"Kano's Last Missive"

Kano's Last Missive

(Original author: Phil Smith)

It is with great regret and sadness that I write this letter, but at one and the same time it strikes me that such an event was inevitable. I write, sirs, to announce that I intend to resign my post within the Fraternity of Order.

I know that this will surprise many, if not all of you; I have always been loyal to the cause, diligent in my studies of the laws and axioms, and always eager to toe the faction line. Despite this, discoveries I have made in the name of the faction have driven me to alienate myself from the principles that until recently I held dear. I realise that the words in this missive will have me labelled as a heretic; a Xaositect, perhaps, but at the very least a traitor to the Fraternity, but nevertheless I must put them to you.

Existence is flux.

The planes are not as ordered as we would have liked them to be. We saw, following the untimely demise of Factol Hashkar, that Sigil could be turned upside-down and inside-out by a spell; the nature of Sigil was not one of inertia as we had thought, but rather one of change.

The following years saw the Ascension of Vecna, however short-lived that was, and with that all the laws we thought applied to the Multiverse, were shown to be merely transient rules of thumb. A being left the Demiplane of Dread under its own power, which was impossible. That being entered Sigil without using a portal, which was impossible. That being was a god, forbidden from entering Sigil, and yet it did so, which was impossible. Despite this, Vecna threatened to reorganise the entire Multiverse according to his whim. That order, that precious order that we thought supreme and inviolable, was violated, and perhaps even disproved. The structure of the Multiverse could so easily have been different.

As my peers will remember, I devoted my efforts to studying this phenomenon; to finding the order beyond order. I sought a glimpse behind the curtain, to discover what it was that caused the Multiverse to take its present shape. It would have been the ultimate loophole.

The question was, how could I penetrate this invisible barrier that keeps us from the truth? I would have to breach the very fabric of space and time in order to do so. This was why I left the City of Doors for so long, for as we know, the Lady does not permit the manipulation of time within Sigil. Using the considerable expenses afforded me by the faction; I retained the services of every dimensionalist, every chronomancer, and every alienist that I could find. Together, this cadre – none of whom are with us any longer, I regret to add – sent out dweomers in every conceivable direction, searching backwards and forwards in time for an answer to the problem we had set ourselves. Was it possible that we once possessed the knowledge we sought, but merely forgot it? Was it the case that we might one day possess such knowledge?

Our searches bore no fruit. We found nothing of the sort. Despite this, I asserted that thoroughness was a virtue, and we continued to search, heading further and further back into time. Our mimirs recorded the births of crystal spheres, the many origins of humankind, and even back-tracked the mysterious Spelljammer for a century, before abandoning it for earlier phenomena.

Eventually our search took us back as far as we could go – oh, yes, time does have a beginning, of that at least I'm sure – and despite our best efforts we were unable to make that last push; we could not go beyond the beginning of the Multiverse. We must have tried hundreds of times, exhausting our powers several times over in the attempt to do so. I must have witnessed the First Moments a thousand times as we returned to the beginning again and again to repeat our efforts.

Something must have happened after the nth attempt, however. Perhaps it was a recursive effect; our chronomantic spells were triggered, just as our chronomantic spells were triggered, while at the same time we were triggering our chronomantic spells… but something in the fabric gave way… and we found ourselves… Outside.

The environment in which we found ourselves was something I scarcely dare to recall. The angles were wrong, of that I am sure, at least. The colours were mismatched. We could not place half of the colours in this far realm; even those of us with infravision or ultravision were hard put to make any understandable analysis. We lost all sense of location and direction, plagued by a sense of déjà vu whenever we tried to perform even the simplest action. Every sight seemed frighteningly new, but familiar in a sinister and unpleasant way, leaving us truly unaware of whether we were coming or going. Compared to the continual shifting of space and time of this unnatural realm, the chaos of Limbo seemed positively sedate!

We were not alone.

There are creatures that dwell beyond space and time, beyond the planes as we know them.

They are tentacled, they are many, and they are hungry.

One of them attacked our chief dimensionalist, Dararal the Dislocated; we tried to save him, to kill the creature before it wormed into his brain, but it was no use. We were powerless to do much as it burrowed in through his ear, into his skull, to feast on the brain therein.

It looked so harmless; no more than three inches long. A perfect specimen for study, or so we thought.

Dararal died almost instantly. It was then that our thoughts turned to escape. We had to rend the veil once more, force this plane to excrete us back into the Multiverse. I cannot say how long the attempt took; it might have taken us seconds or centuries. Time loses all meaning when you are Outside. All I can say is that we died, one by one. Some of us fell to the predations of the creatures that lurked there. Others were swallowed up by the plane itself, falling through strange configurations, never to take recognisable form again. In the end, only Dararal (poor, dead Dararal) and myself were left. I convinced myself that I had to take him back with me for burial, or for evidence of the dangers there, but in reality I carried his body as a shield, a means of keeping the vile monstrosities away from my own body.

Desperation proved to be the key to my salvation; the last calculation required sent me hurtling back to the present, to a plane I once was glad to call home; Mechanus. It was then that I saw the extent of the mutation of Dararal's body. His skin had turned a pallid purple, and tentacles had started to sprout from his mouth, as if he were becoming a member of that dreaded race we call the mind flayers. For hours I watched the transformation take effect as his hands distorted, fingers and toes withering and dropping off, while the pores of his skin began to secrete cold, sticky mucus. Powers preserve me, but it was far worse than even Ronassic, in his book Mind Kampf could possibly have anticipated! It was then that I saw Dararal's chest begin to rise and fall; despite all he'd been through, he was alive!

It was not Dararal, though; Dararal died when we were Outside. With a strength borne entirely of fear, I found my dagger and cut out the heart of the creature.

The ramifications of what I have learned, I am sure you agree, are hideous. In gaining the knowledge I sought, I learned that it is possible to know too much. I no longer wish to possess knowledge and understanding. I have ordered my notes burned, my faction insigniae to be returned, and by now will have joined the Cadre of Ignorance. It is my sincerest hope that I will forget the events that transpired, and that I will forget how I was ever able to access that far realm that destroyed sixteen of the finest minds in the Multiverse. Indeed, by the time you read this, I hope very much that I will have forgotten to read and write altogether.

Ignorance is bliss,

Kano.the Phobosopher (formerly the Guvner)