As the day progresses you begin to realise that you are slowly approaching a jumbled range of hills or mountains. With the unusual perspective caused by the flat horizons on this infinite plane, the size and distances to such objects can often be hard to judge until you are right on top of them. The Highway, it appears, will pass within a mile of the closest of the hills.
As the time approaches when you know you will have to camp for the night, you have another encounter.
"Yes???!!! Oh!!! Visitors! Travellers! Yes they are!" says a rasping voice.
You look over, and spot a rusted out Buick, sunken up to its rocker panels in the stony soil, looking for all the world like it should be adorning someone's dooryard in downeast Maine. Peering out through the drivers side window at you is a small creature. At first you think that he may be a goblin, but closer inspection reveals him to be a gnome. He wears tattered, filthy, oversized robes, with an enormous, thick belt tied about his midsection, from which hang an assortment of pouches, plus a dagger.
"Where are you going?" he asks, "Where are you coming from?? Oh! Please tell me!!"
Niko draws his cutlass. "Who...and WHAT are you?"
"What am I? What am I he asks?"
He draws himself up to his full stature, which must be all of two feet. "A gnome I am! Nroda is my name! And what be you, Beer Breath?"
Niko checks his breath. "Beer Breath, eh? More like Jack Daniels, if ya ask me.
"The name's Niko...and I'm an elf! What's a gnome like you doing in Hell?"
"Cursed to live here for all time I was."
Niko sheathes his cutlass. "Cursed by whom? Perhaps we can help each other..."
"The arch mage whose pocket I tried to filch!" says Nroda, somewhat defensively.
"Sorry to hear that. Which arch mage?"
"Arum his name was."
"Occa, you ever hear of this arch mage?"
"No, he could be from hundreds of different worlds."
"What do you mean by 'worlds'?" Niko asks, slightly puzzled.
"You know the place we just came from? It is a world full of countries, people and such. Of course, it is huge, but it is finite. There are many such places out there." He waves his hand about. "You really should travel more. Another analogy is hell. You know there are different planes of existance. Well, worlds are similar in that there are seperate ones, but they are all within the prime material plane."
Niko looks back at the gnome. "Do you know what world are you from?"
"Eritha I am from. A beautiful place, it is, with its caves of crystal."
"Anyone ever hear of Eritha?" Niko asks the party.
Al intones, "Great Thor, allow your servant true sight" as he casts True Sight and then he examines the gnome.
Al suddenly freezes in his tracks, his eyes wide and glazed.
Occa says, "Silly priest!"
He covers his eyes.
He says to the gnome, "What did you do to him?"
The gnome looks at Al and then at Occa.
"Me? Nothing did I do! One of his powerful preist spells did he try, to read my aura! Fool! He has seen the evil of which this plane is made of in its true dark glory, and the sight overwhelms him!"
"Right." Occa will cast dispel magic on Al.
Occa casts the spell, but Al is unaffected. He continues to stare blindly ahead of him.
Occa says, looking over at Al, "I wonder. I have studied daemonkind much, since it is where my soul is supposed to go. This - " pointing to Al " - stinks of Ultradaemon. What do you think?" he says to the 'gnome'.
"An ultrodaemon you think he is? A man he looks like to me."
Occa chuckles and says, "Okay, how long will this last? Any idea?" indicating Al.
Nroda shrugs.
"Know I do not. Let us watch!"
The gnome settles back in the shredded driver's seat of the Buick.
"Let's try covering his eyes. Maybe then, he'll snap out of it. Otherwise, we'll probably have to wait until the spell expires, if his brain isn't mush from the overload."
Darian puts his hands over Al's eyes.
Al makes no response.
Occa sees if Orlon can cast heal on Al.
Orlon shakes his head.
"Can't access Thor from here," he replies.
You wait here for Al to recover.
Occa says to the gnome, "Where are you going? Why are you here?"
"I am not going anywhere! I live here! Where are you going? To see the big bad daemon?"
The gnome chuckles.
"What daemon? Do you know of a daemon around here?"
Nroda laughs.
"I know of the aranadaemon-fiend Lord Vrith I do!"
He points off to the jumbled pile of tumbledown hills which are now close by.
"His iron castle within lies. Why do you go to see him?"
"What makes you think we are going to see him and how do you know of this creature?"
"Because fools you look like!" says the gnome, then he points at the frozen Al, "Especially him."
He pauses.
"I know of Vrith because I live here."
"Would you be willing to aid us if we were able to reverse the curse?"
"Aid you in what?"
"Oh, I don't know...let's say information about this area and Lord Vrith for starters..."
"Let's say I might," replies Nroda, equally evasive.
Niko looks toward Occa and then back at the gnome. "Perhaps we should know more about what you were trying to take from this arch mage before we can figure out the best way to remove your curse."
"Perhaps you shouldn't," replies Nroda shortly, obviously not taken in by Nikko's charismatic presence.
Niko belches and drops the subject.
"Also, what do you know about this arch mage?"
"What arch-mage?"
"Never mind..."
After two and a half hours, Al snaps out of it.
He drops to his hands and knees, grunting like a pig, and starts snuffling around, looking for tasty treats.
This is unusual behaviour, even for Al.
Niko chortles.
"Think he can find us some truffles down here?"
Occa shakes his head and says, "By the gods! I wish Al would snap out of this."
He shakes his head again and says, "Someone put a collar on him and let's move out. We will have to figure out what to do about this when we camp."
It suddenly gets dark.
"May as well camp here," says the gnome. "My question you never did answer."
Occa regards the gnome and says, "We will press on. As for your question...what we do doesn't concern you."
"May you not learn otherwise..." mutters the gnome. He then rolls up the window of the Buick, concluding the conversation.
Occa looks to the rest of the group, "Let's move on...."
"Gil, can you carry Al?"
Al is at least as big as Gilstrock, and therefore quite bulky. You manage to carry him a short distance in the pitch darkness before setting him back down. It is virtually impossible to see your way in the night of Avernus, and you hesitate about using lights out of fear of the attention it might attract to you.
Finally, you make camp.