<<<21 August 2057, 09:23—no spoilers >>>

Note: This timeline is not the same as the one depicted in the stories in the Fiction section, which is why it won't make sense if you've read some of the stories.

I'm not certain that any of us was in a hurry for the next day to arrive, but it did nonetheless--and all too soon, if you ask me. Our day began with a call from Harlequin's young friend, who gave us the location where the ritual to take us to the Metaplanes would be performed. He told us that it would take quite some time to get the ritual ready, so there was no point in our arriving early. However, we were all anxious to get on with it (and I especially was interested in seeing how such a large ritual would be constructed) that we told him we would be there straightaway.

We gathered what little gear we thought would prove useful on the Metaplanes and set off. When we arrived at the warehouse, we found Harlequin and Gabriel already hard at work constructing the largest ritual circle I have ever seen in all my years of practising the magical arts. Harlequin was on one side of the circle, Gabriel on the other, each one drawing out arcane patterns and almost oblivious to us. Upon closer scrutiny, it appeared that their patterns were very dissimilar; 'Wraith became very interested in Harlequin's (which he later told me looked like some very old variant on the Elven language Sperethiel), making copies of the patterns in his deck, while I concentrated on watching the patterns being drawn by Gabriel on the other side. I had seen something similar, but it took me quite some time to realise where--the last time I had seen something like this, we had been summoned to visit Dunkelzahn in one of his homes. Obviously there was more to the young man than met the eye. I felt it wise not to pry, though, since the two of them were clearly hard at work.

Eventually the circle was completed, and Harlequin directed us to stand at various points around the outside, each one next to a different colored gem. Harlequin stood inside the circle, while Gabriel remained outside. Gabriel was not going along, Harlequin told us--someone would have to remain behind to open the gateway back.

That said, the two of them began the ritual, pacing about and muttering in languages that have probably not seen the light of day since the last Age of Magic. I gave up trying to follow their chants and instead concentrated on the energy flowing in the circle. At last the world began to flow around us, and the entire circle seemed to drop into the stone floor of the warehouse. It was then that we saw the black shapes.

Fear gripped me as I realised what they must be--some sort of Horror, or at least Horror constructs, bent on destroying us. They flew toward us, nearly hitting Joe and me and requiring us to quickly duck out of the way (no mean feat when one is held fast to the ground) to avoid their touch. They flew by us and up toward the top of the hole. We barely had time to spare a thought about the implications of that when the world went dark.

When our vision cleared, we were standing on a blasted plain. In all directions we could see scorched earth and nothing else. Welcome to the Metaplanes.

We started walking because we couldn't think of anything else to do, and that was when we saw the outcropping.

A very familiar outcropping.

I don't know whether a chill went through the rest of the team, but one certainly went through me when I saw it. The chill was amplified when I saw, with the help of a Clairvoyance spell, what else was there.

I think I began walking forward at that point. I don't have a clear memory of it. Soon enough the others saw what had disturbed me:

Us.

Dead.

Back when we had completed the last metaplanar jaunt with our favorite clown-painted elf, we had chosen to leave part of ourselves behind to guard Thayla and her song. Now Thayla was gone, and we...

I saw myself first. I had been neatly impaled on a spike of rock. The others fared no better: 'Wraith was in several pieces, looking like he had been pushed violently through the bars of a cage. Joe hung precariously on the edge of the Chasm, his body buffetted by the winds. Ocelot was rolled up in a much smaller ball than his bones, had they been intact, should have allowed. It was quite a disturbing sight, and that is probably the understatement of the year.

'Wraith was the first to attempt to touch his "double's" body. Upon doing so, he immediately collapsed, becoming violently ill, as the body crumbled to dust. The rest of us, feeling that this was something that needed to be done, followed suit with varying degrees of success. It was after the bodies were gone that we noticed the golden birdcage with the single white and black feathers inside. Things did not look good for Thayla. A pall of sadness fell over the team, and we immediately determined that we all wanted to be elsewhere. We started walking once more.

Gradually as we went we became aware of the ground crunching beneath our feet. At one point Joe stepped through something, crushing it under his massive weight. Taking a close look at the ground beneath us, we realised we were trudging through a field of blasted human skulls. Harlequin decided this would be a good point to try to figure out what was going on, so he made use of my Clairvoyance spell to add to another spell of his own, allowing him to project to us a view of what had occurred here.

'Wraith recognized it first, and I wasn't far behind. The oldstyle flatscreen movie is still a classic in our day, and there was no mistaking the scene of merciless robots rolling over fields of skulls. It was a bizarre amalgamation of "Terminator" and "Terminator II." But what did it mean?

Harlequin surmised, and we agreed, that this was a vision of what would befall Earth if the Horrors were allowed to cross over the Chasm. It was at that moment that we remembered the black figures that passed us as we went. Harlequin told us that was the other reason he had left Gabriel behind--to guard against such interlopers. We asked if he had any chance against such creatures, and Harlequin replied that he hoped so. Not very comforting.

Like the last time we were here, Harlequin told us that he could not go with us where we had to go--that he had things he had to do as well, and that we would likely meet up again some time later, if we were successful. Taking a piece of chalk, he drew a strange pair of double doors and motioned us through them. 'Wraith approached them, looking for a knob, but Joe merely touched them. With a "whoosh" reminiscent of some old science fiction series, they slid open. Joe, without a look back, went through first, and we were quick to follow. We had no idea what we were supposed to do, but we all knew that whatever it was, we had to do it.

When we reappeared, we were standing next to a freeway. All four of us were human, and dressed in the style of the late 20th century: Joe wore basketball shorts and jersey; 'Wraith, a T-shirt, jeans, and a baseball cap; Ocelot, leather motorcycling pants and jacket; and myself, a pinstriped suit and Italian loafers. Confused, we searched our pockets and discovered various items, and, more importantly, cash and credit cards (of which I apparently possessed the lion's share). The sign near us read "405 - San Diego Fwy." And naturally we had no idea what we were supposed to be doing.

But then, that's nothing new.