I am in the Astral – heading for the Stray Manor gate – after a long training session learning to be a Wind Leaper. The Elserryn Cluster’s color pools are particularly brilliant, and I am taking my time crossing – practicing my jumping skills moving from asteroid to asteroid.

Off in the distance I spot a group of people – to my surprise Fenelyn is among them. One the females is clearly a priestess of Celestian (seriously-they are everywhere) and the rest of the group is fairly motley. As I am watching them, I see them get attacked by 2 large insectoid creatures. Concerned for Fenelyn (he’s talented, but not much of a fighter) I leap over and come down next to one of the creatures with a flurry of blows. The battle rages – one of the creatures is killed and the second launches into the air and escapes. The Captain of this group is bitten in the battle and seems to be suffering in some metaphysical way I don’t understand.

Fenelyn explains to me that he is accompanying this group because they need a piece of a god’s corpse (why??) and so they are heading for a Githyanki city that was built on the top of one. The city, as they describe it to me, is about 10x larger than Bral and the Githyanki are notorious warriors and very protective of their airspace. I realize that this is the about the least safe thing Fenelyn could possibly come up with and resolve to accompany the group on their mission to ensure his return home. The priestess performs a ritual – attempting to ascertain if this plan is likely to succeed but receives no answer.

There being no direct way to the city – and since we obviously want to avoid detection, we begin a series of rock hops, utilizing the queer nature of the Astral to move us across vast distances. This is, I find, fairly enjoyable. It’s not often I get to really leap. Periodically, we take cover as Githyanki ships pass by. During one such moment, we hear laughter and turn to find an older gentleman – dressed as monk – sitting on a rock behind us smoking a pipe. He introduces himself as Riakka. Riakka refers to us all as a “vaguely larcenous looking group” (which is pretty offensive really – I mean the rest of them sure, but I’m perfectly respectable). Riakka also warns us that the path we are taking is perilous and likely to fail. He offers to take us to the city if are willing to help him with a possible jailbreak. After some discussion, the group agrees to create a distraction while he performs his own jail break. Riakka summons an ethereal whale – and we all climb inside.