Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
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Shemeska
Adventurer
Gez said:
So do I, and it shows. In a campaign that gets as depressingly dark as this one has, the comic relief is not only welcome, it's nearly required. She fits the bill nicely in between me RP'ing soulless beings of repugnant levels of evil. I never intended for her to stick around past the first adventure but the players liked her and so she's been around for all but one plot arc of the campaign.
Clueless
Webmonkey
[shameless pimping] Watch for mentions of the Jammer in the Sensate writeup (fiction at the beginning of it) at www.planewalker.com .... Official Products/Released Products. [/shameless pimping]
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Clueless
Webmonkey
Voldenuit said:
Completely different on Planewalker. Besides, in the SH I place the Portal Schmortal in the Clerk's Ward when in reality it should be in The Lady's Ward IIRC. Adding a new inn to the city = not too big a problem. Removing one of the most well known inns with something that popped up in the campaign you were running at the time = not cool.
Rest assured, the origin for the PJ on Planewalker differs fully from the origin of the PJ in my campaign. They just look the same and share a name.
EDIT: I am not Clueless, just shemmy using Clueless's laptop and forgetting to check who was logged in at the time...
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Voldenuit
First Post
Clueless said:
Thanks for the reassurance, Shemmy!
I should have known better than to doubt you, buth then again, it was probably just a 'loth plot to seed misgivings in my mind and then to prove them groundless, setting the stage to make me more susceptible to trusting you in the future... ^_^
Shemeska
Adventurer
Death and memories... actually make that bloody and messy deaths and memories
The streets of The Lady’s Ward were packed with morbidly curious onlookers who watched from stoops and alleyways as a mob of former Mercykillers, dressed in full faction regalia marched from the Prison in the rough direction of the City Court, former Factol Alisohn Nilesia at their head. The ex-factol was screaming at the top of her lungs, a glint of unshuttered madness burning in her eyes, and extolling her followers with a litany of curses that flowed freely from her mouth.
“Where are you? Answer me you bladed harlot! Where is Darkwood?! Where is he? Give him to me and show yourself!” The young tiefling’s profanity laced tirade against The Lady of Pain was causing the gathered crowd to nervously back away, though some seemed to edge closer, eager perhaps to witness the coming bloodshed…
“S***! She’s gone completely barmy since the last time we saw her! Sure she was nuts before, but she was canny about it. Now she’s just totally lost it!” Clueless said to his companions as they huddled in the shadow of a building as the fifty or so strong pack of Mercykiller’s began to parade past them. One of the Aoskian hounds held by one of Nilesia’s lieutenants snarled and snapped in Toras’s direction, warning him to stay clear of its master’s walk, wherever they were going. It was as if Nilesia was goading The Lady to appear because the movement of her group had slowed first and then paused to allow the screaming factol to turn around and address the crowd and city itself.
“You have sinned against the planes themselves! You have committed crimes about the multiverse, this city, and me! Release Rowan Darkwood to me from where you shelter him from my justice and I shall make your death quick and painless! You know you must answer to me bitch! Show yourself!” Nilesia’s screaming had begun to turn her voice raw and her mouth was flecked by bits of spittle at their edges, such was the state of frenzied mania she had worked herself into. Her word’s had begun to rattle even her own troops however, and not only the gathered onlookers.
“If you will not face me I will take out your sentence on those I can find!” Screaming up to the sky, Nilesia drew and brandished a gleaming, red bladed sword covered in glowing symbols of the Red Death. Turning around, her bloodshot eyes focused on a being that moved down the street adjacent to the pack of her followers without paying any attention whatsoever to the crowds, a solitary Dabus.
An instant, paralytic hush fell over the crowd in its entirety as Nilesia leapt forwards at the Dabus, opening its stomach with a single slice before spinning in a circle and slicing its head clean from its shoulders. The Dabus dropped to the ground, its head toppling over in a spray of crimson as Nilesia screamed in frustration while the crowd of onlookers began to panic and flee the scene.
The crowd didn’t move far. Before the eyes of the decapitated Dabus had glazed over in death a massive figure appeared in the center of the street, some five yards from Nilesia and the head of her pack of collaborators. Nearly fifteen feet tall, coldly emotionless, unspeaking and serene, with blades sprouting from its face, head and shoulders, Her Serenity, The Lady of Pain gazed down upon the factol. The hem of The Lady’s robe wavered gently in a nonexistent breeze as Nilesia paused and seemed to pale ever so slightly, to waver in her composure for a split second before madness overwhelmed her and galvanized her actions.
“You know it! You yourself came to me and admitted your crimes! Bow your head and I shall serve your sentence! Justice does not sleep!” Nilesia screamed up at the Bladed Queen as the crowd’s eyes grew to the size of plates almost collectively. Then, she charged at The Lady, hurling her sword directly at The Bladed Queen.
Screams rose from the onlookers as a the air was split by the sound of breaking, tortured metal as a shadow leapt from The Lady of Pain to rip Nilesia’s sword apart, peppering the factol and her Mercykiller faithful with white hot fragments of steel. The factol’s eyes quivered and her knees buckled as The Lady’s shadow surged forwards, transfixing the young tiefling like a skewered hunk of meat. There was a scream from Nilesia to shake the very hells as her skin erupted into a gushing flurry of slashes, cuts, and gouges where the Bladed Queen’s shadow fell upon her.
A red, spattering mist broke from her flesh where they shadow fell and she vainly threw out a hand, somehow managing to scream for help from her assembled faithful who could only stare at her, then at The Lady, as their factol began to slowly melt and peal to the bone on left leg, arm and torso, transfixed by The Lady’s razor edged pall. Try as she might to pull herself free, screaming till her voice croaked and broke from the hellish pain as her body was torn to bloody shreds, the shadow lanced forwards even more to fully envelop her. In the space of seconds the screaming ended with the sounds of splitting flesh and bone, and the metallic clatter and sparking of shattering armor.
The throng of Mercykiller faithful stood in shock, none of them yet fully believing that their factol was dead, that the factol was wrong, and that she lay there in a pool of her own blood, a mess of exposed bone and shredded muscle and viscera upon the naked flagstones of The Lady’s Ward. Then The Lady turned to regard them, shifting a few degrees in the air and all hell broke loose.
Nilesia’s troops screamed and broke rank as The Lady’s shadow moved again, lancing through their midst, catching several of them with agonizing results. Limbs were sheared off, flesh was ripped asunder to leave the victims moaning in their own guts upon the ground; but the lancing shadow did not follow them, nor even seen directed at them. The bladed shadow continued on, the Mercykillers’ catharsis only incidental. Like a flowing, ever expanding penumbral river it speared through the scattering mob of innocents and onlookers that had stood behind the members of the Red Death to fall directly upon a single figure that had stood, watching, from the rear of the gathered.
The doomed figure attempted to flee, but try as it might, it could not escape The Lady’s pitiless gaze and it erupted into a spattering torrent of black ichor as it fell to the ground, a fiendish scream passing from their lips as they shuddered, twisted, and convulsed in dying agony. Minutes stretched onwards like an eternity till finally the figure ceased its rictus dance and a wheezing death rattle passed its lips to leave it laying still in a spreading pool of its own sizzling blood.
The Lady hovered for but a brief several seconds before She turned, not bothering to regard the stunned and horrified crowd of assembled citizens who averted their eyes and cowered, lest Her shadow fall upon them as well. She drifted, silently, serene, and utterly unconcerned for some twenty feet down the avenue before She vanished into nothingness.
As the crowd slowly recovered from their horror, a single Dabus emerged onto the street, floating to a stop near the factol’s mangled corpse, projecting a single rebus above its head for all to read, “Are you yourselves free of the strings you so joyously play with? This city will not tolerate your conflict within its borders.”
The remaining Mercykillers had already dispersed to lick their wounds, both physical and emotional, and to their morale. The crowd as well was now slinking off rapidly away from the scene of The Lady’s slaughtering of the old factol and the other victim, simply wishing to get away from any action by Her Serenity. And as the minutes passed on the frequent accompaniment to many of The Lady’s appearances made itself known, a horse drawn cart manned by former Dustmen.
Nisha looked over at Toras, “I want to go get a look at that body before they cart it off to the mortuary…”
Toras looked at the tiefer like she had a hole in her head, “Why? He’s pretty well smeared across the pavement as it is.”
“Because I swear I recognized him. But I can’t say for certain till I’ve seen him up close.” She finished her explanation by sticking her tongue out at the half-celestial.
And so, having made her explanation, Nisha walked over to the body of the 2nd of The Lady’s victims, stepping carefully to avoid stepping in any of the deeper puddles of gore. Clueless, Toras, and Skalliska, who slinked out of an adjacent alleyway, having apparently been there at the scene of the crime as well, joined Nisha while the others ran over to chat up, and delay, the two gaunt looking Dusties as they drew up in their battered cart with even more battered horses to collect the dead for cremation or burial in an appropriate plane or prime world.
Nisha’s eyes went wide as she saw the full body of the victim spread out on the cobblestones, its clothing largely shredded and its outer skin gouged and pitted with an overly large amount of blood steaming and evaporating in the open air with a smell like acid and burning pitch. The victim was very clearly not human, nor even mortal.
“Well I’ll be a Guvner, it’s Garroth the Blind!” Nisha said, poking at its purse from where it had fallen under a nearly pulped pair of wings.
“Who?” Clueless asked.
“A Nycaloth who hangs out in the Hive and the Lower Ward selling information to people about the Blood War, and doing recruiting for the War while he’s at it. I wouldn’t say he’s a permanent resident of the city, like Shemeska the Marauder or A’kin the Friendly Fiend, but he’s well enough known by me and the folks I tend to hang around with in my off hours.” Nisha answered.
“Ah, like your boyfriend?” Toras asked.
“Who? I don… ah yeah, my boyfriend, ummhmm yeah, him.” Nisha said after a brief look of confusion.
“Damn, looks like they can’t delay the collectors anymore…” Skalliska said as the dustmen and their cart came to collect the dead Nycaloth’s body and heap it atop the butchered remains of the former Mercykiller factol.
“So what the hell was Garroth flayed over I have to ask…” Florian said as they watched the collectors cart the bodies away back in the direction of the Mortuary.
“Dunno… but we do know that Trenevain said his bodyguards were more of minders to make sure he didn’t screw up his part, and the Mercane had a pretty hefty contingent of Yugoloth troops in their little demiplane. Hells, they were dealing with an Ultroloth! An Ultroloth whose assassination we witnessed! I think that’s pretty solid evidence for some sort of link between this here and the mercane that had us get Nilesia in the first place…” Nisha said as she thumbed through Garroth’s purse, frowning at the lack of much beyond copper.
And so the group started the long trip back across the city, intentionally going the long way back to the Clerk’s Ward so as to avoid the Hive. Their trip was not incidental, as while passing through the Guildhall Ward they paused when a voice called out to them from a stoop of an adjacent building.
“You! I know you!” Came a shrill cry from across the street, spoken by a tiny red imp.
“Excuse us? I don’t think so; we tend to not party around with fiends. We’ll kill fiends, but not party around with them. Except maybe A’kin, and he’s a sweetheart, evil or not.” Florian said, his hands firmly planted on his hips.
“Not you. You, the bladesinger!” The imp was pointing directly at Clueless and standing up with apparent glee.
“Umm, can I help you?” Clueless asked, stepping forward and not afraid in the slightest over any given imp.
“Oh Avalas the Bloodbathed will want to know that you are still alive! He still remembers the day that you stabbed him in the back during that Tanar’ri siege of his encampment! And I will have you know, that he has since ascended to Pit Fiend rank in Baator… he has power now fool, and he will not hesitate to send his minions after you once I tell him you are still alive!”
Clueless paused and looked suddenly concerned as part of his past came barging back into the present very suddenly and unexpectedly. The imp was dancing and clapping its hands with glee.
“He thought you dead and gone! But now he can enjoy slowly torturing you to death in Nessus where he remains stationed! You will regret having betrayed a powerful Baatezu, mortal! You will…” The imp’s rant was silenced as its features dulled, turned a flat shade of white, and its body petrified to stone as Tristol waved his hands in the air and whispered a series of words.
“I don’t think so…” The aasimar said as he smiled at the petrified imp, now frozen into a snarl with its hands raised over its head in a menacing gesture and its scorpion tail raised high behind it. All in all, nearly comical looking.
Clueless looked over at Tristol, “Well that’s a new one!”
Tristol smiled at Clueless and then chuckled as Nisha walked over to the imp and struck a similar pose while hissing at it, between bouts of giggling. “Yes it is, I’ve only learned it since I got those spellbooks from the Incantifer. And that’s just one of the first, half of them I can’t even understand or cast yet. But I think this solves your problem of this guy running back to Baator to snitch on you?”
“Yeah, it does solve the problem. Thank you. I think he’ll make a nice inn decoration if we place him as a hat rack or something. Heck, check his mouth for portals later, we might get lucky and have it breath fire or something.” Clueless said as he hefted the stone imp into the air and deposited it in one of the bags of holding he carried.
“Hey! That was pretty good! How much you want for that puny little s*** of an imp!” A voiced cawed out from across the street where a large vrock stood with an amused expression on its face, having apparently watched the entire incident.
“No, this one’s not for sale. Business, not pleasure. However you might ask Tristol here in the future if he’s got any more he’d be willing to part with.” Clueless said over to the greater Tanar’ri.
“Hey… yeah, I thought I recognized you! That’s right, from the other night!” The Vrock said, suddenly smiling almost pleasantly to a suddenly very confused Clueless.
“Don’t think I’ve ever met you actually…” The bladesinger said with a pause in his voice.
“Sure you did! The other evening at the Styx Oarsman, you were there to see Rule-of-Three to sell something or another. I’m certain it was you, same sword and everything. And boy did you piss off one of the bouncers, spit in his face and asked if he liked licking Cornugon balls, because after one of them was done with his mother, it might enjoy round two with the son! I’ve never seen him get so flustered and so totally outclassed…” The Vrock was laughing as it walked over and slapped Clueless on the back like an old friend before it waved and snickered at the imp and walked off.
“….” Clueless just stood there thinking as the Vrock walked off into the distance, and he didn’t say much more by the time they got back to the Portal Jammer. All he kept thinking about was the fact that he had gone to bed early the other night and woken up dead tired the next morning, almost as if he hadn’t slept at all. And that was all on the same night as the Vrock had thought he’d seen him at the Styx Oarsman, a Tanar’ri bar…
Once they got back to the Jammer, Clueless went to his room and checked on certain things. He started cursing immediately as he started to look for the papers and maps they had taken from the mercane. Every single one of them was missing, and he had a pretty decent idea that he was probably responsible, even if he didn’t remember it.
“Crap… I need my memory back so I can figure out what the hell is going on with me…” Clueless lamented as he sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the water filled globe with its exotic fish that he’d taken from Dalmar Imshenviir’s office. A minute later he was out the front door of the inn and headed in the direction of the Great Gymnasium, hoping that some time spent in meditation might jolt his memories some like it had the last time.
Once there, he actually happened to see Fyrehowl in the gym, training in swordplay with a rail thin githzerai monk who was one of Rhys’s personal aide de camps, and clearly a better in swordplay by the looks of it at the moment. But the gith seemed to be toning his style down somewhat so as to instruct, rather than overwhelm, and the lupinal was clearly enjoying herself in the process as Clueless walked past and up to the higher levels of the complex.
Originally he’d been intending to visit the Cadence chamber, but he didn’t get that far. On the level below the Cadence chamber itself, one of the long meditation halls, he walked up to a slim tiefling woman dressed in robes, with long flowing black hair and hooves nearly like Nisha; former Factol Rhys.
“No need to bother seeking the Cadence chamber at this time, that will come later.” Rhys spoke to Clueless without opening her eyes, though she was seated to face in his direction as he entered the meditation hall. The former factol was seated in a lotus position and seemed to be so lightly touching the ground that it might at first appear as if she was floating in her trance-like state.
“Oh excuse me, my apologies councilwoman Rhys. If I’m disturbing you I’ll leave.” Clueless backed off slightly before Rhys opened her eyes which seemed distant, glazed over, as if she were indeed in some level of trance.
“No, this was where you were to be and where the Cadence had me be as well. Your memories, your hidden memories, they trouble you. You walk with a shadow passing over you and it sullies your waking mind with doubt and fear. Come closer.” Rhys smiled and held out one hand to beckon Clueless.
“Yes? Can I…” Clueless stopped as the former Factol reached up and gently tapped him in the center of his forehead with a single finger.
“Remember, if only for a moment the details that have been robbed from you. Unlock that door inside your mind and step within before it shuts once again. Learn and act upon that. Do not ponder, do not think; act.” Rhys said with utter serenity, as Clueless clutched at his forehead and winced as a flurry of memories flew back into his mind.
The Yugoloth slavers, some twenty odd black, chitinous Mezzoloths and two bloated, many-limbed Dergholoth surrounded Clueless and his two companions as they shackled the three of them to each other. One of the Dergholoth’s, larger than the others, its squat bulb shaped body with its three shubby legs and four claw tipped arms shambled forwards to the three of them and rotated its mantis-like head to face the bladesinger. Its mandibles clacked and chattered, then a mental prompt of more emotion than words commanded the three of them to start marching along with the troop column. The bariaur was the first in line, and slow to start moving. The Dergholoth overseer motioned to one of its soldiers that quickly slammed the butt of its trident into his flank then parroted the others telepathic command again, this time in infernal.
The next five hours were spent winding through a blasted rocky wasteland, nearer to one of the mountains on the current orb, the air growing slightly thinner as they ascended. The sunless, blood red sky, fading to black high above, burned down without mercy, and within the first several hours their exposed skin ached with each and every movement. The yugoloths were on constant watch for any attacks by the Gehreleth, all of the Red Prison being the home of that splinter race of fiends, which from all Clueless had heard, had some sort of racial hatred towards the ‘loths.
But no attack came, not that it made their march any more comfortable. They were given no rest, nor water; it seemed the fiends had no use of it themselves and saw no desire, or remained unaware of their charges own need for it as mortals. Any vocal objections from those in the slave train were responded with quickly by jabs and slaps by the guards and soon they all gave up trying to have any meaningful conversation with their captors. Clueless’s own question about The Marauder brought not a slap, but unease from the Mezzoloths before their overseers barked several orders to them and glared at the half-fey icily.
At the sixth hour the group stopped at the base of a cliff, a network of cave mouths opening up to the surface, and were quickly greeted by an armed and armored Piscaloth. The lobster-like fiend appeared to be debriefing the Dergholoth, and for a short while the three of them, Clueless and his companions, were able to sit upon the ground and rest their weary limbs. A wooden container filled with a watery slop was rudely placed into their hands, and despite the smell and dubious origin of the food they all partook. Lesser Yugoloth cooking was not a wonder of the planes…
Finally, their well watched solitude was interrupted by the arrival of at least five or six other similarly sized slave caravans, most bringing with them at least twenty to thirty prisoners each, ranging from adventurers like themselves, to poor berks who either stepped through a portal to Carceri by utter blunder, or were sent to the plane on purpose, unknowing or by force. They were all assembled by their own contingent of lesser Yugoloth shock troops, and all told, there must have been nearly two hundred Mezzoloths assembled. Far too many for a simple slaving operation, they must have been near a Yugoloth city or Blood War military outpost; but by any of their experience, none existed on that layer of Carceri, the Gehreleths being far too numerous, and wantonly destructive, to safely allow for any large scale ‘loth presence.
But Clueless’s wandering mind was rudely awakened back to the present as the Piscaloth commander began to bark orders to the assembled troops and what must have been a nearly equal number of Mezzoloths as they flooded out from the tunnels at the cliff base and fell into formation. They, along with the others quickly drew Clueless, his companions, and the other prisoners into a long, single file line of slaves, and started them marching off to the north into a cleft between two mountain chains that reached high enough overhead to nearly touch the peaks of the adjacent orb. The Bariaur glanced back at Clueless, a look of worry and dread playing across his face as he then glanced around at the sheer number of Yugoloths.
The cleft opened to a blasted series of valleys, and in time the caravan reached a solid iron bridge that crossed over a black, rushing riving that bisected the valley. The scent in the air from the nearby foaming rapids made Clueless’s head swim, and once they crossed the bridge and the air cleared of the noxious mist kicked up from the river, he realized that they had likely crossed over a tributary of the Styx. No map he’d ever seen indicated such a tributary anywhere near that section of the plane.
But the river was the farthest thing from his mind as after another twenty minutes of marching, the caravan passed through some manner of magical screen, like a thin and palpable meniscus of force, apparently extending from one side of the valley at the base of the mountains to the other. What was an empty, dead ended valley of strewn boulders and hard packed soil was anything but empty as they cleared the tingling, almost burning magical field.
Centered in the valley, and rising up to rival the mountain peaks themselves was a solitary tower, if ‘tower’ really sufficed to describe the sheer scale of the structure. From their distance it dominated Clueless’s vantage and field of vision, easily several miles across at the base and rising yet miles higher. The black, hexagonal structure seemed to erupt from the bedrock and clamber towards the sky like some towering, infectious parasite breaking free from its host. Twisted metal, like thorns, erupted from the tower at random points, but the true scope of the horror the entire scene painted only became apparent as they grow closer to the towers base.
The tower appeared to shift and quiver, like worms and insects scuttling or writhing their way through rotten meat. The entire tower appeared to be built not from just black steel and stone, but mainly from the still living bodies of petitioners grafted into one hellish nightmare of a whole, trying futilely to escape their fate as living masonry for this harrowing monument that dwarfed any other fiendish structure on the planes, Baatezu and Tanar’ri included. And, from the jagged, open spaces at the top of the tower, and flurry of figures clambering from the base to gantries and structural bracings, the tower was still being built taller and larger. Cries of panic and screams of terror echoed across the landscape and bowl of the valley as the prisoners behind Clueless passed through the illusory barrier and caught sight of the tower. Surely they didn’t mean to place them all as slave labor in building that monstrosity? Or did they mean to use them as building material?
The troops and slaves made their way to the titanic gates of the tower and were met by the bright flash of teleports as figures appeared from presumably inside the tower. Several hulking Nycaloths, each dressed in ornate armor appeared at the head of the line of troops and begin to approach and converse with the Dergholoth. One of the Nycaloths was pointed in the direction of Clueless and his two companions and, slowly, purposefully approaches, brandishing a crackling rod or wand in his hand. As he neared, already the prisoners were being herded off in one direction or another, and one sub-group was summarily executed on the spot, energy of some sort being drawn off from the corpses as they expired and bottled in large black gems held by the Nycaloths. Things did not look good.
Clueless strode into the Styx Oarsman, in his hand he carried a satchel of book and papers, the very same papers they had recovered from the mercane, Dalmar Imshenviir. Standing beside him as he entered, either drugged or magically compelled, was the elven cleric who had been there with him in Carceri. The elf’s leg was bleeding heavily, already soaking through a bandage around his leg in places. The gemstone that had been firmly embedded into his leg, down to the bone, was wrapped within a pouch at Clueless’s waist.
As they continued into the Tanar’ri bar, he had an altercation with one of the bouncers and then walked straight up the stairs and into a small waiting room where he sat down at a table with an apparent elderly githzerai, Rule-of-Three, and a massive Nycaloth, Garroth the Blind.
Clueless watched as ‘he’ entered negotiations with Rule-of-Three, selling his former elven companion into slavery to the wizened Githzerai who was far more than he appeared to be. He also watched as Garroth the Blind acted with utter respect towards him, though the fiend used a female pronoun to describe him at one point in the negotiations, and drew and brutal blow to the center of its face, and a hail of curses in a mixture of infernal and abyssal, as well as another language that he didn’t seem to recognize. The language seemed to burn the ears and sting the mind in remembrance though, whatever it was.
But after they sealed the deal for the elf, Clueless watched as he handed over the elf’s still bloody gemstone, and the sack of papers and documents from the mercane into Garroth’s hands. The Nycaloth accepted them humbly and made mention of “being occupied the next day in service to an order given him by ‘the 2nd Wheel’”. Clueless felt himself snicker mentally at the knowledge that the Nycaloth had been ordered into an event that would lead to his own death most likely. But such matters had to be done for everything to fall into place as it was and needed to be, The Ebon had promised them as such, and thus it would be.
The streets of The Lady’s Ward were packed with morbidly curious onlookers who watched from stoops and alleyways as a mob of former Mercykillers, dressed in full faction regalia marched from the Prison in the rough direction of the City Court, former Factol Alisohn Nilesia at their head. The ex-factol was screaming at the top of her lungs, a glint of unshuttered madness burning in her eyes, and extolling her followers with a litany of curses that flowed freely from her mouth.
“Where are you? Answer me you bladed harlot! Where is Darkwood?! Where is he? Give him to me and show yourself!” The young tiefling’s profanity laced tirade against The Lady of Pain was causing the gathered crowd to nervously back away, though some seemed to edge closer, eager perhaps to witness the coming bloodshed…
“S***! She’s gone completely barmy since the last time we saw her! Sure she was nuts before, but she was canny about it. Now she’s just totally lost it!” Clueless said to his companions as they huddled in the shadow of a building as the fifty or so strong pack of Mercykiller’s began to parade past them. One of the Aoskian hounds held by one of Nilesia’s lieutenants snarled and snapped in Toras’s direction, warning him to stay clear of its master’s walk, wherever they were going. It was as if Nilesia was goading The Lady to appear because the movement of her group had slowed first and then paused to allow the screaming factol to turn around and address the crowd and city itself.
“You have sinned against the planes themselves! You have committed crimes about the multiverse, this city, and me! Release Rowan Darkwood to me from where you shelter him from my justice and I shall make your death quick and painless! You know you must answer to me bitch! Show yourself!” Nilesia’s screaming had begun to turn her voice raw and her mouth was flecked by bits of spittle at their edges, such was the state of frenzied mania she had worked herself into. Her word’s had begun to rattle even her own troops however, and not only the gathered onlookers.
“If you will not face me I will take out your sentence on those I can find!” Screaming up to the sky, Nilesia drew and brandished a gleaming, red bladed sword covered in glowing symbols of the Red Death. Turning around, her bloodshot eyes focused on a being that moved down the street adjacent to the pack of her followers without paying any attention whatsoever to the crowds, a solitary Dabus.
An instant, paralytic hush fell over the crowd in its entirety as Nilesia leapt forwards at the Dabus, opening its stomach with a single slice before spinning in a circle and slicing its head clean from its shoulders. The Dabus dropped to the ground, its head toppling over in a spray of crimson as Nilesia screamed in frustration while the crowd of onlookers began to panic and flee the scene.
The crowd didn’t move far. Before the eyes of the decapitated Dabus had glazed over in death a massive figure appeared in the center of the street, some five yards from Nilesia and the head of her pack of collaborators. Nearly fifteen feet tall, coldly emotionless, unspeaking and serene, with blades sprouting from its face, head and shoulders, Her Serenity, The Lady of Pain gazed down upon the factol. The hem of The Lady’s robe wavered gently in a nonexistent breeze as Nilesia paused and seemed to pale ever so slightly, to waver in her composure for a split second before madness overwhelmed her and galvanized her actions.
“You know it! You yourself came to me and admitted your crimes! Bow your head and I shall serve your sentence! Justice does not sleep!” Nilesia screamed up at the Bladed Queen as the crowd’s eyes grew to the size of plates almost collectively. Then, she charged at The Lady, hurling her sword directly at The Bladed Queen.
Screams rose from the onlookers as a the air was split by the sound of breaking, tortured metal as a shadow leapt from The Lady of Pain to rip Nilesia’s sword apart, peppering the factol and her Mercykiller faithful with white hot fragments of steel. The factol’s eyes quivered and her knees buckled as The Lady’s shadow surged forwards, transfixing the young tiefling like a skewered hunk of meat. There was a scream from Nilesia to shake the very hells as her skin erupted into a gushing flurry of slashes, cuts, and gouges where the Bladed Queen’s shadow fell upon her.
A red, spattering mist broke from her flesh where they shadow fell and she vainly threw out a hand, somehow managing to scream for help from her assembled faithful who could only stare at her, then at The Lady, as their factol began to slowly melt and peal to the bone on left leg, arm and torso, transfixed by The Lady’s razor edged pall. Try as she might to pull herself free, screaming till her voice croaked and broke from the hellish pain as her body was torn to bloody shreds, the shadow lanced forwards even more to fully envelop her. In the space of seconds the screaming ended with the sounds of splitting flesh and bone, and the metallic clatter and sparking of shattering armor.
The throng of Mercykiller faithful stood in shock, none of them yet fully believing that their factol was dead, that the factol was wrong, and that she lay there in a pool of her own blood, a mess of exposed bone and shredded muscle and viscera upon the naked flagstones of The Lady’s Ward. Then The Lady turned to regard them, shifting a few degrees in the air and all hell broke loose.
Nilesia’s troops screamed and broke rank as The Lady’s shadow moved again, lancing through their midst, catching several of them with agonizing results. Limbs were sheared off, flesh was ripped asunder to leave the victims moaning in their own guts upon the ground; but the lancing shadow did not follow them, nor even seen directed at them. The bladed shadow continued on, the Mercykillers’ catharsis only incidental. Like a flowing, ever expanding penumbral river it speared through the scattering mob of innocents and onlookers that had stood behind the members of the Red Death to fall directly upon a single figure that had stood, watching, from the rear of the gathered.
The doomed figure attempted to flee, but try as it might, it could not escape The Lady’s pitiless gaze and it erupted into a spattering torrent of black ichor as it fell to the ground, a fiendish scream passing from their lips as they shuddered, twisted, and convulsed in dying agony. Minutes stretched onwards like an eternity till finally the figure ceased its rictus dance and a wheezing death rattle passed its lips to leave it laying still in a spreading pool of its own sizzling blood.
The Lady hovered for but a brief several seconds before She turned, not bothering to regard the stunned and horrified crowd of assembled citizens who averted their eyes and cowered, lest Her shadow fall upon them as well. She drifted, silently, serene, and utterly unconcerned for some twenty feet down the avenue before She vanished into nothingness.
As the crowd slowly recovered from their horror, a single Dabus emerged onto the street, floating to a stop near the factol’s mangled corpse, projecting a single rebus above its head for all to read, “Are you yourselves free of the strings you so joyously play with? This city will not tolerate your conflict within its borders.”
The remaining Mercykillers had already dispersed to lick their wounds, both physical and emotional, and to their morale. The crowd as well was now slinking off rapidly away from the scene of The Lady’s slaughtering of the old factol and the other victim, simply wishing to get away from any action by Her Serenity. And as the minutes passed on the frequent accompaniment to many of The Lady’s appearances made itself known, a horse drawn cart manned by former Dustmen.
Nisha looked over at Toras, “I want to go get a look at that body before they cart it off to the mortuary…”
Toras looked at the tiefer like she had a hole in her head, “Why? He’s pretty well smeared across the pavement as it is.”
“Because I swear I recognized him. But I can’t say for certain till I’ve seen him up close.” She finished her explanation by sticking her tongue out at the half-celestial.
And so, having made her explanation, Nisha walked over to the body of the 2nd of The Lady’s victims, stepping carefully to avoid stepping in any of the deeper puddles of gore. Clueless, Toras, and Skalliska, who slinked out of an adjacent alleyway, having apparently been there at the scene of the crime as well, joined Nisha while the others ran over to chat up, and delay, the two gaunt looking Dusties as they drew up in their battered cart with even more battered horses to collect the dead for cremation or burial in an appropriate plane or prime world.
Nisha’s eyes went wide as she saw the full body of the victim spread out on the cobblestones, its clothing largely shredded and its outer skin gouged and pitted with an overly large amount of blood steaming and evaporating in the open air with a smell like acid and burning pitch. The victim was very clearly not human, nor even mortal.
“Well I’ll be a Guvner, it’s Garroth the Blind!” Nisha said, poking at its purse from where it had fallen under a nearly pulped pair of wings.
“Who?” Clueless asked.
“A Nycaloth who hangs out in the Hive and the Lower Ward selling information to people about the Blood War, and doing recruiting for the War while he’s at it. I wouldn’t say he’s a permanent resident of the city, like Shemeska the Marauder or A’kin the Friendly Fiend, but he’s well enough known by me and the folks I tend to hang around with in my off hours.” Nisha answered.
“Ah, like your boyfriend?” Toras asked.
“Who? I don… ah yeah, my boyfriend, ummhmm yeah, him.” Nisha said after a brief look of confusion.
“Damn, looks like they can’t delay the collectors anymore…” Skalliska said as the dustmen and their cart came to collect the dead Nycaloth’s body and heap it atop the butchered remains of the former Mercykiller factol.
“So what the hell was Garroth flayed over I have to ask…” Florian said as they watched the collectors cart the bodies away back in the direction of the Mortuary.
“Dunno… but we do know that Trenevain said his bodyguards were more of minders to make sure he didn’t screw up his part, and the Mercane had a pretty hefty contingent of Yugoloth troops in their little demiplane. Hells, they were dealing with an Ultroloth! An Ultroloth whose assassination we witnessed! I think that’s pretty solid evidence for some sort of link between this here and the mercane that had us get Nilesia in the first place…” Nisha said as she thumbed through Garroth’s purse, frowning at the lack of much beyond copper.
And so the group started the long trip back across the city, intentionally going the long way back to the Clerk’s Ward so as to avoid the Hive. Their trip was not incidental, as while passing through the Guildhall Ward they paused when a voice called out to them from a stoop of an adjacent building.
“You! I know you!” Came a shrill cry from across the street, spoken by a tiny red imp.
“Excuse us? I don’t think so; we tend to not party around with fiends. We’ll kill fiends, but not party around with them. Except maybe A’kin, and he’s a sweetheart, evil or not.” Florian said, his hands firmly planted on his hips.
“Not you. You, the bladesinger!” The imp was pointing directly at Clueless and standing up with apparent glee.
“Umm, can I help you?” Clueless asked, stepping forward and not afraid in the slightest over any given imp.
“Oh Avalas the Bloodbathed will want to know that you are still alive! He still remembers the day that you stabbed him in the back during that Tanar’ri siege of his encampment! And I will have you know, that he has since ascended to Pit Fiend rank in Baator… he has power now fool, and he will not hesitate to send his minions after you once I tell him you are still alive!”
Clueless paused and looked suddenly concerned as part of his past came barging back into the present very suddenly and unexpectedly. The imp was dancing and clapping its hands with glee.
“He thought you dead and gone! But now he can enjoy slowly torturing you to death in Nessus where he remains stationed! You will regret having betrayed a powerful Baatezu, mortal! You will…” The imp’s rant was silenced as its features dulled, turned a flat shade of white, and its body petrified to stone as Tristol waved his hands in the air and whispered a series of words.
“I don’t think so…” The aasimar said as he smiled at the petrified imp, now frozen into a snarl with its hands raised over its head in a menacing gesture and its scorpion tail raised high behind it. All in all, nearly comical looking.
Clueless looked over at Tristol, “Well that’s a new one!”
Tristol smiled at Clueless and then chuckled as Nisha walked over to the imp and struck a similar pose while hissing at it, between bouts of giggling. “Yes it is, I’ve only learned it since I got those spellbooks from the Incantifer. And that’s just one of the first, half of them I can’t even understand or cast yet. But I think this solves your problem of this guy running back to Baator to snitch on you?”
“Yeah, it does solve the problem. Thank you. I think he’ll make a nice inn decoration if we place him as a hat rack or something. Heck, check his mouth for portals later, we might get lucky and have it breath fire or something.” Clueless said as he hefted the stone imp into the air and deposited it in one of the bags of holding he carried.
“Hey! That was pretty good! How much you want for that puny little s*** of an imp!” A voiced cawed out from across the street where a large vrock stood with an amused expression on its face, having apparently watched the entire incident.
“No, this one’s not for sale. Business, not pleasure. However you might ask Tristol here in the future if he’s got any more he’d be willing to part with.” Clueless said over to the greater Tanar’ri.
“Hey… yeah, I thought I recognized you! That’s right, from the other night!” The Vrock said, suddenly smiling almost pleasantly to a suddenly very confused Clueless.
“Don’t think I’ve ever met you actually…” The bladesinger said with a pause in his voice.
“Sure you did! The other evening at the Styx Oarsman, you were there to see Rule-of-Three to sell something or another. I’m certain it was you, same sword and everything. And boy did you piss off one of the bouncers, spit in his face and asked if he liked licking Cornugon balls, because after one of them was done with his mother, it might enjoy round two with the son! I’ve never seen him get so flustered and so totally outclassed…” The Vrock was laughing as it walked over and slapped Clueless on the back like an old friend before it waved and snickered at the imp and walked off.
“….” Clueless just stood there thinking as the Vrock walked off into the distance, and he didn’t say much more by the time they got back to the Portal Jammer. All he kept thinking about was the fact that he had gone to bed early the other night and woken up dead tired the next morning, almost as if he hadn’t slept at all. And that was all on the same night as the Vrock had thought he’d seen him at the Styx Oarsman, a Tanar’ri bar…
Once they got back to the Jammer, Clueless went to his room and checked on certain things. He started cursing immediately as he started to look for the papers and maps they had taken from the mercane. Every single one of them was missing, and he had a pretty decent idea that he was probably responsible, even if he didn’t remember it.
“Crap… I need my memory back so I can figure out what the hell is going on with me…” Clueless lamented as he sat on the edge of his bed and stared at the water filled globe with its exotic fish that he’d taken from Dalmar Imshenviir’s office. A minute later he was out the front door of the inn and headed in the direction of the Great Gymnasium, hoping that some time spent in meditation might jolt his memories some like it had the last time.
Once there, he actually happened to see Fyrehowl in the gym, training in swordplay with a rail thin githzerai monk who was one of Rhys’s personal aide de camps, and clearly a better in swordplay by the looks of it at the moment. But the gith seemed to be toning his style down somewhat so as to instruct, rather than overwhelm, and the lupinal was clearly enjoying herself in the process as Clueless walked past and up to the higher levels of the complex.
Originally he’d been intending to visit the Cadence chamber, but he didn’t get that far. On the level below the Cadence chamber itself, one of the long meditation halls, he walked up to a slim tiefling woman dressed in robes, with long flowing black hair and hooves nearly like Nisha; former Factol Rhys.
“No need to bother seeking the Cadence chamber at this time, that will come later.” Rhys spoke to Clueless without opening her eyes, though she was seated to face in his direction as he entered the meditation hall. The former factol was seated in a lotus position and seemed to be so lightly touching the ground that it might at first appear as if she was floating in her trance-like state.
“Oh excuse me, my apologies councilwoman Rhys. If I’m disturbing you I’ll leave.” Clueless backed off slightly before Rhys opened her eyes which seemed distant, glazed over, as if she were indeed in some level of trance.
“No, this was where you were to be and where the Cadence had me be as well. Your memories, your hidden memories, they trouble you. You walk with a shadow passing over you and it sullies your waking mind with doubt and fear. Come closer.” Rhys smiled and held out one hand to beckon Clueless.
“Yes? Can I…” Clueless stopped as the former Factol reached up and gently tapped him in the center of his forehead with a single finger.
“Remember, if only for a moment the details that have been robbed from you. Unlock that door inside your mind and step within before it shuts once again. Learn and act upon that. Do not ponder, do not think; act.” Rhys said with utter serenity, as Clueless clutched at his forehead and winced as a flurry of memories flew back into his mind.
***
The Yugoloth slavers, some twenty odd black, chitinous Mezzoloths and two bloated, many-limbed Dergholoth surrounded Clueless and his two companions as they shackled the three of them to each other. One of the Dergholoth’s, larger than the others, its squat bulb shaped body with its three shubby legs and four claw tipped arms shambled forwards to the three of them and rotated its mantis-like head to face the bladesinger. Its mandibles clacked and chattered, then a mental prompt of more emotion than words commanded the three of them to start marching along with the troop column. The bariaur was the first in line, and slow to start moving. The Dergholoth overseer motioned to one of its soldiers that quickly slammed the butt of its trident into his flank then parroted the others telepathic command again, this time in infernal.
The next five hours were spent winding through a blasted rocky wasteland, nearer to one of the mountains on the current orb, the air growing slightly thinner as they ascended. The sunless, blood red sky, fading to black high above, burned down without mercy, and within the first several hours their exposed skin ached with each and every movement. The yugoloths were on constant watch for any attacks by the Gehreleth, all of the Red Prison being the home of that splinter race of fiends, which from all Clueless had heard, had some sort of racial hatred towards the ‘loths.
But no attack came, not that it made their march any more comfortable. They were given no rest, nor water; it seemed the fiends had no use of it themselves and saw no desire, or remained unaware of their charges own need for it as mortals. Any vocal objections from those in the slave train were responded with quickly by jabs and slaps by the guards and soon they all gave up trying to have any meaningful conversation with their captors. Clueless’s own question about The Marauder brought not a slap, but unease from the Mezzoloths before their overseers barked several orders to them and glared at the half-fey icily.
At the sixth hour the group stopped at the base of a cliff, a network of cave mouths opening up to the surface, and were quickly greeted by an armed and armored Piscaloth. The lobster-like fiend appeared to be debriefing the Dergholoth, and for a short while the three of them, Clueless and his companions, were able to sit upon the ground and rest their weary limbs. A wooden container filled with a watery slop was rudely placed into their hands, and despite the smell and dubious origin of the food they all partook. Lesser Yugoloth cooking was not a wonder of the planes…
Finally, their well watched solitude was interrupted by the arrival of at least five or six other similarly sized slave caravans, most bringing with them at least twenty to thirty prisoners each, ranging from adventurers like themselves, to poor berks who either stepped through a portal to Carceri by utter blunder, or were sent to the plane on purpose, unknowing or by force. They were all assembled by their own contingent of lesser Yugoloth shock troops, and all told, there must have been nearly two hundred Mezzoloths assembled. Far too many for a simple slaving operation, they must have been near a Yugoloth city or Blood War military outpost; but by any of their experience, none existed on that layer of Carceri, the Gehreleths being far too numerous, and wantonly destructive, to safely allow for any large scale ‘loth presence.
But Clueless’s wandering mind was rudely awakened back to the present as the Piscaloth commander began to bark orders to the assembled troops and what must have been a nearly equal number of Mezzoloths as they flooded out from the tunnels at the cliff base and fell into formation. They, along with the others quickly drew Clueless, his companions, and the other prisoners into a long, single file line of slaves, and started them marching off to the north into a cleft between two mountain chains that reached high enough overhead to nearly touch the peaks of the adjacent orb. The Bariaur glanced back at Clueless, a look of worry and dread playing across his face as he then glanced around at the sheer number of Yugoloths.
The cleft opened to a blasted series of valleys, and in time the caravan reached a solid iron bridge that crossed over a black, rushing riving that bisected the valley. The scent in the air from the nearby foaming rapids made Clueless’s head swim, and once they crossed the bridge and the air cleared of the noxious mist kicked up from the river, he realized that they had likely crossed over a tributary of the Styx. No map he’d ever seen indicated such a tributary anywhere near that section of the plane.
But the river was the farthest thing from his mind as after another twenty minutes of marching, the caravan passed through some manner of magical screen, like a thin and palpable meniscus of force, apparently extending from one side of the valley at the base of the mountains to the other. What was an empty, dead ended valley of strewn boulders and hard packed soil was anything but empty as they cleared the tingling, almost burning magical field.
Centered in the valley, and rising up to rival the mountain peaks themselves was a solitary tower, if ‘tower’ really sufficed to describe the sheer scale of the structure. From their distance it dominated Clueless’s vantage and field of vision, easily several miles across at the base and rising yet miles higher. The black, hexagonal structure seemed to erupt from the bedrock and clamber towards the sky like some towering, infectious parasite breaking free from its host. Twisted metal, like thorns, erupted from the tower at random points, but the true scope of the horror the entire scene painted only became apparent as they grow closer to the towers base.
The tower appeared to shift and quiver, like worms and insects scuttling or writhing their way through rotten meat. The entire tower appeared to be built not from just black steel and stone, but mainly from the still living bodies of petitioners grafted into one hellish nightmare of a whole, trying futilely to escape their fate as living masonry for this harrowing monument that dwarfed any other fiendish structure on the planes, Baatezu and Tanar’ri included. And, from the jagged, open spaces at the top of the tower, and flurry of figures clambering from the base to gantries and structural bracings, the tower was still being built taller and larger. Cries of panic and screams of terror echoed across the landscape and bowl of the valley as the prisoners behind Clueless passed through the illusory barrier and caught sight of the tower. Surely they didn’t mean to place them all as slave labor in building that monstrosity? Or did they mean to use them as building material?
The troops and slaves made their way to the titanic gates of the tower and were met by the bright flash of teleports as figures appeared from presumably inside the tower. Several hulking Nycaloths, each dressed in ornate armor appeared at the head of the line of troops and begin to approach and converse with the Dergholoth. One of the Nycaloths was pointed in the direction of Clueless and his two companions and, slowly, purposefully approaches, brandishing a crackling rod or wand in his hand. As he neared, already the prisoners were being herded off in one direction or another, and one sub-group was summarily executed on the spot, energy of some sort being drawn off from the corpses as they expired and bottled in large black gems held by the Nycaloths. Things did not look good.
***
And then the scene faded and another memory unlocked, a different one, and one that held more relevance to recent events.***
Clueless strode into the Styx Oarsman, in his hand he carried a satchel of book and papers, the very same papers they had recovered from the mercane, Dalmar Imshenviir. Standing beside him as he entered, either drugged or magically compelled, was the elven cleric who had been there with him in Carceri. The elf’s leg was bleeding heavily, already soaking through a bandage around his leg in places. The gemstone that had been firmly embedded into his leg, down to the bone, was wrapped within a pouch at Clueless’s waist.
As they continued into the Tanar’ri bar, he had an altercation with one of the bouncers and then walked straight up the stairs and into a small waiting room where he sat down at a table with an apparent elderly githzerai, Rule-of-Three, and a massive Nycaloth, Garroth the Blind.
Clueless watched as ‘he’ entered negotiations with Rule-of-Three, selling his former elven companion into slavery to the wizened Githzerai who was far more than he appeared to be. He also watched as Garroth the Blind acted with utter respect towards him, though the fiend used a female pronoun to describe him at one point in the negotiations, and drew and brutal blow to the center of its face, and a hail of curses in a mixture of infernal and abyssal, as well as another language that he didn’t seem to recognize. The language seemed to burn the ears and sting the mind in remembrance though, whatever it was.
But after they sealed the deal for the elf, Clueless watched as he handed over the elf’s still bloody gemstone, and the sack of papers and documents from the mercane into Garroth’s hands. The Nycaloth accepted them humbly and made mention of “being occupied the next day in service to an order given him by ‘the 2nd Wheel’”. Clueless felt himself snicker mentally at the knowledge that the Nycaloth had been ordered into an event that would lead to his own death most likely. But such matters had to be done for everything to fall into place as it was and needed to be, The Ebon had promised them as such, and thus it would be.
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Gez
First Post
Shemeska said:This allows me to hold up the "Screwing you now, bend over. You are my living, breathing plot hook, enjoy." sign towards the player.
Indeed.
This last update is nasty, in the "it's even worse than I thought" kind. Amnesiac, possessed, and grafted with some sort of evil gem.
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