Krant, the so called Jewel of the World, lay between two sparkling rivers illuminated by the thousands of lights of the city. The soft sounds of the nocturnal creatures at the Cariana Zoo touched the night from his vantage point atop the monolithic clocktower of Clockwork Square.

He'd been tracking a thief for some time now, one with quite a name for him or herself. The one known only by the moniker of Chance. The acrobatic menace had stolen some tomes of lore from the vast library of Dennsi and the subject of the stolen works was what concerned him.

Books about a forbidden place hidden deep beneath the city, a place storing things great and terrible. Angels and demons sealed during the Godwar were contained within the Vault of Krant, a place that also held many mythic treasures of unspeakable power and destructive capability.

Whatever Chance was after was dangerous, and he hoped that Luna was right that this could be the first key to his way home.

A moments reflection on his companion from Nibel College, an archivist with her head in the clouds, one of the teams sent out for research and other operations. She was the magical edge to the team, a sorceress of some power beyond the mortal realm and a strange thinker with some touch of the sight.

There was also a note of another team working on a similar mission in the city, a team that included an Eternal of an odd sort.

Eternals still somewhat made him sick, to many old memories of his own world were tied into the bloodsuckers or as he called them vampires or leeches. At least here the Eternals weren't as destructive as on his own plane, or demonic in nature. A few of them were beings he reguarded as half-decent beings, but they still left a bitter aftertaste in his mouth. After the fiasco with Angel and Angelus, he could never really trust one of them, even if the native Eternals were different than the vampires back home. It was a disturbing parallel, and one that there were others of as well.

The Wyldes which seemed similar in many ways to the werewolves of his homeworld except they weren't bound by the moon as the weres are, and then there were the genetically modified beings known as Clerics that managed to creep him out with their abilities when he'd encountered them. The Guardians, sentient machines that most considered as free as everyone else.

Then there was the descendants of the angelic and demonic forces of the Godwar that still showed up from time to time. The two races descended from them were disturbing revelations to the existance of things that scared him more than the monsters back in Sunnydale.

A glimmer of motion caught his eye for a moment before his training kicked in to identify what he saw. A breath later he was airborn, leaping off the side of the tower, the long and flowing cloak he wore swirling around him for a mere instant before his rough, leather boots touched one of the six inch wide mooring cables for the tower and slid down it with the metal soles of the boots leaving a trail of sparks behind him.

The silvered lenses dropped across his eyes as he leaped off the cable to a rooftop and started after the target.

The masked thief, Chance, was good, almost to good for people to follow, but the hunter was not quite usual and had backup on the way.

Alexander drew one of his pistols and took careful aim as he leaped from rooftop to rooftop while in hot pursuit of the villain. The brilliant flashes of the fireworks of the festicval of the new year starting even as he moved.

"Luna," he hissed slightly as his first shot missed with Chance using a pole to spin down a level to a lower rooftop, "Any time soon would be good!"

A flash revealed what looked like a playing card impacted an inch away, arcs of blue lightning arced across the metalic card as its enchantment went off. Xander mumbled in annoyance as he remembered that the specific deck of toys the thief used was nearly the signature of the thief.

Then three more cards hit the roof with sparks of flames, a shriek, and a sizzling sound before an explosion shattered the roof just after he'd leaped to safety.

"Explosive Jokers," he growled, "Chance has a few new tricks I see."

In retaliation he fired the five remaining shots in his pistol as the thief leaped across the rooftops above him before giving pursuit once more as pieces of roofing tile shattered under the gunfire while replacing the empty weapon with a fresh one.

The mad cackling of his enemy was unnerving and irritating at the same time as he vaulted onto a rooftop just behind his prey with the dim light of the setting sun across the city as a dangerous backdrop. He was again thankful for the lenses that granted him the ability to see in the aweful lighting conditions of the maze of rooftops.

And then a brilliant flash of light burned bright in the sky above them as a fireball seemed to collide with the thief only to have the acrobat evade with a rebound off a flagpole as his partner seemed to hover for a moment to unleash another spell.

A trail of almost ethereal streaks slammed into the thief, forcing Chance to shudder and miss a step, leading to a momentary tumble off the side, but a quick snag of one of the many wash lines kept the being in the chase.

The cloaked witch landed beside him as he drew a bead on the thief when another figure joined the fight, a pale girl with dark hair and a distinctly eastern style to her own attack on the thief with a sword.

"Ole," Chance declared as he moved with an almost unnatural speed and agility, pausing only for a second to stand atop her blade before bounding away when the roar of a rifle shot split the air, sending sparks as the shot impacted the reflexively raised blade of the girl.

Xander moved into pursuit, pulling his third and final pistol in his free hand and firing with both of the clunky firearms in the hopes of hitting at least once, but he wasn't quite ready for the acrobatic leap the thief made from the side of the building into the Tenro river.

"Damn it," he snapped with a glare at two interlopers, "What the hell is wrong with you, we almost had the bastard!"

"Chance's capture was our responsibility," came a male voice as a young man with short hair and a large rifle stated calmly, "We were dispatched to uncover what was in the Vault Grimorum that was stolen a week ago, your interferance was not desired or requested."

"We're under orders from Nibel College to stop Chance," Luna stated, her far off gaze focusing for but a moment on the now, "Apparently the same as you."

"Ah hell," Xander muttered to himself, "You're the other team in the area aren't you?

Characters

Team 1

Alexander "Xander" Harris (Variant Urban Ranger, Human) (BtVS)

Luna Lovegood (Archivist, Human) (HP)

Team 2

Jon O'neill (Scout, Human) (SG-1)

Saya (Swashbuckler, Eternal Chiropteran strain vampire) (Blood: TLV)

Other

Chance (Rogue/Thief-Acrobat/Master Thrower?) (Original)

Notes

This is set in one of my personal DnD campaign worlds. The world is known as Dark Trinity and can be found on the Wizards Message Boards under that name in the Campaign Workshop.

Also this is a present for a friend who should recognize most of this scenario from the games a few weeks back, or at least most of it. Don't worry J, I won't give more away than you've already got about the characters from the setting unless I have to. -