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

[section]The effigy blew backward in shock, opting to blench out of sight behind Eurid. When both the dustman and the satyr appeared bemused, however, the effigy ventured twenty feet upward and hovered above the others. Gots ta see where dey at, who dey is. Lordy! Dat 'lil girl, she FIERCE. Hunh. The effigy considered. An idea formed. And the shadow of a smile crinkled. Follow 'em, mebbe. See who dey is, where dey go. An' den we waits, waits 'til nighty-night dey go. [/section]

Graydon blinked at the gem-woman's words, and looked a little harder at the dragon. Admittedly there wasn't any time spent to summon it, there wasn't any intermediate stages of fairy transforming into the big lizard, and some kind of phantasmal force would be so much easier and very nearly as effective; who would know better than him? So...



The young wizard relaxed a little, fingers loosening on his staff before he raised a hand to his mouth and called through the illusion. "That was a very impressive performance, Miss, but perhaps next time you should go with something a bit less dramatic? The locals probably don't like having their day disrupted like this."

He turned back to the fierce lady with the exotic protrusion- and his eyebrows twitched at her rather more brusque demeanor. Oh, like you wouldn't have rumpled hair too after a night like mine! Still, no reason to be offensive just yet. "I'd have to take the time and study it to be sure, but I think I've seen the like. One of the better quality of those new 'mood' gems, is it? Here, let me see..."

He stepped forward to get a closer look, one hand reaching up to touch it and try to figure the thing out. What was that about not being offensive, again?

Liliana stays hidden behind Oz, clinging to his back. "There is something terrible in that alley, just awful," she says her voice trembling. "Frightfully cold and... unnatural. I won't go back there I just won't! Not even to play with new friends!!" If they could see her, they would see a tiny shivering fairy with a scared little pout.

CanadienneBacon said:

The effigy blew backward in shock, opting to blench out of sight behind Eurid. When both the dustman and the satyr appeared bemused, however, the effigy ventured twenty feet upward and hovered above the others. Gots ta see where dey at, who dey is. Lordy! Dat 'lil girl, she FIERCE. Hunh. The effigy considered. An idea formed. And the shadow of a smile crinkled. Follow 'em, mebbe. See who dey is, where dey go. An' den we waits, waits 'til nighty-night dey go.

Click to expand...

The Hive looks no better from Picayune's new higher vantage. The streets spill out in seemingly random directions, widening hugely before abruptly dead-ending, cul de sac-ing, and turning back on themselves. Mountainous junk piles push up against the backs of baroque, meandering tenement buildings.

Everywhere the same curved blade motif is repeated. It matches the shoulder plates on the red-armoured guard. A seemingly purposeless minaret, far too thin for even one person to fit inside, seems to serve only to support a giant crescent moon, roughly four times as wide as the tower upon which it stood, made of warped and welded armour and bent swords, twisted metal sculpted into a grotesquely grinning man-in-the-moon face, pierced by a hundred broken sword hilts.

It rose out of the haze of Sigil, unnoticed by the people below. Hell, you probably couldn't even make it out from street level.

It had to be huge. A man-shaped figure in a kind of bright green draping kimono and a strange, curly turban hovered near the apparition, beating at it with a tiny hammer. Orange sparks flew from between the gaps on the inside of the thing, spitting over the corners of the moon's grinning, snaggletoothed mouth.

goatunit said:

The paladin clears his throat, sympathy for these lost souls coming over him.

"Alright, alright," he announces. Perhaps even the wizard and woman can hear him. "Huddle up, you berks. These displays are liable to get us all mazed."

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The devil, still sprawled in the gutter with the contents of the upturned bottle of gutrot oozing around him, gives a snort of laughter, but props himself up on one elbow, listening intently as the paladin of the Dead begins to speak. Charity in the Hive was too rare to ignore.

"Ears on or not, as you will--but let it be on your own head," Eurid says. He spins about, pointing at everyone he can see in the alley and keeping a tally on his fingers. He makes sure to add two for the effigy and fairy that he can no longer see. The drunken devil makes the list as well.

"Lot of new fish in the fish bowl," he observes. "The cat's paws won't be far behind. Knights-of-the-post, blood war recruiters, Xaositects and worse will be along shortly to liberate your jink. Best you fall in behind me and I'll get you someplace to find your bearings and answer questions, rummy?"

Assuming he has the requisite knowledge, then Eurid will try and lead the way to where some collectors might be working so as to have some faction allies close at hand in case of trouble. Barring that, he'll aim for an ale-house other than the Styx Oarsman.

The woman's eyes widened as Grayson reached up to touch the thing in her forehead. "What are you...stop!" She reached to stop him but was a hair too late.

The gem was smooth under his fingertip, and warm. And when he touched it there was a pressure in his skull, as if he'd just been dunked under a hundred feet of water. His ears rang, and suddenly...

He was flying through the air, chasing a monstrous shadow that wriggled and wormed across the ground. He looked up and saw a titanic monster overhead; a draconic creature that threatened to blot out the very sun from the sky. Lifting his right hand, which held what appeared to be a 'solid' bolt of lightning shaped vaguely like a spear, he roared challenge and soared ever higher, ever closer...

The battle was nothing more than a confused succession of images; claws and teeth as big as he was, lightning spear and shield...and blood. So much blood. Where the ebony ichor of the monster fell, smaller dragons started to congeal. In the end he saw a fertile valley laid waste, and the very wings of the beast torn off. In the end the great dragon was thrown back down to the ground, where it struck so hard that it punched through the sand and stone and created a great hole to the underworld...where somehow he knew the beast would be chained to consume the souls of those unworthy to make the journey to their second lives...

...his wrist was seized and wrenched away from her head. The woman shoved him back against the wall and pinned him against it, her eyes furious.

"Tell me," she snarled, "where you saw this crystal, and I will forgive your transgression."

The collectors descend like flies upon any sign of death. A rampaging beast, loose in the Hive? Of course a few of them would lurk nearby, even now. They'd be lying in wait to stake first claim on the resulting bodies.

Their fraying brown robes, hoods pulled up over their heads and corpse-mold dotting the sleeves and hem made a kind of uniform for the men who harvested the dead for coin; nobody would be caught wearing such a robe who didn't want to be mistaken for a collector.

Outside the alley, the mob begins to calm. The street isn't filling with fire or lightning or chlorine gas, or eighty tons of armour-plated dragon-flesh running roughshod all through the place. The thugs might still bust in your door or a fireball might drop through the roof, but that was just another day in the Hive. People start to go back about their business. People could get used to just about anything.

The street across the way, the one where the Hardhead had retreated after the dragon put in its appearance, leads out of the Hive and into the Lower Ward. Safer, by some little measure, if you didn't count the presence of the other factions against it. They mostly left the Hive to the Hivers-- and the Dustmen, Bleak Cabal, and the Xaositects.

On the other hand, Eurid also knows of a portal in this part of the Hive, which led into a back room of the Gathering Dust Bar, and you couldn't get much safer than that. The portal was the front door of an abandoned house, on the street on the other side of this very alley. The key, though, was somewhat trickier. It required a tooth held between your second and third fingers, and it shut after each person that went through it.

Of course, there was always the long way back to the Mortuary. A few lesser taprooms lay along the way.

First to the collectors, then, to purchase a handful of teeth.

Eurid heads to the mouth of the alley and pauses to see who wants to follow.

[section]The effigy tore its conscious thought from the minaret sporting the corrupt giant crescent, and focused instead on the group of wayfarers down below in the alley. Seeing the dustman rally the others for retreat, the effigy sailed down fifteen feet to hover five feet above Graydon. He da least offendin' of dis bunch. Looky-loo at dat milk skin dat boy got. White like cream. Hoo! That impression, however, changed in an instant when Shard nailed Graydon to the wall moments later. The effigy shuttled to Eurid's side and remained there, out of sight but prepared to tag along closely behind the group.[/section]

goatunit said:

"Ears on or not, as you will--but let it be on your own head," Eurid says. He spins about, pointing at everyone he can see in the alley and keeping a tally on his fingers. He makes sure to add two for the effigy and fairy that he can no longer see. The drunken devil makes the list as well.

"Lot of new fish in the fish bowl," he observes. "The cat's paws won't be far behind. Knights-of-the-post, blood war recruiters, Xaositects and worse will be along shortly to liberate your jink. Best you fall in behind me and I'll get you someplace to find your bearings and answer questions, rummy?"

Assuming he has the requisite knowledge, then Eurid will try and lead the way to where some collectors might be working so as to have some faction allies close at hand in case of trouble. Barring that, he'll aim for an ale-house other than the Styx Oarsman.

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"What in the frak are you saying man. Speakaee Sylvano? Commonee? Use words man, words convey meaning my friend. Not the random nonsense you espouse. Ohhh maybe you were cursed? Poor fellow, did you get hit with the Carrollian curse from the dryad in the giant oak on the Isle of Dread. Let me try again: Come to my arms beamish boy, for twas brillig. Dost thou find thou art in needs of a jubjub bird? Frumious bandersnatch?" Oz looks concerned by the being's inability to form coherent speech.

[sblock=OOC]
Seriously, I don't know what the hell is going on or what Eurid is saying.I am sure that it is indeed appropriate vocabulary to the locale, but I don't understand any of it. [/sblock]