Planar Chaos

Portal Saga

Chapter 24: Escape from Ravnica

Sa'Raah stared at the battlefield around her. She felt hot rage surge up inside her. She longed to fight. She needed to bring the terror of draconic rule down on these lesser creatures, to make the streets of this city-world run red with their blood. These were the things she wanted, however they were not the things she would do. Her mother had taught her the merits of a strategic retreat. The sphere was gone, blown up the instant it touched Marthel's hands. The artifact must have been too unstable. With her ace in the hole gone, she returned to her mother's side rather than reporting to Niv Mizzet her failures.

As she prepared to planeswalk she felt a cold hand close around her ankle, chilling her through the dragon scale armor. She kicked instinctively, shaking Vilhelm's grasp before the blind eternities swallowed her whole and carried her away to the deserts of Tarkir and her mother, Dromoka.

Vilhelm cursed, still clutching his eyes with one hand. Vision was slowly returning, but not quick enough. He needed to hide somewhere the Boros angels and Azorius justicars wouldn't find him, but was too weakened from the bright light of the blast to planeswalk. As he lay on the ground moaning in pain, chains were slapped around his wrists.

"A debt collector?" a voice asked, pulling at Vilhelm's collar to better view the Orzhov signet pinning his ascot in place.

"Throw him in with the rest, armored transports will be here soon. Let the Church of Deals claim him if they want him back."

"Teysa," Vilhelm sputtered.

"What was that, bloodsucker?"

"Tell Lady Teysa I am in your custody. I was attacked and dragged here against my will."

"Likely story."

"It's true, I insist you contact her at once," Vilhelm replied, fixing one of the justicars who so rudely manhandled him with his gaze.

"We'll talk to her when we get back to the city." Vilhelm was dragged to a pile of other rabble-rousers, Gruul clansmen who came to fight the dragons invading their territories. Those dragons now fought with angels in an aerial battle.

Vilhelm's journey inside the armored transport was uneventful. Befitting a man of his station, he was transported by himself with a handful of guards.

"What do you know about what happened out there? We haven't had an uprising like that in a while," one of the guards asked. This one was younger, kinder.

"I was attacked and woke up out there," Vilhelm responded mechanically.

"Vampires can sleep?"

"We can be knocked unconscious, yes. Hit anything hard enough on the head and it'll stop moving for a while."

"Oh. Okay."

Teysa was waiting for him when the transport stopped outside of the basilica, flanked by a pair of ghosts.

"Vilhelm," she said, breathless but firm. She leaned heavily on her cane, but he saw her pulse fluttering in her throat. It wasn't exhaustion that took her breath, even though that's what she presented.

"My lady," Vilhelm said, kneeling. He directed his gaze to the justicars standing to the side. "Could you perhaps remove these? Can't you see Lady Teysa needs an arm to rest on?"

They hastily removed his chains. Vilhelm stood to his full height, passing through the ghosts to offer Teysa his arm. She took it gratefully, leaning on him heavily.

"You will have some explaining to do. The Obzedat would like a word."

Vilhelm met eyes with every ghost they passed in the halls of the great basilica of the Church of Deals. They moved as a unit closer to the center of the church and the shrine abandoned by Orzhova, a god who was long dead if it had ever existed at all.

"My Lady, I have nothing to hide. I was attacked in the streets while on a mission for the Church and awoke in the field with my eyesight burned away by a bright light. I can only assume I was in the wrong place at the wrong time." Vilhelm worked to make his voice sincere. He saw in her face that Teysa believed him.

A ghost whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened, then narrowed. "The Obzedat has specifically forbidden the practice of advokism within Church Walls. I cannot extract the truth from him in such a manner. However, I believe Vilhelm's account of events. He has never let us down as a debt collector before."

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While Vilhelm pled his case to the ghosts, Ral snuck into the chambers of Niv Mizzet.

"Oh great Mizzet," he said, almost gagging on the words, "your dragon-girl's plans have failed. The device is destroyed beyond recovery."

"Oh, Ral," the great red dragon said absentmindedly, "it is of no concern. I have other plans in the works. I always do. Tell me, where is Odom? I wish to speak with him."

"Possibly dead. The device was destroyed by an explosion the likes of which hasn't been seen since the last incident in which he was involved."

"I warned her to never let the boy touch artifacts. They mix like exploding salt and water." Niv sighed. "I did like him, too. His spellcraft and biomass experiments added a bit of extra flair to the guild."

Ral exited, returning to his apartment to once again find Tezzeret sitting in his easy chair.

"Did you take care of it?" Tezzeret asked.

Ral nodded.

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"Nadia, I think it's time we take a vacation from this plane," Marthel said to his angel companion. "Do me a favor and drop a check for the next few months' rent, cancel my appointments, and pick up my drycleaning."

"Do it yourself," Nadia said, nursing a singed wing. "Marthel, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking 'oh shit, this is gonna be so fucked up, what do I do?'"

"You put everyone in danger with your harebrained scheme this time. In serious danger."

"I didn't know you cared so much," Marthel said sarcastically.

"Will you get your head out of your ass for five seconds and stop dancing through life like you think everything will work out in the end? Sometimes it doesn't!"

Marthel's jaw dropped. "Nadia… you just cussed at me."

"Yeah. I did. You're a fucking idiot, you know that? So you go and do your errands yourself, then get us off this forsaken plane. Get us somewhere that won't make me watch you keep corrupting yourself. What happened to the hero I chose as my champion years and years ago when our home was at war? What happened?"

Marthel hung his head, locs falling in his face. He didn't bother pulling them back again. "Nadia, I'm sorry."

"You don't mean it. You wouldn't mean it if you'd killed Sa'Raah or Odom, and they're your friends." Nadia was in tears now. Marthel had never seen an emotional display from her on this level before.

Marthel opened his mouth to retort, But Nadia cut him off.

"I know you're going to say that this isn't something to be upset about, but it's not just this time. It's every time. You're careless, not just about yourself but everyone else too."

"You're right, Nadia," Marthel said. "C'mon, let's go to that milkshake place Sverre showed us and then we'll figure out where to go."

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"What happened here?" Kraasta asked, surveying the battlefield littered with injured dragons and dead Gruul clansmen.

"I…" Lisandra began. "I'm not sure. But I think I like it?"

"No gaping portal, no dragon army, looks like your angels cleaned up here."

"So we didn't really need to do anything?" Lisandra asked.

"Well, you kept the song away from the girl. That'll work for me. I'm going home." Kraasta sighed and planeswalked back to her hut on what used to be Jund. "I missed you, hut," the viashino said, sitting down in her favorite chair.

Lisandra sighed. "What am I going to do now?" The back of her hands tingled. "Oh, you want to talk?"

She raised her hands to her eyes. This time Phenax showed her an image of Theros. "Getting out of here probably is a good idea. Let me pack."

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"Robes?" Odom asked.

"Check." Ashleigh scribbled on her notepad.

"Alchemy set?"

"Check."

"Spaghetti?"

"Check." She hefted the covered pot off the ground and held it on her hip.

"Is that everything?"

"Yup. I'm excited. You know how much I love unicorns."

"Just don't try to feed them spaghetti."

"That was one time, and it was a pegasus."

"Alright, let's go."

Odom arrived on Acornum with no problems. The rainbow-pebbled beach stretched out in either direction, fading into mangroves that formed romantic arches over the sparkling seawater. Shrieking harpies sat hunched on the jagged rocks that made up barrier islands, protecting this serene location from the worst of the sea's violence.

Ashleigh did not arrive. She slammed into something in the blind eternities and was tossed, sphaghetti and all, onto a plane she couldn't identify at first. Her precious spaghetti was spilled all over familiar yellow and blue robes. Brock wiped a pile of noodles off his face.

"You?" they cried in unison.

AN: EMOTIONS! PROBLEMS! INEFFECTUAL HELP! TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR WHAT THE HELL IS KRICKETT DOING?