagger is a moderate magical dagger, the more powerful one is also moderate but can appear in the owners hand at will. The scroll contains four magic missile spells, and the vials contain holy water. The daggers I expect to be returned to me. If not, you will have to reimburse me the cost. They are made on the gray wastes and so will assist you on your mission. If you choose not to take them, you may return them to me when you visit me. I am expecting you to visit me to finish up the details of this mission, this morning.

Spiral

The split up stuff, visited spiral and then traveled to the gray wastes where everything was gray. The went to river, got in boat, went to Tanari camp, and then started travelling across the field of nettles through huge heaps of bodies, towards the ba'atezu camp. They encountered some bugs, some things, saved a human from Toril, and a woman demon that they killed. We leave off with them still in the field, after two days of travel...

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