Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
Alisohn Nilesia, the former factol of the Mercykillers faction. She's mad as a sackful of rabid squirrels, and had a major role in instigating the Faction War that saw the factions banished from Sigil. (if you're using the Faction War module, anyhow.)
According to Factol's Manifesto (IIRC), she was a LE female tiefling Wiz8, but at this point in Shemeska's game she'll have had many years to advance.
Yep, at this point in the game it had been around 5-6 years post Faction War. My own incarnation of Nilesia here was somewhere along the lines of a wizard with some additional rogue levels added in, though still primarily a wizard. In any event, enough to be intimidating to the PC's aside from the mystique of being a former factol.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
Alisohn Nilesia, the former factol of the Mercykillers faction. She's mad as a sackful of rabid squirrels, and had a major role in instigating the Faction War that saw the factions banished from Sigil. (if you're using the Faction War module, anyhow.)
According to Factol's Manifesto (IIRC), she was a LE female tiefling Wiz8, but at this point in Shemeska's game she'll have had many years to advance.
Yeps - well roughly. This point in the time line is about 5 years after Faction War.
And barmy doesn't *begin* to describe this nutter.
Having done so she gave the faintest of bows as she gave her introductions, though in truth, few of the companions required her name to recognize her nor the the scope of whatever it was that they themselves had now become embroiled in.
“Factol Alisohn Nilesia. You all have my thanks for the righting of an injustice. Who sent you? My faction? Or did Rowan send you all?” subdued insanity danced in the factol’s eyes as she smiled at some memory and stepped forwards.
The factol glanced to the box stuffed into a sack at Nisha’s waist, “I see you recovered my belongings. Again, my thanks to you all.” She extended her hand expectantly to the other tiefling who faltered and handed over the box without a word. The entire group was clearly still in some manner of shock.
“The rulers of the fortress will be coming, they don’t wish to lose me. They view me as something of a prize since they recognized me when the orcs did not. Their guilt is not in question, but I have judgment to provide to them before I may leave.”
Nilesia slipped on her rings, quickly donned her robes and gave her blades each a few quick and precise passes through the air to test her skill and hunger sapped strength. At first unsure of herself, within a few deft slashes and cuts through the air she seemed satisfied with herself and a level of skill that garnered respect from her rescuers. The factol glanced at her spellbooks longingly before slipping them into an inner pocket of her robe and sifting quickly through a small bag of spell components nestled in another pocket of the black garment.
“I still have spells in memory, but I’ve had no components for some time. Still, the goblins thought it wise to place my cell inside a blanket of antimagic. Guilt leads to overprotective sheltering of crimes, and I have lingering crimes to punish when we are away from here. You will have to tell me what changes Sigil has seen since I last saw it. Someone in my faction has my blood on their hands and I will find them for what has happened to me.” She grinned with a look of eager anticipation of bloodshed that would have made a Tanar’ri feel warm by comparison.
“It will be good to see Rowan again…” she smiled and gained a starry eyed glitter over her expression before casting a glance down the hallway and making for the exit from her cell. Her rescuers paled slightly at her last phrases.
“She doesn’t know, does sh…” Aren glared at Nisha and silenced her verbal train of thought as all of them exchanged nervous glances.
“Obviously no, she doesn’t. And frankly I don’t think now is the time to break the news to her about what happened. She doesn’t have a faction anymore, Darkwood is dead, and she was sold into slavery by someone, probably Darkwood himself. He never loved her, but she was, and is, clearly still head over heels in love with him. She’s BARMY!!” Aren’s voice rang clearly inside the minds of her companions without her lips moving as they followed Nilesia out into the hallway. They all exchanged nods of agreement on Aren’s thoughts on the matter.
Fyrehowl’s ears twitched slightly as they moved to enter the corridor and Nilesia held up one hand suddenly and glanced down the hallway. She muttered something harshly under her breath and turned the corner out of the cell.
“Factol I…” Clueless glanced at the Factol, only to find her vanished, nowhere to be seen, as several figures came into view turning the corner into the hallway. Five hobgoblins in ornate armor and carrying spears advanced before several goblins with a brilliant bluish tint to their skin. None of them wore armor, or much more than loose fitting clothing, but each of them had a small crystal hovering about their body as they approached. Behind them, towering over even the hobgoblins was another of the blue colored goblins. However the larger one was naked, heavily muscled, and with a slight dog-like shape to its face. Its four arms were already making small motions in the air and fiendish looking spikes jutted at random from its back. It turned its luminescent, reddish eyes towards the group and bellowed out a mixed bestial roar and command to its subordinates to attack.
As the half-fiend roared, Toras, Clueless and Fyrehowl charged to meet the Goblins. They had gotten perhaps ten feet before a blue glow erupted from the forehead of the goblin leader and an invisible force detonated in their midst. Without a sound the walls and floor vibrated with concussive force and the three were dashed to the ground, dazed and bloodied from the attack. As they struggled to regain their feet the more mundane goblins advanced, weapons out and one of their blue skinned kin touched a small gem on its forehead. Instantly there was a glowing green mass of semi-transparent filaments that burst into being around Nisha and Aren, wrapped around them and suddenly growing more solid and tangible. Nisha squirmed and rolled forwards across the floor, shedding most of the sticky material before it hardened, but Aren was not as quick in her movements. In seconds the material had formed a solid cocoon around her as she toppled to the floor, struggling but making little progress in freeing herself.
As the group struggled to make themselves ready for the next attack, with only a bloodthirsty, crazed scream as a warning, Nilesia reappeared at the rear of the group of goblins as her invisibility spell dropped and she charged one of the psions, wreathed in a circle of blue flames and swinging her glowing, black bladed sword. Three quick cuts to the back of one of the blues and a sharp stab into the arm of one other and she vanished again. In her passing, the one blue that had taken the brunt of her attack was left crumpled on the floor and struggling to staunch the blood pouring from its back, its other companion was more stoic in its endurance of the shallow stab on its arm, but still it cradled the limb and was hampered in its movements.
Surprised by the factol’s sudden attack and her just as sudden disappearance, the goblins faltered for a moment, disorganized and dazed. Nisha took the opportunity to draw her blade and begin cutting Aren free from the psionic entanglement she was trapped within. Rising to their feet in that moment and charging forwards were Clueless, Toras and Fyrehowl, blades drawn and faces grim. The lupinal, quicker than her two other companions, struck first. Her first cut bit deep into the shoulder of one of the goblins and a second thrust to his side drew blood as well, tearing through both armor and flesh alike. Off balance and in pain the hobgoblin barely raised his shield as she leapt for his throat and clamped her jaws down with a wet crunch; her opponent went instantly limp.
Clueless struck next, darting up into the air as his wings suddenly sprung into motion. Several of the hobgoblins made jabs at him with their spears but he deflected them and cut at the heads of several of them. In the confusion of suddenly facing an aerial opponent as well as having lost one of their front guards, Toras managed to shoulder his way past to attack one of the psions. As he charged one of them he swung at it a single time and nearly cleaved its arm off when it raised it up defensively. It fell backwards and spit out a single curse at him, somehow manifesting a power despite the pain of effectively losing a limb.
As Toras was struck by a burning ray of light that made him stagger backwards in pain, the half-fiend turned its attention to him. It gestured with its hands and a second pulse of light manifested from its forehead to send a wave of concussive force against Toras and Clueless both. It cackled and looked around the vanished factol.
Clueless was flung backwards by the half-fiend’s blast and took a moment of lying on the floor before he managed to recover. Fyrehowl was already on her feet and carving through the hobgoblins with ease while Toras had somehow managed to stay on his feet despite the two attacks against him. The fighter backhanded one of the hobgoblins, killing it in one stroke, before finishing off the psion whose arm he had already separated from its shoulder as its head joined the other limb on the ground.
The half-fiend roared as most of its fellows were left dead or dying on the ground. It closed its eyes and vanished in a burst of light, only to reappear several dozen feet away to hurl another, larger blast of concussive force at its opponents, this time not caring that it killed the remaining two of its hobgoblins in the process. Toras dove to one side as Fyrehowl ducked to avoid the rippling wave and they both seemed to avoid most of the blast, though it left them bruised and dazed in its wake.
It was at that moment as the psion prepared to unleash yet another attack that something glimmered on the ceiling and dropped behind it into a crouching position. The sound of first one blade and then another being sheathed in flesh could be heard next as the psion stumbled forwards and coughed a spattering of blood across the floor. Nilesia stood behind it, calm and composed with both her sword and dagger dripping with the half-fiend’s blood. She looked expectantly to Toras as the psion stumbled forwards, dazed and stunned from the wounds the factol had given it. The half-celestial could only comply with her unspoken order as he followed up her attack by burying his own sword in the fiendish goblin’s chest.
“Good, you have some measure of skill. I commend you on that.” Nilesia stalked forwards like a hunting predator before swiftly severing the head of the half-fiend without so much as a sound apart from the snap of vertebrae and the sharp report of steel on stone as her blade grazed the flagstones before she whipped it back in a spray of blood across her face. She didn’t seem to notice it at all and left the gore to speckle her face like hellish freckles.
“They’ll have more of those, though the fiend-spawn was their leader as far as I can tell.” The factol remarked as she glanced down at the blues. As she looked back at the half-fiend, her newfound companions made no comment at the soft giggling chuckle that escaped her lips. They ignored her out of a mixture of respect and fear as they gathered their wits about them, as most of hers seemed to have fled with her sanity some time previous.
While Nisha examined the planar compass that would tell them the direction to their exit, Aren cast a few quick spells to heal the worst of the wounds they had all suffered in the fight, and Clueless quickly picked at a number of the items their attackers had been carrying. Nilesia made certain of matters by going from corpse to corpse and brutally, but efficiently, slitting their throats with a single thrust of her sword. She looked up at the others, the flames of her fireshield flickering and dying down, spattered in blood but with a calm, almost pleasant smile upon her face, “Let’s go, shall we?” The others could only smile and nod as they hurried down the corridor the stairwell back towards the tower.
As they ascended the stairs, the sounds of more goblins in pursuit echoed up from below, a mixture of angry barked orders and bellows of shock and dismay as it seemed that one group had discovered the bodies of at least some of their leaders down below. Hearing the sounds of the goblins behind them, Toras emerged from the trapdoor and up onto the roof, shouting back for his companions to hurry. He looked around quickly and then willed himself to rise into the air to flee. Nothing happened…
“What the hell?” and then he glanced over the lip of the ramparts to look directly into the central eye of the Spectator orb and two of its thralls as they began to move into flanking positions on the tower and where their targets were clambering out into view.
“Stay under the cover of the walls out here, the damned beholders are pinning us down. Flying isn’t an option…” Toras shouted as the others clambered out onto the top of the tower and took cover.
Nilesia glanced down the stairs into the tower and began to softly chant before hurling a bolt of lightning down the stairwell. Screams and agonized dying curses filtered up from the lower reaches of the tower as a half dozen advancing goblins danced spasmodically and died amid a cloud of ozone reeking smoke. “Take care of the beholders, I have the goblins handled…” the factol’s statement was calm as she glanced down the stairs, though her face was contorted in a fanatical grin.
Toras risked another glance over the rim of the tower, looking to one side as Fyrehowl glanced over the opposite side. “How’s it look over there?” Toras asked, fishing around in a pouch at his waist.
“One of them on this side, but they’re just holding position to keep us pinned here. Probably thinking we’ll be overwhelmed by the goblins from down below. Too bad for them it’s not going to happen.” The lupinal said as she ducked back down for cover.
Clueless gripped his sword and looked over to Toras as the half-celestial took out a large metal ball studded with spikes in a pyramidal arrangement; an oversized caltrop. “What’s that… oh…” he said as Toras smirked and stood up to hurl the unconventional weapon direction into the eye of the spectator beholder. It struck dead on and impaled itself up to the ball on one of the three-inch spikes just off the center of the spectator’s pupil. It let out a startled scream of pain and surprise while it turned away from the tower as blood began to well up and cloud over its iris in a smeared reddish haze.
"The problem with being covered with eyes is that getting things in your eyes really hurts…” Toras remarked as he dove for cover as suddenly deprived of the spectator’s leadership and coordination the other two beholders moved forwards to bombard the tower with their own eye-rays.
One of the beholders grimaced wickedly as it approached in closer range and swung half of its eyestalks towards the party, even as the spectator writhed in agony. Streaks of color and lines of distortion passed through the air and struck at its targets, narrowly missing some of them, though Toras, Nisha, and Aren were barely struck. Toras gritted his teeth and dove for cover as the offending ray caused his exposed skin to blister and erupt in angry red welt wherever it touched. Nisha collapsed to the ground with a scream and clutched at a deep furrow cut into her shoulder, though she had managed to avoid being disintegrated by the attack. Aren was struck in the back by a single ray and seemed for but a moment to stiffen and turn slightly grayish before she dropped to the ground breathing heavily and shaking off the effects of the petrification attack.
Nilesia glared at her rescuers as they bore the brunt of the beholder’s attack before she stood up and flung out her hand at the other eye tyrant approaching them from opposite the first. With a few arcane syllables a cone of glittering, silvery frost ignited from her outstretched fingertips to envelop the beholder in its chilling embrace. The beholder, its central eye closed in order to hurl its eye rays at the tower only saw the incoming spell at the last minute and could only attempt to dodge. It was only partially successful and the cloud of frost crystallized across nearly ¾ of its body with a sound of shattering, cracking ice and tearing exposed flesh. Though it was still clearly alive and howling in agony, several of the tyrant’s gas sacks had to have ruptured in the attack as its ice-covered body began to quickly lose altitude and drift off to one side abruptly.
Nilesia returned to cast a withering gaze at the others before Fyrehowl stood up and repeated the same gesture as the factol had done. While the lupinal’s spell was more an innate ability and lacked most of the arcane gestures and all of the incanted words, the effect was the same as a cone shaped burst of freezing mist billowed out to strike the beholder. Having seen the fate of its companion though, it was not struck as heavily and managed to avoid any crippling damage, though several of its eyestalks hung limp and covered in a layer of ice, frozen and nonfunctional. As Fyrehowl dove back for cover and the tyrant raised another four stalks in her direction Clueless tossed a wand to Nisha.
“Try and get that to work, it should take out the beholder if you can. Trust me!” he said to the tiefling as she caught the wand and turned it over in her hands with a curious, if slightly perplexed look upon her face. Abruptly the curiosity turned to mischievous intent as she stood up and pointed it directly at the beholder. All the others saw, taking cover as they all were, was a brilliant flash of red and orange flickering light and the boomed sound of the fireball’s detonation at close range as the shockwave passed over the tower’s top. Nisha dashed to the edge of the ramparts and looked down with an impish grin and a wave, soon joined by her other companions as they watched the beholder’s frozen and charred corpse plummet downwards before landing with a sickeningly wet crunch and bursting from the force of the impact upon the lower walls of the keep.
“You’ll have to buy me one of these when we get back to Sigil you know, I like it.” Nisha said with a briskly twitching tail as she handed Clueless back his wand. Nilesia was by this point casting a flying spell upon herself and looking down the stairs. Fyrehowl perked her ears and joined her, “I don’t like that noise… they’re bringing something heavy up those stairs. Lets go.”
“I couldn’t agree more, as much as they deserve for us to stay and slaughter them to the last… another time.” The factol sighed with far too obvious regret at having to leave with some of her captors still alive.
As the companions and their rescued Mercykiller alike rose into the air above the fortress they looked around at the scene below. The spectator was still floundering about in the air, hurling a half dozen rays out at random, most of which struck the cavern floor below to send goblin slaves and guards alike running for cover as the beams kicked up scatterings of rock and gravel, and occasionally killed one them unfortunate enough to have been in its path. No longer any real threat to themselves, they ignored it and made for the exit.
The group retreated with the swiftness of foxes fleeing a henhouse and dashed overhead of the field of petitioners and furnaces. Nisha glanced nervously at the planar compass every few seconds as they passed into the more confined space of the exit tunnel.
“Sodding luck… the portal isn’t on this damn cube! Back the way we came in!” she shouted out to the others as she flew as quickly as possible back towards the exit passage back up to the cube’s surface. As she and the others continued, Nilesia turned backwards and loosed a fireball onto the field below to detonate in the midst of a rapidly organizing group of guards making a hasty pursuit. The blast of the explosion was barely a ripple on the air by the time it reached them, such was the speed of their flight. The Factol’s gaze lingered on the carnage and she cackled with manic delight before turning back to gaze over the tunnel. As she sped up to the rest of the party, Fyrehowl glanced at her warily but said nothing.
Out of sight of the main cavern floor the group approached the point at which the tunnel sharply sloped upwards. The guard posts that lined the floor and walls of the tunnel were brightly illuminated now by a series of spells and brilliant torchlight. The metallic tips of crossbow bolts and at least one ballista were visible as the group closed the distance between themselves as the goblinoids defenders. As they grew to within the distance of the torchlight there was a loud blast of a horn from one of the fortified guard posts and the sudden sound of something heavily scraping the floor of the cavern as it launched itself up into the light.
Rising up from the floor of the cave with a sudden and unexpected burst of speed was a gray-green reptilian form with thin, membranous wings. The draconic bulk of the creature hovered in the thin light drifting down from the opening of the tunnel, several hundred feet above. Ruby colored eyes sparkled and it roared, rust colored mist drifting from its own maw. Goblins raised crossbows and aimed them down the passage from where they huddled defensively behind the rust-dragon as it blocked the center of the passage with its bulk.
Clueless’s eyes went wide as the dragon rose up and its roar buffeted him and his companions. Toras’s eyes grew wide as the beast’s throat convulsed slightly and it prepared to breath a cloud of metal corroding gas. The bladesinger tilted his wings abruptly to one side and veered to the wyrm’s right as a dozen crossbow bolts cut the air and hurtled towards him. All of them missed horribly as the goblins deliberately aimed low to avoid hitting their own pet drake. Clueless cut upwards at the last possible moment and slashed with him sword at the rust dragon’s flank and underbelly. The blade met resistance from the beast’s scaled hide and then bit deep. The dragon roared and shook its head, breaking its concentration as it swallowed the belch of rusting gas it would have breathed out in the next several seconds.
Seeing his chance and already ahead of the others except for Clueless, who was now barely dodging the beast’s claws and a swipe of its barbed tail, Toras raised his sword and charged directly for the dragon. Already distracted by the pixie-winged pest to its one bleeding side, the rust dragon made no attempt to defend against the fighter till it was too late. At the last moment the dragon whipped its head around to snap at Toras as he charged through the air, but as it did so it felt the sudden, oddly cold sensation of the fighter’s greatsword buried to the hilt in its neck. The blade had to have hit the beast’s spine and snapped it almost instantly because almost as if in slow motion the dragon’s eyes glazed over, its limbs went slack, a death rattle of greenish brown gas passed from its lips, and it plummeted to the group as goblins on the cave floor screamed in terror and scrambled to avoid its body.
In the momentary break in the crossbow cover of the tunnel as the dragon’s corpse crashed into the ground below, the group darted for the exit. As fast as they could fly they ascended the quickly sloping passage and within minutes broke out above the surface of the cube. All eyes went to Nisha as once again she paused, hovered in the air and consulted the planar compass. “There, that cube,” she pointed towards a broken, pitted cube hanging in the distance, alone in the darkness.
“Pray for no company along the way, I’m eager to get back somewhere safe…” Nisha shivered slightly as they all hurtled through the void towards the location of the portal promised to them to exist somewhere ahead. It took them nearly two hours of constant flight to reach their destination where they paused on the rusted iron surface as Nisha surveyed a crevice leading down into the cube’s guts. The sides were lined with stone concretions that seemed composed of, or carved into the likeness of weapons of all types, chariots, parts of ships, siege engines, and other things unrecognizable. All of them turned to stone and plastered together in the darkness.
Toras looked over the edge of the crevice, “You sure its down there Nisha?”
“Yeah, that’s what the compass says. Not the first time I’ve said it today, but … you go first?” she gave a weary smile and looked down as the compass gave a soft hum the closer it got. Clearly something at least was drawing the compass.
The group drifted down the cleft in the cube and into a surreal place that resembled the graveyard of some massive battlefield frozen in time and turned to stone. Bizarre shapes that had once been weapons on the battles of prime material worlds now stood broken, shattered and tossed aside here amid the fragments of other devices best left undescribed. If the tools of war could have souls, this would be their perdition.
Toras poked his sword at several of the petrified weapons that stuck up at odd angles from the bulk of the stone. Clueless looked around with a soft sense of awe at the surroundings. Nilesia smirked.
“The mines of Marsellin make this all pale by comparison. You have no idea of the things that we’ve dug out of the rock there. Or the things that have dug their way –out- of the rock either.” The factol walked on, largely oblivious to the same sense of wonder that her companions displayed. “Where is the portal you said you had waiting for you?”
Nisha glanced towards a ragged square-shaped outcropping of rock on the other side of the chasm from where they now stood at the bottom of it. “There…” she said as she approached it. The planar compass began to shine with a pale, flickered blue light as it neared the proximity of the space bound on the face of the rock. The portal activated as Nisha touched the surface of the stone and the others gathered alongside her.
“Let’s go, we’ve done our part of this.” Clueless said as he stepped forwards through the portal, but not to where he was expecting.
Meanwhile in Sigil…
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
The dragon was quite large (though not Wyrm size) but few things CR 10-14 can survive 8d6 + 68 (the damage I did on a crit, its up to 12d6 + 92).
Mercurial Greatswords are weapons to kill just about anything (we face a lot of undead, elementals, and constructs)
How big was that dragon? They seem to have taken it down quite easily.
As I recall it was a young adult, whichever was in the range of 10-13 as far as CR goes. Mercurial greatswords make me rue the day I allowed them in the game. One crit and the critter says hello to a shallow grave. :P
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
The dragon was quite large (though not Wyrm size) but few things CR 10-14 can survive 8d6 + 68 (the damage I did on a crit, its up to 12d6 + 92).
Mercurial Greatswords are weapons to kill just about anything (we face a lot of undead, elementals, and constructs)
Only lately, and you've been wandering the positive touched quasielemental planes for a while now, so my prediction is that you'll see more elementals in the near future.
And my apologies for the constructs, I was on a construct kick there for a while. You got the pleasure of being able to crit at least one Wyrm catagory dragon and that simulacrum/sentient illusion taken flesh, though in both cases it was a good thing for the party that you did crit them when you did.
*tosses a disjunction at you just for the running irony of it all*
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
<shameless plug>
Shemeska's Story hour is now being mirrored at: http://forums.planewalker.com
Freeform RP, planescape discussion and much more is also available there.
(As well as a Shemmi short story if I recall...)
</shameless plug>
“Let’s go, we’ve done our part of this.” Clueless said as he stepped forwards through the portal, but not to where he was expecting.
Meanwhile in Sigil…
And of course, the heroes are going to return. The nice wizard is going to return the various party hostages and keep his promises, and everyone's going to go their own way. HEH!
And of course, the heroes are going to return. The nice wizard is going to return the various party hostages and keep his promises, and everyone's going to go their own way. HEH!
That's never gonna happen...
Ok now grab that plot and TWIST!
*GRIN* I hope to hold up to expectations
For what it's worth I made two of my players cry in and out of character last session because of IC events.
(though Lord only knows when the storyhour will catch up to that, but I've started writing up each week's session the week after so I'll catch up and then have already written material to post. Finished with actual classes for school so it'll give me more time for this now).
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
Florian Schneider sat in the tap room of the Drunken Dabus, picking at his breakfast, his mind repeatedly returning to the events of the past year that had finally grown far too much to handle. Family. It was always about family. Such things you couldn’t simply handle by spells or swords, you had to either deal with them or run from them. Well, you –could- handle it by violence, but he wasn’t going to do anything of the sort. The Foe Hammer already had to be looking poorly on his servant’s inability to deal with relatives on the whole matter that had finally led him to throw up his hands and take his leave of them. He’d eventually return, at least that’s what he’d told himself at the time before he went through that portal in a back alley of Athkatla. To run off to the capital city from Esmeltaran hadn’t been enough since both his own family and the gaggle of harpies that seemed to compose the family on the other side of that arranged marriage had followed him there. Hell, if they managed to follow him here then he’d chalk it up to the will of the gods and face it all. Otherwise he needed some space and a time to reflect on it all. He shuddered for a moment as he contemplated having to look at, let alone do anything else to, that …
His internal debate was suddenly interrupted by the soft tapping of an ale mug being set down on his table. He glanced up into the smiling face a well dressed tiefling. “I do hope I’m not intruding sir…may I?” he motioned towards the empty seat across from Florian.
The stocky, sandy haired cleric of Tempus shrugged, “Be my guest. Can I help you with something?”
“Yes actually, though I can wait if you’re still eating your morning meal.” He took out a letter of sorts and fingered it softly in his hands.
“Don’t mind me, go right ahead, I’m almost finished anyways.” Florian took a few quick bites of eggs and ham before sliding the plate off to the side. The food at the inn was remarkably good this morning for some reason.
The tiefling nodded, “My employer has directed me to look for persons in the city who might be in need of either jink, diversion, escape, some mixture of them all. He requires interested persons to recover something of his along with a larger group he had already sent out on this task. They were partially successful but sorely lack certain skills that he foresees them needing in the immediate future. They lack a dedicated arcane and divine spellcaster. The temple of Tempus here in Sigil was gracious enough to inform us of your presence here in the city. And being that you’re new to Sigil and as of yet not serving in any official capacity with your church here, my employer felt you to be more than fitting his needs.”
“Interesting… I might be in need of a bit of work, if more to take my mind of some things than for the money. So what sort of thing is your boss looking for me to do exactly?” Florian bit down on another bite of his breakfast, all of it delicious. In fact he’d nearly cleaned the plate by that point. The tiefling smiled, looked at the letter he held, and then pointed with it at Florian’s food.
"And you should be aware as you consider my proposal for employment, that the food that you've just eaten was poisoned. Oh, it won't have any immediate effect, but without the antidote, or anything short of a wish, you'll be dead within 15 days. The toxin is very... specific… normal curative magic will quite simply fail in ridding it from your system. Without us, you will wither and die in the space of two weeks. That said, this letter is for you, I suggest you read it and do as asked." He smiled cordially and passed the letter across the table to the now sick looking cleric.
“What the hells? You could have just asked you know, I would have said yes!” Florian pushed his plate of food away and glared angrily at the unconcerned tiefling.
“Bluster all you like, you have two weeks at best before the poison runs its course. Take my employers offer or do not, it’s only your life at stake here, not mine, and frankly it matters little in the grand scheme of things. I have other people to see today if you’ll excuse me. Show up at the appointed time or do not. Good day to you cutter.”
And with that the tiefling tipped his hat, smiled and walked confidently to the door of the inn and vanished out into the street leaving the shocked looking cleric behind with only a sealed letter.
“Only me…” Florian sighed and opened the letter angrily. It was sealed with an odd blue wax bearing the symbol of an open palm. Though the fingers seemed unnaturally long and possessed of an extra knuckle each. The letter read: “Greetings to you my newest employee. If you wish to find yourself free of the toxin now coursing through your veins you will meet another of my latest acquisitions this evening at the former location of the Ubiquitous Wayfarer. Once there enter the front door and proceed to the second floor and enter the fifth door on the right. Further instructions will be found there, as well as any others you will shortly find yourself working with. – Patriarch Dalmar Imshenviir”
Twelve hours previously and an entire plane removed, Tristol Starweather sat brooding in his parents’ tower in the southern Faerunian nation of Halruaa on the prime world of Toril. The wizard sat sullenly in a chair and rubbed the head of his familiar, a small twintailed fox who yipped softly up at its master. The unique little fox tilted its head to one side in that ever so typical canid manner of questioning. He didn’t understand fully why Tristol was upset.
The mage looked down and gave a weak smile mixed with more than its own share of arrogance. Certainly he’d shown that trait over the past week, all coming to a head that morning. An outsider might have found a curious dichotomy between mage and familiar, since both of them had black tipped fuzzy ears and fox tails…
Tristol Starweather was a bit of a rarity in his nation of mages, being not quite fully human but an odd little type of Aasimar, descended down from a type of celestial known as a Vulpinal. Reclusive beings found on the plane of Elysium that served as sages, inventors and artists of their kind. The aasimar heritage was passed down from his father, Kefnar Starweather, himself an aasimar. His mother, Lutra Starweather, was as purely human as you might find. How the mages who paired his parents together had made the match, Tristol wondered about it still since they were nearly opposites in so many ways. Ability came first over fondness in Halruaa, and under the laws of the land you didn’t easily shirk responsibility to produce the next generation of capable wizards.
Tristol pondered what exactly his parents were going to do with him. Whatever it was it wasn’t going to be pleasant, nor was it likely to be the idea of his father. Lutra was both the more powerful mage of the pair, and the dominant personality. Whatever happened he would likely be able to have his mother alone to thank. In fact what had started all of this coming trouble was his mother’s idea in the first place. Stupid illusion magic…
It had all started a month or so before. Tristol’s chosen area of magic was evocation; a perfectly respectable school of magic, but not at all one of the politically favored schools. Kefnar was an abjurist and Lutra was an illusionist, a powerful illusionist. This fact was apparent from the illusions that constantly flitted over the face of their tower and wandered around inside half of the rooms therein. The problem was that Tristol loathed the little wastes of magic with a passion. He didn’t find them useful, and they were one of the schools of magic that he’d forsaken in their entirety. His mother had never really gotten over that little snub. She’d wanted an illusionist or a diviner, not some hurler of flames and lightning.
“That’s what you got though, someone who uses real magic…” Tristol scoffed and thought back again. Lutra’s little figments were amusing to him as a child, but as he grew older and more skilled in magic they seemed like shadows of real spells, tricks without real use or substance. In time they grew to be very shallow seeming to him. As his open contempt for them grew his mother became displeased and put it upon herself to have her wayward son instructed in such things and made to understand that all magic had its place. And in Halruaa some magic had its place more than others.
To that end they had provided him with a tutor by the name of Jengo, the last in a long line of wizards that had instructed him in the various schools of magic to supplement the teaching of his own parents. It had been clear by that point that their son’s prowess was approaching the point where it would soon outstrip that of his father, and potentially that of his mother as well, and that it was aspected firmly opposite to her own. Tristol had resented being lectured over and over in tolerance for all forms of magic, being told that all magic was an equally powerful blessing that Mystra had granted her servants, and that illusions had real uses. He scoffed at the waste of magic he saw them all as, but still Jengo persevered in trying to mitigate some of his pupil’s more extreme views.
Everything had come to a head when Jengo had drug Tristol along to a mage fair and carnival of sorts on the other side of the city, specifically to guide him around a house of mirrors and illusions. It had been three hours of misery for the young evoker in which he’d been mocked by phantasms, stumbled through illusory doors just to hit his head on a real wall, all the while getting lectured on the positive aspects of illusion magic. Eventually he’d had enough. He looked in the direction of Jengo’s voice and shouted at the top of his lungs, “This is what I think of these lessons and this is what I think of this waste of magic!” His shouting hadn’t been for naught as he’d woven a greater dispelling incantation into his words and hurled them outwards into the illusions cloaking the room. Walls melted away, Jengo appeared from behind a suddenly dissolving stand of trees, and there was a shower of sparks from above them both.
Both Tristol and Jengo looked up to see a silver sphere come crashing down to the floor where it burst into a dozen sparking pieces. The sphere had been the focus for the entire house of illusions. Jengo looked on in horror as the dispelling spread outwards and entire rooms vanished like a house of cards tumbling down upon itself. They both scrambled for the exit before the physical sections of the building finally collapsed upon themselves in a cloud of all too real smoke.
Jengo looked aghast as he looked to the ruins of the building and back to Tristol, “I can’t believe what you did! Why did… how could…” The very act itself was shocking to him, but also the fact that his charge had hurled such a powerful spell on his own. All around there were the sounds of angry merchants, shocked and outraged wizards and the approaching sound of the city guard. Tristol had just a bit of a triumphant smirk on his face even as he was politely escorted away for detainment.
His parents bailed him out as soon as they heard what had happened from a shocked and apologetic Jengo. As Lutra teleported herself, Kefnar and Tristol back to her tower on the outskirts of the city, there was a palpable silence amongst them all. Walking down the halls of the tower towards a sitting room, Tristol was fully aware that a number of the wandering illusions in the tower looked down at him with disapproving stares, no doubt linked in to what his mother was clearly waiting to say to him. Once they arrived and shut the door on their son, Tristol sat and worried about the day’s events.
Back in the present he looked down at his familiar and simply stared out the window in the room, making a face at the illusions that danced over the window frame. Fifteen minutes passed before his parents returned. Lutra walked in and stood in front of her son before she launched into her tirade. Kefnar skulked behind her, not fully party to her rant and clearly feeling some sort of empathy for his son. Whatever might come, if it could be toned done, it was very likely at his doing and not hers.
"Tristol..." his mother began. "I arranged to have all that mess cleared up… but at a very expensive price I must say! However, you are not allowed to set foot in the town proper for at least year, or charges will be filed." She then took a long deep breath. "And your father and I have been discussing things. We both agree it would be wise to send you out on your own for a while, so that you can get into trouble and get yourself out. You might learn some lessons while you’re out there as well since you didn’t listen to half of those we’d paid to have you taught. I’m not quite sure where I went wrong as a mother but…"
Tristol’s father broke in suddenly, stepping out from behind his wife both figuratively and literally, “We’re going to be very hands off on this. We’ve packed some of your things up for you, anything that you’ll need, but please do let us know where you are and what you’re up to so we don’t worry. I hate sending you away, but your mother thought it might be best for all of us for a while.” His ears flopped sullenly to the sides in emphasis on the last part clearly being his wife’s idea entirely. Tristol wasn’t going to let it all seen like a bad thing though, or even a punishment…
"Finally... a chance to be on my own." Tristol said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Where should I go? Waterdeep? Amn? Cormyr? Zakhara?"
"We've arranged for you to get to Sigil. It’s a bit further away from where you’re thinking, but it’s really only a door removed from here you could say.” He tried to smile to make his son more at ease with leaving, “With your ability there should be plenty of opportunity for right... or wrong. Just remember, we won't be there to bail you out." Kefnar let out a sigh and motioned with his tail over towards a table next to Lutra stacked with Tristol’s spellbooks and a travel bag.
Tristol’s mother nodded, "We’ve prepared a small travel bag for you." She then hefted the small brown bag up from the table. "It has a few changes of robes for you, random scrolls, and a few rings to help protect you. We want you to take this opportunity to get to know yourself and find your place in the world. Come back to us when you've figured it out."
The next dozen or so hours were a whirlwind as he stepped through a portal to the Concordant Domain of the Outlands and from there teleported to the city of Trade Gate. It had taken him a few minutes to figure out how to use the portal to Sigil in that bustling city of traders, merchants, craftsmen and gnomes. In the end one of those same gnomes and approached him and handed him several links of silver chain before pointing to the archway and telling him to simply hold out the bit of chain, what he called a portal key, and he’d be in the City of Doors.
He did just that and spent the rest of the day wandering through what he had been told was the ‘Market Ward’ of the city. He’d also been called a number of other things ranging from berk, to clueless, to sodding berk, to spellhurler, to things in languages he’d never heard of before. All of it seemed to relate to his penchant for stopping in the middle of the streets, even the crowded ones, and looking around to stare at most everything in sight.
Eventually he’d wandered into a nicer area of the city filled with mansions and fancier buildings, even a few towers. A few more instances of asking for directions led him out of what those people had called the ‘Noble’s District’ into the other half of The Lady’s Ward. By this point he’d been wandering for hours and was getting somewhat tired and more than a bit hungry. Another person stopped and asked for directions, a few blocks walked, and Tristol noticed a sign for what seemed to be some manner of inn. The oversized sign was decorated with a large golden colored wheel above symbols of food and drink. If nothing else it would be a place to sit down and digest all of the things he’d seen so far.
Walking in the front door he was surprised by the number of people in the esblishment that was now clearly both an inn and a gambling and Festhall as well. The sounds of dice cups, shuffling cards, and from somewhere a but more removed, the sound of some snarling animal clouding through the air and mixed with the more mundane sounds of people dining and talking. The occasional shout and groan would be the rare winners at the gambling tables and the much more frequent losers.
Tristol walked to a large desk opposite the entrance and looked up into the face of a large green colored dragon’s head that was either affixed to, or coming out of, the wall over the desk and extending out over a bar to the side. His ears lay flat and his tail jumped for a brief moment when the dragon’s head tilted and smiled a toothy grin at him. “You look new here, can I help you find anything?” the dragon said.
“You don’t look like a green dragon… and you’re nice…” Tristol asked a bit impertinently.
“Well, I’m green today. Tomorrow I’ll be something else likely.” The dragon shrugged, as well as it could do without shoulders anyways. In fact he looked more like a gold dragon, or some odd looking silver. But regardless of his exact species, he continued, “Something to drink? Eat? A room for the evening? Oh, and if you’ll be so kind to sign the guestbook there to your left.”
Tristol smiled back, “Right now a room for the evening. It’s been a long day and I just need to rest for a bit to handle everything this city has tossed at me. Yeah, I’m new here if you couldn’t tell from the way I act, if not for my looks.”
“Very well. If you’ll go up those stairs to your right back there you’ll find the inn over top of the Fortunes Wheel here, properly called the Azure Iris Inn. I warn you it’s a tad expensive, but its very nice. You’ll find a very pleasant wood elf up there, her name’s Verden. Tell her that the big green scaly thing by the bar downstairs sent you up to her. She’ll give you a little bit of a discount.” The dragon, or at least what looked like part of a dragon smiled again and pointed its snout in the direction of the stairs near the back of the common room.
“Well thank you, I think I’ll do that.” His tail twitched happily behind him, kicking up his robes slightly as he dipped the pen on the bar into the ink well and hunted for a place to sign his name in the registry. “Hmm… might be a little cramped. Some Marauder person signed their name over half the page…”
But Tristol signed his name, smiled up at the dragon once more and walked up the stairs to the Azure Iris inn. As he left for an evenings rest, his never saw the well dressed tiefling who emerged from a spot at one of the card tables to walk over and examine the latest name in the registry. The tiefling smiled and knocked a dash next to it as the dragon’s head hovered over him with an altogether disapproving look on its face. The tiefling simply looked up and smirked wickedly at the dragon, but both of them said nothing and the tiefling vanished back into the crowd in the gambling hall.
The night came and went and Tristol Starweather slept soundly in his room at the end of the hall in the Azure Iris Inn. The owner, Verden was a nice enough woman, if seeming a bit cold. Maybe all elves were that way, but he wouldn’t have known since Halruaa had very very few of them within its borders. But she did give him his discount after he mentioned the dragon. As he slept his mind was growing to appreciate in some ways this little excursion from his family. Freedom was sweet as he slumbered that evening. But that, like all things, would soon change.
The morning light slowly crept across Tristol’s face as he blinked at the hazy yellow light breaking in a line across his bed and into his eyes. “That’s daylight? You’d think they could do something about the haze out there.” He yawned and got up out of bed to splash a bit of water on his face to feel a bit more alive. Back on the bed his familiar pounced the now vacant pillow and happily claimed it as its own with a sharp bark of triumph as it curled up atop it.
“Well fine, sleep there all day and I’ll just have to leave you here while –I – go eat breakfast. Hmm?” Tristol chuckled as he brushed out his hair and smoothed the fur on his ears and tail. The fox, at the mention of breakfast, was already at the door and waiting impatiently. Various suggestions of what he wanted to eat were already starting to filter into Tristol’s mind through the telepathic link they shared. Along with it, his own appetite was growing.
“That’s not fair and you know it. Now stop, you’re making me hungrier than I am. Next time I go drinking I’ll do the same to you, and I can hold my liquor more than you can.”
The mage changed into a fresh set of robes and made his way back down to the fest hall area of the Fortunes Wheel. He found an unoccupied table and took a seat. The fox barked at him from on the floor impatiently. “Oh? Mr. ‘I’m making the wizard hungry’ wants his own seat, does he?” The fox barked again in a just so fashion and Tristol stood up and slid out a chair for his vulpine companion.
“What can I get you sir?” one of the servers, a cute looking aasimar of Eladrin heritage, asked.
“Hmm… anything that might qualify for breakfast. It’s my first morning in the city and I’d like to try something I might not have before. But some sort of sausage for the fox over here.” The fox barked softly and wagged his oversized tails.
“Anything to drink sir?” she asked as she jotted down the food order.
Tristol thought for a moment, “Something to wake me up?”
She grinned puckishly, “I can handle that, it’ll be out shortly.”
Several minutes later a different server walked out and placed a shot glass of some fiery reddish alcohol in front of the aasimar. Tristol look at it and the fox hopped up on the table to sniff. It snuck out its tongue to lap at it before its master shooed it away. As he did so, the fox got a single slurp and a small puff of smoke shot from its nose. The familiar looked slightly dazed and flopped down on its side with a surprised yelp. Tristol himself paused and shook off the shared effects of the alcohol.
“Wow, just what the hell is this stuff?” he pondered as he tentatively took a swallow of it, with an almost equal effect to himself. A short period later after he recovered from the bite of the wine he flagged down yet another server and asked them what it actually was.
“Ah… that would be Baatorian firewine sir.” They said matter-of-factly. “What the hell indeed, not bad. Certainly woke me up, that’s for sure.” Tristol said to himself as he looked back towards the still slightly stunned fox. “You alright over there, or just buzzed? I told you I could handle my drink more than you could. Might have to put you in an extradimensional pouch later if you’re too drunk to walk.”
Tristol sat back and watched the various dozens of planar and prime races that populated the taproom that morning as he waited for his food to arrive. Half of the patrons eating breakfast or getting and early start on their day’s allotment of hard drink he’d never seen before outside of some of the books he’d studied when he was learning conjuration spells. He marveled at the existence of such a place where mortals, celestials and fiends walked in shared space, as well as beings such as him with a trace of at least one of those planar races mixed in with their own prime material bloodline.
Soon enough the same server who had brought the alcohol arrived with a tray of food and placed several dishes in front of Tristol and a second, smaller dish in front of the familiar. “I thought your companion here might appreciate a plate of his own. Is there anything else that I can get for you sir?” the tiefling serving girl asked with a smile.
“No no, this all looks very wonderful. Thank you.” He returned her smile and hungrily launched into his breakfast, mouthful after mouthful. The fox was finished with its own smaller plate and sniffing towards Tristol’s food a few minutes later. “Fine fine, you want some more?” Tristol thought as he pushed a few links of sausage over to his familiar’s plate.
Engrossed in his meal, the wizard failed to notice the tiefling approaching his table till the well-dressed man had tapped a small cane on the chair opposite him. “Excuse me sir, I apologize for interrupting your breakfast, but I was hoping that I might have a word with you.”
Tristol started to reply then remembered his manners and swallowed his mouthful of food. “Umm… certainly. Please have a seat.”
“Thank you.” The tiefling sat down and placed a small sealed letter on the table in front of him. “Where to begin, where to begin… again I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, it’s not everyday that one gets to meet a wizard from Halruaa.”
“Wait… did my mother set you up for this? If she went out of her way to have people keep tabs on me while I was here in Sigil, I’ll…” his ears were suddenly a bit flat against his head before the tiefling waved off his concern.
“Nothing of the sort sir, I’m personally not familiar with your family. I was however told that you were in Sigil and staying up in the Azure Iris. Another colleague of mine by the name of Tripicus keeps tabs on prime material residents from a few select spheres, it’s an honest curiosity in him. He studies people from the various primes. But I get ahead of myself.”
The tiefling waved over the server and ordered himself a drink. “My own employers have been looking for help with certain matters, and specifically are in the need of arcane expertise. I was having an evening meal with Tripicus the other day and he mentioned you, and being from a nation of wizards on a prime world noted for wizards, I figured I might as well meet you and see if you might be interested in what my employers have to offer.”
“Hmm… well I might be open to it. What sort of work would I be doing? Let me finish up the last of my breakfast here and we can talk about the details.”
“All of the finer points are in the letter I have here if you’d like to look over it.” He slid the letter across the table to the wizard and took a sip of his own drink as it arrived. A moment after his shot of whiskey he paused and pointed towards Tristol’s plate, “And I believe that I would be remiss if didn’t inform you that your meal was poisoned…”
Tristol stopped, blinked and looked up at the tiefling. “What was that you said?”
“I’ll repeat it again in case you misheard me. I said your food was poisoned, every scrap of your breakfast in fact. The effect will be slow and subtle at first, but without the antidote, or anything short of a wish, you'll be dead within two weeks time. The alchemical toxin is quite rare and has the peculiar ability to resist clerical healing spells that would normally purge it from the body. So I’ll spare you a trip to a temple of Mystra and just tell you now that they can’t help you, but my employer can. Do exactly as this letter spells out and you will be given the antitoxin before it kills you. Choose not to agree to those terms and you’ll have two weeks, at most, to find yourself a cure without knowing what the specific poison was…”
The tiefling stood up, tipped his hat towards the mage, and tossed the letter in front of him. “You’ll be wanting to read that. Good day to you.” And with that, he turned and walked off, vanishing into the crowd and leaving Tristol stunned and staring at the letter.
His familiar looked at the empty plates in front of them both and whimpered softly, its two tails gone limp and curled between its hind legs. With trembling fingers, Tristol opened the letter that was sealed with a shimmering blue wax, impressed with an image of an open palm with an extra digit to each elongated finger. The letter read: “Greetings to you my newest employee. If you wish to find yourself free of the toxin now coursing through your veins you will meet another of my latest acquisitions this evening at the former location of the Ubiquitous Wayfarer. Once there past the front door, proceed to the second floor, and enter the fifth door on the right. Further instructions will be found there, as well as any others you will shortly find yourself working with. – Patriarch Dalmar Imshenviir”
“Lady of Mysteries preserve me…” Tristol put down the letter and help his familiar in his lap as he contemplated just what exactly he would do. Assuming the food was poisoned and what that arrogant prick of a tiefling had said was true, he didn’t have much of a choice but to do what he was being forced to do. First he’d confirm that he was indeed poisoned and see if normal curative magic could heal it, unlikely but he could try in case it was all an elaborate bluff. But for the moment he sat, suddenly quiet, his own ears and tail matching the sullen and worried attitude that his familiar displayed.
And two more were thus snared into the plot, wrapped in the same webs of guile, treachery and lies as the others they would soon meet…
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
Well, now that I've been properly introduced into the grand affair of things, I thought it might be prudent to say hello. I am Archmage Tristol Starweather, servant to the Lady of Mysteries, mistress of the weave. As you've been made aware, I was roped into this group of berks by a force outside of my control. Looking back over the story being told, I don't think I'd really have had it any other way. Sure, the poisoning I could have done without, but the people I met helped shaped my life to become so much more than I was. I've been through a lot in the meantime, and our esteemed storyteller will certainly reveal all in that regard.
There's only so much you can say while attending to seven different people and the story that goes along with it. Inevitably you loose that degree of persoal insight. In order to provide a unique, if not biased, look at what happens to the group of adventurers you're reading about, I kept a diary of our exploits. It's all from my own recollection and has my own personal thoughts on the various puzzles and events. Some of it I'm sure is a bit bland and boring, but there is a lot that is down right puzzling and emotional.
I would like to offer a word of warning to those who enjoy the current story. The diary doesn't pick up where you've been left off. It was an afterthought written a short time after I met these people, as an attempt to ensure that I would be remembered. As such, it contains insights of the future of the story and will spoil things for those who are waiting. However, I also appreciate the feedback on my work as much as anyone else does. So, if you do read it, please let me know what you think. It has its spelling errors, and perhaps grammatical mistakes, but the content is what I'm looking for input on. Having provided you that word of warning, the following is a page entirely devoted to myself. It's still got some work that needs to be done, but it is mostly complete and has links to the diary as well as other information that you'll find useful.
I reiterate, if you feel compelled to comment, please do so. There's contact information on the page, and you can also get up with me here as well. I hope to interject more on various topics in the future, so keep an eye out for me.
[I've got double this written, but the next part isn't finished so it'll wait till next time to post it. I'd post it all tommorow but I have to help friends move and that takes priorty for the moment. Enjoy hopefully]
The companions gazed out into an empty gray void stretching out as far as the eyes could see. Several brilliant, glowing orbs of light hung suspended out in the empty space around them, illuminating the large outcrop of rock that they stood upon. Like an inverted mountain it hung there in space, connected to a single black marble bridge that reached out to another, larger hanging rock suspended in the void. Hulking upon that second island of stone stood a solid and utilitarian stone fortress that could have been picked up off of any random prime world and deposited where it now stood. Some portions of it seemed of human make, others seemed to be constructed in more of a dwarven style. Nothing particularly stood out to give any real clue of the origin of its owners, or at least its makers. Certainly nothing stood out in comparison to the demiplane it sat within.
The temperature was pleasant and a slow warm breeze drifted across their faces as they gazed up at the castle sitting there motionless in space. The orbs in the empty sky shed their harsh white light over the landscape of the demiplane, stretching out their feeble illumination into the empty expanse of nothing that surrounded them.
Clueless looked at the others, “Well… so much for going right back to Sigil.”
Fyrehowl sighed angrily, “And you believed him? The man dealt with Nycaloths. That doesn’t make him trustworthy as far as I’m concerned.”
“I still hold to my previous statement that he needs to join the Dustmen. You don’t find too many walking dead men outside of that group…” Toras smirked with the anticipation of future comeuppance for the arrogant genasi wizard that had blackmailed them all into this originally.
The group walked on towards the castle, over the connecting span of stone and up to the gates themselves. The demiplane was utterly silent as they stood and gazed up at the closed doors of the fortress. Flanking the entrance stood two square stone towers with clearly visible arrow slits. None of them, nor the ramparts above, seemed to be manned. From the exterior the place looked deserted.
Nisha scampered up closer to the gates with a cautious look crossing over her face. She looked back at the group as she tapped the door, “They’re not locked. But there’s some piking strange magic around…” With the words hung on her lips the tiefling suddenly blinked out of sight, vanished.
“Umm…” Clueless’s wings blazed with a concerned flicker of faerie-fire.
“One would expect you to know your employers better, and their tactics. Just step on the stones in front of the gate it’s clearly a teleportation circle worked into the fortress.” The factol said with a bemused bit of irritation as she stepped forwards herself to vanish upon touching the marble paving stones directly before the gate. Shrugging and hoping for the best, the others followed suit.
When the spell’s effect faded, all of them stood inside a large meeting room perhaps fifty feet across and equally long. The unadorned chamber was furnished with only a large table at one end and a shimmering tapestry that hung on the wall to their left. A single door led out of the room near to the end with the table and was flanked by two unmoving dull grayish stone golems, each in the same plain and utilitarian style of the fortress itself. All of this however was not what gathered the rapt attention of the newly arrived companions and their guest.
Standing in the center of the room and flanked by two others of his kind as well as a much more elaborate looking shield golem, was a twelve foot tall, blue-skinned and richly robed humanoid. A mercane. The wizard, Bartol Trenevein was nowhere in sight.
“I congratulate you all on a job completed ahead of schedule. I hope that there were no unforeseen problems.” The voice of the primary mercane rung out loudly in the minds of the group, steady and confident.
It then continued, “Factol Nilesia, I am honored by your presence. Your return has been too long in the making. My associates and I, we welcome you. Know that your dream remains alive, even while your faction has splintered. We seek to aid you in your goals and make that dream a reality. If you will follow my assistants, they wish to obtain the details of your absence, inform you as to the changed face of the kreigstanz, and expedite your return to the City of Doors.”
Nilesia paused at the words of the mercane, especially the part about the disintegration of the Mercykillers. A moment later and she steeled herself and walked towards the taller figure with a nod of respect and gratitude. “I extend my thanks to you as well. Whatever your motives may be you have righted a wrong. You have my respect as do those who brought me here. See that they are rewarded.”
Wordlessly and as impassive as ever the lead mercane motioned towards the single exit and the golems moved to the side as the two smaller attendant mercanes nodded to Nilesia and escorted her from the room. As soon as she and they had left the room the golems closed the doors and retook their vigil.
A sudden flash near the back of the room drew the gaze of the group and an unconcerned glance from the mercane. Standing there behind the party were two figures with a curious and wary look on their faces: an axe wielding and armored cleric bearing the symbols of the Torillian god of War, Tempus, and an orange robed aasimar wizard. The wizard’s bushy tail was nearly bottlebrushed out behind him as he looked at the party and then the mercane.
The mercane motioned in the air and a number of simple, unadorned chairs appeared for each of the members of its captive audience. “Be seated.”
“Now wait just a minute. Who in the 9 blazing Hells are you?” Toras asked, remaining standing and even walking towards the mercane a few steps. The mercane seem entirely nonplussed at it all.
“Sit down Toras of Andros before I find myself down one servant bought and paid for. My name to you may as well be ‘master’, but if it makes you sit and listen then you may also refer to me as Patriarch Dalmar Imshenviire. Two of you are already familiar with my name. Now associate a person with it.” Imshenviire gestures one elongated finger at Florian and Tristol where they sat nervously.
Fyrehowl blinked and looked around the room, sniffing curiously at some scent on the air. Clueless looked at her oddly as she glanced around the room for something he obviously wasn’t aware of. Eventually she stopped and looked back towards the mercane but the nagging look of suspicion never left her face.
“Whatever happened to that arrogant son-of-a-bitch Trenevain?” Clueless asked with a flutter of his wings beating irritatedly on the air.
“Nothing you should be concerned with. As far as you must know, you are now my property as you were his previously. The same conditions that bound you to his service apply now to me as well.” Imshenviire’s telepathic voice washed out over the group with arrogance to equal the genasi’s.
“So I take it you were his puppet master from the beginning? What was with the Nycaloths then. Don’t they make better bodyguards than golems?” Clueless egged on but the mercane ignored his questions. Fyrehowl once more glanced around the room with a distressed and paranoid look.
“Be quiet and be seated as your indentured servitude now enters its second phase. Two others, procured in similar fashion, join you in your service. You will require their aid for your next task. Now that we have the factol…” Imshenviire paused on the phrase with obvious pleasure, “….your next task is this.”
The mention of a second task drew forth irritated sighs from his subjects as he gestured with one hand to conjure forth a shimmering chest out of the air in front of the party. The chest opened of its own volition to reveal a collection of papers inside its misty interior. Nisha reached out to collect them, gave them a cursory glance and then passed them around to the others. Clearly stamped on each of the pages in brilliant but fading red ink were the following words, “BANNED BY ORDER OF FACTOL SARIN OF THE HARMONIUM, Possession of these maps is an offense punishable by fine, hard labor, imprisonment, or death.” The papers were some sort of collection of maps, each of them annotated in elaborate handwritten githyanki script.
“If you will examine those maps, they detail a specific section of the deep ethereal in which your next target lays.” The mercane patriarch waved its other hand towards Nisha and the planar compass at her belt began to glow with a soft light. “You will need that. I would go myself on this task, but I would not be… welcome. The planar compass will give you further instructions once you reach the proper location in the ethereal. From there you will take an ethereal curtain to the actual location of your task.”
Tristol looked up from the maps, clearly about to ask a question, but the mercane cut him off abruptly. “The tapestry at the rear of this chamber is an active ethereal tapestry that will lead you out into a small chamber built on the ethereal proper at the boundary of this demiplane. You may rest there as you feel the need to do so before leaving, and there is an ample supply of food and drink there as well. However I would not tarry there long as your two newest companions are living on borrowed time.”
Florian gave the mercane an icy glare and walked towards the tapestry without another word as Tristol’s face flushed a dozen shades of red and his ears flattened back onto his head, black facing up.
“Hold on.” Clueless glared up at the mercane patriarch, “This last little stunt in Acheron was supposed to be the only thing we had to do before what was taken from us was returned or the situations making us do this were reversed. What assurances do we have that we’re not going to be brought back here after risking our lives yet again just to be sent out to do some other errand?”
“You don’t,” Imshenviire replied as impassively as ever. “And considering the circumstances you have little choice but to do as I tell you. However if it will insure your prompt cooperation then very well, if you finish this next task then I will release you from my service. I have nothing more for you to perform after this nor is it in my best interests to retain your services or the conditions binding you to myself. Business may be harsh at times, but it is never overly vindictive for no reason. Return here when you are done and we will collectively wash our hands of this. Until then however you are mind to do with as I see fit. Go.”
Under the baleful watch of their mercane taskmaster the group walked back towards the shimmering veil of the ethereal curtain, one by one stepping through and vanishing from sight. Fyrehowl paused to once more look around the room with a wary look before Nisha nudged her forwards.
“Come on, let’s just get this over with. What’s wrong? You’re acting all wierded out and paranoid. At least the first part is my job, find your own shtick.”
“There’s… nevermind.” The lupinal shrugged off her feeling of lingering dread about the whole place, the entire situation really, and stepped through the curtain with Nisha trotting close behind.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
Running late with the update, though it's mostly written at this point. My players however want a chance to review it before I post it up here so I'll give them this weekend to made suggestions to what I have so far. I'll probably post the full thing Tuesday of next week.
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
An exquisitely torturous wait... but we'll get over it.
Have a good weekend!
Thank you, I'll try. I got sick last week and had to call off my game so I've had an extra week to prepare for Sunday's session. We shall see who lives and who dies, and who just feels incredibly confused by the end of it.
I promise you all a long and lengthy update early next week. There's just a huge amount of IC dialogue I have to write up before continuing on with the plot. The next update will likely include the scene that ended up with me drawing a picture as a visual aid and Clueless's player refusing to so much as touch the paper. The first time they actually got frightened IC, and perhaps OOC as well. We'll see how you all like it.
And as a final thought, it's 4:42am, what the hell am I doing up this late...
__________________ "I can just see the 4e adventure anthology "Tale from the Limited Staircase"." - Ken Marable
Linear Mode
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