Plane of Death

        “Of all the diverse Planes of the Multiverse, there are few that are as unsettling and emotionally disturbing as the Plane of Death.  When it was first discovered by a travelling Mage it was thought to be an aspect of the Negative Material Plane but it is now known to be an independent Plane in its own right.  Since its discovery there have been many rumours and tales about the Plane but very few details are actually known about it.  It seems that every Mage that travels to this mysterious Plane brings back their own interpretation of it and not one Mage sees things in the same way as any other.  Perhaps this is because Death is, by its very nature, an extremely personal thing that no-one knows anything about, or perhaps it is because there is an individual Plane of Death for every mage that makes the journey to find it.
        “Because of these wildly varying reports, we are going to look at the report that Marcus Ottar, student of the Arch-Mage Myan, brought back after his trip into the Plane.  We have no way to verify what Marcus stated in his report but the Mage has a fine reputation and is known to be an honest and trustworthy man, so there is no reason to believe he would lie.  Besides, once you have read the report you will see that Marcus Ottar gains nothing from his report and, if he was going to lie, he would surely do so in a fashion that would make him appear in a better light.” 

Report made to pupils of the Necropolis, the Academy of Death

I would like to be able to claim some noble motivation for my intention to journey to the Plane of Death but, in all honesty, it was nothing more noble than simple curiosity.  Myan had mentioned the Plane in his many lectures and advised us all to stay away from it unless we had a legitimate reason for venturing into it.  Other than that one warning, he gave me very little in the way of details about the place and there is nothing I hate more than a mystery.  For many weeks I searched through the extensive libraries of the Necropolis in the hope that I would be able to find some details about this ominous sounding location.  Unfortunately, my studies were in vain for I found many mentions of the Plane of Death, but very, very few details.  Finally, I had to pluck up the courage to go and visit Myan, to ask him personally about the Plane.
        The interview with my Master did not go as I planned.  He tried to tell me that he couldn’t describe the Plane to me because if I ever did have cause to travel to it I would be biased by his description of it and therefore unprepared for what I discovered for myself.  I, of course, tried to explain to Myan that I was not foolish enough to allow myself to be prejudiced by anything he would say, and that I had the right to know about the Plane.  Once again, Myan told me that what he had encountered would not be what anyone else encountered, that everyone had their own vision of the Plane of Death, but I thought that this was just monumental egotism on the part of the Arch-Mage.  It didn’t take me long to become angry and, much to my everlasting shame, I marched out of the room shouting that I would make the journey on my own and that I wouldn’t be as tight-fisted with the information that I brought home.  With hindsight, I am amazed that Myan was so patient with me, he would have been perfectly within his rights to have thrown me out of the Necropolis.  But he didn’t, in fact he gave orders that I was not to be hindered in my search for the Plane of Death, that I should be allowed access to his private libraries to continue my studies.
        About six weeks later, I deemed that I had discovered enough to allow me to travel safely to the Plane of Death.  The only thing that all the reports had in common was the journey to the Plane.  Every one of them said that my past life would flash in front of my eyes while I was journeying through the Portal and that I would have to relive some of my memories.  The various reports seem to skip over what the memories had been for the Mages that wrote them, but I judged that to be unimportant.  How wrong I was!  I’m sorry, I digress.
        I retired to my room in the Necropolis and began to prepare myself for the journey.  I drank the potions and inhaled the fumes from rare herbs, I used the leeches to bleed the impurities from my blood and I fasted for two days.  All of these Rituals were designed to strengthen my Will and my Imagination, necessary if I was to survive the journey ahead of me.  The time approached and I drew the heavy drape across my window.  Despite my progressive and unsuperstitious nature, I was determined that I wouldn’t  enter the Plane of Death at night.  Now, I’m not sure that it would have made any difference, but I’m still glad that I didn’t take that chance.
        My head was already spinning from my earlier preparations and it was an effort to concentrate on what I had to do.  With trembling hands I lit a taper from a candle and ignited the brazier that  had prepared.  Once it was burning properly I scattered the precious herbs and incenses over it and inhaled deeply as the blue smoke rose up to meet me.  I was finding it harder and harder to remember what I was meant to be doing, but with an extreme effort of Will I pulled myself together and reached for the glass that contained the fermented juice of the Highstalk Fungus. 
        The dark liquid bubbled and swirled as I raised the glass to my lips and the smell alone was making the room spin.  With a jerk of my hand, I threw the liquid down my throat in an effort to get it over and done with as soon as possible.  I know that I started to lift my hand to wipe my mouth but I am unsure as to whether I ever finished that move or not.
        Almost as soon as I had swallowed that foul brew, I felt myself drop to my knees.  Try to imagine, if you will, being trapped inside your own head and being totally incapable of doing anything.  All I could do was watch what was happening around me and hope that things wouldn’t get out of hand.  I could hear a loud, slow drumming sound and it took me a few moments to realise that it was my own heartbeat, echoing in my ears.  The beat was gradually becoming slower and slower but I hastily put that down to an overactive imagination and tried to concentrate on what was happening to me.
        Time seemed to have stood still in my room.  The flames from the candles and the brazier were perfectly still, much as if they were a painting created by the brush of some incredibly talented artist.  I could see the smoke frozen in the air and dust motes sparkling in the still light.  My body was on its knees in front of the brazier and no matter how hard I tried, I could not force it to turn its head, my head, to view the rest of the room.  My limbs did not respond to my commands and I could not even make my eyelids blink. Panic struck me when I realised that I was no longer breathing and the sound of my heartbeat had grown even slower.
        I am greatly ashamed to say that despite my training and preparations, I did not know what to do.  I couldn’t even make myself chant the usual Incantations that are used to force oneself into the other Planes and I couldn’t push my Psyche back into my physical body because I had not yet truly left it.  I was trapped within my own body and I couldn’t escape.  The Portal that my Rituals should have summoned up had failed to appear and my body was rapidly dying.  Can you imagine how helpless I felt in that situation, how utterly powerless I was to change anything?  I truly believe that if it had continued for much longer I would have given in to despair and lost my sanity.
        It was at that point that I realised I could no longer hear the reassuring beat echoing through my ears.  My heart was no longer beating and I must surely be dead.  It’s strange, but when I accepted the fact that I had died and my journey was an abject failure, I felt much better.  It was as though a great burden had been lifted from my soul and I no longer had to struggle through the hardships of life.  Perhaps the feeling was part of the journey or perhaps it was only my deeply buried desire to escape my own existence, I don’t know and I doubt if I shall ever find out.  The feeling of calm buoyed me and I took the time to study the room that I had lived in for most of my adult life.  There was nothing in the way of personality, no ornaments or personal things to bond the room to me, and that saddened me deeply.  I remembered the day when the priests took me to the gates of the Necropolis, all my worldly goods in a small bag over my shoulder.  I was only eight years old and it was two months earlier when the old Mage had come to the temple and said that he had sensed power within it.
        I remembered the joy I had felt when the Mage revealed that I had the potential to become a Mage like him.  The glee that swept through me when I saw the envious looks that the other orphans of the temple were giving me.  The pleasure I took in knowing that I would no longer have to get up before dawn to work in the fields alongside my bumbling fool of a mentor.  No longer have to live in the cold dormitory with just enough food to survive on.  The feeling of joy that swept through me when I realised that some day I could come back to the temple to show all these nobodies just how important I was and how worthless they were.
        Then I remembered the many times that the priests had gone hungry to ensure that the orphans would be fed.  The times that my mentor had stayed awake by my bedside all night to be there when I woke screaming from the nightmares of my family’s death.  I remembered the pride that was on my mentor’s face when I was chosen, the pride and the loss.  I was the closest thing he had to a family but I hadn’t given this a single thought as I gloated over my good fortune.  I remembered the congratulations that I received from all my friends, even though they would have loved to have been the chosen ones.  They had all pooled their meagre coins so that they could buy me a rough cloak so that I wouldn’t appear to be too poor for the great Mages that I was going to see.  Those children who had barely enough to eat did that for me and what did I give them in return?  I had not even though of them until that day.  I had discarded the cloak as soon as I got to the Necropolis and realised that I wouldn’t need it again.
        I remembered crying and screaming at my mother because I was hungry.  I saw perfectly her haggard face and body, drained by the plague that was sweeping through the village.  I remembered my mother giving me her share of the meal even though she needed all the help she could get to beat the plague.  I remembered sitting by my mother’s deathbed, screaming at her still corpse because she had had the nerve to leave me alone.  I hit her cold body with my tiny fists in a fit of fury because she wouldn’t get up and talk to me, because she was lying there when I was hungry.  I could see my father’s face as he reached down to pick me up, how he desperately wanted someone to hold but all I wanted to do was shout at my dead mother.  I remembered how I gave him no help with his grief but demanded that he do everything that I wanted.  I remembered playing upon the sympathy of my friends to get sweets and toys from them.  They were so keen to help me deal with my pain and I was more concerned with what I could get out of them.  I remembered the day that the death of my mother finally hit me, how my father sat and cradled me in his arms for hours while tears streamed down his bearded face.  How, when I was ready to carry on I walked away from him, not caring that he was still crying and needed me more than I had ever needed him.  I remembered when my father could not deal with his pain anymore and I remembered seeing him hanging from the rafter in the barn.  I remembered the way my selfishness killed my father.
        I remembered the struggles and efforts of my fellow Mages when we were doing our initial training.  How I had so much natural talent that they lacked, but they did better because they were more dedicated to their Art.  I remembered how I blamed my tutors when I couldn’t understand what they were trying to teach me.  I would blame my classmates for holding me back and distracting me.  I would blame anyone other than myself when it was my own laziness that was the trouble.  I remembered being taken into Myan’s study and him telling me that if I didn’t apply myself I would be sent back to the temple I had been taken from.  I remembered how much I hated that man, the man who had done everything he possibly could to ensure that I succeeded.  The man who had bent so many rules because he could see the Mage that I had the potential to become.  I remembered the absolute loathing I had for him and all the Mages of the Necropolis.  How I vowed to myself that I would pass their damned tests and prove them all wrong.  How I would prove that I was the best Mage that had ever lived and how, when I achieved the power that I knew was within me, I would grind them all into the dust like the insects they were.
        I remembered the tears I shed in the privacy of my own room because I was convinced that they were all out to get me, that they were all jealous of me because I was so much better than they were.  I remembered every petty thing that I had ever done, every snide comment I had ever made, every time I had put myself above others or tried to put others down to prove that I was more important than they were.  I remembered every time I had caused pain to others simply because they had got in my way.  I remembered every single malicious, evil, stupid, selfish thing I had ever done in my entire worthless life.  They call came flooding back to me without the cushioning barrier of my own view point.  I saw myself as others must have been looking at me all along and it shocked me.  I couldn’t believe what a monster I had been, how self-absorbed I was.  I saw that I didn’t care what happened to anyone else as long as I was fine, as long as I got by.  How could anyone have bared to talk to me, to spend time with me?  I couldn’t comprehend how it was still possible for me to have friends after all the wicked, selfish things I had done to all the people around me.  It was then that I knew I was a truly worthless individual and I had done the world a favour by dying.
        I was prepared to go to whatever came after death.  Whatever Fate chose to throw at me, I knew I deserved worse and I wouldn’t complain, no matter how terrible it was.  The memories faded from my mind and I could see into the real world again.  But things had changed since I made my journey into the past.  I was no longer kneeling in my room but was sprawled in damp earth.  I don’t know whether the acceptance of my own nature was a necessary part of the journey or not, but I do know that I had escaped from my memories.  No, not escaped, I had accepted them, opened myself to their existence and embraced them.  The memories were now a part of me and I don’t think that I could ever escape them, they will always be with me, colouring everything that I do and say.
        However I had managed it, I had left the Necropolis and the Prime Plane behind.  The Ritual had worked and I was now in the Plane of Death. 

I don’t know how I expected the Plane of Death to look.  Perhaps I thought it would be full of walking skeletons and ghosts.  Perhaps I was expecting a barren wasteland with dead trees and dried up streams, baking deserts or endless marshes.  Whatever I had been expecting, I had certainly not been expecting well-kept fields and pleasant meadows with meticulous stone walls dividing them.   I had not been expecting to see the familiar chimney smoke of a small village in the distance and I had most definitely not been expecting to hear the cheerful sound of a flute.
        The dampness of the ground was soaking through my robes and it was this discomfort that forced me to get to my feet.  My limbs were shaking and I felt a moisture on my face that could only have been tears.  There was a roughness to my throat that made me think that I might have been screaming for a considerable length of time and dirt had been forced beneath my fingernails.  The ground where I had been crouched was torn and furrowed and I believe that I must have been thrashing around for quite a while before I came to my senses.
        I held my hands in front of my face and Willed them to stop shaking and, after a moment’s hesitation, they did so and the rest of my limbs quickly followed suit.  I muttered a quick Incantation to clean and dry my robes, ran a  hand through my tangled hair and had a good look at my surroundings.  I had appeared in a ploughed field that was bordered by a low, stone wall.   Both field and wall looked to be well tended and would not have been out of place on the edge of any village in the Prime Plane.  Running down one side of the field was a strip of trees, looking much like oak although slightly slimmer and with larger leaves.  Sitting in the branches of the largest of these trees was the source of the flute music, a young boy of about 12 years.  He was dressed in ragged shirt and trousers, with a frayed rope for a belt and no shoes on his feet.  He had long, dark brown hair that looked as though that last time it had been cut was with a blunt knife.  It was matted and tangled and had bits of twig and moss stuck in it.  His eyes were closed in concentration as his dirty fingers flew over the wooden flute that he was playing and a slight frown marred his features.  All in all, he looked like a stereotypical grubby urchin.
        As I was studying the boy his eyes jerked open and, just for a moment, I could have sworn that his eyes were jet black.  I blinked and rubbed a weary hand across my face and his eyes were a cheerful blue colour that reflected the light from the bright sun that hung in the clear sky.  The youth was looking at me, much as I was looking at him and after a moment he seemed to come to a conclusion.  He swung his legs off the branch that he was lounging on and dropped easily to the ground.  The branch was at least 15 feet above the ground but he landed lightly and started strolling towards me without so much as a limp.  He was swinging his arms as he came forward and there was no sign of the flute that he had been playing only moments earlier.
        The child came to within five feet of me and stopped.  Slowly, he looked me over from head to toe as if he were inspecting a piece of livestock he was thinking of buying.  At this distance I could see that his face looked strangely smooth and polished beneath the layers of grime.  There were no signs of creases or wrinkles, no scars on his hands and even his feet looked smooth and somehow hard beneath the dirt.  I believe that it was at this point that I realise that whatever this child was, he wasn’t human.  A smile crept over his face and I’m sure he was looking at my Insignia of Rank when he first grinned.
        The boy suddenly dropped cross-legged to the ground and looked directly into my face
        “You’re late,” he said in a voice that belonged to a person much older than he was.  “I’ve been waiting here for you for hours.  I was told that you would be arriving at dawn.”
        There is very little you can say in a situation like that, so that is what I said, very little.
        “Well, come on then,” he said, springing to his feet again and holding out a dirty hand to me.  “We’ve got a lot to do and its got to be finished by the time the sun goes down.  I don’t care how good a Mage you think you are, you do not want to be around here when it gets dark.”
        I managed to draw my shocked senses together slightly at this point.  I was not used to being addressed in such a fashion by anyone and certainly not by an underdressed ragamuffin.
        “Listen child, I don’t know who you are or who told you that I would be arriving, but I demand some answers and I want them now!”
        For some reason this amused the stranger greatly and he started to guffaw to himself while holding his sides.  Tears of laughter were running down his face and he was having difficulty remaining on his feet.
        “Oh, that’s a good one,” he managed to get out between chuckles.  “You demand answers from me.  Demand, no less.  Oh dear, how did one as foolish as you ever manage to find the path to this Realm?”
        He suddenly became much more serious and straightened to look at me once again.  His eyes flared from the blue that they were into the ominous black that I thought I had seen earlier and he reached up to grab me by my collar.  With no apparent effort he pulled me down to face him and there was nothing I could do to stop him.  If I had strained back any harder the material of my robe would have torn.  I was now eye to eye with the child and his face was no more than a couple of inches from mine.  There were tiny points of light burning fiercely in his black eyes but they seemed to be a long distance away.  His breath was foul, stinking of rotten meat and decay and when he spoke it was in deep growl that sent a shiver running down my spine.
        “Mortal, it is my choice whether you ever leave this Realm or not and if you ever stop amusing me and start to become irritating, I will send your Psyche into the depths of the nearest star.  You have chosen to walk the Paths of the Dead and the dead do not like to be disturbed by the likes of you.  There are no answers for you here, there is nothing here that you want to see but in your mortal pride you had to come and make sure for yourself.
        “I had hoped to be able to talk to you for a while and then send you home but I see now that you need more.  Perhaps I should take you on a quick tour through my home, just so you can find the answers that you … demand.”
        The darkness in his eyes faded to blue once again and he moved his hand in a quick gesture across my throat.  I immediately felt something close up within me and when I tried to speak, not the faintest sound came out.
        “A minor precaution,” he said in his first, almost natural voice.  “I would not want you to goad me into doing anything foolish so, for your own safety I have made sure that you would not say anything at all.  If you are very lucky I might even cancel the restriction before I send you home.  Maybe!”
        Once again I was helpless and totally at the mercy of an outsider.  All my training, all my powers were proving to be worthless to me and, at that point, I felt as feeble as I had ever done.  My guide, for want of a better word, then took me by the hand and led me back towards the trees he had come from.  We had taken no more than a dozen steps when the scenery changed and I found myself high above a farm where people were toiling in the fields below.  The sudden change shocked me and I must have tightened my grip on my guide’s hand because he was quick to squeeze in return and send me a smile that I was sure was meant to be reassuring.
        “Below us you can see what life is like for many, many people.  They wake when the sun comes up, they work for as many hours as there is daylight and they go to sleep when it is too dark to do anything else.  Throughout their lives they are slaving to scrape a living from the unforgiving soil, for enough crops to feed themselves and perhaps a little extra to sell at market.  No matter how hard they try there is still more work for them and they will grow old and wither without ever discovering that there is more to life than work.”
        He pointed to a dark cloud that was twisting and spinning in much the same way as water does when it goes down a drain and I knew it was a tornado.
        “A man with powers such as yourself has nothing to fear from the weather, but it can be a disaster for those poor unfortunates struggling below.  All their lives that family have struggled to better themselves and, with this harvest they might just raise enough to send their youngest to the local school.  That would be a dream come true to these people, it would make all their hardships worthwhile.”
        The tornado was much closer and the people had spotted it now.  They were frantically running for the house, probably trying to get to a cellar or somewhere safe.  The storm was heading directly for the farm and within moments it would be upon them.
        “That tornado will destroy everything that poor family have.  The crops, the house, everything.  There is nothing the farmer can do except curse fate, his luck and the world for what it has done to him.  Look, even now he runs from the house in a vain attempt to save something, just so that his family will eat tomorrow.  No matter what he does, the storm will destroy everything.  He will die in the storm, struck by a stone that he took out of the field only weeks earlier.  His wife will be raped and killed by bandits within the month and his three children will be forced to beg on the streets of the nearest town.  The two eldest will die of starvation but the youngest will survive.  The one that they wished to send to school with prosper in the city.  He will turn to crime and, for a few short years, he does well.  He lives well, eats well, does everything well but it all comes to an end.  He is caught a week short of his 14^th birthday and is hung three days later.  His carcass will dangle in the square until someone can be bothered to cut it down and by then most of his face will have been eaten by crows.”
        The farmer was desperately trying to get some of his crop under cover but he suddenly collapsed when the edge of the tornado reached him.  His body was picked up and sent hurtling through the air.
        “You see mortal, death has come to this family in the form of that tornado.  A natural occurrence that no-one is to blame for but one that these people are powerless to avoid.  What do you feel at witnessing the death of these people?  Do you feel superior because it would not have happened to you?  Do you feel grateful because the victims were not friends of yours?  Or perhaps you do not feel anything at all?  Maybe death to these people means nothing to a man of your standing?”
        I don’t know what I felt at that moment but I do know that I wish I had been free to help those people.  If I had had the use of my speech I would have been able to use an Incantation that would have changed the path of the Tornado.  Changed it to where I do not know, perhaps more people would have suffered because of my actions but at least I would not have seen the suffering.
        I noticed that my guide was looking at me as though he was trying to study my reaction and I deliberately tried to keep my expression as still as possible.  I didn’t want to let this creature, for he was definitely not a child, know that I was being affected by what he was showing me.
        Once again he tugged at my hand and I found myself floating high above a wet marshland.  Arrayed below us where two armies of people, facing up to one another and hurling insults across the battlefield.  There were no more than a hundred warriors to each side and most of them held their swords and shields as if today was the first time they had ever seen such things.  An armoured knight sat astride a warhorse at the front of both armies, both carrying lances and shields decorated with emblems that were unfamiliar to me.
        “Wars like this one are constantly being fought across the Planes,” said my mysterious guide.
        “This is a smaller scale than most, but it will do for our purposes.  Look down at the soldiers below you, not the knights who have caused all the trouble, but at the soldiers, the ones who will do the dangerous work.  Do you see how scared they are, all those valiant young men who have been dragged away from their homes to fight for a cause they know nothing about?  None of them are trained warriors, they are farmers, weavers, millers,  None of them have been trained in the ways of war and none of them know what to expect.  The knights came to their villages and forced them to join them, forced them to try to kill their neighbours.”
        I concentrated on one of the men below me and I could see that his short blonde hair was greasy and unclean.  His hand gripped his sword so tightly that his knuckles were stark white and his shield hung loosely from his left arm.  The youth was dressed in a rough home-spun jerkin that had been patched many times and was wearing torn boots that looked to have been soaked through.  He was jeering at the enemy along with all the men around him but it was obvious that he was terrified.  His eyes were bulging and he held his sword away from himself as if he was afraid that it would change into a serpent in his hand and turn upon him.  This was no soldier, this was a poor, scared boy of no more than 15 years.
        “Do you see the noble warriors that the bards speak of?  Do you see the triumphant heroes that go to defend their homes from the wicked invaders?  Do you see soldiers, brave and true to their oath?  All I see is scared children who are forced to go and fight to their deaths over a long forgotten insult.  Oh yes, that’s all that this petty war is about.  One of the knights claim that the other insulted him and the other one denies this.  A duel has been forbidden by their Lord so they decided to go to war over this insult.”
        My guide slowly shook his head.  “A long forgotten insult.”
        “Neither of the knights will be hurt in this fight, they are far too heavily armoured for that.  It is the peasants that will suffer for pride.  In this war, forty-two die from one side, sixty-seven from the other before the second admits defeat.  The boy you are looking at will be struck by a sword swung wildly by one of his own side but in the chaos no–one will notice.  He will lie in the cold mud for hours after the battle is over as the blood seeps from his body.  The boy passes out so that he can’t call for help when the searchers pass him by, they go only a few feet to his right, but it has become dark by that time and they miss him.  Not that they would have been able to save him, he was too far gone by that time, but at least he would have been among friend when it ended.
        “Death comes to those young men in the shape of a knight’s wounded pride.  These people had most of their lives in front of them but that was brutally taken from them on the day when the knights decided that honour must be satisfied.  Honour must be more than satisfied, it must be bloated with all the death it has been offered over the years.”
        The scene changed and we were hovering over the aftermath of the battle.  Crows fed on the bodies of the dead and dying as the two knights left the field side by side.  Weary young men struggled after them, trying not to show the horror and pain that they felt.
        “One knight offered an apology and it was accepted.  The feud is over and honour has been satisfied.  Do you feel glad that justice has been served?  Are you grateful that no-one important was hurt?  Are you glad that your father was never chosen to fight in one of these conflicts?  Perhaps you’re glad that it wasn’t you down there?  You have powers to stop that kind of fight, all you Mages do.  But it still goes on, doesn’t it?  People die for no reason!  Still, just as long as it wasn’t your problem!”
        My guide was glaring up at me and I could feel his anger and disgust tearing at my very soul.  There was nothing I could do to stop the tears streaming down my face and, at that point, I didn’t want to hide my shame and revulsion.  I was shocked by what people did to one another and I could feel the stench of death clutching at my throat.
        After that we flashed from one scene to another.  A woman dying in childbirth; a dog being kicked to death by its drunken owner; a young girl falling out of an apple tree and splitting her skull; a woman wasting away from simple old age; a young warrior failing his test of manhood and being stoned to death by the rest of his tribe; a Mage forgetting the correct Incantation while travelling through the Plane of Fire and being instantly incinerated; a whore wasting away from a sexual disease; a young nobleman being knifed for an empty purse in a back alley; children dying of starvation while rich mean feasted.
        The images went on and on until I thought my heart would burst.  Finally, my guide took me back to the field where I had first arrived and set my throat free.  He sat on the earth, took out his flute from somewhere and started to play a sombre tune.  The sun was going down and coldness was setting in. For a long time I just stood and looked at the creature playing the flute.
        “I…….I don’t know what to say other than ….. I’m sorry,” I stammered.
        He looked at me for a moment and quietly asked, “Just what is it that you are apologising for, mortal?  I’m going to send you home now and I hope that we never have to meet again.  Your kind make me so weary and so very, very sad.”
        As he said these disturbing words, the air around me seemed to thicken and darken.  I could see and feel nothing, not even my hand in front of my face.  The journey might have lasted for moments or hours, I have no way of knowing, but when the darkness lifted I was back in my room in the Necropolis.  I was kneeling on the floor in front of the still smoking brazier and the taste of the potion was strong in my mouth.

I write this report in the humble hope that it give any Mage thinking of travelling to the Plane of Death pause for thought.  I survived the trip physically unscathed, but mentally and emotionally I am a very changed man.  I would not think to say that I am a better person but I do try to think of others more often and my life has been a much friendlier one.  I believe that I was lucky in the extreme, however, and would not advise any other of taking the risk of the journey.  Myan told me later that he had to battle his way through a host of undead creatures and phantoms from his past.  He barely escaped with his life yet I was given a guided tour of the Plane of Death for no obvious reason.
        Please, if there is any other choice, do not venture into the Plane of Death.  Believe me when I say that this is no place for the living. 

Marcus Ottar, Mage of the Necropolis.

Back to Planes Index