The first thing Nefydd did upon
arriving at The Place was vomit. Teleportation (Grijhold's word for
this strange way of travel) had always unsettled him; or was it The
Place? Fortunately, Nefydd's heaving only generated a small amount of
bile and saliva which he wiped on his right sleeve.
Nefydd was never able to remain
standing after 'phasing in' (another one of Grijhold's words). The
Place was always the same, startling 'clean' white corridors and
rooms. There were no edges to the design of this region (but was
it?), all ceilings and floors curved downwards or upwards where they
adjoined the walls. Illumination was provided by armspans of glowing
tubes in transluscent panels on the ceilings. It was never dark in
The Place. Outside of The Place was one big unknown. Was this a
castle relic of the Ancient Tymes? Even Grijhold didn't know. He
would occasionally mention 'demi-plane' during the few times he and
Nefydd actually broached the topic of the nature of The Place.
Grijhold gave it the name. One of his
arguments for the name was that the creators of the area were long
gone and nowhere in the abode (if it were such) were any clues to
their language. Grijhold's master had named the area Jadaharien
Lldrean (some elvish variant that roughly meant Bleak Fortress).
After Grijhold 'acquiring' the magic trinkets from his master he came
up with The Place on his second visit.“Am I going to be some
pretentious bastard like all the other magick-wielding ego maniacs in
history by giving this place an equally pretentious name?” Grijhold
would say, usually when he was drunk by the fire pit, (and it took a
lot to get him drunk) then answering himself with a suprisingly
unlsurred “Fuck no!”
So the nomenclature stuck. The Place
was often used as a last resort when things got bad in a variety of
situations. Already it saved their lives three times. For the tenth
time, Nefydd wondered if the trinkets would ever 'misfire.' Grijhold
told Nefydd some tales of teleports going awry when used as a spell.
A few outcomes were a ghastly mess. The Place was a temporary refuge
at best, for Nefydd was extremely comfortable being here. The place
smelled strange, as if the land beneath was burned in a some type of
acid. Even moving here was queer, you couldn't actually touch the
floor as if you were walking along a well kept forest path or one of
Anfekor's Imperial Roads. It was more like a slight hop and a jump to
properly traverse any of the accesible areas in The Place. After the
jump you would float slightly for less than half an armspan before
you landed, to hop again, and again, until you reached your
destination.
The Place had hallways and rooms that
were sealed by heavy white doors, Nefydd guessed that the door
materials were the same consistency as those in the halls. How many
more rooms lay beyond the doors was another huge unknown. As if the sealed
entries weren't enough, there was Sentry, a giant construct that was
several armpsans tall, reaching beyond a horse's head. It's head was
all metal with fiery orange eyes, visible only when it chose to open
its faceplate. Sentry rarely spoke, but it told Grijhold it's name one day when
the dwarf arrived alone. Grijhold never tried to probe or reconnoiter
any of the sealed areas, and being frustrated that he was denied
access to the other rooms in The Place, he would inevitably talk to
the construct. The conversations were almost always one sided until
one day, the construct turned its head and stated simply, “I am
Sentry. Please refrain from calling me Robert.”
Since then one of Grijhold's rituals
after arriving at The Place is to greet Sentry as warmly as he could
manage. Sentry rarely speaks back. However, one day the construct
said, “Grijhold dwarf, you are quite unusual in your lack of greed
and avarice once arriving in QA3. Almost all others which have come
that exhibit your skillset I have had to incinerate.” Since that
exchange, Grijhold is very respectful around the construct, which is
unusual, since the dwarf respects almost no one.
