Personal Log
OK. That last little bit isn’t quite true. We’re on the Grand Stair, on which time flow is known to be constant. Except that we’re in the Labyrinth, which means all bets are off. Maybe. Our plan is still on track, wonder of wonders considering the side tracking we’ve been doing in it’s pursuit.
We made it to Nexopolis without incident, and Finnian was gracious enough to meet with us. He offered us some clues to where Lord Callius might be found but professed no definite knowledge. I believed him. We then broke up, to follow personal approaches in an attempt to reach Callius or to attempt research into the Minotaur. Having no contacts in Nexopolis, and having visited the local library and knowing it’s limitations, I chose to attire myself appropriately and hit the beach. On our last visit here I had been too focussed on our mission and too aware of the eight billion people whose fate depended on our actions. Now few on Fierce would have any idea if the we managed to re-establish the link to the Grand Stair or not. Baudemagus is alive and well, even if he doesn’t dare set foot on the Grand Stair for the possibility of Drake sending assassins after him should he set foot out of Ionius. I can finally let myself relax.
Lord Callius, when he finally arrived, turned out to be a personal friend of Mena. When told we needed his help he said he was happy to return a favor. I got the impression he wasn’t referring to Mena when he said that, which makes me wonder just what sort of connections my companions have. Sturm managed to turn up a bit of information about the Minotaur which traditional sources lacked, but this business with Callius doesn’t seem his style. It’s something which will require further thought.
We discussed our interest in the Minotaur with Callius, and he offered his own personal insights. He had, he said, been lucky in his previous encounter with the Minotaur, having encountered the Minotaur in a good mood, having just eaten. The Minotaur is a hateful and bestial creature, being particularly hateful of anything not a minotaur. His martial skills where beyond compare, and he would be on his own ground. We would be best off trying to negotiate. His needs were primal, which suggested bringing offerings of food, drink, and sex. Food was quickly deemed to be off the table, as his favorite food appeared to be young boys. Drink was iffy as we were unsure of what sort of drink he was likely to like, and besides, I mistrust that the Minotaur is the sort to be a happy drunk. This left sex.
The Grand Stair is a wonderful place. It is said you can find anything you desire somewhere along it. You just have to be willing to make the trip. After some false starts as Cyra tried finding a suitable companion for the Minotaur using her computer resources we fell back upon our basic toolbox. Jane used her wayfinding.
Our journey took us to a familiar Door. It was a Door I had sealed not all that long ago as Cyra and I had needed rescue from the world beyond after scant minutes spent there. The seal was now gone, the door changed in appearance, and the doctor’s office beyond was now a city street, but the world itself was unchanged. We were being led to Planet Fiction. I considered myself appropriately chastised for attempting to seal off this world, although by what agency it had happened I neither knew nor cared. Meddle not in the affairs of Dragons, as it were. (Although Jane had, in fact, meddled with a dragon and came away apparently unscathed.)
Before stepping though the Door, Cyra settled masking spells around each of us, which were supposed to, and apparently did, shield us from detection by the World beyond.
Planet Fiction is strange. I had been warned of this before setting foot in the place the first time, and spending some time there just drove that idea home. We stepped through to a (Victorian era?) analogue of London, England, passing through a Europe-like continent featuring a variety of locales from wildly differing eras, with probably differing fictional versions of magic and technology as well.
Our destination was Greece, and wayfinding eventually confirmed this. Along the way we were met by a lady named Cassandra, the Oracle of the Eidolon. She gave us invitations to the Palace of Hercules and offered to prophesise for us. We accepted her offer. I was told that the being who could tell me what I needed to know was named Tau-Phi-5. (When asked if the proper name of the place should be the Palace of Herakles we were told that Hera herself took exception to the use of that name and was quite willing to personally make her displeasure know.)
Hercules greeted Callius by name and, after a brief explanation of what we needed, summoned the woman Pasiphae, whereupon he remanded her to our custody. I quickly linked a door to take us back to the London analogue and we beat a hasty retreat onto the Grand Stair, although not so hasty that we couldn’t grab some fish and chips on the way.
Pasiphae was rather put out at having been abruptly carried off by strangers and brought to an even stranger place. We brought her over to Fierce where we could use the magic of the Grand Stair to talk with her (in Japanese of course, but the Stair allowed us all to use it as a common language) and explain our needs. Once she learned we were hoping to take her to the Minotaur she was all in. We got her some attire more appropriate for travel and set out for the Labyrinth.
Somewhat reluctantly, Callius led us on a shortcut to the Labyrinth. Before we entered his shortcut world he warned us not to speak, and especially not to mention the color orange. The world we crossed has now been added to my growing list of worlds will go to extremes to attempt to avoid setting foot on them again. It’s only saving grace was that it did what Callius said it would, and we stepped through a Door from there into the Labyrinth.
The Labyrinth is, to use an overused expression, a magical place. On the earth where our Legion training base is located there was an artist named Escher. All I can say is, he must have visited this place. Up and down and gravity itself seem to simply be a state of mind, and things can change if nobody is looking at them. The Door bringing us here was a case in point, being gone before any of us looked back. This is the Heart and Soul of the Grand Stair, and I begin to get an appreciation of the Stair itself as a growing and evolving organism. I am tempted to simply wander about the place, absorbing it’s essence, although a part of me warns that to do so would be to disappear into the Labyrinth and never be seen again as has happened to others before me. I focus my thoughts on the task before us, although a part of my mind drifts elsewhere.
Written by Dave Nebiker