Party tries to decide what to do. Investigation of the ifrit reveals that someone has been restoring the Blade of Fiery Might. It is apparently one of the artifacts created by the Adversary at the beginning of time. The weapon is vorpal, flaming, unholy, intelligent, and seems to give almost unlimited control over infernal forces. Oh and there is a decent chance that reassembling the weapon might bring the Adversary back to full strength and give him free run of creation. Alex gets a message from Jaenelle and speaks with her about the Sword. When Alex arrives at Jaenelle's room she doesn't remember having sent a message but was able to tell him more information on the ifrit. Jaenelle has been appointed governor of some of the Baronies in return for her help in the capital. She spends most of her time in meetings but see seems fairly happy to see Alex. Jan 8th Kellerik bids the party farewell. He feels that Lothia is not paying him enough to save the world and if the end of the world is coming his loyalty lies with his clan. Also this way if the party fails the Dwarves can attempt to recover the sword before it is too late. Interestingly enough Heronaro is contacted by Theringil (the elf previously thought to have stolen the flying carpet). Theringill received a note explaining the scandal and implicating Herunaro as being behind them. Theringel was dubious of the letter's integrity but being a travel priest Theringill tracked Heronaro down and came to find out more in person. Theringill had no idea there were scandals at home since he has been away only ten years. Some magical inspection reveals that the weapon Theringil is carrying is an apparition of Constantine polymorphed into an object. Herunaro tries to disintegrate it but it gets away. Soon afterwards Alex comes down with a nasty psionic disease. Alex has been infected with a cascading brain flux disease which taps him out mentally. There is some discussion by the party on whether Jaenelle might have caught it as well but she is not available for comment and security around her apartments had been tightened. Lothia introduces a dimensional "breaking and entering" expert they caught entering the castle from another plane. In return for his help they have excused him from trespassing offenses as well as come up with a form of recompensation. The expert is a centaur named Qualintalote. The centaur is dressed in "porcupine barding" and has an attitude. Qualintal picks a fight with the dwarf and as a result gets into the elves good graces. The temple of Jaas facilitates discussions and passes along some information to the newly assembled strike team. They indicate that the team may seem a bit bizarre but divinations reveal that a chaotic war band bent on revenge for Berrik's death will attract less attention than many other groups they could field. Some more time is spent planning then the group uses the "portal" Qualintalote used to enter the castle and then use another portal to get to the world hub. From there it is a simple teleport to Rigus. While the party waits Qualintalote activates the portal to hell despite the high security environment. On Acheron there is some sort of battle taking place near the cavern in which the group arrives. Immediately after entering the portal a shadow is cast over the entrance and people assume ready positions. The group encounters a noble of the house of shadow riding on some form of colossal hunting spider. The elves and Qualintalote immediately jump to the attack leaving the others to scratch their heads. The shadow lord's riding spider has a debilitating poison. Both Qualintalote and Swiftwind are disabled by the poison before the rest of the party manage to drive the shadow lord out the portal to outlands. There is some discussion about why the battle was necessary and it eventually comes down to an aeon long hatreds between the Fae and the Shadow kingdoms. The elves argue that even if the party had done nothing the lady(?!) would have done something nasty to them out of spite for the elves. (warriors of light) Emerging onto the cube's surface the group sees the battle has ended and the different parties are all fleeing. This is largely due to the imminent collusion with another cube. Herunaro pulls out the cubehop spell and invokes it with "Kolotyl the lost cube" as target. The group winks out of existance right as the cubes collide and a few minutes they appear safely on the corner of a much smaller cube. (A few hundred miles long on a side rather than the thousands of miles of the larger cubes.) The party attempts to scout out the area around their appearance and stumble into a Roc which they avoid via taking cover as it crests the cube corner. But another Roc spots them and the pair of Axiomatic creatures turn and attack as one. The battle is quickly won and the party continues to scout the two nearest faces of the cube. It is decided that the rocs and the shadow lord depleted the party's magic and further battles might prove dangerous, so the group finds a cliff and disintegrates a cave halfway up in which they can hide. During the night there is a collision throwing people around quite a bit in the cave. Luckily the new tunnel had a bend to prevent ranged attacks and no one gets thrown off of the cube. One of the sentries sees a band of phantoms re- enacting some long forgotten war. None of them actually trouble the party. The next day the group magically fly along a route given by Theringil's "find the path" spell. A couple hours into travel the group encounter a hellhound attempting to shadow them. Herunaro blasts it but it seems tougher than he is used to. Afraid that they torched a disguised celestial the party investigates only to be jumped by a band of Fire giants working with mind linked hellhounds. The fire giants are nasty. One sneaked up to the party without being noticed. The others hid behind an obstruction and rushed the party en-masse. Herunaro learns the giants are magic resistant and gets surrounded early on. Luckily the gods of luck smiles upon him for a giant about to stave in Herunaro's head fumbles allowing Herunaro to flee to safety. The others fight a fierce battle. Berrik challenges the fire giant leader to battle and promptly unsexes her in a blistering pass of blows. The fire giants just can not match the party's intensity. The group drop the giants in a short brutal melee and trap the last giant beneath a dome of ice. The do(o)med giant is approached by Berrik whom finds the giant holding a necklace of missiles as a dead-mans ploy to take someone to hell with him. The necklace of missile destroys everything within 40 feet but miraculously Berrik survives by killing the fire giant and using him for cover while the fireworks go off. The giants had iron tower livery and carried pretty substantial camping gear making them seem like some sort of security patrol. One giant had a huge greatsword that sparks and buzzes as it passes through the air. Qualintal falls in love with the weapon and instantly gives it a new home.