The man has overheard you.

"There are only two entrances to the lower levels. If you take the central tunnel that leads off the north or south corridors here you will find a secret door at the back. It is the top part of an airlock as there is water in the lower tunnels. Stairs decend to the next airlock. The doors lead to either side of a subterranean waterway. Turning east will lead to a bifurcation in the waterway and the entrance to the third level. This level has not been explored by any living although there are references in old records. If you travel west the waterway splits into three. If you continue straight ahead (you'll need to jump across the fork) you'll find a tunnel to the right. That is where the slayers are. The chances are that they will find you first. Remember they will not hurt you if you don't hurt them."

"Thank you for your help," Lurel replies to him, and turns to the others. "Well, let's go - we know the way now. Midge, can you keep that danger sense of yours on high alert? Lisette, we're going to need light - can you see to that? And if anyone really doesn't want to go, please say so now - so we can arrange to meet again after out visit to the lower level."

He gives the others an encouraging grin and sets off in the direction indicated.

Ford sighs. "Well, I'm sure it was more suicidal entering that Xiwotsit place!"

He follows Lurel towards the lower level entrance.

You have no problem negotiating the directions at first. The second level of sewers has water at ankle height. It is easy to avoid. Other than that they look just like the sewers you have left except here all the light is from your torches. You travel west to the point where the tunnel divides. As you reach it all the torches go out. Any attempt to use magic fails. There is absolute silence.

Ford freezes. He whispers. "Uh... guys?"

He waits for someone to cast a spell, or something. But there is merely quiet. A cold shiver starts up his spine as he imagines sneaky back-stabbings and slitted throats as he looks around desperately trying to see something.

Lurel takes a deep breath. "Midge," he whispers, "what does your danger sense tell you?"

He calls into the darkness. "We have come to speak to the Black Slayers. If you are they, greetings."

Midge feels nothing. There seems to be a major force blanking out all skills and magic.

A man's voice speaks from about two paces in front of Lurel.

"We know who you are, you make no attempt to hide it. This is either bravery or naivety on yor part. You want to talk of arrows. We do not. You have no affiliation with guilds. You do not even know who we are or what we do. But tell me, what do YOU think we do?"

There is nothing to see, only a sense that the man is not alone. Ford is correct in guessing they are both behind and in front of the party.

Lurel cannot empathise. These people or at least one of them is a mage of tremendous power. A magical power that is not supposed to exist in Levdia.

"I do not know," Lurel admits. "I have thought of you as an assassins' guild, working to a code of honour of your own, and perhaps for a purpose of your own. But you have power... greater than any we have encountered on Levdia. Yet you do not kill indiscriminately."

He pauses. "You do not wish to speak of arrows. Is there anything, then, that you would speak to us about?"

OOC> sorry rushing to complete Iredior books

"I did not say we would not talk about arrows but that we do not want to. The arrows are very particular to us as I am sure you have learned. However if you have a good reason for talking of them you must make it clear.

As for your view of us, there is an element of truth in that we do occasionally have to carry out an assassination. But they are rare and always highly publicised to keep them that way. Our main job is to resolve disputes between guilds and to keep all the guilds in line with the Guild Charter. Very much more boring than being assassins I assure you. But assassination is the only part of our role that ever gets noticed."

As everyone stands in the pitch darkness wondering what to do, Lurel hears Thail in his head.

"Lurel, there are several groups of armed men gathering in the forest. I do not know why they are here or what they want but they alarm me. I think you need to come back here as soon as you can."

Lurel considers for a few moments longer, the need to choose his words carefully tempered by Thaill's message.

"I believe we have a good reason to seek you out - whether you consider our reason good enough to talk to us, that is your decision. Very well. Things are ... amiss in Levdia. It is hard to describe it any better, without going into a lot of detail.. and I have just had news.. time is pressing. The 'wrongness' in Levdia has been traced to an item that is not in its proper place - an arrow. We need to track down the proper place for this arrow to be. And all enquiries about arrows are leading to the Black Slayers."

He pauses for breath.

"But there is more... I do not know how it all connects to our mission to replace the arrow. Things are going on in Branden Forest - I suspect the Lindan Yar may be involved. In the forest, Ford here found a dead man - with an arrow sticking out of him. If this is your business and none of ours, we will not pursue this. If, however, it is not your business but someone else has been using one of your arrows, then maybe you might want to look into it."

He shrugs. "In brief, this is why we have come to seek you out. Maybe we have been following a false trail... then I don't know what to do other than to investigate what is going on in the forest.

Will you talk to us?"

There is a silence then suddenly the scene is brilliantly illuminated. You are facing maybe a dozen men all middle aged and distinctly unfit. Their leader nods. "Follow me to our temporary HQ. What you say troubles me. I'm afraid any missing arrow will not be one of ours as ours are individually numbered. I will explain about them in a minute. But the Lindan Yar... We are here because of the Lindan Yar. Well, when we are back at HQ you must tell us all about it."

OOC> I'll post the explanation of the arrows on Monday when Switch is back.

Lurel exhales audibly with relief. "Very well, let's go. I've had a bad feeling about the Lindan Yar ever since they first started following us, and I'd be keen to hear what you can tell us about them."

Ford sighs in relief, and is surprised to see the state of the Black Slayers, although he tries not to show it. 'I was expecting muscley 25 year olds armed to the teeth... oh well...'

He follows the others to the HQ quietly.

The pace is quite fast but they talk as they go. The area they inhabit is very makeshift. No arrows are immediately visible. What you do see are two other members who are much taller and fitter, they seem to blend into the room as if they were not really there. They are a little scary.

"We are the enforcers of the guild laws. Rarely does it require us to take a life but when we do it is made very clear. We break an arrow across the corpse in a particular way. Of course this could easily be copied so the arrows are also numbered in a unique way. We are here only to carry out the disposal of two men from the Lindan Yar. We had no arrows so bought fifty. I numbered them all myself yesterday and there were fifty there. Do you want to see them?"

"The Lindan Yar are a guild that operates very close to the edge of guild law. Until recently they have however always been just inside it. Recently one of the most popular narcotics 'cheweed' became unavailable. Suddenly someone in the Lindan Yar seems to think they have found a new supply. But because it is scarce they are trying to change the rules, behaving as if guild laws were nothing. We have to demonstrate that they are wrong. Words were used first. Our agent did not return and may well be the corpse you found in the forest. The men we seek are around this area. I wish I knew more about this supposed 'new' supply."

Siffli examines the arrows.

Siffli observes that the arrows are neatly bundled into groups of ten. They are all the same size and shape. There are however only four bundles placed on the table in front of her.

Lurel frowns. "You mentioned 50 arrows. But there are only 40 here. What happened to the other 10?"


He looks at Ari. "These arrows - are these the ones your friends made?"


He sighs. "I think Ari's people are in great danger. They are looking after some children who were born to cheweed-addicted parents... if I understood correctly. I hope I am wrong, but I fear that it is this which may be attracting the Lindan Yar."

He frowns, trying to remember what the Held members told them about the children, "Ford, Ari, Midge - can you remember anything else about the children?"


He tries to contact Thaill, to tell her about the Lindan Yar and the new source of cheweed.

Ford ponders. "All I remember is they were in pretty poor shape. Their parents went crazy and died due to the cheweed shortage in their town. Most of the children weren't going to live very long... Ari's people had to ration out the remaining cheweed supplies to keep the children alive, since their bodies were dependant on it. There was one little girl who seemed to be unaffected by the stuff..."

He sighs sadly. "I think that's everything... although I might be forgetting something."

Thail responds to Lurel first.

"I cannot move from here until the problem with magic is resolved. Have you found your arrow yet? I will pass on what you say next time a member of the Held comes to see me. I think there are 90 men in the forest at the moment. The Held is watching them but not worried at they have a fighting strength of 200 or so. But the Held are used to ranged weapons and they are away from their village. I am more worried than they are. Come back as soon as you can."

Ari confirms that the arrows look right.

The slayers look at each other and then nod to the two sinister figures.

"We have these ready for our execution." The one whp speaks sounds hardly hman and it makes you shudder,

A final bundle of arrows is handed to Ford, the nearest to the man. He counts 9 arrows.

Ford shivers slightly at the tone of the man and takes the arrows, looking down at them. He raises an eyebrow. "I only count nine arrows in this batch. There's one missing." He looks up to the others.

"Don't be ridiculous," The words come out like a snake's hiss. A thing black gloved hand snatches them back. The man then turns to the apparent leader. "He is correct. Where is the tenth arrow?"

The leader hurries across and then turns to Siffli. "You had better tell me about this arrow. There is one missing and it is the next scheduled to be used. We cannot use arrows out of sequence. This means we cannot carry out our orders to 'eliminate' the upstarts in the Lindan Yar. This is bad news; bad news indeed. Well, we will be able to in time but we will need to return to Flen and sort out the mess. You thought we were missing one arrow. Do you know where it is?"

The last remark is addressed to the whole party.

"I might know where one particular arrow is," Lurel says. "Whether it is the correct arrow, I couldn't say. But I should be able to get it for you - then you could have a look and tell me whether it is the missing one."


Lurel relays their discovery to Thaill.


"And once you have the arrow back, you'll be able to deal with the Lindan Yar? I'm not happy about them gathering in the forest - not with those poor children so near."

Suddenly Lurel frowns. "Who has access to your arrows? Who would have been able to take one?"

"Nobody can have taken one. I only numbered the arrows yesterday. I checked them this morning when I gave them out and there is no risk of anyone taking them from our assassins. What bothers me is that you have been looking for this missing arrow for three days - yes we heard about your questions above ground before you entered the sewers. How did you know the arrow was missing before it went missing? There is something very strange here. Have you any reason to believe that magic might be involved? If so who could be behind the magic. There is almost no magic in Levdia."

Somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind Lurel remembers Zekic telling him that as far as most people were concerned there was NO magic in Levdia. Yet this man had made no attempt to suggest he was anything other than hugely powerful.

The only magic users known still to be in Levdia were those who predated the sundering of the dimensions. The only thing Lurel can be sure about is that the man is accepting of Lurel's story. And he does certainly sound as if he is on the same side.

He says unexpectedly: "Perhaps you have some names I might know?"

*Siffli watches the exchange and heightened tensions with great amusement and interest.*

The man nudges them from their trance. "I believe this is important. I do not understand what is going on. Magic is clearly involved. Magic is very rare in Levdia. To my knowledge there are only a few practitioners left alive. Have you met any of them recently?"

"Forgive my companions, they are at a loss for words sometimes...I for one fear I do not retain the knowledge to answer your query."

*Siffli glares at the others, waiting for one of them to respond.

Ford whispers to Lurel. "Do we tell him about Thaill?"

"Magic users? There are some I know - friends - but I trust them to act for the best of Levdia and its people. However... there are others... we've encountered their influence in other places, where they've been interfering... does the name 'Anromaynyus' mean anything to you? And the one buried at Chert Hollow in the forest? It's there that we first noticed the Lindan Yar following us."


Lurel frowns. "The Leader of the Lindan Yar.. some Steve.. Stefan Kovac? Can't remember his name exactly.... he disappeared when we cornered him. Laughed and vanished - as if teleporting away."

He looks at the Black Slayer. "Do any of these names mean anything to you?"

"Like us the Lindan Yar has divisions. You will not have met the leader. Oh I know the name Anromainyus but he is not in Levdia. There used to be several wizards here but most left before the breaking. Anromainyus used to visit - Auran I believe the wizard's name was but he and his wife Damiel left many years ago. Then there was Mascor and Anima and ... but who knows where they are now."

He seems lost for a moment in his thoughts.

"I was thinking of the four remaining local wizards - besides myself of course."

*Siffli pinches Lurels arm and says melodiously through clenched teeth:*

"Somebody say something..."

She grins back sheepishly me at the man and shrugs her shoulders in mock confusion.

Lurel still has not decided whether he should tell the Black Slayers about Thaill and the others. He uses his empathy skill on the speaker, and tries to contact Thaill.

'What may I tell the Black Slayers about you and the others?'

OOC> I am reminded that some may have forgotten the main purpose of the RPG by now so here it is again.

Zorlon is being attacked and the only way to save it is to contact a strang group of people called the Aneira or farseers. To do so you must find a gate in each of the 9 dimensions of Zorlon. You are looking for one in Levdia with no clues to go on.

The magic affects each dimension and several related dimensions individually but you know one thing. An object from each dimension has been magically transported to the Castle of Storms in Levdia. Replacing the object stops the ill effects of the magic in the relevant dimension.

You have already done this with a piece of armour in Avelyssia. The object from Levdia was identified as an arrow and you now know where it should be.

Much of the rest relates to the reason why that arrow was chosen. Without it an event cannot happen. That event would work against the interests of whoever is behind the attack. You should have a good idea what that is by now but if not I can do an ooc on that too.

Ford scratches the back of his head. 'I should do something to break this awkward silence...'

"So um... I don't think I caught your name?" He looks at the man.

Oh. I am sorry. I think if we have trusted you this far there is no reason to hide that information. We are the Kharvan Yar and I am second in command in Flen. I am here only while we carry out the current sensitive operation. If you look for me in Flen you will find I have a small book shop. My name is Philemon. Years ago I was Philemon the White.

Ford nods, smiling slightly. "Nice to meet you Philemon. I'm Ford. Sorry we're all a bit silent, it's just this is all a lot to get our heads around."

Lurel takes a deep breath, and decides not to wait any longer for Thaill to reply.

"Anromainyus may not be here - you assume - but his influence may well be extending into Levdia," he warns the Slayer. "We have seen it elsewhere, in the Princess' home dimension."

He continues. "Most people on Levdia tend to think that there is no magic whatever here. It seems that you do not share this belief. Yes.. I know some of the magic users from Levdia.. my friend Zekic is one of them, but he is not in Levdia right now. But perhaps you have heard of Thaill?"

After a brief pause, he adds. "If you want, I can try to get the arrow for you. I have no idea how it could have appeared elsewhere before it disappeared here, but time is a strange thing."


He waits for the Slayers' reaction.

OOC> Crashed when I tried to post!

"Thail, oh yes I remember her from long ago. We all came from Angyngrax originally but those selected to help Levdia were given additional training. She was married and had a boy I recall. But you don't want to hear my reminiscences. I think we should get that arrow and worry about how it was made to vanish later. Until we have it we cannot carry out our authorised execution. Who by the way happens to be the member of the Lindan Yar you spoke of.

What bothers me is who knows enough of our plans to remove that arrow. Did they want the execution stopped? What is the Lindan Yar doing that is so important to whoever is behind it.

What a shame we have no mage skilled in time. Thail's husband was but he and her son died in a terrible tragedy.

Anyway, how quickly can we get the arrow?"

"Time?" Lurel grins. "It may be that I can help with that. And as for the arrow... I'll be as quick as I can."


Lurel attempts to teleport to the Castle of Storms (as he did when retrieving the Avelyssian item) to fetch the arrow.

Philemon's ward stops it happening but the moment Philemon realises what Lurel is trying to do he allows the spell to succeed even giving Lurel a power boost. The room in the Castle is unchanged but the arrow is marked exactly as Philemon had said it would be. Lurel returns to the sewers and gives the arrow to Philemon.

"Does anyone know what the Lindan Yar is doing in the forest?"

OOC> If this has already been said forgive me I'm rushing home and don't have time to check!

Ford ponders for a moment. "I believe it has something to do with the cheweed shortage I mentioned earlier. One of their contacts reckons they've found a fresh supply, I think. Probably planning to make big profits by flogging it off to addicts."

"Then they will slaughter anyone who gets in their way. Our asassins should leave immediately. What do you want to do?"

"We should return to Branden Forest to help Thail and the Held against the Lindan Yar thugs," Lurel replies. "Is there a shorter way we could take? I'm sure Ari must be anxious to rejoin his friends!"

Philemon looks at your group carefully. "I can teleport you all there but you may arrive in a very dangerous situation. If any one of you wishes to stay behind, now is the time to tell me."

He looks at each of the party in turn.

"All right then. I'll go... we best all draw our weapons before he teleports us; we want to be ready as soon as we get there." Ford draws his spear, slowly and making sure to keep it lowered just in case any of Philemon's cronies get paranoid.

"Ugh! If I have to sully my hands again, then so be it. I'm ready for anything!"

"I'm curious," Lurel addresses Philemon. "Why were you lamenting the lack of a mage skilled in time? As for danger - I have a feeling that we might be needed in the forest."

Philemon smiles "I think we need to know how an arrow in my possession and only marked up yesterday can have been somewhere else several weeks ago. Someone has the power to influence time and only another time wizard is likely to be able to combat that someone. Now you must picture the part of Branden Forest where you wish to go."

Midge will be able to remember anywhere you choose - the deserted Held village, the current village, the refuge of the sick children or somewhere a little further away etc. Philemon awaits your decision.

Lurel tries to contact Thail. 'We're on our way back. If the bandits are after cheweed, my guess is we should protect the children, unless you suggest otherwise.'

While waiting for Thail to reply, Lurel says. "I... am trained in the school of time."

Thail responds to Lurel pointing out that she is stuck in the abandoned village until the alien magic is stopped. She wonders whether Lurel might want to go to the Held village to see if there is anyone willing to support their party if it comes to a fight but agrees that the children must be the ones at risk.