Causality and Condemnation (Planescape) [Updated 9/19]

[ThirdWizard]

“Does that include resurrection or not?”
- a mercenary, going over his hazard pay details

Session 8/5/06 - The Lost City (continued)

Malbi decided it was best to take advantage of the time Jackal was spending trying to find them a portal to work on the Green Marvent problem. The Sign of the One was watching him closely on this one, and this was a good way for him to either find himself in their good graces again or to injure his reputation there even further. He had set out with Grum to the Hall of Speakers to make use of the resource they had given him.

The Hall was a large place, bustling with members of several factions. As he entered he saw a familiar face, the Red Haired Man who called himself Tylaric Stormwing. Grumbling to himself, he passed by the man, who was busy helping a young woman carry her mass of paperwork somewhere, smiling with her and laughing. He hated keeping up this pretense, even if it was necessary.

Malbi confirmed his appointment with Renthal, the wizard who would be performing the contact other plane spell for him. He headed around the side passage of the building, nodding to several Signers who he had a passing familiarity with. They seemed to ignore Grum and he did the same. They went on until they found the small room where they would meet Renthal and he was already there.

He paced back and forth, obviously nervous, and for good reason, casting the spell was a very hazardous affair. “Let’s get this over with.” He turned to face Malbi, and jumped at the sight of Grum before waving nonchalantly and walking to the back of the room to sit down on the floor. “This might take a while to get started.”

“How many questions do I get?”

“Seven. Best make them good.”

Renthal lit a candle and leaned back closing his eyes, incanting.

Malbi watched for several minutes before sitting down himself, which Grum had done long before. Grum didn’t really care too much about what was going on here; he had come along more for protection against any assassination attempts. No one in the group ever went anywhere alone. This isn’t to say, of course, that he didn’t care about finding Green Marvent; he did care about that. The motions of finding him, however, were inconsequential to him. What would happen when they did find him occupied more of his thoughts.

Finally, after several more minutes on top of that, Renthal opened his eyes. “It is ready.”

Malbi looked up. “Okay, I’ll ask questions and you do your thing. First question.” Malbi rose from his sitting position in anticipation. “Question: Is Green Marvent still operating in the Plane of Fire?”

The wizard closed his eyes as if concentrating. The voice that came out of his mouth was not the voice Malbi had heard before. It was deep and echoing, though there was no echo in the room. “No.”

Malbi nodded, and the Renthal opened his eyes and turned them toward Malbi, swiveling his head in his direction afterward, waiting silently.

“Okay… Is Green Marvent operating in the Inner Planes?”

Again the response came back negative.

Grum let out a snore, and Malbi scowled in his direction. “Is Green Marvent intending to cause a faction conflict?”

This time, “Yes.”

“Aha! So his goals do involve a conflict among the factions… Not that that will help me find him. Here… Is Green Marvent working for a faction?”

“No.”

Malbi nodded again, “Is Green Marvent on a Lawful plane?”

“No.”

“Is Green Marvent on a Chaotic plane?”

“No.”

“Hmmm… I’d best check… Is Green Marvent on an Outer plane?”

“Yes.” Renthal blinked, opening his eyes. He gave out a long sigh of relief. “Glad that’s over. Now, I’ll be on my way, and good luck finding Green Marvent.”

“Wait!” Malbi wasn’t ready to give up yet, he needed more questions. He almost had it narrowed down.”

Renthal looked at him carefully. “I agreed to do this once for the faction. It’s dangerous. I can’t just cast it all day, and they understand that. I’m sure you got in the right direction, and you’ll just have to live with that.” He started to make his way out of the room.

“We’ll double your pay!”

He paused in his tracks and licked his lips. “Ten thousand gold pieces. That’s what I’m getting.” He looked back at Malbi.

“Cast it again, and you’ll get twenty thousand, and we’ll look after you if it goes wrong. The effects aren’t permanent after all.”

“I’m basically a shell for a while if I fail… I have enemies…,” his gaze went to the corner of the room.

“We’ll take care of it. Twenty thousand gold pieces.”

He thought for a moment, but this wasn’t something he could just pass up. “Fine. I’ll have to prepare another. Give me thirty minutes and I’ll be back.”

“Good man,” Malbi smiled. He would have Green Marvent’s whereabouts by the end of the day.

Renthal left the room, and Malbi turned to Grum, started to say something and decided to just wait in silence until he got back, which was in less than twenty minutes. Gold was a great motivator; he had learned that lesson quickly operating in Sigil. Renthal sat down again to recast his spell and finally they were back at the questions. He had picked out his questions, and it wouldn’t take seven to find the right plane.

Malbi smiled, “Is Green Marvent on an Evil plane?”

Renthal’s voice resumed its former deep echoing resonance which had been present previously. However, the answer was not one that Malbi was looking for, “That is unclear.”

“Unclear? Um… I mean… Is Green Marvent on a Good Plane?”

“That is unclear.”

That shot that plan down fairly quickly. Now he had to use what few questions he had to narrow it down plane by plane and hope that this unlucky streak was over. They were contacting a greater deity, after all, though Renthal had been vague about which one in particular. He sighed and hoped to get lucky and pick the right plane. “Is Green Marvent in Hades?”

“No,” the voice boomed. Grum snorted and woke up, looking around blinking.

“Is Green Marvent in Gehenna?” He hoped he wasn’t.

“No.”

A sigh of relief then on to the next one, “Is Green Marvent in Carceri?”

“No.”

“Is Green Marvent in Elysium?”

“No.”

“Is Green Marvent in Bytopia?”

“No.” Renthal’s eyes fluttered and he fell back onto the floor. “That really takes a lot out of you,” he said sitting up again. “I hope you found what you were looking for.”

“Close… very close.”

“Well, I’m not doing that again. No way in the Nine Hells am I doing it again.”

And that was that. Malbi went to find Factor Dhoren. He’d be interested in the results.

 

[ThirdWizard]

"Tastes like chicken. Very very tough and stringy chicken."
- Grum, on dwarves

Session 8/5/06 - The Lost City (continued)

“News on Green Marvent, huh? Look, we can do that later.”

“I think he might be in the Beastlands. This could be important. I told Factor Dhoren about it. The Signers have a foothold there, so I’ve got them looking. We might turn up something.”

“On the whole Plane?”

Malbi sighed, “It’s a long shot, but it’s something. Alternately, he could be on the Outlands.”

Jackal thought on it for a moment. It was something at least, and this looked like he could take advantage of it. He had been working on propelling Black Dagger up the ranks as a side project, sort of a way to gain some influence in the Fated (and some favors) while not sticking his own neck out too far. This was just another opportunity. If the Fated found out Black Dagger had helped stop whatever the spies were doing, whether or not he actually would have anything to do with it, then that would be quite beneficial.

“Alright, you’ve got a point. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“We’re heading to the Hall of Records. I’m going to have a talk with the Factor I met the a few weeks ago or at least try to. He’d be very interested in any news about Marvent.”

“What about the Dwarven Mountain?”

“I found a way there, of course.”

“Is that why you look hung over?”

“Shut up.”

“Well, what about going there?”

“Soon. Soon…” Jackal looked at Grum. “Um… dwarves…” Then he looked at Stock. “I don’t think dwarves like ogres or bugbears.”

“And we don’t like them,” Stock put in.

“That’s not helpful.” Malbi sighed.

“Oh, that’s just great. This is not going to be easy.” He sat down and massaged his temples. “We’ll just do what we always do.”

“Fight our way through?” Grum asked almost hopefully.

Jackal thought for a second. “No… no. Well…. no, we’ll just figure it out as we go along. Maybe something will present itself. At worst, they’ll… well we’ll see.”

“So we fight.” Grum almost announced.

Malbi and Stock sighed together.

“Anyway, we should head out. I’d like to have a word with Black Dagger, and you can tell me what you learned on the way. Let’s go.” Jackal said, and they headed toward the Clerk’s Ward.


“Have you seen Black Dagger?” Jackal was standing in front of Black Dagger’s office in the Hall of Records talking to his secretary, who didn’t seem very busy. Black Dagger was never actually in the office, so he didn’t bother asking about that.

“Not recently. Oh, but Red Dagger was around. He said for me to tell you… what was it… Oh yes. If you’re going to that place again, he wants to go. Whatever that means.”

“I know what it means. If Black Dagger shows up, be sure to tell him I was looking for him.”

“Sure thing.”

Jackal walked toward the office of Factor Lohan Yarl, a fire gnome who he had spoken with before about the attempted infiltration into the Fated. He had seemed very interested in finding the ones responsible for this, and paying them back for their trouble. Taking down their outpost was only the first step. The snake’s head needed to be cut off.

He arrived at the office and was greeted by his secretary, who was much busier than Black Dagger’s. He merely pointed Jackal to a chair, and it was thirty minutes before the doors opened.

The gnome looked up from a book he was reading. “Jackal! How are you? You have news for me concerning that Marvent fellow, I hope.” He put the book gingerly down on the table.

Jackal slowly made his way into the room. It was kept hot, the large fireplace roaring behind the Factor, who had dark charcoal-like skin and bright orange hair that stood up, a long handlebar mustache curling up his face. “Of course.” He sat down in the already warm chair in front of the desk, eye level with the gnome. “Black Dagger has gained new intelligence on the matter, and I’m just relaying the information to you for him.”

“Well, let’s hear it!” His voice was a mixture of impatience and curiosity.

“I’ll skip the details, but it appears that we did in fact permanently destroy his base in the Plane of Fire. He isn’t operating out of that anymore. It appears that he’s moved to the Outer Planes now. We’ve narrowed it down to two planes, and we’re working on it from there. I just thought you should be apprised of the situation as it stands.”

“Hrm… fine fine. I’m looking for some results here. I’ll be very pleased if you can bring me this Green Marvent’s head on a platter.” His eyes narrowed as he looked across the desk. “We’re Fated. We don’t take kindly to others messing with us.”

“Of course.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s all.”

He waved Jackal away and went back to reading whatever book he had been engrossed in when Jackal walked into the room. Jackal made his way back into the hallways. As he turned a corner, a familiar face greeted him.

“Jackal! I heard you were around, and I figured that you’d go see Yarl.” It was Black Dagger. He was leaning against the wall waiting, and smiling.

“You! You disappeared on us!” Jackal’s mood swung to fuming. “Malbi died!”

“Eh. That’s how it goes sometimes.” He stopped smiling, and waved him over. They walked down toward the exit together.

“You owe me. I want you to track down that Greydust guy and take him out for setting us up. I don’t have time to deal with him myself; we’re headed Out of Town.”

“Yeah, sure, I can take care of that. No problem.”

Jackal grumbled to himself.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I started a Rogue's Gallery for NPC villians for anyone interested in seeing the stats behind them. Right now it only has Delita the bauriaur in it, but there should be others soon enough. I'll add links as they come up.

 

[ThirdWizard]

“Lets do it!”
- a Sensate or a Cypher, I couldn’t tell.


Session 8/5/06 - The Lost City (continued)

Jackal, Grum, Stock, and Malbi arrived back at their tower as it was getting dark. It had been a long day and they were going to have to set out early the next day. When they got to the gate, their guard captain approached them apologetically.

“I’m sorry. She said she was on official business. I tried to keep her out, but she just…”

“What? Someone’s here?” Jackal’s good mood was deteriorating.

They pushed the door open, looking inside.

“About time you got back! I’ve been waiting for hours!” The voice wasn’t harsh, yet it had an urgency to it. “Get in here!”

Inside their common room was a woman laying across one of their couches. Her skin was dark with light brown hair and growing from her back was a pair of thin butterfly-like wings. She was smiling broadly with a cup of their wine in her hands and was outfitted like an adventurer ready for battle, wearing studded leather armor with a rapier at her side and a longbow lying across a nearby table. Around her neck hung an amulet depicting the symbol of the Sensates. She was quite beautiful.

“Malorie Wildblood at your service!” She waved them inside like she was inviting them into her home. Of course, it was their home.

“Who are you?” “What are you doing here?” “What’s going on?” Everyone spoke out at once.

She laughed, “Wait, didn’t they tell you we’d be working together? I’m here to help with the Green Marvent thing. The Sensates want him just as much as you do, you know.” She swiveled and stood. “I heard you had something, that you consulted your fortune teller or whatever it was that you did.”

“I consulted with a fellow wizard, yes,” replied Malbi, a bit purterbed. “We’ve narrowed it down, but there are still things to do before we go after him.” He looked up and down the figure. Sensates, they were always so eager to head out without taking the time to become fully prepared.

She frowned a bit. “And, I was all ready to head out.” She fell back into the couch, an action that got a frown out of Jackal, though this one was more out of anger than boredom.

Sensing his companion’s displeasure, Malbi spoke up. “If that will be all for now, we’ll contact you when its time to go… wherever it is we’re going to go. In the meantime we have business to attend to. I’m sure you understand.”

“But, we should get to know each other. I like to know the people I work with, makes me feel more comfortable. We could go out for a drink or something, tell me about yourselves.”

“Maybe some other time. We’re on a tight schedule.”

“Schedule you say?” She looked over each one of them. The expressions on their faces were very serious. She sighed and frowned again. “Well, I guess I could come back later, when you have less to do.”

“We’re always busy,” said Jackal.

She looked at him quizzically. “Hrm… I don’t doubt it. Well, the Sensates are very interested in Marvent, so you be sure to call on me before you go do that. I’m not too hard to find, so I doubt there will be any problems. I can drop everything at a moment’s notice. I’m not really all that… scheduled.” She chuckled, saw that no one else was laughing, shrugged and headed out. “Oh, and try not to be too long,” she added as she left through the front door with a wave behind her.

Jackal collapsed onto the couch that she had just taken up. “Great. I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t trust anyone,” noted Stock.

Jackal scoweled, rose, and headed to his room. “We leave early in the morning, so get some rest.”