Planescape 3.5e - Cold Black Mask

[Blind Azathoth]

It is truly amazing how much one can learn about a person or a thing or a place, yet still truly know nothing of it.

This is Cang Lao's foremost thought as he wanders within Sigil's great bazaar for the fifth time in as many days. It is not the first time he has had the thought; living with githzerai, he learned much about the people, but never felt as if he truly knew them. Now, however, the thought is conjured by the wonders--and, sometimes, horrors--of the Cage.

For five days he has spent his time wandering the streets of Sigil, most especially the busy Market and Guildhall Wards, listening to conversations in a hundred tongues he cannot understand, watching interactions between the strange hoofed and bladed and horned races of the planes, and mentally recording information constantly. Nevertheless, the overwhelmed feeling he initially possessed on arriving to the city has not diminished in the slightest--in fact, it has only grown. Everything he has learned has only supplied more questions.

And as he thinks these thoughts and his sandaled feet weave in and out of the crowds, his eyes focus on the sudden appearance of a portal, a man, and a barbazu. By the time he turns all his focus on the situation, the barbazu has already hauled the man away, and three new men have tumbled forth from the gateway.

Cang approaches the trio, watching as two other locals likewise step forward to the group. His eyes are particularly drawn to the woman with the spined armor, at first, both for her unusual appearance and for the brief air of familiarity about her. It took him a few moments to realize that he has seen her before, several times, lurking in the Market Ward.

But then his eyes drift to the gnome, staring up at the opposite side of the city, hanging over their heads like the blade of an executioner's axe poised to fall. The look on the gnome's face is precisely the one he, Cang, had plastered on his face for his first few days in the City of Doors--a mix of shock and awe and perhaps a hint of confusion. It is a mixture of emotions that still stirs up every time he looks around him in the city, but if he has learned anything, it is to keep his face from displaying his Cluelessness.

Cang pads quietly up to the gnome, and likewise glances up. For a moment, the sight overwhelms him, too--he has avoided looking upwards for several days due to the disorientation it always produces. After he tears his eyes from the "sky," he glances back down to the shorter humanoid beside him. "When I first sought a sky in this place," Cang says to the gnome, "I was quite surprised, to say the least. Confused. There was a bit of wonder to it, as well... and yet deep within me, I felt as if there was something very wrong about it." He glances around at the crowded bazaar. "Those are the feelings I experience no matter where I go and what I do in this city. It is beautiful. And it is a madhouse."

He smiles thinly to the gnome. "So--welcome to Sigil."

 

[Ambrus]

Istvan is momentarily lost in thought and wonder as he continues to survey the planar city's odd angles, and so misses the new arrival's first few words. Blinking a few times, the whisper gnome smoothly shifts his feet imperceptibly into a flight stance before focusing more clearly on the man with the hooded eyes. Of all the people around him, including his own companions, this man seemed the most familiar; his features, build and the cut of his clothes gave him the appearance of a Shou mystic. Istvan had met and traded with a fair number of Shou along the silk road near the Lake of Mists; that was in fact how he'd come to possess his tabi boots and his silk clothing.

But what had the man said? Thinking back, Istvan plays through the mystic's brief monologue and quickly finds himself at odd with the man's stated thoughts. Looking around, still bewildered by the grand vista before him, the wayfarer tries to put into words the fledgling thoughts tumbling through his head. "No. It's not wrong. Not at all..." The gnome tries in vain to trace, with his hands, the twisting angles he'd been studying for the benefit of the newcomer. "This place... It's... I've never seen anywhere like it... Except in my dreams. It's as if I always new such a place could exist; must exist. It's... Look at how the earth curves away, and yet the people, the buildings... they don't fall over. It's as if direction doesn't matter somehow. Or it does, but it's... relative to one's viewpoint. As if where you stand, is..." The whisper gnome trails off uncertainly and with a growing sense of hesitancy. He hadn't spoken so much, or so excitedly, in several weeks; his kind being usually more circumspect in expressing themselves.

 

[Blind Azathoth]

"Ah, my mistake," Cang says, and bows his head. "Perhaps it is only how I feel, then. I have never been very proficient at reading others. Those who raised me were not stone-hearted, but they were stone-faced."

Cang listens attentively as the gnome continues, and he smiles his small smile again. "If you find the ability for buildings to hang upside-down so impressive, I wonder how you might react to other sights here on the planes... But I would like to hear more of your dreams, sir." He kneels beside the gnome, and from the look in his eyes, he appears genuinely curious. "If you dreamed of such a place as this, then you must either be a wild talent or possess the greatest imagination I have ever encountered. And, ah, what..." The man raises his hands, and begins twisting them in mimicry of the angles the gnome attempted to represent. "...What are these?"

 

[Ambrus]

The wayfarer takes a half-step back as the man with the hooded eyes kneels down next to him. Istvan wasn't yet certain how he felt about the man's unexpected interest in him. On the one hand, it was nice to speak to a human without having to crane his neck up, but on the other hand he wasn't used to being addressed first when there were other tall-folk around; gnomes were known as the "forgotten folk" for good reason. Watching the man weave his arms around in mimicry of himself, Istvan also had no idea of how to convey his private musings about khelapen, bûvös and the force that he thought of as earth-pull; and wasn't entirely certain he wanted to. The missing sage Hagen was the only human with which he'd dared share such thoughts. For some reason however, the human seemed to have a calm and kind demeanor which Istvan found reassuring.

"Well, uh..." Istvan raises his arms out to his sides and spreads his slim fingers upwards as if he were trying to grab ahold of... something. "It's part of a kind of religious dance that Semphari dervishes perform called a sema to elevate themselves bodily above the ground, but also spiritually." Deftly miming taking ahold of the empty air around him as if it were a firm hand-hold, the gnome effortlessly lifts himself off his heels onto the tips of his toes for a few moments. "The... ah... the curving city and buildings... they remind me of that. Kind of..." The gnome trails off lamely as he lowers his body and arms, certain that he's making little sense to the human. "You'd have to see it... to understand. So, you... uh... you look Shou." Istvan makes the last word sound like a question.

 

[Dire Lemming]

Anthony looks around annoyedly at the rather unattentive primes. "Uh... Hullo?"

 

[Zurai]

"You seem to be in need of a guard in this place, perhaps even more than a guide. I know many warriors and have been blooded by the best. You will find me a skilled warrior, and my services can be purchased for a reasonble fee," she adds quickly, using her spiky body to take up as much space as possible. Like razorvine, she was uncomfortable to be around, and she used that now to subtly warn off any other potential rivals from her customers.

Sindr's eyes go even wider as the metallic, spike-covered woman approaches and speaks to the three visitors.

Anthony turns to Sindr, "A'right Cinder, Call me Tony. I'm a tout, a guide to you clueless. As for the poor sod you're lookin' for, I think I saw him... got any jink?"

Pierce ... rubbed her fingers of her free hand together to help the god-man out in figuring out they both wanted money.

Sindr looks back and forth between the two strangers, then speaks hesitantly. "I... I don' even know wha' passes f'r money... 'jink'? ... here. I 'ave some gold, but I don'... I heard... well, wha' 'xactly are y' lookin' fer in payment?"

 

[Dire Lemming]

Anthony chuckles at the prime's flustered expression. "Aye, a gold piece'll do for all your questions. I'm feelin' charitable taday."

 

[Isida Kep'Tukari]

"A gold a day for my services as a basic Sigil bodyguard. I'll defend you from basic ruffians and thugs, but if you have a contract out on you, my rates go up. They also go up if we leave the Cage," she says simply. It sounds like something she's recited a lot.

 

[Zurai]

When both Cagers specify their price in gold, Sindr looks quite relieved. It's almost like he was expecting something more ... dire ... to be the payment.

"Oh, well, tha's OK then! I kin pay gold jus' fine, f'r now at leas'. 'Ere..." He fishes out two Cormyrian gold crowns from deep inside his robes and hands them to the aasimar and spiker. He seems to be back to his bubbly self. "So, y' said y' migh' know wha' 'appened t' Hagen?" He beams hopefully at the tout.

 

[Dire Lemming]

"Aye." Anthony says, nodding as he tests the coin, ounce satisfied that it is indeed worth it's weight in gold, he tucks it into his purse and continues. "This addled lookin berk came through that same door you did just before you did. He was shoutin' some screed abou' Darkspire. Then, next I knew he got scragged by a rather angry lookin Barbazu. Didn' even get a chance to wigwag with him. Musta been more'n screed he was shoutin, but I didn't get get a chance ta tumble to it, an' considerin who he was dragged off by, I don't mind."