Alert: May contain spoilers for the adventure “For Duty and Deity”

The Holy Coin (high priest) finally came to see us, very polite. He explained that the whole situation has come to a crisis because one of his under-clerics – a very talented and earnest young lady – has been having terrible nightmares (I didn’t catch exactly how long this has been, but at least several days or weeks). This “Helana Jeshire” actually couldn’t sleep because of the visions – and the priests determined they are in fact visions, although they couldn’t find out inquiring through channels who might be sending them. The Bringer of Joy (who is overseeing things on behalf of Wawkeen) says it’s not her.

His Excellence took us to see Helana – in a private room of the infirmary, surrounded by attendants. At first, she just lay there, covered in sweat, with a kind of glazed look in her eyes.

When Ezekiel and Aliana approached her, she suddenly sat up, and cried, “Gold Lady! Abyss…Gratz…betrayed! She lives!”

This caused such a stir in the attendants. His Excellence just stared for a moment, and they all made religious gestures of some kind. It seems this vision was more clear than the others had been, because he now has more of an idea of what’s going on. Ezekiel says Gratz is a demon lord, so he could have the power to keep even a goddess prisoner. I can’t believe we have to go back to the Abyss again!

Anyway, Miss Helana lay down after that and seemed to relax, especially after Aliana gave her a light wounds cure. Once her breathing evened out like she was actually asleep, His Excellence went to confer with his superiors, leaving an attendant to escort us to another waiting room. This one at least was full of books, so Raven kept busy reading off the titles to us (though not all of them were a script he could decipher).

**

After some time, we were brought to His Excellence’s office, where they offered us a cold lunch, and confirmed Ezekiel’s guess: that Lady Wawkeen is most likely a prisoner of this Demon Lord Graztd. Some of his fellow priesthoods have offered to help, but he asked us if we would do the actual legwork – and what did we need for the job?

Clatrial and Ezekiel had a little argument about whether Aliana really should be going anywhere at this time, but I wouldn’t like to see anyone try to stop Aliana from killing demons, so in the end they compromised with asking Aliana to contain herself, with no back-flips or crazy stunts like that. After that, the main question was how to get to Grazdt’s domain.

The Holy Coin brought out a beautiful priestess with silver hair – not one of his, but a priestess of one of their moons (who even though she’s called Celune is not really connected to our Celene), and this priestess said she could let us into a back way into the Abyss.

Well, we are all about back doors – so we held hands in a circle so she could teleport us to *her* temple (a beautiful, vaulted building of white marble) and through the inner chapel to what looks like a mirror…but it must be another magic portal mirror, because if you walk through it you reach a mind-bending place called the Infinite Staircase (or the Celestial Staircase). The staircase is something like the manifestation of creativity, so it touches every place in the universe where there’s creativity. Even the Abyss. Lady Kiriani (the priestess) said if we memorize the place we come out in the Abyss, we should be able to get back on the Staircase.

From the threshold of the mirror, a staircase of silver rises into what seems to be an endless night sky. Almost at once, we met one of the care-takers of the place…something called a “lillendi.” On the top, they’re like an elf lady (though not very lady-like…Agnar said something to Mikael, and it made him turn very red), and on the bottom they’re like a snake – but they also have huge, feathery wings that shimmer like irridescent rainbows, and they fly around keeping an eye on things, I guess.

She gave us some advice for how to find our destination… This place is impossible to map! I don’t believe we’re traveling through actual physical space at all – not in the way we normally understand it. You can go up one staircase, then turn around and go back and reach a new place! The whole area is staircases and platforms…some wood, some metal, some a kind of wood Aliana called “bamboo,” some stone. We even found a platform that seemed made of cheese, but Raven proclaimed it nasty.

Anyway, the intention is more important than the moving of the legs, I guess – though the legs carry out the intention of the heart. They told us to look for “dark and cold” to reach our destination…and also warned us not to look for our hearts’ desire, or we might never be seen again. I suppose because we don’t all have the same heart’s desire, we wouldn’t end up in the same place…

We walked for what must equate to several miles, up and down stairs and across broad disks of various sizes and materials. There’s no point wondering what holds them up…Creativity holds them up. We only hit one dead end, so I suppose that’s good? Some of the platforms had doors on them – also of all different sizes and materials – but the lady moon priestess told us to look for a door with a six-fingered hand on it (I assume as a symbol, but I wouldn’t put it past them to have an actual hand growing out of the door).

We passed a huge, silver door guarded by holy creatures, that they told us was the door the Celune’s domain (again, different than Celene). Ezekiel wanted to pay his respects while we were there, but this place is so weird we convinced him he might not be able to get back to the mission, and Aliana is all about the mission.

We met a little girl who got lost while hiding in a closet (like I needed to be afraid of hiding, now!) but we turned her over to one of the lillendi to help her get home (they may be different, but I suppose they’re nice underneath. Maybe like centaurs…?).

Finally, we found a whole company of people camped out on a larger platform made of dirt – complete with grass and flowers growing on the edges.

Apparently the Staircase attracts all manner of people, heading to all manmer of places…and some of them decide to stay in this halfway place, like Master Dow who sold us meat kabobs. He says he enjoys meeting new people, and the business is pretty good here at the “NoWhere Inn”. He says he’s an artist, and gets plenty of inspiration here – although sourcing paint can be difficult.

An ogre-magi tried to convince Ezekiel to hire him as a guide, but Ez declined. We’ve got a pretty big party already, and we’re all on the same page more or less. Plus we already have an much direction as I think we can get in this place that listens to the mind of the travelers.

Felt rude to use the fortress when the “inn” tents were offering sleeping places, so after dinner we climbed to the next nearest platform to set up for the “night.” Hope things stay quiet.