(ooc: All the best Yue. I'll try to take care of your character while you're gone. Come back soon please!)

As Stavarus walks solemnly towards Soul Reaver, the warrior replies to his friends.

"Kawanua is right, Kitharsis. Besides, I do not usually sleep, I merely meditate... but these visions now no longer allow me to do so."

To Kawanua, he says,

"I'm sorry, but wounds like that can only be healed with time."

Stavarus arrives, looking serious.

"So the time has come for the end-game. It is about time. I will take us to the borders of the Warp Lord's domain, where I made my escape."

Stavarus takes a few steps forward.

"Stand back."

Stavarus gestures with his hands in the air. The air starts to shimmer and then distorts, twisting and ripping open into a Warp Gate.

Eyes narrowed, Stavarus steps into the swirling redness, which swallows him up.

Soul Reaver looks at the others gathering around the portal.

"I will go last... there is something I must do here first. Please, go ahead. And Asaki... guard that Staff at all costs!"

(ooc: Last chance to tie up any loose ends. I'll God-mod everyone who hasn't posted as passing through the Warp Gate in my next post)

Yue looks at the gem in Kawanua's hands.

"You're sure you don't need it?"

Shrugging, she takes the gem and crushes it in her hands... in an instant, new power flows through her body, rejuvenating her lost energies.

"Wow! That thing packs quite a wallop!"

Refreshed, she disappears through the Warp Gate...

Soul Reaver waits until the last of his companions steps through the portal and into the unknown.

Turning his back on the flickering redness for a few moments, he surveys the Collector's chamber.

I cannot leave this place as it is. Anyone with ill-intent could enter here and take the artefacts here for himself.

This place must be sealed off.

Soul Reaver steps through the Warp Gate... but does not quite follow his companions yet. Despite the storm tearing at him, he pauses before the entrace to the Collector's sub-dimension.

Closing his eyes, he begins to speak and trace runes in the air. Mana flows through him like a burning river of magma, channelling into his hands, and focused by his mind and the words of the spell.

A flash of blue suddenly slides over the redness of the warp, a flat plane of energy that severs the invisible connections that would allow access to the Collector's world.

"There. The seal is in place. I hope it will remain for a long time yet..."

Soul Reaver turns his back on the Collector's world, and struggles through the violent storms to the exiting Warp Gate.

What greets his eyes on his arrival is truly ghastly.

"By the Gods....."

Soul Reaver steps out onto a world of sheer horror. The space above him seems to glow with an eerie, blood-red glow. Moans of pain can be heard in the distance.

He looks down, and with a start, leaps back. An agonised humanoid face looks up at him from the stony ground, apparently melted into and melded with the rock itself. It rolls its eyes in agony. Twisted limbs writhe from the stones nearby.

Soul Reaver looks up at the horizon. In the distance, and extending into the vast reaches of space, is the most massive Warp Gate Soul Reaver has ever seen. Yet this Gate is somehow twisted and corrupted - the distant, outside edges are tinged with blackness. A rolling mass of energy billows and pulses from the gate, as if at the verge of spilling out. The planet Soul Reaver is standing on now is on the fringes of the energy billowing from the gate.

"What... what IS this place?!"

Stavarus walks up to Soul Reaver.

"The borderlands before the Warp Lords' domain. I could not bring us any closer than this."

Soul Reaver, ensuring he keeps his Warp Shields up at all times, extends his hand as if testing the wind.

"No wonder... these energies... they are like Warp energy... yet different. It would be impossible to open any normal Warp Gates into this."

He cannot keep his eyes from wandering once more to the huge, gaping Gate in the distance. He repeats again,

"By the Gods..."

(ooc: Hey Kanshisha, I DID tell you guys to wrap things up. :P)

Soul Reaver still seems stunned by the world around him. The world here has been corrupted and tainted by the bizarre energies flowing from the Warp Gate, causing everything here to warp and flow together into one nightmarish vision. All around him he can see the tattered, fluttering remnants of insane souls, their very spirits shredded by the horrific transformation.

Soul Reaver cannot bear to look long at the sickening sight of the tortured souls. He keeps his eyes fixed on the Warp Gate before them. He nods very slightly at Kitharsis' words, but contiues to observe the Gate, thinking rapidly...

Meanwhile Stavarus answers Clutchfiend's question.

"Indeed. It was through here that I escaped from the Warp Lord. His... world lies beyond the Warp Gate.

I was able to 'float' down to this planet when I made my escape. It is hard to describe... it was much like how we float when we travel through the Warp. But as I got more distant from the Gate, the planets pull on me increased until I was forced to walk upon the earth.

I am hoping if we walk further towards the horizon, we will be able to float into the Gate."

Soul Reaver nods absent-mindedly.

"He should be right.

The Warp... or whatever exactly it is that is beyond that Gate... is actually invading the Mortal Plane here, bulging out of the Gate. This planet is on the verge of being swallowed by it.

The laws of the Mortal Plane will mean less and less the closer we get to the Gate, and the laws of the Warp Lord's world will take over.

I think what we see on this world is a taste of what happens when his laws apply..."

Soul Reaver shakes his head, looking grim and eerie in the blood-red light.

"Whatever is coming from that Gate is not normal Warp energy. The Warp is chaotic and horribly destructive, but it is not evil as such. This however is... is tainted. It is actively malevolent. I can FEEL a terrible will inside of it, driving it."

He turns to look carefully at all his companions.

"That Warp Gate should be a physical impossibility. It is far, far too large. No hole in reality could be this vast naturally... and I know of no entity capable of opening a Warp Gate of this magnitude, and actually keeping it open. The amount of energy required for it is... incredible.

A Warp Gate of this size is dangerous beyond words. Normally, a Warp Gate would be closed again naturally as the Plane in question heals itself and restores the natural order of things."

Soul Reaver gestures towards the energies bulging from the Gate.

"But this... this wound is massive. The barrier between worlds is at breaking point here. I do not know what would happen if this gate were to get much larger. I fear the consequences would be dire indeed..."

Soul Reaver shudders inwardly. Stavarus, however, is unmoved. His eyes glint with a thirst for vengeance and his eagerness to be on his way.

"All the more reason to get this done with! Follow me!"

Not waiting to see if he is being followed, Stavarus purposefully strides towards the far horizon.

Soul Reaver follows silently, moaning faces rolling their agony-filled eyes at him as he passes, twisted hands pulling feebly at his cape from the warped stones...