Starfire hesitantly walked through the gate and into the greenery in front of her, looking around her warily for any signs of life. Nothing could be seen besides the swirling fog, dancing snow and the grey building in front of her. A stone fountain lay to her left, empty and barren. A small patch of flowers lay to the immediate right of the building's entrance, a cluster of large blue bulbs that seemed to be Chinese bellflowers. Behind her, two metal braziers marked the entrance to the area.

"This place is so gloomy..." Starfire thought as she floated towards the door in front of her.

When she got to the door, she saw that it was a silver door with three large circular indents stamped in it. One of them was a dark blue, the other a light green, and the third a dulled yellow. On top of the indents was a message written in the same elegant, glowing blue scrawl from before:

The Three Wise Women

"Against the raging darkness stood three powerful women, three lighthouses in the Void. To the lost and weary they beckoned with open arms, offering protection from the ravages of the night, and freedom from all earthly troubles. Here in the shelters of sacred ground they lie, their bodies asleep as their spirits roam free in the Light beyond this world. The one who led her entourage through the death of winter, the one who planted seeds of peace during the quiet spring, and the one who brought forth the light of summer."

Starfire ran her hand over the indents as she pondered what the message meant.

"This must be some sort of a clue as to how the door will be opened. Surely I must find the things that fit into these slots!"

She glanced again at the epitaph, and scrambled her mind in an attempt to decipher it.

"Perhaps the colors and the seasons go together? Let's see…blue for winter…green for spring…and yellow for summer?"

"Wonderful!...but where am I supposed to find these objects? Surely I do not have to scour this whole city…"

After a moment's thought, Starfire turned to the patch of flowers and squinted at them with curiosity.

"I wonder…if flowers bloom in spring…does that mean…?"

She flew to the patch, and knelt, peeking through the green stems. It didn't take her long to spot the disc cleverly hidden among the foliage, its color perfectly matching the shade of the green indent. Starfire grabbed it, flew back to the door and placed it into its spot, the disc clicking as it fit perfectly.

After scanning the grounds quickly, Starfire set her eyes on the fountain, doing her best to be logical about where the other two discs would be.

"Winter is blue…water is blue…so therefore…"

An inspection of the old fountain yielded the blue disc, wedged between a crack in the grayed stone. It, too, fit perfectly into the blue indentation.

Starfire glanced at the torches, the only likely place for the last disc, and flew up to them, rummaging through the old ashes. After scouring the second brazier, she finally found the third and final disc.

When the last disc was placed into its slot, a loud clank could be heard behind the door. Starfire grabbed the edge and slid it open with a grunt, revealing a long, seemingly endless gray staircase descending into yawning darkness. She noticed what looked like a strange glyph glowing idly on a small ledge near the entrance, lying next to a note.

Just as Starfire was about to enter the building, without any warning, the gray sky all around her rapidly plunged into darkness, the feeble light disappearing in a matter of seconds. She shuddered, knowing what was meant to happen soon after.

She took her first steps into the building, and jumped in fright when she heard the door slam shut behind her.

"This is not good! And where am I? Surely I am not about to descend…into a tomb?"

The yellow light to her right caught her eye again, and Starfire turned to it, her curiosity momentarily pausing her fear. She picked up the glyph, inspecting it closely. It was made of a dark blue stone, with an intricate yellow rune inscribed on it. The light easily extended a foot into the darkness, illuminating the shadows around her and highlighting the note next to it.

Glyph of Understanding

"Even for us who dwell in Azarath, death can darken our hearts, and cloud our minds with depression, loneliness, and above all, the question of why we must die at all. And so, as a free gift from those of us who guard these sacred halls, we offer this talisman, engraved with the Azarathian glyph that represents understanding. This talisman is made of the precious gemstone Lapis Lazuli, which we have long hailed as a stone that generates perfect clarity towards all matters, destroying the fog of the mind on that which clouds our perception. This stone also aids us in better communicating with one another, fostering understanding and peace, especially among the brokenhearted and those enraged by the hurts of the past. For the sake of this communication, along with giving light to these halls, yellow was the color chosen to inscribe this beloved glyph."

Starfire breathed a sigh of relief, grateful for the strange gift. She continued her descent into the darkness, gracefully taking each step with care.

After what seemed to be a lifetime, Starfire finally found even footing, and walked forward into what seemed to be the first level of a catacomb. Surrounding her and rising into the darkness were rows slots with robed bodies stored carefully. A gentle perfume of something floral hung in the air, no doubt to dispel the stench of death. On top of each slot were the strange Azarathian runes, glowing in that same soft blue as before, and declaring the names of the deceased. Starfire let the light of the talisman shine on them all, and realized that the language of the city was one that she had studied long ago, an obscure language vaguely mentioned in the old tomes of Tamaran's immense libraries.

She murmured the names of the deceased on her lips, still shocked that she could understand the odd runes. With each step that she took further into the tomb, the rows continued on, until she came to a towering silver door, barred and locked by a massive metal beam lying across. Larger runes were emblazoned on the doors, and Starfire stood in concentration, attempting to translate the message.

"Here lies the founder of our paradise, the First Azar, the woman who escorted hundreds away from the war-torn Earth, and into this realm of new beginnings, her greatest discovery."

Starfire gazed up at the runes and bowed her head in respect, pausing for a moment to honor the founder of Azarath. After allowing herself to give silent honor for a few moments, Starfire continued down the hall, which was now veering off into the right, where she could see another set of stairs descending even further into the darkness. On the stone wall next to the stairs were another set of runes, this time, as Starfire mentally translated, marking the floor below.

"To the second floor of the Ancient Catacomb, wherein lies the bodies of our beloved Second Azar, and all those who followed her into the world beyond."

The descent to the lower level ended at another massive door, this one made out of bronze. Starfire hesitantly pushed it open, and walked out onto the second floor.

Robin was walking around the city, hoping to find more clues about what was happening. His only light in the surrounding void was the golden chunk of stone in his hand, which was still glowing with a radiant light. The snow continued to dance around him, disappearing the instant it hit the ground. As he walked further into the center of the city, the school far behind him, the scenery began to turn nightmarish once more.

Dotting the sides of the street were numerous corpses, all burnt to a crisp, and several with mutilated limbs. Unlike the corpse from the nightmare, these bodies had all retained their faces, which were permanently warped into silent screams of utmost horror. Robin had to fight his rising nausea has he glanced at the corpses, his mind already filling in the blanks about what had happened to them.

"Are these the citizens of Azarath?" he wondered, shuddering as he tried to keep walking.

The only thing that stopped him from believing that was that all of the corpses were clearly male, not a single woman or child among the charred bodies. On top of that, what little remained of their robes were the same scarlet color as the ones worn by the men whom he had seen abduct Raven merely hours ago.

His thoughts were interrupted by another flash of white in the corner of his eye. Robin whirled to his right to see the robed woman bolting down the street, her robe whirling about her feet. He gave chase desperately, aching to get answers at last.

He chased her to the steps of a circular building at the end of the lane, a building that was even more Grecian in style than the school, with numerous white pillars surrounding the exterior and artwork of robed figures in study plastered on the top arch. The woman ran up to the very top step of the building, before she whirled around, and froze Robin in place with her gaze.

The woman's eyes, dark blue and cold as ice, were glaring down at Robin with a severity that completely stopped him from following her. Just as she had in the bowels of the school, she rapidly faded away into thin air, to Robin's chagrin.

"Wait!" he shouted pointlessly, as she was now gone from sight, "I need to talk to you!"

When it was clear to him that she wouldn't be coming back, Robin huffed and ascended the steps, and walked up to the door of the building. The door was made of gold, and that same praying woman was etched into it, looking exactly like the statue in the garden of the school. After staring at the door for a few seconds, Robin pushed the doors open and walked inside.

It appeared that he had walked into a massive library, as humongous bookcases lined the walls of the building, with numerous tables spread about the middle. Stairs could be seen winding around the walls, leading up to upper levels out of sight within the inner darkness. The largest table in the middle of the room had one scroll on it, unfurled and ready to read. Robin walked up to it and shown the light of his stone over it, enabling him to read the English script.

Angela Roth

"In the year 1991, in the cold winter, a few of our missionaries discovered a weakened woman hidden in one of the alleyways of New York City, on the verge of death from overconsumption of what seemed to be sleeping pills. The woman was evidently pregnant, and from within the womb, those sent sensed the ancient evil essence of Trigon himself. Despite their misgivings, or rather, out of desperation to help the dying woman, they took her back to the City, to the Temple to ask the third Azar what to do.

Azar clearly sensed Trigon's evil within the woman, who told us that her name was 'Angela Roth'. She ultimately decided to have the stray woman stay here in our realm, where she would give birth to a daughter. Azar herself renamed the poor woman 'Arella', a name in our language that means 'Messenger Angel'. To this day, none of us have been able to decipher why our leader bestowed such a wondrous name on the bearer of a demon-spawned child. However, nobody dared to challenge Azar's authority on the matter.

Arella would quickly become one of our most devout and humble citizens, doing everything she could to aid us in our desire to rid the Earth of its pain and hatred. Many of us have secretly wondered if, judging by the nature of her daughter's conception, she has some past connection to the Church of Blood, which still continues to worship that vile creature."

"Arella…" Robin whispered, a memory throbbing in the back of his mind.

Then, he recalled the moment in Raven's room when the leader of her abductors, the one with the skull paint, had spat that word at him when Robin had stumbled in on their deed. At the time, Robin had thought nothing of it, but now, pieces of the puzzle were coming together.

"That's the woman. That's her. And I'm positive that she's the one who sent that dove, who brought us here. But…why? And is she…?"

A loud thud barely a foot behind him nearly gave Robin a heart attack, as he jumped a bit and spun around. Another scroll had landed just behind him, unfurling and coming to a stop at his feet. As he tried to take deep breathes to calm himself down, he bent down and shone his light over the scroll, likewise written completely in English.

Violent Incident in City Center

"During one of this day's prayer sessions, the entirety of Azarath came close to witnessing a murder.

Arella, our newest addition, attempted to strangle Joach, one of the school's teachers, to death.

Before she attacked him, Arella cornered him and accused him, in front of the mass, of allowing her daughter to be tormented physically and emotionally by her fellow students, all while he stood by and laughed. Joach treated Arella with scorn, and mocked both the woman and her daughter. The man made no attempt of denying his vile actions, and arrogantly boasted, to Arella's face, what he did to the girl. He made the near-fatal choice of calling her 'Trigon's whore', and referring to her daughter in the same malicious manner.

Before any of us could react, Arella lunged at him, caught him by surprise, and pinned him to the ground. It seems that she learned vicious self-defense techniques during her time surviving in the slums of Earth. Even though Joach was by all means stronger than her, he was unable to escape her iron grip. If not for Azar's intervention, it is certain that Joach would have perished at Arella's hands.

After this incident, the truth of what had happened to Arella's daughter, along with Joach's role in it, was completely revealed to Azar, who summarily banished him from the school, and took in the tormented girl as her own pupil, to live in safety and hiding in the Temple itself. As for the students responsible for this girl's torment, they, along with the parents who did nothing to stop their children, were all forced to give Arella and her daughter what seemed to be a humiliating apology; it was too obvious that for many of them, it was an apology forced through gritted teeth.

As for Arella, the enigmatic woman chose to use this event as a sinister warning against the many Azarathians whom she knew despised her and her daughter. After seeing what this wayward woman was capable of doing with just her physical power alone, it would have been utter folly for any Azarathian to make her an enemy.

And naturally, for those of us who were already paranoid about who Arella had consorted with, a new fear was stirred in our hearts. If this woman alone was capable of such a murderous rage, what would her daughter, sired by the embodiment of our ancestors' expelled hatred, be capable of unleashing with her own fury?"

Robin's heart began to pound with terror again, as he reeled back away from the scroll, his thoughts scrambling. The blackened corpses came back to mind as he attempted to cohere what he had just read.

"This woman tried to kill that bastard! Like hell would I blame her for trying. But still, that's disturbing."

"Is she somehow responsible for the carnage I've seen? And if I'm right about all of this…if these notes are really telling me what I'm thinking…doesn't that make Arella-"

The door in front of him was suddenly locked with a loud, reverberating clang that echoed throughout the library. Robin gawked at the door, and let his terrified expression drift up to the ceiling, as he waited for the inevitable prayer horn to resound once more.

The second floor of the catacombs looked just like the first, except the stones seemed to be slightly fresher in appearance. Starfire carefully walked past the slots in the walls, looking around her for anything out of the ordinary.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden apparition of a group of white robed men and women carrying a large bundle of midnight blue cloth on their shoulders. The group was trudging slowly towards the end of the hall, with a clear demeanor of grief, and all of them weeping bitterly. Starfire watched them process, wondering in confusion where they had come from, and whether or not they could tell she was behind them. She walked up to them slowly, as a member of the throng began to shout violently.

"Do you all see what Joach was saying?" the man snarled at the rest of the robed figures, who froze up in alarm as he ranted. "Do you see what happens when you allow a demon-spawned brat to exist in our midst?! Our leader died by that girl's curse!"

Another figure, this one a woman, glared at the man and told him "Don't be ridiculous! How could a mere girl curse the third Azar, the granddaughter of Azarath's founder, to death? Our leader was far more powerful than that child could ever hope to be. And as you knew very well, the third Azar was getting on in age. It was only a matter of time before this happened."

The man spat back "Look at you, defending Trigon's whelp!"

"Calm down, man!" another figure said, a fellow who looked especially weary. "Your spiteful words can't hope to bring her back."

"Like I care! Do you seriously think that me and the rest of Azarath will remain silent, knowing that the demon's mother is now our leader?"

The woman sighed in derision and told him "It is our duty, as well as yours, to respect Azar's wish. It was by her decree that Arella was made the fourth Azar, you know that. To defy that would be utter treason and folly."

"So what?! Azar could've chosen somebody else!"

"Azar had no daughter to pass the role on hereditably. As for Arella, there must have been a special reason why our leader chose that poor, ostracized woman."

"Poor? That wretch nearly killed Joach! That wench slept with our greatest enemy, and birthed his spawn here within the city! How can you all just ignore that?"

The woman, the exhausted fellow and the rest of the group silenced the raging figure with cold glares.

The last words that Starfire heard as the entourage disappeared from sight was the woman saying softly but firmly "Because, as the original Azar willed, the wise majority of us refuse to let hate and fear rule our hearts, unlike yours and Joach's."

Starfire was one more left alone in the dark hallway, shaken and further confused by what she had just witnessed.

"These people…they were not talking about Raven…were they?"

She made herself continue walking down the corridor, and she eventually found herself facing another massive silver door, this one marked as the tomb of the second Azar.

"Here lies the second Azar, who successfully followed in her mother's footsteps as a loving leader who continued to shape Azarath and the Earth with her humble knowledge."

Starfire turned to the right, to see another set of stairs spiraling ever further into the pit. Next to the stairs were more runes, which she carefully read, the translation process becoming easier for her.

"To the third floor of the Ancient Catacomb, wherein lies the bodies of our beloved Third Azar, and all those who followed her into the world beyond."

Just as she finished reading the Azarathian runes, the prayer horn of Azarath suddenly roared into life, echoing down into the catacombs with a terrible fury. Starfire stood quaking as the horrid sound rose and fell quicker than before, shaking the walks around her with its fury.

It took her almost a minute to calm down, and continue walking towards the final level of the catacombs. The darkness around her began to press down harder, and the yellow light of her talisman barely managed to illuminate the steps in front of her. As Starfire neared the landing, an ugly red light could be seen in the shadows up ahead. The light was coming from under the door blocking the entrance to the third level, and Starfire knew that something hellish awaited her once she dared to open it.

The prayer horn began to fade away as Starfire drew closer to the door, and with it, the scarlet light began to brighten menacingly. A horrid stench of rotting flesh was seeping through the cracks of the door, making Starfire gag. She heard the prayer horn disappear completely, leaving behind a sinister echo as she reached for the door handle.