Author's Note: this story doesn't concern itself with the current timeline of the game, nor does it interfere with any of the current Planeswalkers. It would though include most of the Planes.

Prologue

Xierxe found himself in a very strange condition that morning. He woke up in chains, and he had a blindfold on. He tried to remember what happened the night before, but he couldn't remember anything. He tried remembering what happened the night before that, and the one before, and the one before, but his memory was too blurry for him to come to anything.

Finding that his memory would serve no use, he tried to collect information on his surroundings instead. He was sitting down on cement, his back against a wooden column. He was wearing a silk tunic under a leather vest, with simple cotton pants for leggings. He took note that he was not wearing any shoes, which he found peculiar (not as so as being tied to a pillar). Confirming that he at least had some sort of protection, he put his attention next to the things that he might be able to hear and smell. He heard faint sounds of breathing or sighing, almost like he was being watched by an audience; and he picked up the smell of petrichor, mud, and bread. But not just any bread: newly baked ones, such that their aroma was carried by the smoke produced by their heat. He could only be in one place: he was somewhere in the main city, on the road, tied to a column of wood. And he remembered something very important that moment: in the city of Ravnica, there is only one place where such conditions can exist: the Executioner's Pillar, a few blocks from the church of the Orzhov syndicate.

"Would it be of any use to ask why I'm here?" Xierxe shouted, half-hoping that no one was there to here him.

He waited for a response.

"Hello?" He asked again, and again, each time louder and louder, until he shouted the word. That moment he heard his voice echo. He also noticed that the sell of baked bread disappear, along with the smell of rain and mud and dirt. Everything's seem to gone silent.

I must be dead, he thought to himself. He thought about his current situation, how he would die chained to a wooden pillar, and how he' die without even knowing why he was there in the first place. And then it struck him. It was true, he couldn't remember why he was there, or what he did the day before, or the day after that, ore really, any day at all; he didn't just lose his memory of the previous days, he's lost memory of everything completely: his past, his family, and more importantly, who he was.

I am a Planeswalker, one of the special few who can look beyond the horizon of his home plane and gaze upon the Blind Eternities, and to be able to use it to travel to the other Planes of Existence.

I was currently in Tarkir, the land filled with dragons and dragon-warriors. I was sent by Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, to scout the plane and the activities of all the dragon-clans. The Izzet is ruled by the dracogenius, and only the ones who rise up through the ranks and commune with Niv-Mizzet through a special link called the Firemind; and it so happens, that I have it.

The deserts of the Dromoka clan are most certainly, and would often seem lifeless if you don't know where to look. At some point in the wide sands, a fortress stands, grand in its scope, and more larger and stronger-fortified than the Akros fortress in Theros. The dragonlord isn't always with his clan, kind of like the Firemind's absence in the guild headquarters. There wasn't much cover for me to hide in, so the only way of scouting the fortress was to observe it from a distance, with a little sorcery to help me remain invisible.

Desert scouts walked in and out of the citadel, some going as far as to where I was (fortunately they could not see me) and some just went around and around the perimeter of the fortress. I didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for: he gave me orders to watch the Dromoka fortress, but he didn't specifically tell me what to look out for. So I spent minutes maybe hours just staring into the white-washed walls of the citadel, in the middle of the blazing sun.

You might be thinking: why would I cast Invisibility and be so far away from the citadel? Precaution. Though the clan is known for its resilience and high-rate of surviving, it still has a way with spells. It is true that most of them are focused on battle enhancement and defense, but some of them can dispel other spells or disrupt channeling abilities, for example, invisibility.

I sensed a barrier that stretched out 100 meters from the main wall, alerting the guards of any intruder that comes within, and beyond that a series of underground traps. It shouldn't be too long before I can create a telepathic map of the ground and make a safe path from where I am to as close as the barrier is, but beyond that, I can only hope that I've cast enough layers of magic to hide myself from their sentry.

It took me about 30 minutes, but I was able to do it. There was about 100 hidden explosive mines, armed spikes, and some hidden sandpits here and there. Whoever made the traps were smart, at least for me, since any Dromokan does not trigger the trap, but anything or anyone that is threatening enough will trigger them: that's why the scouts could walk straight across the desert without triggering any of them.

Following my own secret pathway, I made it to a spot to the east of the great fortress. I was kneeling on a depression along a series of dunes, so that even if I wasn't invisible, I could still hide behind the slopes if I crouched or laid down. From there I could see the clan's banner, at the highest point of the citadel, from what seems to be some sort of temple or altar.

I could not go any further, since I wasn't battle ready and since I might trigger the inner alarms thanks to the barrier. I was stuck. Of course, I could have gone back to HQ, or make a report to the Firemind then, but what should have I said? That, 'All seems to be fine, guild master. They are doing their daily activities as usual.'? I don't think so. He never does something just for what it seems. He sent me here for a reason, and I had to find out what it is.

Let's see... the Dromoka clan is focused on endurance, honor, and family. Their ranks form a 4-tier hierarchy, from the scalelords to the Foremost. Their spells focus on survival magic, hardening their armors and sharpening their weapons, and forbidden magic, which was outlawed by the dragonlord. What would interest Niv-Mizzet here? Maybe it was their structures, or the clan's architecture.

I looked closer. Using a deeper sorcery, I enhanced my sight with three times it's normal vision, allowing me to see closer to the fortress. The banner, the dragon scale banner, wasn't on an altar nor temple, but was one of four on each side of an inverted pyramid: an aerie. It's top was open to the sky to let dragons enter, and its bottom was where, I guess, troops go in and out. Also, on closer inspection, I found that what I thought were spikes along the fortified wall were actually soldiers, scaleguards they were called, holding their scale-shaped shields in one hand, and their sharpened spears with the other. Now that I was nearer, I was able to comprehend the largeness of the desert fortress. It spanned about 1,000 meters in area, with the walls about half as high. If I tried to scale that, I would be dead before I reached the top. I tried looking even closer and that's when I messed up.

I didn't notice that I had passed through the barrier, immediately sending a mana wave to the wizards inside. I counted, and it took about three seconds before the nearest guards were alerted to my presence. One thing distance and the heat does to your eyes: it makes you miscount how many soldiers were out to kill you: and in this case, I counted less, which was far from reality.

I tried to outrun them, but I wasn't built nor trained for running on the sand, and the scouts were more fit to fight in the desert. So geographically speaking, I was at a lethal disadvantage. Not only that, but the archers atop the wall had started shooting arrows. I thought that the sun in their eyes would at least blur their accuracy to my favor, but I was wrong. If I wasn't moving at all, I would have been hit right at the middle of eyes. Turns out the barrier dispels any form of unknown wizardry, so if any spell were cast that weren't Dromokan, it would be countered (unless the spell was crafted in such a way that it could not be countered), There was only one thing left for me to do: run out of the barrier's scope and cast Invisibility again. So I did.

The spell requires a significant amount of blue mana. But since I was in the middle of the desert, blue mana was scarce, and I was not able to wield white mana efficiently enough to cast some sort of protection, but I was able to do it. Once I did, the guards stopped chasing and the arrows stopped coming down, and I thought I was free to go. Planeswalk back to Ravnica. I was wrong.

See, Planeswalking requires two things: a substantial amount of mana, and some time to channel. Channeling would dispel all active buffs, so any attempt to Planeswalk would dispel Invisibility. That's good if I was a good deal of distance away from the fortress, but again, I was not able to. In my desperate attempt to outrun the guards and the arrows, I forgot about the path I made that avoids the hidden traps. Thankfully I didn't trigger a spike or a hidden scorpion, but I did fall inside a pit, about 10 meters below the ground.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before they noticed that a trap has been triggered, and not long scaleguards have appeared near the hole. I was close, actually, to teleporting to the Blind Eternities, when they called in a mage, and canceled the channel. At that point I was both tired and drained, then the guards descended down the pit and escorted me back to the fortress in very heavy chains.