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Chapter 4 - Who Cares?

Continued traveling to Ba'atezu camp in the morning. Avoided 2 ape guys by hiding under illusion. Then ran into 3 guys that are like gargoyles. Blaze attacks one. Zendrak misses another. Thorlin finishes off Blazes'. 3rd raises one Blaze kills, and attacks Thorlin. Blaze and Thorlin finish off raised one. Next round, Succubus comes from behind us, and Thorlin attacks. Blaze and Adus finish off one and third backs away and makes a fire to block us. Blaze sticks sword in flame, does nothing.
Next round, Zendrak leaps and misses. Blaze leaps through fire and finishes off last guy. Lukos shows up after falling pile. Thorlin shot him with crossbow after refusing to answer if he was polymorphed. Gives him a hand axe. Bleeds from normal weapon. "Only demon so sadistic to cut himself.."
Body slide ahead and behind us. 10 larva come out and attack as. 1 attacks Adus. Lucos hacks one in half. One misses Zendrak. Zendrak smashes it. Adus fumbles around. One attacks Lucos. One lunges Blaze, misses. Misses Thorlin. Misses Blaze. Misses Marrienne. Thorlin destroys that one with sword. Misses Thorlin. Blaze lightning weapons one. One attacks Adus. Thorlin chops another one. Blaze fries another one with lightning. More come out of ground. One attacks Zendrak. Blaze runs through them forward (hit by one), turns, fires arrow misses. Another attacks Zendrak, misses. One attacks Dema, misses. Adus hit. Misses Thorlin. Zendrak kills one. Adus kills one. Misses Thorlin. Misses Marienne. Misses Lokus. Lokus hurts one. Misses Lukos. Hits Adus. Misses Dema. Misses Thorlin. Misses Theoren. Misses Marienne. Thorlin, Marienne run ahead. Adus kills one. Blaze slays one in their way. Hits Dema. Lukos flees. Adus stays, fighting, gets hit. Misses Zendrak. Adus backing away, misses. 2 miss Marienne. More attack slow backing up Adus. Adus hit. Dema makes it away. More attacking Adus. Hit again. We make it away.
Gets warmer. Smoke and flame in the sky. 1 mile across fire pit. Huge fire. "Don't fall in their". Dead fiends burning. Bodies slide in and sizzle. Smells bad. Slope into pit that bodies slide into. 50 feet off ground smoke and fire congeal into a city on top of the flames? In the sky. Ladder goes up into city. We go up. Cramped streets like spongy. No more than 3 story buildings. Deserted. Parts of smoke that shift and make holes into fire below. See demons looking for something, they leave us be. Tied together, walking through city. See real Ba'atezu in building, talk to him, demons attack us because we defend him (he might take us to his camp). Attack Adus in doorway. Hits him with two short swords. Zendrak's sword blazes blue and slams sword into demon guy. Adus attacks and misses. Blaze leaps out of building and misses. Lukos attacks and hits one. Thorlin slams injured one and kills it. Smashes another one with his shield. Darkness but continual light rock counters. One attacks Lukos. Another attacking Adus. Blaze attacks one and injures. Thorlin slams and kills one. Darkness.
Lukos attacks and kills one. Blaze runs out of darkness and hurts one of 4 new ones running here. One attacks her. In darkness Dema is slammed by Adus (screams). Lukos attacked and missed and hit. Light goes away. Thorlin standing over dead one. Dema on ground unconscious. Blaze hits same one again.
Attacks Lukos twice. Zendrak mentally attacks one (hurts it). Another attacks and misses Lukos twice. Blaze and it's attack each other and miss. Another attacks Blaze, and misses both. Thorlin leaps into battle. Fells Blazes', and hurts the other on her. Blaze finishes it off. Darkness.
Sounds of fleeing. Fleeing bubble of darkness. Thorlin throws hammer into it. Chase after, and kill it. (darkness goes away as it dies.) It vanishes as it drops through hole in ground.
Another one fighting, Lokus, Blaze attacking. Adus attacks it as it falls dead.
Looting bodies. Blaze goes back into room, after telling others the enemy swords are not magical.
For saving guy he will take us to Ba'atezu camp. But must rest for a day. Leads back to ladder, says will lead us around fire pit.
Rested at bottom of ladder, and next day continued. Blaze and Marienne started to seem lethargic. Day goes on. Attacked by a bunch of Stirges, and killed them. Blaze didn't take part in the battle, having turned invisible. Adus took stirge as pet. They camped. Waking up, Adus was trying to bleed people with the stirge until Blaze used magic missiles to kill it. They then start walking away as they travel again. Ground boggy from blood. Fiends cleaning a little to keep it from getting too boggy. Come to strange creature watching slaves with pick axes who are chained up. Throws guys into blood lake when not work. Adus charges. Noone else cares. It grabs Adus, he thrashes and stumbles away twitching. "Is anyone going to help him?" "I don't care" says everyone. He screams for help. Blaze sighs and charges, firing arrows. Blaze sees Fate appear in front of her. She drops to her knees, not caring. He walks up, touches her, and vanishes. Adus crawls to her, "stop the poison".. She casts slow poison. Guys fighting. She stands up, and attacks the guy, missing. Thorlin kills him, he gets washed away. Lukos doesn't bleed as much as Adus. Lukos hits one of the people. Then Adus and him argue.
We all walk away, continuing. Later, as we are walking, little limbs and body parts surround and attack. The party half-heartedly wanders through the thinks, pretty much ignoring them. Morale is low, many members of the party don't care and others are injured or sick.
The party continues on. Sometime later they get to the enemy camp, a huge collection of buildings stretching 5 miles across. They rest. Next morning, head towards center of huge city (a mansion), to look for battle plans.
Building being rocked by explosions. Building changes, shaped from evil and pain. Went inside, wandered around, found a room with urns. Held some people. Found battle plans. Walked 5 hours to a pier on river, and found a boat. Got in boat and let current lead us to Abyss.
Color came back, firey and sinister looking. Blaze uses cube. All appear in blender bar. Crawl into table, prop held people. Gain color. Feel better. Go look at battle plans in room, then bring them to spirals. (troop movements in field of nettles area, and other forces converging elsewhere. Smaller force infiltrating Tana'ari part of Abyss.) Get to Spiral's gate. Go see him. Get 6000 gold, and now about the portal...

Chapter 5 - Hopeless

Blaze listened only partly as Spiral explained the details about the gate.
"It's a type ..... created from mass explosion .... very nature is random .... created by mistake....not from Toril..........gate specialists didn't go through....looked like lower planes.......need perfect crystal sphere 3 inches in diameter to open....stays open for short time.......this type of portal disables all planar travel items for a unknown amount of time......and so, since it wasn't in the contract, I did not send my gate experts through. It's always a dangerous procedure. What I'm saying is that I'd be willing to send my agents through, to discover all they can of the OTHER side of this portal, but it's going to cost you. I need something else done."
Blaze sighed. This man was milking them for all they were worth. It didn't matter, she wasn't going back to the gray wastes for anything.
"What?" said Thorlin in an impatient voice.
"Well, you see, as you might or might not know, I deal in sensitive merchandise, and recently I've lost a cargo of it. I would like you to find out what happened to it."
"What kind of 'merchandise'?" asked Theoren, is fingers quoting the air about his head as he spoke.
Spiral looked simultaneously bored with the question, and amused to get to answer it. "Oh, just some sensitive, expensive merchandise."
"What kind of 'sensitive', 'expensive', 'merchandise'?" asked Theoren, his voice becoming slightly sarcastic.
Spiral waved his hand. "Just spices."
"Just spices? Are these 'spices' going to blow up or something?" replied Theoren, now somewhat frustrated from Spiral's non-commital answers.
"Theoren, give it up. It doesn't matter what they are. It's his business, not ours." replied Blaze, somewhat tired of the way the conversation was going.
Dema piped up, "Theoren's a problem solver, and he's good, just let him talk...."
Theoren gave Blaze a piercing look and leered somewhat, "It does matter. If these spices are going to blow up when I get near them, I'd like to know..."
"Ok, ok, fine, Spiral, are these spices going to 'blow up'?" asked Blaze.
Spiral's smiling lips quirked. "There is a very small chance of that happening."
Theoron saw the hole in the argument and leapt, "SOO! There IS a chance of them blowing up? Just not big?"
Everyone in the party laughed quietly at the sarcasm oozing out of Theoren.
Spiral would say no more.
"What does the mission involve?" asked Thorlin.
"In the city of Hopeless is a trader, her name is Merin, she is my contact there. My last shipment from there was stolen, it did not get to it's intended destination. Probably a good idea would be to go and talk to her."
Got more details, left, bought stuff (some magical), got chicken wing by alley, took portal to Hopeless, realized was hopeless without description and directions to merin. Blaze went back and got them. Went to market, looked for her, found her. Told us about next shipment waiting. Said we'd hide with it. Shipment went, some time later ambushed, but knew it coming, so we were all away, told guards to run. Took it to cave. Camped.
Woke up in room, no windows, a few blankets, no doors, and a statue in the center of strange creature. Room began to spin, and creature moved and looked at us. Some felt in danger from creature, Adus pulled out sword and attacked, but a rope leapt out of the air around him and bound him up. Everyone else began to draw weapons when it spoke. Told us that it was taking Spiral's weapons, and giving them to Ba'atezu. Told us to tell spiral to deal with him if he wanted to sell weapons to blood war. Also told us to tell Archons that were trying to interfere that the weapons would get where intended, but not cause effect that they wanted. We had a few days to tell Archons to stop interfereing or else.
Doorway appeared, we left through it and past weapons in cave, and then started back to Hopeless.

Chapter 6 - Minds of Combat

The PC's returned to Sigil where they spoke to Spiral. They told Spiral that they felt they had completed their part of the bargain, and displayed unhappiness about being involved with arms dealing. Spiral repeated the words of the agreement exactly, which seemed to spell out that the PC's had to find out what was going on to more detail. They explained the situation and he told them that they could meet with his contact from the upper planes. The PC's met with this contact the next morning. The contact turned out to be a priest, and he said that he worked for an Archon.
The PC's said they should speak to the Archon. The priest agreed, but tried to charge the PC's 3000 gold in "donations" to his church, in order to bring them to the Archon. Blaze steadfastly refused, angered that a good priest would charge the party to basically help him. The priest was steadfast. It was finally ended when Marrienne gave the priest 3 gems, against Blaze's wishes. Blaze refused to go with the swindling priest. The rest of the party left.
The party were brought to a heavenly place, where they met a powerful archon. The archon returned their money and listened to the PC's. He explained the situation, that he was trying to stop one side of the bloodwar from winning, and asked the PC's what he should do. Should he keep sending weapons, remove his presence from the situation, or something else. The PC's, after trying to avoid deciding, gave in when he started to cry. They told him to stop sending cursed weapons, and instead attempt something else. The PC's said they would deliver the message, and get the weapons back. Blaze assisted the PC's at one point when she connected to Thorlin's mind and asked him what was going on.
The party returned to the cave where the powerful demon was. They gave him a message, and asked for the weapons back. He refused, and told them they were dismissed. Against anyone's better judgement, the party decided to kill the demon. A tremendous battle started.
The party ran into the battle, engaging the enemy. He summoned more demon's to help, and magic and power where being tossed about like water. Several PC's dropped, and demon's began to die. Finally the demon was slain and the other demon's fled. The party, lucky to be alive, returned to Hopeless empty handed. The returned to Sigil, and breifed Spiral about the mission. He thanked them, and told them he would have their information within a couple days.

Chapter 7 - The Endless Staircase

The PC's were introduced to Spiral's planar experts, who informed the party that they knew very little about the portal, except that it was 'strange'. They also said the key to open it from the other side was a round peice of coal that had to be crushed. They suggested looking up more information about it within the great library. They said that they would take the party there.
They took the party the next day, through the streets of Sigil to the great bazaar where they opened a portal to the Palace of Selune. They brought the party within and said that they would have to wait two weeks for the moon to be right, before the endless staircase would show itself.
Two quick weeks later, the party was taken to a place where the staircase appeared. A woman who was half snake informed them that the library was "up the stairs". The party asked some more questions about the origin of the endless staircase, which the woman answered, if not a little vaguely. Finally the party began their way up the stairs.
The party discovered that there were many routes to travel up the stairs and began picking randomly.

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