The battle is fairly swift, and the Mulan-like opponents are rapidly dispatched. (One by Vedis as she sets his clothes on fire.) In conversation with the hellenics they discover that they have entered a plague zone. After identifying the place as The Libray of Zandria they exit through the portal back to the The Infinite Staircase and make their way back towards the door they started with.

On the way down the stair they keep noticing the odd extra creak, as tough something unseen was also traversing the flight. After a bit they face down the invisible follower, Laresca, a Lillend – one of the celestials that tend the stair. After a brief but cryptic converation they make haste to the Sigilian portal

Exiting they cover their faces as they make haste to the Temple of Celestian and get the priests to make sure they’re not carrying the plague ack with them.

Breathing a sign of relief they head off to meet Ayrun Sorpic and Lenata of Celestian in the Market Ward. Ef Utan makes a point of going to see Kilmar Quartzbeard about the price of his legendary folding plate armor. Afterward he seems more resolved.

The group decide that before they return to Spiral they should take a quick trip via portal to the The Free City of Greyhawk

Once there Ayrun and Kenari head off to the Library. They find nothing on Nova Roma, the world the stair led them to, but they find references to the Dreamstone actually having been native to The Dreaming.

Meanwhile Vedis and Ef Utan head off to The Broken Staff for food, drinks, and a discreet conversation with a certain psionic halfling.

Vedis leaves with Content Not Found: talos and goes to the The Greyhawk School of Psionics which is connected to the The Broken Staff through the sewers. She meets Master Pantrell and sits in on a lecture about the Elan. Pantrell recognized her immediately as a Maenad and took pains to make sure she knew that she is welcome back anytime to study. “Just get ahold of ”/campaigns/spelljoined/characters/telos-1" class=“wiki-content-link”>Telos, Shardin or Autamma at The Broken Staff."

Ef Utan meets Kenari and Ayrunafter their expedition to the library and they all head to Maldin and Elenderi’s to see they can get any more info on the chess set. After all, Parvatt / Parvatta said it that “the city told her it was important.”

The old man at the counter examines it with a jeweler’s loupe and finds a tiny glyoh inscribed on one chess piece. It is the symbol of Farlanghan, an Oeridian god of travel who also happens to be Celestian The Star Wanderer’s brother.

The three decide to do a bit more digging at the Great Library of Greyhawk. Hours of research go by until quite by accident Kenari Sanura dropped a book whileEf Utan was holding her up on is shoulders so she could reach a high shelf. The book fell open to a scene depicting IEN Warbirds engaged in combat with ground forces. The book is A History of the Greyhawk Wars and the glyph from the chess set appears on the tabbard of a figure in the illustration.

More research turns it up again, this time in a scene depicting Celestian The Star Wanderer’s departure from Oerth for Wildspace and The Planes. The scene is from roughly a thousand years before.

Hiring a scribe to copy the images for them they head to the Green Dragon and bed down for the night. Vedis returns in the small hours of the morning.

The next morning they take the portal back to Sigil, pick up Lenata at the Temple of Celestian and head through another portal back to Anfalas. The crew are quite pleased to see them, and Simmi and Elliwinkle immediately begin to romp about the deck. It’s seems like the young space hamster has grown…

Before liftoff they pay a visit to the sage Theron who identifies the symbol on the chess piece as that of house Leafbower. The Leafbowers are a family of IEN officers and legendary diplomats. He also tells them that he does not believe that elves could use the the Dreamstone since they reverie rather than sleeping.

When asked how to find one of the Leafbowers he tells them the only one whose whereabouts he’s fairly certina of is Admiral Villus Leafbower. The admiral has mostly retired to an estate in Refuge.

As they exit the sage’s building they run into Parvatt. After filling her in they decide to drop her/them off on The Rock of Bral while the rest of the group heads to Refuge.

Once back at the ship Ef Utan decides to build himself a room in the hold by constructing a walled enclosure out of cargo crates and boxes. When finished he stands there, hands on his hips, smiling. "Its MY room’

A courier arrives at the dock with a message. Opening the scroll they find that it is, surprisingly, from Torgan Betz inviting them to a meeting at the Bralian graveyard. Read the Letter Here

Arriving early Ef Utan Izenik and Vedis Valentine enter the graveyard openly while Ayrun Sorpic and Kenari Sanura flank the area invisibly.

Leaning on a tombstone is the figure of Torgan Betz, lighting a pipe of halfling leaf. He greets the pair and tells them that it seems they have a common problem- assassins. Evidently Caine and his people have been busy recently and has already killed a giff leutenant, a dwarven general from off-Rock, and a Shou named Toraneko who was killed by his own dughter. It would seem the Tenth Pit is arrayed against them all.

“After, all,” he says, " the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Ef Utan punches Betz in the nose, breaking it and knocking the criminal to the ground. “Now we understand each other,” says the bodyguard.

Wiping blood from his face as he gets to his feet, Betz nods. "Now that we’ve got that out of the way let’s keep each other posted on any news that might help us outwit these assassins.

Meanwhile in the bushes near the drop off into Lake Bral Kenari Sanura notices motion, as of an invisible person, in the undergrowth. Keeping her eyes peeled she saw sign of it again when Ef struck Betz.

She signals Ayrun who promptly fires off a series of glitterdust spells in rapid succession. The forms of a pair of archers are revaealed as Ayrun comes back into visibility.

Seeing the commotion Betz signals his people that all is well and to come down. Ef Utan does likewise.

We close on the image of Ayrun, Kenari, and the two arches walking down into the cemetary amidst a 40 foot burst of golden glitter…