Onwards we went. We arrived on another plane, new to us, called Cassel. I characterise this plane as a balkanised one. Powerful dukes, generally hostile to each other ruled their own areas. Each of the dukes had their own armies, who would not let any pass into their lands. Many generations ago, the magics of the lands were concentrated into three swords (Air, Water and Fire), which the most powerful three dukes wielded. This concentration of magics had changed the lands so that they too were now hostile to the peoples living in them.

Following the guidance of the stones we set off seeking out the next seer, Astariel. This path took us through the lands of the most powerful three of the dukes.

We fought with the first a cackling loon who wielded a sword of fire, he was no match for our skill and determination. We looted the Fire sword from his corpse, and after identifying it we were amazed at how powerful a blade it was.

Moving on we met the second duke, who wielded the sword of air. More importantly he held Astariel captive (he saw her as a powerful witch and hoped to use her powers to raise himself above the other dukes). Naturally he was not willing to give her up. During the conversation she darted forwards through the drawn up battle line evading the attempts to grasp her and into the safe "pocket" behind our lines. Battle therefore followed. We were victorious, taking the sword as a battle trophy. Again this blade was, far more potent that any other sword we had ever seen.

Now that we had Astariel, we were determined to pursue our course. We discovered that instead of 3 months, 5 years had passed here. She too was determined to brook no further delay, and guided us in the darkness, along the way to where we would be able to pass on. By all reports, Senator Amadeus was a year ahead of us now.

Part way to the StrayLight that we were to use to transport ourselves to the next plane we were met by the third of the Dukes, who it seemed, was a far more rational and sensible fellow than the other two. After discussions with him we agreed to leave, taking the two magical blades with us. This would leave him in a position where there was nobody to challenge his power. He expected to be able to unify all the lands under his control and thus bring peace to this troubled world.

We finally arrived at the site where we setup the cage. It was at this point that Sir Clavados decided that he must leave us. He had been encouraged by our unity and teamwork and felt that we were as likely to succeed without him as with him. He felt that could not leave Astariel alone upon this plane, and decided that he must guard her, until they managed to return to Orin Rakatha - which in time they did.

We passed through the walls between worlds once more to find ourselves in a new plane. Upon this world, in the lands that we were in, it was not possible to use magic or power, and all metal items were inexorably drawn to the floor. We later discovered that giant monoliths, called Regulators, caused this effect. These were erected at the command of the Protector (the ruler of these lands) as a means to safeguard the populace. Only Sir Ruff was strong enough to be able to drag anything around, and even he could not fight properly with metal swords. Sadly the two powerful magical swords did not follow us, remaining behind on Cassel.

We concealed most of our equipment as we could not carry or wear it. Soon after a passing woodsman heard the commotion of our arrival. He was shocked that we were out so late and encouraged us to come along to the nearby inn, getting out of the cold and away from the Mooks, powerful wild creatures that could be tamed.

Following him we soon arrived at the inn, which was warm, well lit, welcome and cheery after the several hours we had spent in the cold. There we took our rest, chatting to the locals over the course of the evening as they came in for a drink or food. A cover story of some sort was used to explain our presence and strangeness, something about compiling an almanac and coming from the south. We discovered that the Senator was some five years ahead of us in our shared pursuit of King Michael.

It transpired that it was some three generations ago that the seer Madrien came here, she had founded the inn, then called "The Kings Arms". She had left clues for those who were familiar with our towers and mission to follow. The following morning we got up to continue our investigations into this strange new world in some more detail. Our investigations took us into the woods to meet with Madrien's grandson, a Mook handler, he held a scroll passed down in his family for us - those who would be following. In addition we examined local sights of interest, grave-stones with runes on them etcetera.

Some of the locals assailed us, concerned that our presence here would draw unwelcome interest from the local Marshals. It seems that summoning was a forbidden art, but practiced here. We dispatched them with difficulty as they had powers they could enact, where as we were largely unarmed and un-armoured with no magic or power at our disposal.

Returning to the inn, we searched it thoroughly, discovering many more clues and hints concealed all about. It took most of the day, but in the end we successful deciphered most, but not all, of the clues. The details are too long and involved to go into here, but I will present the summary.

Madrien seeing that her death was approaching had summoned or bound a Hepath who would be the one to guide us onwards, and the clues were how to summon and name the Hepath. She had bound her family to provide help and assistance to those who would come and follow, for she had not lost faith that we would come. Following the instructions we summoned the Hepath and commanded him to lead us onwards to the next place - showing us where the StrayLight cage must be assembled etcetera. He refused, explaining that as we still lacked the picture of the next world he did not have to do such a thing, and that we should not trouble him again until we had the picture tomorrow, he then departed.

By now night had fallen, and we had not solved all of Madrien's clues. So we continued to look around for what we needed to do, and one group led by Lathrodec found a open sided building some distance away, where a game was being played, using people for pieces. Inside this game building our powers worked normally. Lathrodec won this game and we were able to pass on through a tunnel from the game building that connected to another one. Here some evil ritual was setup to summon an aspect of the evil sphere called Apep. Following Madrien's hints Lathrodec enacted this ritual and called Apep, who went into a sealed and guarded room. We defeated the guards and gained access to the treasure room, where the picture we needed was - along with many other items of magic and power. Resisting the lure of the items before us we took only the picture and left.

Come the morning we again summoned the Hepath, but this time as we had the picture he was bound to obey us, and he led us to the place where the walls between worlds were at the weakest. Coincidentally enough this place was almost the exact same spot we had entered the world. There we constructed the StrayLight cage and passed onto the next world.