The archway suddenly appears once again, near the front right-hand corner of the room on its shorter wall.
Conversation is underway but grinds to a stop... again.
In the conference room:
A very pretty Tiefling woman with a curly tail and spiky, revealing armor is in the corner of the room nearest the archway talking quietly to a human in a cloak, pointing at the tabletop of the conference room table; a large map with lettered markings on it hovers above the table. She has one hand on a gold-topped crystal stool, that she is holding next to her as if she is about to sit on it. She has a gold-trimmed crystal mug of ale in her hand. She looks at the archway immediately as it opens.
Around the room are a hugely broad and powerful looking short Dwarven male with an equally huge beard, holding a mug with only ale suds at the bottom (yes, again), another large Tiefling female creature with black, feathery wings, a Pixie bristling with swords sitting on her shoulder, looking like he just stepped out of a sailor’s song; an elegant weasel-looking creature standing on two legs; and a somewhat human looking creature with pasty skin, wearing a suit of brilliantly polished gold armor, studying the room with sunken, shadowed eyes.
A glowing Elven woman is sitting in a blue armchair near the head of the table on the righthand side. A glittering glass staff, that looks kaleidoscopic with planes and colors of light packed throughout its interior, is resting against the side of the armchair. She is sitting as if she was talking with the creature in gold armor, but is turned to face the group at large.
Entering the conference room are three people:
A Harssaf, just under 5 ½ feet tall, and bulky, with red skin, dark eyes, armor and weapons. He doesn’t have any weapons drawn at the moment, though his stance is clearly the perpetual readiness of a trained warrior. He walks into the room with a sailor’s rolling gait. He seems quite happy. At this close range, all in the conference room can feel heat radiating from him, and spots on his skin and armor have traces of heat shimmer around them.
Not much different in height but quite different in appearance, the second person has radiant skin, long, silky silver-white hair, steel gray eyes, long nose, and red lips, in an oddly blank, expressionless face. He is wearing a long, well tailored trench coat in pure white. The coat looks new and perfectly clean, along with the rest of him; he is spotless. Underneath his coat, he is wearing a white shirt with a black vest on top, black pants and black boots. He has a bulge on his back under the coat, in the shape and size of a pack or haversack.
The third person coming through the archway: A glowing Elven woman who looks just like the one sitting in the blue armchair.
As she floats across the conference room along the righthand side of the table, from the archway toward the blue armchair, she says,
{Star} If it pleases you, I’d like you all to meet Halfaz, who has sailed here all the way from the City of Brass on a heroic voyage that should be a song in itself… four different kinds of sailing, was it, Halfaz, on the way here?... because he has dedicated his life to the purpose of destroying slavers and freeing slaves… and brings a startling ship!! It was quite startling by the time he sailed it into the Plane of Radiance at the Tower of Blue Flame where he met me, just before the Falls into the Positive Energy Plane… and the ship is becoming even more startling as we speak. Janis, it is going to run on a Fire-based Spelljammer Helm… amazing! How deadly!!!
Ror, you may be interested to know Halfaz’s ship is composed entirely of fused Protometals and Ioun Crystals!! Quite a bit of Protoemerald in it.
Sable, you may be interested to know that Halfaz and I were briefly in Acheron while on our way here. You already heard the news we brought back about the Illithid’s General, but… I didn’t yet mention that I spotted posters for the band tour still pasted to the rocky wall that leads from the Styx up to the Color Pool back to the Astral Plane and the Voidjammer stop there. So many creatures pass by there… that was one of our best advertising spots along the Styx to draw in an audience to where we performed.
And our other guest is Ptolemaeus, who I first saw in Milliways, though we didn’t meet then. Milliways, that’s more than enough of a start for his tale!! He also would like to join our expedition.
She continues to chuckle about Milliways as she floats toward sitting down in the blue armchair.
As Star settles into herself in the armchair, the two instances merge perfectly, and so there is just one.
The pretty Tiefling about to sit on the gold and crystal stool says to them, {Janis] Hi, I’m Janis… Janis Fortune. You can just call me Janis. I was just giving a recap and briefing on the map, so I’ll include you too, and bring you up to date with all of the information and plans that we have, while you help yourself to some of that Hobbit pie, it’s ecstasy baked in a crust. Janis also brings Halfaz and Ptolemaeus completely up to date.
