After the Demon Orc Wars, the Regime captured Eross. They quickly deemed him reeducated, though the actual effects on him were unknown. However, for one reason or another, the Regime placed in holding, in the dungeons of the Regime in an unknown location, slated to become an experiment for magical transportation. This particular dungeon was sending subjects through portals to the Iron Gut.
Gunther Gundahar was in the same dungeon. From Eross, he learned about the incident of Rittpoor Mansion.
Gunther was somehow able to slow the process of reeducation with Eross. He concentrated a special amount of magical energy to implant a spell that would reverse the reeducation and cause Eross to be transported out of the reach of the regime to a certain location, and subsequently trigger another magic spell that would also transport Gunther to another location.
However, things did not go as planned. Eross disappeared into the magic circle, but both Gunther and the Regime magic researchers lost track of him. To the Magic Researchers, this was no surprise. The magic circle was extremely unreliable, and teleported people deep under layers of rock, too high above the ground, and so on. They had many prisoners. They considered Eross' transportation just another failure deemed dead--"test subject lost".
However, Gunther knew this was not the case. He had grafted a corresponding sigil into his own skin. But nothing had triggered it. If Eross had died, the sigil would have disappeared. He knew that Eross was safe, but somehow out of reach. On a different plane? Held in a magical field? Gunther did not know.
Gunther had no choice but to repeat his experiment on two convicted killers who the regime had brought in as test subjects: Gordon Carbonstump and his sidekick Ruarc Manflannel. They were two cells down from Gunther. He infused them with the very last of the magical energies, then subtly manipulated the guards into sending them into transportation circles. Gunther was not sure that this would work, since he had expended the most potent energies on Eross.
But it was a success. Gunther found the process had transported him to the intended area in the outside world, along with Carbonstump and Manflannel. Since they had fulfilled their purposes, the sigils corresponding to Carbonstump and Manflannel disappeared from Gunther's body. Gunther quickly cast a spell of sleep on the duo and left. And it was only several days later, arriving in the nearest town, that he realized that _several decades had elapsed.
And the sigil corresponding to Eross never activated, but also never disappeared.