Paladin turns to the girl, "Where is here, anyway?"

Paladin
She shakes her head, tickled by the question. "You are in the gallery of the Seven, who are not prayed to, who are not gods, who were never men." She walks closer to you as she speaks. "This place is bewteen all places and outside of existence." Her voice moves seems to whisper to you. You feel your body growing weaker, more infirm. You joints begin to ache and your senses dull. "Small creatures, like yourselves, may only travel here once." Your muscles atrophy under your skin, your body is a cage now that holds you prisoner. "The way may only be opened by one with knowledge of the ages before. You are tucked away in the dark corners, lost in the deep shadows of the metaplanes." As she finishes speaking, she stands a few feet away. For one terrible instant you are left totally helpless and weak. Your body has no stamina and no vigor. Just before the fear consumes you, she turns and walks back to the windows. You feel your purpose return and the vitality of a warrior.

Paladin slowly crumbles to the 'floor' as the spirit child moves closer to him. His eyes grow wider and wider as his limbs tuck inward, his muscles and joints poping. As the girl turns from him, he shakes his head and slowly stands up, a look of utter confusion on his face. He glances around at the group with a look that makes it clear he'd rather be getting on with things than staying here any longer.

"Locket since our circumstances obviously amuse you, please answer me one more question. Which of the Seven is the eldest, I would visit him or her first and journey to each mistress and master in accordance with the rules of hospitality."

The aging troll's focus remains on the young girl's face. He has lost himself in her mind once before, but age has not yet conquered his body and fear of it will not take hold in his thoughts. If the others can have their bodies turned against them, I can watch the horrors that I know await me.

Shiver
Her face appears normal, maybe a little too normal. As if she was a composite of all the little girls in the world.

Do not challenge me, you tired old bag of bones and dust. I'll rip the two souled one in half and leave her to bleed out her life at your feet.

The voice in your mind is vast and heavy, you feel press down on you as it whispers through your mind. Outside of yourself you hear her speak, her voice light and innocent. You watch the words spill from her small pink lips.

"Potmos is the eldest of the elder three."

"The shadows of the metaplanes...not quite where we intended to be, but there are things to be learned in the shadowy corners as well." Angelina commented.

I do not challenge you Locket, I challenge myself to be what I must. If you are what I believe you to be, you know why I must be all that I am.

Satisfied with the answer the young girl spoke, Shiver turns to face the rest.

" I would travel to the realm of Potmos. He is the eldest of the seven. We must decide as a group."

"I agree."

Bakatare nods, speaking distractedly.

"I agree."

This is obviously not the normal threshold...I've traveled here before, as I know Moira has, and there was no hint of this. She mentioned that we can travel only once, and that the way was opened by one with knowledge of the ages past. I assume she means the Ages of Magic. Who is it, I wonder, that caused us to be sent here?

He glances speculatively at Shiver and Angelina, curious as to whether or not some facet of her retains information on the distant past.

:: Moira nods softly. ::

"It seems as sane a choice as any other."

"Works for me."

The child claps her hands gleefully. "So the choice is made then." Her tone is mercurial, shifting to that of an excited child. Her voice is free of any depth and weight. "Only one can open the way from the gallery to the next realm. That door may be opened by that one." She points at Bakatare with a half smile peeking out of her bangs.

Bakatare's face pulls up into a resigned smile, and he nods. "Of course."

He gives the young girl a small bow and steps up to the gallery and the tome resting upon it. He reaches up, , murmuring quietly, "Some sacrifices are necessary for those of great destiny." as he slides his wrist into the manacle and clamps it closed.

Bakatare
You feel the cold spikes pierce your flesh and bite deep. A cold dread settles over you as the pain of the act moves through your body. The little girl moves to your side, humming under her breath. She looks up at you, a look of sympathy etched on her features.

"The way to the next realm can be opend by reading from the book of your life." She lightly taps the book now chained to your wrist. "I am sorry but you will need to read it aloud so that all traveling with you may hear it. Read too softly and some may be lost to the corners and cracks of this not place."

Bakatare's face goes from bemusement to tight-lipped fury as his eyes scan over the words in the book, and he spares a single, wrath-filled glare at the small child. His voice is strained when he speaks, and it is with obvious reluctance. He speaks loudly and clearly, however, heeding the words of this twisted Dweller.

"I am nothing other than a man, as I have always been. The blood of the Great Scaled Ones is not in me. I do not share in their destiny. My life has no importance. My life will flicker and fade as a thousand others do. Few will note my passing. I share in no larger destiny. My thread holds no significant event. I will be the tool of others till the end of my days. This is my fate for now and for the time ahead."

As Bakatare reads from the large tome chained to his wrist, the steady patter of his blood echoes around you. As the anger creeps into his voice, the light begins to darken in the space around you. You feel it pressing in on you from all sides. The light begins to darken, taking on a angry reddish hue. The once vast space begins to collapse in on itself. You unconsciously move toward him as he reads. You feel waves of angry lap against your mind and body. Something ancient stirs in the descending darkness and slowly crushing down on you. The last thing you remember and hear as the dark red nothing swallows you is her voice as she speaks in a whisper.

"Liar, liar. Pants on fire....."

Shiver's body quivers slightly under the palpable force let loose in the room. Crossing towards Bakatare, the troll does his best to keep his body between his angel and the young girl. Touching the ancient mind housed in a young manifestation had told him how foolish this gesture was, but he had to do it none the less.

I stand between the darkness and the light, between the candle's flame and the countless stars of night.

All
You find yourself once again, waking up from a prone position on the ground. The first thing that hits your raw senses is the smell of grass and feeling of cool stone pressing against your skin. As you lift your head, you can see the others sprawled around you coming to. There is a dull ache deep in your bones, as if something has been bruised deeper than flesh and blood.

Bakatare
You look around and see a vast sprawling garden. Dotting here and there are statues of people, seemingly random in placement and theme. You stand to find only a single stone square under your feet. You see no walkways or paths, just endless green.

Moira
You struggle to your feet from yet another unpleasant arrival. A lush garden surrounds you with small statues scattered through it. You see your son all around you in stone and marble. As if your memories have been carved out for all to see. One of him sleeping in your lap, and yet another of him at play. The pain tightens your throat as you look down. You are on a path of stone. In front of you lies endless branches and turns as it winds it's way through the gardens but as you look behind you, you see only one straight path stretching as far as the eye can see.

Paladin
Accustomed to pain, you push it aside as another distraction to be dealt with later. You see an orderly field of green and statues. Laid out in a crisp grid around you. The paths form endless crossroads of yes or no, left or right. The statues are people you have seen in your life before, all of them. A woman from a late night run to the Stuffer Shack, a man you saw at a meet once. A population of meaningless strangers stand silently all around you. You stand at the junction of two paths in the larger web of paths.

Shiver
You rise as you must, taking a moment to ensure your charge has made the journey with you. Satisfied she has passed through to here mostly unharmed, you look around at the overgrown and ill-tended gardens. You can barely make out statues choked with vines and brush. The single path you stand on stretches out in a straight line. Forever forward and back the path goes, the stone cracked and strangled by overgrowth.

Angelina
You get to your feet and your eyes ache at the riot of color and shapes around you. There is no rhyme or reason to this garden, the paths twist and fork with insanity as their only shared theme. The plants are twisted and strange, you gag slightly at the riot of scents. The path is a jagged collection of rocks, crudely forced together to form a path beneath you. The statues you make out seem unfinished, as if abandoned mid-creation.

Bakatare drags himself to his feet, the child's admonishment still ringing in his ears. He glances around, instinct automatically switching his sight to the astral in the empty landscape.

Well, I was wanting to get away from the city for a sit. This beems as nice as anything resembling a vacation, under the circumstances. Time to go over the checklist
Murrey checks the drones' fuel and position, their camoflage, the radio traffic, the network integrity, and the vital signs of the others.

Offering his ward a hand, Shiver lifts her to her feet.

"Shall we continue onwards? The path lays perfectly straight but perhaps it will bend beyond where I can see. I don't think anyone will be coming to care for this garden, so we must go forward to meet with Potmos."

His ears are perked and actively collecting any stray sound that may come from this bizzare world. As the old man moves across the flagstones, his feet tread lightly so as not to damage the overgrowth.

:: Moira looks with pained eyes on the statues of her lost one. She had known this would be something she would be faced with on the journey and had thought herself prepared, but the pain was still sharp and difficult to bear. Only with Shiver's comments was she able to shift her thoughts away from that pain. ::

:: Clearly, she could see more than one path before her, so his report of seeing no branchs didn't make any immediate sense. ::

"While the path behind me is straight and clear, the path before me has many options. Are you sure you are seeing correctly? Anyone else see anything strange?"

Accepting Shiver's assistance, Angelina looked around. "Curiouser and curiouser." she mused. A garden of unfinished statues...that did seem to reflect her. Her memories before the change were so hazy. She was lucky that she had recoginized Moria. Thinking of Moria, she had spoken. "To me the path is a broken one."

"Bakatare? What path lays before you?"

"Forgive me Bakatare-san, but you spoke of destiny and your future before we came to this place. What if this land is a reflection of our lives now and our future and past is reflected upon the path we walk upon. We are all to reveal things about ourselves in this quest, the statues around me are choked and overgrown to the point I cannot make them out and my path is linear. Such is the way of my life, the world around me is turbulent and not for me. My path and my choice is to live, to serve, to protect and to die. Nothing greater than that is left for me. And now Time creeps along at his steady pace a constant companion to my passage."

Shiver lowers his head and looks to the inner flap of his coat to ensure that his landing had not damaged the thin feathered darts that rested there.

"Please Bakatare-san continue."

Nodding as Shiver speaks, Bakatare takes a long moment.

"It is said that the Dweller on the Threshold requires some revelation of inner truth as price for passage through to the metaplanes. I must think more on the words in the book I've read, but I would agree that the landscape appears to reflect the past and the future, either as we each perceive it, or as it has been laid out before us. Before me, I see nothing. I stand upon a single paving stone in a sea of grass, with no path before me." He chuckles darkly.

"An optimist might theorize that my path cannot be determined by myself or by others, or perhaps that my future lays outside the bounds of Fate and Destiny. Regardless, I agree that we must move forward to meet this Potmos and whatever challenge he may lay before us, and as this is of my doing, I shall lead."

He tugs the suit straight along his thin frame, tightening his grip on the staff in his hand, and steps forward, off of the paving stone and into the grass.

Murrey
Once again you slip into the machines around you. Your senses expand out around you, creating a map of the area in your mind. You are instantly struck by the sheer lack of rigger traffic in the area. The power emessions you register are weak and dispersed. You clearly pick out the single form of the female warrior guarding the entrance to the tunnel your team mates crawled into. A moment of panic grips you as you fail to find the life signs of the others.

Startled, Murrey jumps into the spider drone to investigate the cave.

Shiver shakes his weather-beaten head wishing for Sully's ears but thanking his ancestors that he still had vision within his eyes. His knee throbs lightly to remind him that Time was moving on and that life must still be lived.

Leaning on his cane enough to lighten the pain in his knee without burying the point in the soft grass and overbrush that creeps between the flagstones, the aging troll follows in Bakatare's wake.

Astral Questers
You move therough the landscape, each locked in your own version. The garden appears to stretch on forever. You see no sign of people or any life for that matter. No insects or birds at all. The only sound your own breathing and the noise of your passage.

Murrey
You feel slightly diminished as your drop into the spider drone and set off across the terrain. As you draw closer to the cave opening, the woman suddenly rises to her feet, drawing her sword in the process. She places herself squarely in front on the cave. Her English is firm but clipped. "Stop small machine."

Bakatare trudges on, locked in a personal cycle of mental review and discussion. quiet to those around him.

Murrey stops the drone cold and activates the speaker, It's must je, doing a visual check on my friends as their signatures just disappeared from my sensors.

Paladin follows along with the group, but speaks for the first time since entering this realm. "I don't see my future. All I see if my past all around me. Faces of everyone I've ever met, even for the briefest moment."

He pauses for a moment, then adds, "Maybe its trying to tell me I live too much in my past."

Bakatare seems to wince visually at the indication that everyone else is seeing different sights, obviously related to Potmos and Fate.

"This is my first such quest, but are things meant to be this way? The stories I have heard of such things never mentioned the quiet moments in the journey."

Shiver speaks softly as he passes along his own fated path. Each step forward creates another link in the chain of events that carries him from the present into the ever approaching future. His eyes scan the horizon looking for signs of Lord Potmos, intermittently glancing behind statues choked with vines and grass and into the deeper shadows built within this land carved from each person's mind.

"It is my first as well. The Adepts don't get many chances for things such as this. But... this does seem... disconcerning."

Paladin's eyes scan the area around him, taking in all the faces of the figures around him.

:: Moira closes her eyes a moment attempts to reign in her emotions, then opens them and steps foward, choosing whichever path before her leads her closer to Bakatare. This stage was by his choice, so she prefers to let him lead the group onward. ::

"This will be my second, however my experience previously is lending no guidence to this journey. They seem as different as a sea voyage is from a desert walkabout."

"In general," Bakatare replies somewhat distractedly, "Each astral quest will be different, depending on the persons undertaking the quest and the intent behind undertaking the quest. However, I must agree with Moira, this is different from my previous astral quests as well, even down to the unique Dweller we encountered in the guise of the little girl."

Murrey
The tiny warrior's face looks confused and pinched. "They have left here and will be back." The small fox slowly creeps up and sniffs around the small drone.

Astral Questers
The sound of your conversation is swallowed up by the waiting silence. The journey through the garden continues to show you the world you dwell in. The area seems steeped in time and age. Nothing feels new or fresh but rather faded and ancient.

Paladin
You find yourself still falling back to your training even here. You scan around the area every few seconds, searching for......something. The tension and disquiet of your companions keeps you feeling on the edge. As you look around again, you spot a still figure in the distant to your right. At first you think it's another statue but you quickly realize the color is wrong and it's moving. The figure appears to be holding a large tome and you watch as he turns the page, to read on you assume.

Domo Arigato
Satisfied for now, Murrey heads the small drone back to the van.

Paladin stops in his tracks and watches the figure. It takes a second for him to realize he is with a group and needs to let them know about what he spotted. "I think I found who we've been looking for."

He then gestures towards the distant figure and looks to Bakatare to take the lead.

"If I've done this before, I have no recall of it." Angelina added as she stumbled along her broken path, grateful for the voices of her companions to give her something to hold onto on this otherwise bleak terrain. When Paladin mentioned the watcher, she looked around, trying to catch sight of it, wondering if they could even see what he was seeing.

Shiver tracks along the spear-wielding ork's arm. Vision passing over statues and vines, seeking out the ruler of this realm.

Bakatare stops, glancing over and following the other's path of sight.

"It would seem that we have arrived in Lord Potmos' presence. Bakatare-san would you care to lead as this is the land of your trial."

Bakatare shakes his head.

"I can't see it," he says quietly. "One of you will have to lead us."

Astral Questers
The figure is the distance turns yet another page in his tome as the discussion unfolds. He appears tall to the naked eye, perhaps 6' or more. His face is obscured by a cowl from the dark robes he wears. As you look you can make out the heavy chain from the spine of the book that attaches to a manacle on his right wrist.

Bakatare
You peer in the direction indicated by your companions and yet see nothing. You strain to will something into being, to prove that your passage means something. That this place, like the magic you wield, can bend to your will. Still nothing.

Murrey
The woman watches the drone crawl off, giving a small shudder as it moves away. She resheathes her sword and return to her make shift campsite to resume her watch over the area.

"As you wish."

Shiver turns to face the Lord of this realm dealing with Destiny and Fate. He takes as straight a line as he can to the figure with the great book.

Paladin takes up the rear of the group, watching everyone's back.

Bakatare moves with the group, unable to see the destination. He'd never heard of an astral quest providing false information, but he knew what the truth was. He'd seen the signs, read the book.