A tower. Of course it was a tower.

Ash felt his stomach turn as he stared at the black stone wall, stretching up who-knew-how far. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the thought of climbing those stairs into the mist frightened him. <i>I'm fine fighting gnomes and crawling over mountains, but a staircase scares me? Toughen up, Ash.</i>

"Well, I think I've come a bit too far to turn back now." He smiled gamely and stepped towards the tower, running his hand over the smooth side. Maybe if he didn't think about how high he would be climbing and imagined the ground was just below his feet, it would go easier.

Well, at least it was a break in the fog. The smooth black stone seemed endless, fading away from eyesight. Jate took a steadying breath, then another. No way would he be left behind in this creepy place. Even the company of sullen and quiet people would be better than no people at all.

"I'm in. Ah....snail incident?" He shook his head and tried to get any images out of his mind.

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going on a journey through my old claims

"In," was all Eledhe said to follow Jate, her tone of voice impossible to read. She moved smoothly toward the stair, even as every pragmatic bone in her body bristled with indignance. Idiot. You can't know what's up there. Nothing worth dying for.

Oh, and there's something worth dying for down here?

Nothing was worth dying for, in Eledhe's mind. It made very little sense, to stand there staring up at a black tower fading into mist, with every intention of going up, and absolutely no incentive to do so. Because she could serve herself so much better down here.

She gave up trying to reason herself into a decision and folded her arms, expression stony. "Well?"

The Phantom, arms likewise folded, glanced once around at the group. "Aye. Well."

With the post of rebel leader came an unfortunate responsibility concerning things like leading the way. The Phantom, on a whim, drew his greatsword. Upon staring at it for a few seconds, and failing to think of much that was worth saying, he attempted a crooked and somewhat daredevil grin. "May we all come down again, in a manner not involving a long fall."

And with that, he turned to walk up the first of the steps.

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Jate tried to assume the same self-confident manner, but felt it slip with the first step he placed on the stairs. He could feel the faint warmth of the rock even through his boots, which was disconcerting at the least. Staying close behind his leader, Jate couldn't help but have a hand on his dagger. Whatever was up there....well, he didn't want to think about that. He wrenched his mind off of what could be waiting and instead concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. Up and up they climbed, with never an end to the height of the tower.

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going on a journey through my old claims

Eledhe was casting regular sidelong glances down at the expanse of white falling away from the edge of the narrow stairway. The fog was almost thicker around the tower now than it had been on the ground, which convinced her that the effect must be magical. This did not bode well. Something so obviously magical meant that something or someone magical must, therefore, be hanging around, and must certainly encounter them sooner or later. The thought kept her quite on edge, fingers hovering near her belt pouch constantly.

The Phantom, too, was far from relaxed. The stairway was winding tightly up and up and up, and it was just narrow enough that every so often missing a step sent you nearly teetering over a sea of endless white. The muscles in his neck and shoulders were starting to ache with the tension.

He was wishing he had counted the steps from the bottom, as a method of measuring, and running his fingers idly over the pommel of his greatsword, when a step directly beneath his foot gave way. Or that was what he thought on first instinct, suddenly finding his foot plummeting through the clean rectangular hole where, seconds before, there had been a completely solid step. He gave a strangled yelp, awkwardly suspended there with his boot in danger of being lost in white and never being seen again, and only then did it occur to him that there were no falling bits of rocky step below.

The stair was simply gone.

It took another few seconds of staring stupidly into the fog for the Phantom to realize the implications of this, and by that time Eledhe had already seized the back of his cloak and yanked. "There's no step," he said instantly, upon regaining an upright position.

"No, really?" was the sardonic response.

The Phantom glared. "Find out why it's doing that," he said, as if it were as easy as asking the black tower, politely, why its steps were vanishing, and turned to the rest, arranged in a line down the flight of steps and all peering up to see why they had stopped. "It's the stairs," he explained, with the explanatory air of a teacher with some vaguely obtuse students. "They seem to be spontaneously disappearing."

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"I hadn't noticed," Kjan replied from his position at the rear, where he was still recovering from having the stair onto which he was just stepping disappear entirely. It was rather disconcerting to put one's foot forward with complete confidence that there would be something solid on which to place it, only to encounter nothing but air. Placing one hand on the side of the tower - not that grasping at the smooth rock would prove very effective in slowing an involuntary descent - he tentatively reached out with one foot and, upon finding that the rock beneath it was solid, crossed the gap between stairs. He proceeded for several more steps in this manner before chancing a look over his shoulder and finding that the missing stair was once more present, as real as ever.

Even Tomith appeared to be caught off guard as a step disappeared from beneath his foot, though he recovered so quickly that the surprised expression may have been merely imagined. "This is no ordinary tower," he observed, voicing the conclusion at which most had arrived.

Kjan made a noise of alarm as he narrowly escaped falling through one of the gaps. "What gives you that impression?"

"I meant that in an ordinary dwarven tower - and this is dwarven architecture - there would be some pattern to the disappearances. Dwarves are inventive, but rather systematic. These steps are disappearing-" Tomith paused as the step on which he was standing chose to demonstrate his point "-at entirely random intervals. There is something more at work here than dwarven craftsmanship. We must proceed with caution."

"No, I was considering having a go at it blindfolded," Kjan muttered wryly.

"Thank you, Tomith," said the Phantom, somewhat distractedly, from up ahead, "for being most informative regarding dwarven architecture. I won't ask where you acquired that information, you being an e-"

There was a faint rustling noise, like the unfurling of wings, and with that very insubstantial warning, a massive gust of wind buffeted the tower hard enough to make it sway dangerously.

The Phantom was beginning to think that venturing up here was a mistake he was going to regret, quite frankly. Compile a stair that had conveniently gone missing from just about directly under his feet, a drop of a distance he didn't want to contemplate, and now great whooshes of malevolent wind, and you did not find a happy Phantom Grey. Confusion reigned for a moment as most of them dived to grab at the insubstantial railing provided, and then - suddenly - all was completely calm again.

The fog swirled into patterns and whorls of white, hinting first at what lay beneath, then clearing as another sudden gust made the black needle of stone sway again -

The Phantom groaned and put a hand over his eyes. Add another thing to that compilation. Missing stairs, long drop, wind, and now he could see just exactly how long that drop might be, right down to the infinitesimal dots that he assumed - doubtfully - were trees. He wondered if the dwarves were holding a grudge for something.

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Jate inwardly cursed the bloody dwarven tower and the bloody dwarves who built it and that bloody elf who took everything so calmly! He, on the opposite end of the spectrum, was clinging for dear life to the smooth rock and begging for any type of handhold. Jate had never been one for heights. Well, in a manner of speaking. Standing on the top of a castle and looking out over fields was one thing, but at least there you had the walls to hold you in. This was another story. There were no walls, and what you were standing on tended to disappear. Just wonderful. He leaned back, eyes stuck on the drop just inches before his feet. That step had disappeared at just the right moment...a few more seconds and he would have been gone. At the moment, though, Jate wasn't considering himself lucky.

He finally had caught his breath when the unnatural winds came. And, with them, the clear view down. The quick way down. He couldn't make out what the dark dots were, but he guessed they may have been large hills from any normal point of view.

"I may need that blindfold," Jate muttered shakily as he recovered from the wind blast. "It may speed us up." He couldn't begin to think actually taking a step over the empty space. What if another wind blast came? As time passed without another gust, he managed to hop over the missing step. To find, with a scared relief, that his former perch was now disappearing.

"I vote for finding the end to this as soon as possible."

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going on a journey through my old claims

"I second that vote." Ash said, not daring to look up from the steps beneath his boots. He didn't mention he favored the idea of finding the lower end, instead than the top. As he moved forward, the rock that he had been planning to stand on vanished, forcing him to perform a rather awkward hop to the next visible step. Glancing back at the stair as it reappeared, he made the mistake of looking over the side of the tower. When the fog dissipated, it had taken away the lovely fantasy that solid ground was hiding just below, in the mist. Now Ash felt dizzy, staring at the dark landscape beneath him.

Gripping the side of the tower for whatever support it might give him, he shifted his gaze back to the stairs, swallowed hard, and started climbing again. "If this tower hates us so much, why hasn't it... gotten rid of us already?" he asked. An unpleasant image sprang to mind of a whole line of stairs vanishing at once beneath the groups' feet.

"Don't give it ideas," Kjan interjected smoothly before Ash had even completed the thought, then turned his attention back toward not dying.

The group proceeded with caution, making pauses and hasty leaps where appropriate. More than once, someone nearly fell through a gap to the rocks far below, but miraculously, no one ever did. As they progressed further, the frequency of disappearing steps began to increase worryingly, until nearly every other movement involved leaping forward or hastily stepping back or whatever else was deemed necessary to avoid a rather long drop.

Kjan was just beginning to wonder whether they were going to arrive at a point where there simply were no more steps when something small, round, and rather hard pelted him in the back of the head. He whipped around to face the culprit, but he was, of course, the last person in line. Mentally shrugging, he turned back around and jumped to the next available step. A few seconds later, something hit him again, this time quite a bit larger. A rock. But why was a rock-

Without warning, many more rocks began cascading down from who-knew-where, dropping onto the heads of the defenseless rebels. Said rebels hastily covered their heads as well as could be managed and quickened their pace even more. The stones grew more abundant as the stairs grew few, and just as it was beginning to seem that they could proceed no further, a door rather conveniently appeared in the side of the tower. Not in the mood to question the prudence of doing precisely as the tower's architects wanted, the group quickly ducked inside to escape the barrage of rocks.

They found themselves in a round, moderately-sized chamber. Unlit, dusty torches adorned the stone wall, which arched upward to form a dome. The top of the dome appeared to have been at one time mirrored, though it was now fractured and dull. A faint geometric pattern was etched into the floor, though it was rather worn. And there were no other visible doors. Kjan was just about to comment on this rather significant fact when a faint grinding sound was heard. Before anyone could react, the stone door through which they had come slammed shut, effectively trapping them in the darkness.

"...I hate dwarves."

The Phantom blinked several times, waiting for his eyes to adjust. He should have known they wouldn't. The darkness was complete and unbroken, and after discovering that he couldn't see even his own hand in front of his face, he groped ungracefully out into the room, bumping into several people along the way. A search of his belt pouch did not reveal the necessary flint and tinder, and he was just turning around to ask if anyone had material with which to make a torch, when light flared in the black room.

This time his eyes did need to adjust, and the Phantom squinted at where Eledhe stood by a wall, having just lit a dusty torch in a sconce. The dull, fragmented mirror on the ceiling glittered ephemerally, in a manner that only flashed briefly in the corner of his eye.

Boots shuffled on the likewise dusty floor while they all surveyed the chamber, and then the door. To go out into a rocky hailstorm and danger of sudden death by plummeting thousands of feet was not a pleasant idea, even if they managed to open it; and the Phantom wasn't at all sure that the stairs had continued even unreliably past the convenient door.

"Well," he said finally. "Any ideas?"

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Jate stared dumbly at the high ceiling and smooth walls. No hope of getting out of this place, apparently. He rubbed a spot on his shoulder where a rather large falling boulder had clipped him. While randomly falling out of the sky for no other apparent reason than possible death. Jate grimaced. This tower was a deathtrap, but amazingly enough, they were still going through it. Of course, it wasn't like they really had another choice. Once his eyes adjusted to the faint light, his gaze was drawn to the faceted ceiling. The way the mirrors seemed to be broken was so interesting...it appeared that there could have even been a pattern to it. But who would break mirrors in a pattern? He had to admit it seemed far fetched, but he couldn't help voicing it to the others.

"You see how that ceiling looks?" He spoke, pointing as if they didn't know what a ceiling was. "It seems to have some sort of order to it. First off, it's all still intact. Well, meaning pieces haven't fallen to the floor or anything. It's all still up there. And there seems to be some sort of pattern or order to the way it's faceted." He was glad of the darkness now, as it helped hide the flush in his cheeks. It did sound a bit ridiculous. "It could have some sort of bearing on what it reflects. In another position, it might show a door or something..?" Jate's voice trailed off into a hopeful, pleading tone.

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going on a journey through my old claims

Unusually, Dante had been feeling much too overcome with varying waves of vertigo and nausea to feel the need to voice his disapprovement of the whole situation. He was most grateful too that, when the first step disappeared, and he'd grabbed Ash's arm, the younger man had said nothing.

<i>It was strictly for support anyway</i>, Dante reminded himself. Dusting off his shirt, he took a long look at the strange room that they appeared to be trapped in. Of course there wouldn't be another way out. There never was. Sighing, he pulled away from the rest of the group and sat down roughly, rubbing an aching bruise where he'd been hit by a rock in the back of his neck.

"We'll probably be here a while," he explained unnecessarily. "You masterminds can destroy what little ounce of energy you've got left on figuring it out. Don't mind me."

He was almost too tired to even think about why he should be mad at them, or complain about their circumstances. Even so, as he wearily rested his head in his hands, he couldn't resist wondering why on earth he didn't run at full speed the opposite way when he'd first run into this Phantom Grey.

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<center>
"The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air."

Kjan glanced dutifully up at the ceiling, but he saw nothing vaguely resembling a door in any of the mirrors. There seemed to be a pattern, yes, but it could well have been decorative....And perhaps the falling rocks had been there for purely aesthetic purposes, he concluded wryly. It was the resting place of an ancient artifact of limitless power, not an art display. Every little detail was there for a reason. He looked around the room again, this time searching for any sort of hint. The flickering torchlight bounced around the room, refracted by the mirrored ceiling and-

"The light converges on one place," Tomith noted abruptly, before Kjan could say anything. "On the star."

Everyone stepped back to look, and surely enough, one ray of the star was illuminated more than the others. Taking a few steps in the direction that it pointed, Kjan began searching the stone for any hint, any indication that there might be a door hidden there somewhere.

Nothing.

"There's nothing here," he said, stepping back once more.

"Then light another torch," said Eledhe caustically, and proceeded to do so, by taking the first from its sconce and going to the next. The Phantom found himself momentarily blinded by a sudden refraction of light when Eledhe replaced the first one. He squinted and moved hastily backwards.

Eledhe stood surveying the effect, arms akimbo. "Dwarvish logic," she muttered, sounding disparaging. Now the star had two rays, but still nothing had happened. The Phantom rather thought he did see the solution to this one.

"Light another torch," he said helpfully, moving to a point at which the reflection from this one wouldn't hurt his eyes. Eledhe gave him a withering glare.

"Obviously," she began, with the air of one explaining an extremely simple matter of logic to a bewildered toddler, "that would be the next logical course of action. What do you propose we do afterwards?"

The Phantom blinked. Eledhe tossed her braid over her shoulder and lit the next few torches, maneuvering the Phantom into a different position every time. "Does it have to be so bright?" he inquired irritably about halfway through, squinting, and repositioned himself yet again. "Bloody dwar -"

Something directly beneath him deposited the Phantom neatly on the floor. He sat up, grimacing. "What in the seven levels -?!"

Eledhe had brightened considerably, and was now looking as though someone had just handed her a sack of gold. "Get off," she said impatiently, moving to inspect what appeared to be a piece of moving floor. Having done so, she sat back on her heels looking enormously pleased. "Well? What are you waiting for?"

The Phantom decided that Dwarven logic was not a strong point of his. "I'll let you do it," he conceded benevolently, and retreated to cast Kjan a bewildered look. "Do you happen to know what it is she's referring to?"

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"Does anyone ever?" Kjan replied, just as puzzled by the mercenary's actions. First she was pushing the Phantom in various directions around the star, then she was pushing him away from it, and now...there was an opening. Tomith had crouched down near the center of the star and traced a line in the stone that hadn't been there a moment before. He followed it with his finger until he apparently found what he was looking for and lifted. A section of the floor came loose, and a compact, spiraling staircase was revealed.

"After you," Tomith said, motioning toward the opening. Down they went, one by one. The gap closed of its own volition the moment the last person was clear, and Kjan was very glad of the torch that he'd grabbed at the last moment before going through. The staircase wound on and on, constantly descending, and Kjan found himself wondering at the purpose of having just scaled the whole tower if they were to go back down halfway now. No traps sprung as they continued, though the whole group was prepared for just that. There were also remarkably few cobwebs and the like for such an old, uninhabited place, but Kjan supposed that not even vermin would find the tower a particularly inviting home.

As they descended further, more and more light filled the staircase, though the source of said light was unknown. They were getting close to something. Suddenly, without warning, the staircase compacted into a smooth surface, and the whole company slid the remaining few meters before falling in a heap on the stone floor below. Tomith was the first to rise, predictably, and the others soon followed suit.

They were in another stone chamber, square this time and quite a bit larger. There was no gold or jewels or anything of that sort adorning the walls, but the painstaking carvings had a beauty of their own. Clearly, whoever had designed this room had taken his task quite seriously. There were no windows, either, which was to be expected, but the whole room was still filled with light. For in the center of the space, resting on a simple, square pedestal, was the source of that light - a single, flawless gem, a little smaller than a man's fist. Not quite what Kjan was expecting, but it seemed to fit.

There was a moment of silence as everyone simply stared in wonder, before Tomith abruptly drew his sword and whipped around. A second-and-a-half later, the rest of the group realized that they were not alone. Leaning against the wall directly behind them, looking most unimpressed, were three elves.

"Look, the humans finally made it," remarked the one on the left in a rather bored tone.

"Indeed they did," agreed the one to the right. "A pity. I had rather hoped that they might fall to their deaths and spare us the unpleasant trouble of cleaning our blades later."

"You may make this easy, or you may make it exceedingly easy," said the center elf, taking a few effortless steps toward the party. "Hand over your weapons now, and we will make this brief. Resist, and..." he trailed off, eyeing their assortment of injuries. "Well, you already know how that works out."