After a bumpy airship ride, a slow trek through a horrible dust storm, and lots of pawing and poking by several odd men in armor outside the crystal gateway, Mircus the map-maker finds himself inside the crystal structure surrounded by windows leading off in twelve different directions. His goal is a window that lights up to a grayish world with odd glimmering shadows that tantalize the eye now and again. He's been given camping supplies, food, water, and cartography tools to aid him. All that is left is to enter the doorway that will lead him into another world…

Mircus stands in front of the gateway to Morpheus, oversized pack on his shoulders. Standing in front of this door is quite different than simply waking up in a dream world, but, after hesitating for a moment, he steps forward into the unknown…

There is a sensation of being stretched out and pulled… spinning and twirling – it's painful and almost suffocating. A myriad of colors and lights swirl around the map-maker.

And then just as suddenly it stops. Mircus finds himself on the floor of a twin of the crystal structure, except the lights in this one are fading slowly. Each of the enclosed glass windows reveals a gray dusty landscape outside.

The young map-maker stumbles to his knees, shaking his head dizzily. After a moment, he stands slowly, and turns to peer at the window from which he emerged.

An image of a golden sandy desert slowly fades out of view… revealing an image of a familiar looking land. Familiar, yet it seems clearer somehow.

Alas… there does not seem to be an exit door, just the windows.

Mircus stares at the window as the image of home vanishes. After a moment, though, his gaze shifts to look outside, at the mist … the shadows… everything so very different from what he's used to … different from the world he's used to… Shaking his head again, he begins to look about the room to see what else might be here.

The lights dim out completely … although enough light from outside shines in to keep Mircus from falling into total darkness. The chamber has twelve windows and a pedestal set in the center – which if it serves anything like the one on Sinai, it should display an image of the solar system and the various planets. This one is simply blank. There is also a ceiling here, unlike the crystal tower on Sinai – which had its top blasted off somehow.

Mircus walks slowly towards the pedestal, still peering around, and now idly wondering if the pedestal would display its image if he were to somehow remove the roof from this tower. He stops as he nears the pedestal and tries to see if he can see anything interesting about it in the dim light of the room.

There appears to be a finelayer of dust on the floor, almost like powder. But beyond that everything looks dark and lifeless.

Mircus leans against the pedestal and peers about the room again. "Okay … no door," he notes to himself. "Well… I just got here, so I don't wanna leave just yet… " He moves to start checking each of the windows in turn.

Each window is identical and reveals a misty gray landscape outside. There's one that shows an odd flickering light off in the distance, and another that shows the remnants of a castle… floating… in… the… air?

Mircus stops and gapes at the floating castle. If he needed any reminder that this is the world of dreams, he most certainly has been given one.

After checking the various windows, Mircus drops his pack and leans against a wall. After a moment, he thinks of something, and, eyes wide, hesitantly moves to the window from Sinai…

The window had briefly shown an image of the landscape Mircus had just left in its depths, but now shows a mirror of the other eleven: a barren landscape full of shadows and mists.

Mircus' eyes widen even more, and the Rath'ani pokes at the window, hoping that maybe the view will change…

The moment his finger touches the glass, cracks start to spider across its surface. The window splits into triangular shards which pull themselves into the wall of the building, leaving an open portal to the outside.

Mircus blinks. That particular change wasn't quite what he'd hoped for. After a moment, he whimpers quietly, and notes, "No … definitely not leaving just yet." After a moment, the Rath'ani returns to his pack, and rummages through it, eventually pulling out a small compass.

After shouldering his pack, compass in hand, he moves to the window facing the floating castle. Taking a deep breath, he taps the window…

There's a scraping noise as the "broken" window closes itself again, and another as the window showing the view to the castle outside opens in its place.

Half afraid the window will close on him, Mircus quickly moves through the window and outside the tower.

The Rath'ani suddenly feels lighter … much lighter … when he steps out. His first step almost sends him sailing upwards … were it not for a gust of wind suddenly blasting him back down towards the ground. The mists begin to whirlpool around Mircus until they feel like a physical thing closing him in.

Mircus lets out a strangled gasp of fright, and tries to move so his back is against the tower. Nothing like this happened in the dreams!

The map-maker's back comes into contact with cold metal bars. The mists fade out, revealing Mircus to be caught in some sort of cylindrical cage! It appears to have formed out of nowhere.

Mircus slumps to the ground in shock, one hand automatically stuffing the compass in a pouch. "What in the name of… "

A small black flittery thing zips in and perches on the bars of the cage, peering in at Mircus with glowing eyes.

For lack of any better ideas (or maybe because he's too shocked to do anything else), Mircus stares, wide-eyed, at the whatever-it-is.

It looks a bit like a butterfly, or maybe a bug with Eeee wings. It continues staring down at Mircus, eyes unblinking.

Mircus stares at the … Eeebug? … for a moment longer, then glances frantically about for a door to the cage … or maybe a gap between bars wide enough to squeeze through … or …

Mist blows in through the bars of the cage, choking the Rath'ani's nose and windpipe. Bleaugh! It may look like mist but it feels like he just inhaled a sand dune!

"What are you doing here?" the 'bug' asks … in a voice that sounds rather similar to that of Morpheus!

Hacking and coughing, Mircus ducks his head and tries to pull the neck of his shirt up over his muzzle. Through watering eyes, he tries to focus on the bug. "M-Morpheus?!"

The little bug blinks and narrows its eyes. "You might say that. Do I know you? What is your business upon my planet?"

"I-it's m-me… Mircus! Fro… " The Rath'ani breaks into a fit of coughing from the sand he's inhaled. Wincing, he then manages to ask, "You don't recognize me?"

"Mircus … the map-maker?" The bug's head tilts sideways and its eyes narrow again. "What are you doing on my world, Mircus?"

"M-map-making!" Mircus coughs again, and closes his eyes against the 'mist.' "I'm going to t-try to map the area around the t-tower."

The bug flutters down the bars to regard Mircus at eye level. "Show me your possessions. I will tolerate no weapons in my domain."

Mircus squints his eyes open for a moment to look at Morpheus, "O-okay … All I've got is my knife." The Rath'ani's right hand lowers to rest on the handle of the knife for a moment, then he begins to struggle out of his backpack. "All I've got in here are some tools and supplies."

Fluttering around, the bug darts around Mircus's pack and circles him a few times. "No magical weapons. Good. Very well … I will release you. You may join myself and Madame Envoy in the Silent-Ones vessel if you wish."

"Silent one's vessel?" Mircus pulls a cloth out of one pouch and ties it over his nose before squinting at Morpheus again. "There's an airship here?" He looks around in hope of seeing it.

The bug lands on the top of the cage, and the bars dissolve into dust and blow off into the winds. "I cannot fly you there, but it is not a long walk … and you will find that walking here is rather easy." The bug hovers about a yard away from Mircus.

Mircus nods. "A-all right." He reaches for his pack, and attempts to stand. After a couple of tries, he manages to get to his feet, and slowly shoulders the backpack.

Wow… the pack seems amazingly light! In fact, everything seems amazingly light. Mircus could probably jump ten feet into the air without trying if he wanted. The gravity must be different here or something.

Mircus cranes his neck to stare suspiciously at the pack on his shoulders for a moment, then searches through his pouches for the compass. After turning to face both the floating castle and the light to its left (looking at his compass each time), he turns to Morpheus again. "Um … Okay … Which way?"

"So who sent you to map my world, Map-maker Mircus?" the bug asks, flitting towards a light in the distance.

The Rath'ani turns to follow the tiny Morpheus, and begins walking in slow, measured steps, mumbling a count under his breath. Occasionally breaking count to say a few words, Mircus manages, "… crazy old coon… in the Temple… Dunno why, but… only near the tower, too… "

"You are making no sense," the bug says, flitting past a bridge with chiming waters flowing underneath it.

Mircus stops near the bridge, turns to face the floating castle, glances at the compass again, then puts it away. This done, the Rath'ani begins walking again; this time without counting. "Sorry. Um … Some old Rath'ani in the Temple wanted me to help him. They're trying to make maps of the areas around the tower on all the different worlds. Since he let me choose where I wanted to go, I thought I'd come here … And I'm only supposed to map the area around the tower, too. There's no way I could map an entire world."

The bug makes an agitated sounding buzzing noise. "Did they state their reasons for wishing this?"

Mircus adjusts his mask, then scratches at his head. "Um … no? They might want to know just for the sake of knowi – … No, this is the Temple. That can't be the only reason, can it? Um… "

Ahead, the 'tower' resolves itself into a rather large building that somewhat resembles the Temple. "I will allow you to map the area … but your maps must meet my approval before they return to Sinai with you. There are those of your world who may wish to control me or destroy me." The bug floats towards a panel in the wall, slams into it rather hard and opens a door.

Mircus stares at the building for a moment before shaking his head and remembering to keep walking. "Destroy? Why would they wanna kill you? You haven't done anything, have you? I mean … that cage thing was scary, but … "

"This way, please." The bug flits down into the doorway and down a dark hallway. "I have only done what people have asked of me. It has made some wish to destroy me because of it. I am just ahead."

"You're just ahead? What do you… " Confused, Mircus follows Morpheus through the doorway.