D&D 5E [D&D 5e] Planescape - In Through the Out Door

The 'please' goes a long way with the talking spellbook. Sure he might be made of paper now, and they might be surrounded by drunken reprobates, but a gentleman-mage didn't stop being gentlemanly because the clock spun counterclockwise. Graydon's apparent respect for Shandrizar's acumen also buoys the transmogrified mage's ego. He's already turning for the door when he realizes that he's playing the dutiful familiar part a bit too well for comfort.

Eyeing the conversation between the Athar and Barstle, the spellbook arches his brow. As if today weren't interesting enough! Now it sounded like a gate-town had been lost to the Blood War. Glancing at Graydon he nods wordlessly, floating and bobbing out the door as some patrons vacate the tavern. Once on the street, Shandrizar looks around to see if he can tell what causes the thunderous boom or what its fallout might be. If there is rain, he makes certain to keep his precious pages dry under an awning.

OOC: Yes, I was referring to Lili's pseudodragon. Apologies if that wasn't clear!

With a squeak and a roar like the mew of a tired cat, the pixie's friend and trusty steed appears, diving down and out of the chimney and twirling through the air across the room-- all without accumulating so much as a spot of soot on its tail. It alights on the table and paces toward her, sniffing at the bounty of the meal still laid out there.

There is no rain, not even of the falling soot that plagues the Lower Ward. But the streets are packed, and not just with the working-class sorts Shandrizar might expect to see in his part of the city. Well-dressed merchants, gamblers, gangsters, and smugglers of the sort to frequent a den of thieves like Torch, in various states of disarray, many of them smoldering or lightly charred. Thugs and ne'er-do-wells and down-and-outs, less wretched than those of the Hive, but more scarred, and if possible, more desperate-looking. Adventurers, of course, but then there was no telling if they'd jumped ship from the sliding gate-town or been in Sigil to begin with.

Many of them entered with naught but the clothes on their backs, though a few seemed to have arrived with luggage in tow, or the occasional keepsake or bit of valuables. Stolen, many of them, almost certainly. The brawls over pittances have already begun.

Of the portals in view down this side-street, many of them are opening and closing continuously, as more and more refugees pour through. Each time a portal opens, another boom. Through the shimmering surface of the portals, in back of the churning mobs trying to escape, Shandrizar can see Torch falling, its steep streets upending, cracking and crumbling, sending gouts of greenish smoke up into the air and hurling people to the marshes below. The volcanoes that make up Torch's skyline are aglow with sputtering flame, drooling bright orange lava. Winged contingents of fiends, of all three major races, battle for air supremacy, blotting out the sky.

[section]Picayune shot up into the rafters above the table when Barstle told everyone to decamp the tavern. The effigy hovered, not sure where to go. He whistled for Shard's attention. "Lady! Hey, Lady! You stayin' put, or headin' out? What's goin' on?" Surely, she would know. She, at least, had a body and had been here longer than he had.[/section]

Oz stumbles out of the back room with Adal in tow, a smug satisfaction on his face "What's going on. I thought he first boom was just us." he quips with a lascivious grin. "But then we heard the ruckus from out here."

[sblock=OOC] I was waiting to post as I figured a graphic description of faun frolicking in flagrante delicto may not have pleased Eric's Grandmother [/sblock]

Mesmerizingly, the tiny fiery blip above the fireplace grows and shimmers.

The Duke, not having moved from his chair by the wall, frowns and looked to Eurid. "'Torch. Has. Slid'," he repeats, haltingly. "Well now what's that supposed to mean?"

[sblock=Eurid]What it means, @goatunit Eurid is lucently aware: it means an evacuation en masse from Torch, probably the one gate-town that doesn't want to join the Plane with which it is attached. Great greedy sods that they are, they know that the fiends of Gehenna are greedier by far, having already stripped Gehenna of all its worth. They know they'd be pressganged into the Blood War, put to work in Yugoloth arms factories, or sold off to slavers, quick as you spit.

And if what you're hearing about a Blood War sortie overrunning the town, it means a lot of nastiness might well be on the other end of any opening portal, hot in pursuit of any inbound refugees...[/sblock]

Unsung said:

With a squeak and a roar like the mew of a tired cat, the pixie's friend and trusty steed appears, diving down and out of the chimney and twirling through the air across the room-- all without accumulating so much as a spot of soot on its tail. It alights on the table and paces toward her, sniffing at the bounty of the meal still laid out there.

OOC: Does your pseudodragon talk? What's it's name? What colour is it, [MENTION=8058]Queenie[/MENTION]?

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The fairy was extraordinarily happy to see her friend get to her. "Vassuki!! Thank goodness you are here!" There was a slight pause."Yes, I know, I KNOW." Pause. "Okay, I won't leave you behind again. FINE." She points her tiny finger at the colorful dragon. "Now you listen here..." Pause. "Fine, eat some food before you starve to death. I know, I abuse you so..." The dragon tears into some meat while Lili watches him warily. "Do you happen to know what is going on out there Suk?"

"Craziness, my lady--" the pseudodragon plucks out a hunk of stringy meat from the stew, and continues the rest of the thought telepathically, --pure craziness.

All manner of unexpected guests, it seems, all through the Festhall, and all through the town. A few came out of the closet in our quarters, my lady. Just lucky your faithful Vassuki, he dips his antlered head, was there to turn them out. No harm done, my lady.

The little dragon sits back on his haunches and puffs out his chest, iridescent feathers coruscating under the flickering lanterns of the tavern.

The floating spellbook, lit by the flickering orange glow emanating from the portals to Torch, watches the stream of refugees and villainy pour into the city. Somewhere in the back of his vellum mind was a flicker of a memory. His Three Dire Predictions. Had this been one of them? If only he could think clearly like a man! But he was no man, he was a book.

Telepathically to Graydon:

Might I suggest, oh Conjurer, that we retire to more suitable environs? Most of the scum filling the streets look like their first names are some combination of a grim adjective and another word for a shiv. I wouldn't be surprised if fiends are soon to follow - another reason for us to make like bariaur and get the hoof out of here.

Unless, of course, you intend to fight fiends with glitterdust?

Not that I wouldn't get a certain perverse satisfaction in seeing that...