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Jace Beleren had heard stories about Innistrad before. He couldn’t remember all of them, let alone where he had heard them, but that was hardly odd. Yet, despite this, he hadn’t expected it to be so… dark.
He had arrived on the plane to look for Sorin, one of the three who originally trapped the Eldrazi. While the Gatewatch had killed two, Emrakul was still somewhere, and Jace was looking for her. He figured that finding one of the three who knew most about the Eldrazi was probably the best way to go about it, and Jace was rarely wrong. Well, at least he thought he was rarely wrong. Some, meaning most people who’d met him, would disagree on that idea.
One thing Jace was definitely wrong about was that he could find his way easily to Sorin. As it turned out, this plane seemed to have a definite lack of minds to read, at least in the immediate area. Finding a village or city where there were would also be a challenge, seeing as there wasn’t very much light. Judging from what he had heard, this was bad. Jace figured that he might as well just pick a direction, and walk. After all, there wasn’t much else to do.
After a while of tedious walking through fields, he came to an area that seemed to be more civilized. Well, organized farm fields with no village in sight was better than natural fields with no village in sight, right? Unless, Jace supposed, that these where ghost fields. He’d seen stranger.
And, it seemed, a literal actual stranger. Jace, wary of the vaguely-human-shaped thing coming toward him, quickly cast an illusion of invisibility, and waited. After no immediate crushing of his skull, Jace carefully reached into the being’s mind. There was nothing. He slowly moved away, but only ended up drawing the creature’s attention. The… thing appeared to be created of many pieces of other creatures, stitched together by some madman. Cursing quietly, Jace ran. This was not what he had planned to spend his time on Innistrad doing, though it did seem to be his fate on every new plane to come face to face with a creature that wasn’t vulnerable to his usual tricks.
Introspection and running do not mix. It leads to crashing into something. Jace learned this quickly. Rubbing his head, he ducked around the tree, and searched for the monstrosity chasing him. He didn’t see it. That was probably good. Taking a deep breath, he looked around. He was in a small copse, the canopy of the trees hardly helping the natural nighttime darkness that seemed to be already magnified. No noises came from the trees around him. Jace wasn’t sure if this was good or bad. Knowing his luck that day, probably bad.
He was wrong. Somehow, he managed to stay there unharmed through the rest of the night, though how, he didn’t understand. He even fell asleep, and yet remained alive. Shrugging it off, Jace continued on his search for civilization. Eventually, he came to a village. The people seemed mistrustful. No, definitely mistrustful. He couldn’t blame them. Nothing on this plane seemed benevolent. Well, nothing except for a small note given to him by someone who he never saw. The note had one sentence on it: Go west until you reach the city, and you will find who you seek. Jace didn’t have any other leads, and if it was a trap, well, that was just one more thing trying to kill him.
It took the rest of the day, but he made it to the city. Jace was relieved. He ‘persuaded’ an innkeeper to give him a room for the night. Everything was fine, and he could find Sorin the next day.
As if everything would go so smoothly. Jace was about to go to sleep when he heard the door open. He cast out with his mind, trying to find that of the intruder, and stopped when he saw the door open.
Liliana.
He guessed that he should have been expecting her. After all, this plane seemed to be determined to inconvenience him. Or kill him. Most likely the latter. Either way, Liliana was the last person he wanted to see.
“Were you looking for me to continue our last conversation? How nice of you.”
Jace scowled. “Honestly, I can’t do this right now. Maybe later. Right now, I want to rest.”
“You’re sure you don’t want to talk to me? It is the ‘right thing to do’, after all,” Liliana said, putting on a sickly sweet tone at the end.
“Liliana, as much as I’d like to talk to you,” Jace was practically forcing out the words. He was too tired to talk to anyone, let alone her, “I can’t right now. Maybe after I’m actually done with what I came here to do.”
Liliana opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by crackling smell of ozone, and a sudden rush into existence of a man, sparking with irritation.
“I hate doing that. Always have, always will.”
Liliana narrowed her eyes. “And who might you be? Appearing here from nowhere, and interrupting our conversation?”
“If you must know, I’m Ral Zarek. And, I’m here for a reason. Jace Beleren, get your ass back to Ravnica.”
Jace stared openmouthed at the Izzet planeswalker. “What?”
“You heard me. Go do your job, Guildpact. Or else Lightning Bug might have been all for
naught, and I’d hate to have wasted my time saving the both of us getting eaten. In fact, I’d
hate to even get eaten in the first place. So, get back to Ravnica, and do your job.”
Given the choice between an irate Ral Zarek electrocuting him back to Ravnica, and an
uncomfortable conversation with Liliana Vess that he didn’t want to have, Jace would
choose Ravnica any day. And choosing it meant the electrocuting portion was totally
moot.
“Sorry. I’ll have to talk to you some other time. It appears I have a job to do.”
In an inn on Innistrad, Liliana Vess swore to get revenge on Ral Zarek. And in a lab on Ravnica, Ral Zarek completely denied that he had been at all concerned about Jace Beleren. In a room on Ravnica, Jace was just glad to have an excuse to leave Innistrad. That place seriously gave him the creeps.