Another day, another storyhour. And now we meet our villains and heros all together
The ‘sky’ of Sigil sparkled overhead with the glow of streetlamps, torches and the pyres raging in the stacks of the Great Foundry clear across the other side of the Cage. They glittered artificially as the haze that blanketed the Clerk’s Ward that evening washed over and periodically obscured some of them. It was under that mottled, fire speckled sky that Clueless walked as he navigated the streets leading up to address of the former Ubiquitous Wayfarer, briefly known after the Tempest of Doors as ‘Portal Schmortal’.
The darkened profile of the tavern stood at the corner of two intersecting streets, neither of which held any appreciable traffic at that period of the evening, and had likely seen less since the inn had finally closed its doors. A wooden sign hung from iron brackets above the doorway, slowly swinging in the light breeze. Bits of graffiti had collected on the boarded over windows and walls of the building in the past few years, little collections of epitaphs running the gamut from crude jokes about ‘Cipher Quickies’ to random names, faction symbols scrawled, defaced and scrawled again in various substances. A few scraps of paper rustled in the wind, all of them advertisements for shops and other still successful inns located in the ward.
Clueless paused and stopped beneath the sign as it swung in the breeze, then looked at the door. His hands gripped tightly on the wrapped bundle of his cloak that held his sword.
“Looks like I’m the first to arrive, apparently I’m prompt.” He glanced up the two streets, looking for any of his soon to be companions. Not seeing anything but a single rat scurrying into an open sewer grate he turned his attention back to the door.
“Or I might be late and they’re already inside…” he put his sword underneath one arm and reached out to try the door handle.
“You were instructed to arrive at the stroke of Antipeak. It is not yet antipeak, and this door will not open until that time. In the future you will pay attention to orders more closely. It is currently twelve minutes till the time at which you were instructed to arrive. Patience is expected by your employer.”
“Too prompt maybe…” Clueless paused before the door and stood there awkwardly for a few minutes, staring down at his new shoes that Tarelia had bought for him that morning after he’d gotten his blackmail note. His concentration on the new boots was broken by the muted sounds of someone or something padding softly down the street towards the inn. He looked up to see a silvery-blue furred lupinal walking confidently in his direction. Clueless nodded to her as she approached.
“I assume you’re one of the victims here as well?” she spoke and bowed slightly. Clueless put out his hand which she looked at oddly for a moment before taking and shaking it in return.
“Yeah, I’d be one of them, you too I assume.”
“Indeed”
“So, umm… I’m Clueless. You?”
She blinked at his name, clearly being uncertain if the word was an adjective or a noun, along with the meanings they carried in either case.
“Oh, that’s my name, kinda.” Clueless smiled like a rube. Fyrehowl chuckled back with a hint of confusion but her tail began to slowly wag back and forth amiably.
“I’m Fyrehowl, pleased to meet you, though I wish it was under better circumstances.” She growled softly and looked towards the inn. “So what was it they used to bring you here?”
Clueless replied with some hesitation, “These people, this Trenevain person, says he’ll turn me into the Baatezu if I don’t do what he says. Umm…I had some differences of opinion with some rather powerful Baatezu at some point in the past, and at the moment they think I’m dead. I’m safer right now assuming Trenevain is telling the truth. That’s not something you toss aside…”
Clueless frowned and the lupinal gave a nod of concerned fellowship. “Me? They have my sister, so they claim. Yeah…”
“Ouch, I…” Clueless stopped as Fyrehowl’s ears swiveled to face one of the adjoining streets. Clueless looked in that direction but saw nothing as Fyrehowl looked as well.
Walking down the street looking at the same moment both mildly paranoid and comfortably fitting in was a slim tiefling woman. Her legs appeared to be goat-like from the knees down and her footfalls gave a soft but distinctive ‘clip-clop!’ noise as she walked towards the two already gathered companions. As she drew into the light they could see that she was dressed in the typical attire of one of the denizens of the hive, more specifically one of the tiefling denizens of the Hive. That was to say, not too terribly much. However the style though, she was a bit more modest than most, and clearly not destitute by any means. If anything it could be said she was well dressed for comfort and practicality, while giving a nearly perfect appearance of being less than what she was. From the bits of leather armor just barely visible under her clothing and the concealed sword strapped to one thigh, and her quick and dodgy stance, she screamed out ‘thief’ and a not unskilled one.
The tiefling walked up, the light from one of the streetlamps falling on her mildly olive toned skin, shoulder length dark hair, and glittering in her greenish eyes. She smiled as a thin, reptilian tail jerked from side to side behind her, wrapping around one leg seemingly every other moment.
“So… you here for the ‘we’re getting pealed’ party too? I know I certainly am.” She said matter-of-factly as she pulled out a set of lock-picks and moved past Clueless and Fyrehowl to the door.
“You can’t get in there, I’ve already tried, I…” Clueless spoke as she crouched before the lock and seemed to ponder its shape for a half second before choosing a few select picks and bars.
“Suuuuure you have. That’s probably why I’m here. That and the fact that they’ve got me bent over a barrel. I woulda showed up just because if they’d asked me. Buuuut no, they had to be typical. Oh well. Anyway, you can call me Nisha. This should be easy, I…”
‘tink’ Her lockpick firmly hit the wall of force layered in front of the door and she blinked.
“Told you. And it’s gonna get preachy here in a second I think.” Clueless said as if on cue the same magic mouth appeared once again. Nisha was already making an almost comical face at the mouth as it started to rattle on.
“You were instructed to arrive at the stroke of Antipeak. It is not yet antipeak, and this door will not open until that time. In the future you will pay attention to orders more closely. It is currently six minutes till the time at which you were instructed to arrive. Patience is expected by your employer.”
Clueless shrugged, “It did that to me too. Our employer is a control freak apparently.” Fyrehowl smirked and then tilted her head to the side slightly as Nisha rose to her feet and started pacing over the front of the inn.
“What are you looking for?” the lupinal asked with perked, inquisitive ears.
“Oh I’m just curious if Mr ‘Ooooh I’m a scary powerful wizard who likes force walls’ bothered to lock the windows on the second floor or block the chimney. I’m gonna break in otherwise, just because.” She chuckled and winked as she plucked a spider from a web on the side of one of the drainpipes of the inn.
Clueless looked at the tiefling oddly as she examined the tiny arachnid, “What’s that…oh eww…” Nisha recited several words under her breath and swallowed the wriggling bug with a sour look on her face. After a moment in which she looked somewhat sick to her stomach she walked to the side of the inn and scampered lithely up the flat surface without bothering to use a rope or anything else. Just like the spider she’d swallowed, the girl skittered up the sheer rock and wood without so much as a stumble and vanished over the top of the roof.
“Awwww, they sealed the chimney with one of those blasted force walls too. All the sodding luck in the planes, we had to get a competent wizard with something on us. Shoot.”
Below, on the ground, Clueless and Fyrhowl both repressed an honest chuckle and then turned in the direction of heavy footsteps walking up an adjacent alley towards the inn. Striding up the alley was a tall, heavily armed and armored man with a grim, extraordinarily displeased look upon his face. He walked up to Clueless and Fyrehowl, nodded in a preoccupied manner and looked at the door.
“So, Trenevain get something on you too?” Clueless asked.
“Yes, you could definitely say that. He’s earned himself a sword in his gut, which is better than he deserves.”
“Umm, yeah, I take it he has something personal on you then?”
“Very much so.” Toras gritted his teeth in a manner that effectively silenced any more questions about his own blackmail particulars.
Fyrehowl broke the momentary tension, “Pleased to meet you, I’m Fyrehowl, this is Clueless. And Nisha is around here… somewhere. You are?”
Toras nodded and smiled at the celestial, “Toras of Andros, humble servant of the protector of children and the weak.”
“Wow… you’re pretty… well armed for the job.” Clueless raised an eyebrow as he looked at the massive sword strapped to Toras’s side. Toras smiled in a way that likely would have made a fiend shiver. Fyrehowl suppressed a smile.
A small shower of dirt from above gather the attention of the three as they looked up to see what the commotion was.
“Oh pike it! They greased the sodding roof! Woah that’s slippery!” there were some muted sounds of sliding and the clatter of hooves on stone and iron.
“Uhhh, you ok up there Nisha?” Fyrehowl said with some alarm. Several seconds passed without any reply. Clueless and the lupinal exchanged glances with each other and then both turned to look at the newly arrived half-celestial.
“What’s she up there doing?” he asked.
“Trying to break into the inn through a window or the chimney I think. The door’s blocked.” Clueless replied.
“Have you just tried breaking the door? It can’t be that sturdy.” Toras asked and walked over to the door with a single gauntleted fist raised and tensed back.
“Huh? Oh it’s not locked, it… aaand there it’s gonna go again.” Clueless sighed and Fyrhowl’s ears laid flat against her head and to the side.
Toras’s fist feel short of the door, slamming directly into the invisible barrier with a hollow thud. The half-celestial didn’t seem to particularly phased or hurt, though he did seem surprised as the magic mouth reappeared on schedule.
“You were instructed to arrive at the stroke of Antipeak. It is not yet antipeak, and this door will not open until that time. In the future you will pay attention to orders more closely. It is currently four minutes till the time at which you were instructed to arrive. Patience is expected by your employer.”
“Told you.” Clueless leaned back against the wall next to the magically barricaded entrance.
A few seconds later, Nisha dropped down to the ground next to the group with little more than a dull clatter of hooves on the ground. She brushed off her hands on the front of her vest and looked at Toras.
“Wow, you’re tall. What are you actually? Oh, and there’s a fiend headed this way.” She sat down next to the door and looked completely unphased by anything so far, despite the unease that seemed to percolate through her companions. Fyrehowl smiled down at the tiefling and glanced over in the direction she had pointed. Walking sullenly down the street was a young human woman dressed in a cleric’s traveling robes embroidered with the holy symbol of Bast. She looked out of place in the Clerk’s Ward neighborhood, and she looked equally at ease as she approached the group assembled outside the door of the inn.
“She’s a fiend? Since when did they get good looking?” Clueless poked Nisha’s shoulder and looked past Aren as she approached, clearly looking for a Vrock or Hamatula or something a bit more overt. Fyrehowl poked him back on the tiefling’s behalf, “She’s right actually…”
The woman approached, only pale violet eyes betraying that she might be anything more than the comely woman that she appeared to be. Fyrehowl looked oddly at her for a moment, tensed slightly, then relaxed greatly and extended her hand.
“You’re the last one here. I’m Fyrehowl, this is Clueless, the big one is Toras, and that’s Nisha there making faces at the door.”
Aren smiled and nodded her head, looking better to have company and seemingly reassured to have met those in the same situation as herself. However she said nothing besides quietly introducing herself and bowing.
Seconds later the quiet was broken by the pronounced ‘click!’ of the door’s locking mechanism as it was sprung open by some unseen device, hand, or more likely, spell. The magic mouth on the door appeared one final time.
“It is now Antipeak and your employer is expecting you. Proceed inside to the top of the stairs and enter the third door on the left, do not tarry.” There were several muted snorts and rolling of eyes and angry twitches of tail as Nisha nudged open the door with her foot planted firmly in the jaw of the illusory mouth.
The door swung open and the five newly met companions walked into the darkness of the taproom of the inn. Light filtered through the spaces between the boards that covered the windows that faced the street. None of them however seemed to have any difficulty in making there way around in the dim light that faded into shadows near the back of the room. Several pairs of eyes gleamed red, purple or white as they made their way inside, betraying hints of darkvision and their own varied bloodlines.
Fyrehowl wrinkled her nose as she stepped into the room, “Smells like someone set a fire in here, there’s wood ash all in the air. Not fiendish though, there’s no lingering sulfur scent.”
One of the pair of reddish eyes blinked at that last comment, but otherwise said nothing. They all collected in the center of the room, letting eyes grow fully accustomed to the gloom and looking for the stairs.
The room was a shambles. Tables and chairs that had once seated patrons were scattered and tossed at random, and fully half of them seemed to have been partially consumed by flame. A layer of ash was scattered across the left side of the room and almost seemed to have been rolled in by some creature and scattered around.
“Alright, who let their pet fire mephit loose?” Nisha remarked as she moved towards the back of the room.
The old front desk and bar was on the far left of the taproom, and doors to adjoining rooms and likely the kitchen or wineceller were ajar behind the bar, under the flight of stairs at the rear of the room and stuck in the right far corner behind a charred stack of chairs. A loud ‘thud!’ echoed through the room as the tiefling collided with an invisible barrier to the right of the stairs.
“I’m getting to hate these things…” she rubbed at her forehead and winced as her tail flicked in annoyance.
“There’s another one over here too.” Toras laid his hand upon another invisible barrier, this one to the left of the stairs. Both force walls effectively blocked any access to the doors leading off from the room and only gave a single path from the entrance towards the stairs at the back.
“Cute.” Clueless rolled his eyes as he kicked at some ash and walked towards the stairs. Fyrehowl sneezed at the sudden scatter of soot into the air.
As the group paused and gazed up at the stairs and Nisha poked around the wood, looking for traps or other hazards, another magic mouth rose into existence behind one of the force walls.
“My patience is not unceasing. Not only were you to be prompt in arriving, but you had specific instructions as to where to go once you arrived. See to it that you follow - all - of your orders and not just some of them. Proceed. Now.” With that, the mouth vanished back into thin air.
“I really do hate him, really really do. Let’s go.” Toras walked past Nisha up the stairs, his weight giving way to soft protesting creaks from the wood.
“Ok, you set off the traps then. Not my way of springing any, but that works too.” Nisha waiting till the half celestial had passed then stuck out her tongue at his back. Clueless and Fyrehowl chuckled softly as the walked up the stairs as well, Nisha beamed a grin back at them.
The stairs ascended a story and then took a 90 degree turn to the left into a long corridor lined with doors and with a second set of stairs at the far end of its length. Several of the doors at even intervals were open while others seemed shut, perhaps locked. The third door on the left was closed, but through the space between the door and the floor, a pale yellow light washed out over the hallway in a semicircle.
“Looks like we’re expected people.” Clueless gripped the bundle under his arm and looked nervously at the others. Toras was already walking down the hallway, much to the chagrin of Nisha who sighed once again, rolled her eyes and put away her lock picks along with another small pouch.
The five of them clustered around the door and listened for a moment. Fyrehowl’s ears perked and strained, but she heard nothing except the sound of their own breathing. She nodded to the others and they opened the door which swung open to reveal a small twenty by twenty room. The room was lit by a bright magical glow and devoid of anything except five evenly spaced chairs along one wall opposite another door. Where there was once a window, it had been bricked over since the inn had closed.
“So much for them being prompt either,” Clueless said as he walked into the room. As he did so, yet another magic mouth activated, this one on the face of the room’s other door.
“Enter and be seated, your new employer will be meeting you shortly. This meeting will be short. You will be given a task and you will complete that given task without argument. You however, having made your betters wait, will wait yourselves. Be seated.”
Toras stood back up from where he had taken a seat and glowered in the direction of the door, but otherwise said nothing as Fyrehowl and Aren took their seats to flank Clueless. Nisha sat on the floor in front of her seat, her tail flitting side to side nervously. After a minute or so she plucked a copper piece out and flicked it across the floor towards the door opposite her. It rebounded without a sound several feet before it would have struck its target. Another wall of force.
“Yet another amazing surprise to shock and astound. I wonder what the next act’ll be?… someone kick me my coin back?” she made a face when no one did and muttered the phrases of a spell under her breath to snatch it back without having to stand and move. After she retrieved the coin she smiled and began to play with it on the floor.
“Apparently he likes force walls, a lot. Guess he thinks we might try to just kill him.” Clueless mused as he watched the tiefling spin her coin on the floor.
“I would.” Toras replied quickly, breaking his silence.
“I have to say I wouldn’t blame you…” the guardinal commented as the door across from them all opened and three figures entered.
A red robed fire genasi entered first, followed by two hulking Nycaloths who stood behind him, one to either side. Each of them held a single massive broadsword to their sides and gazed out to match the five where they sat. The wizard’s hair was a deep shade of orange and fluttered like an open flame, while his coal black eyes contrasted with his very obvious theme. Embroidered flames spiraled across his robes and dark fabric fringed the edges of the fabric like singe marks on burned cloth. Fyrehowl growled softly in the direction of the wizard’s bodyguards.
He smiled haughtily and spoke, “Welcome my little puppets. As you’ve all read my scrolls and seen my sigil upon each of them, my proper name is Bartol Trenevain. I’d apologize for the circumstances of your employment, but I don’t have to. Suffice to say, I’ve selected you all for various reasons that I needn’t share with you. But you’ll all work well together to obtain something of mine that was lost…”
“And if we say pike it to you?” Clueless asked, interrupting Trenevain.
“Then in your case you’ll end up either in the hands of the Baatezu, or a pile of ashes on the floor here as an example to your companions. Whichever I feel more appropriate at the moment.” The genasi snipped back and held up one hand that flickered with a sheath of flame he gestured out of thin air. Behind him, the Nycaloths glanced at Clueless, then to Trenevain, then oddly to each other. Diverting his attention from the wizard, Clueless blinked at that last detail.
“That settled, this is what I require of you. This… property… of mine was in transit across the first layer of Acheron when it was ambushed and taken by force by a host of orcish petitioners. They don’t have a clue what it is they possess and if my property is not recovered within a short period of time it may face irreparable damage. I will not stand for such to happen to that which is mine.”
“We can’t exactly find something of yours if you won’t tell us what it is?” Fyrehowl said as she gazed past Trenevain at the Nycaloths who had been staring at her with a lecher’s eye. Whether they intended to do such or not, their presence was making her horribly uncomfortably. And they clearly enjoyed it.
Trenevain paused and glanced back at them momentarily as one of them repressed a snicker. Both of them in turn glared back at him, and oddly he swallowed, recomposed himself and returned to his new employees. Again Clueless blinked at the play between bodyguards and their employer…
Trenevain pursed his lips angrily and continued, “You’ll find it because you’ll be provided with a planar compass that I’ve attuned to the property, or at least several items present in the same shipment. All you’ll need to do is follow the direction it gives to you. You’ll find it will hum when in close proximity to the package, and this will increase as you grow closer. When you locate the package you’re to take it safely to the nearest portal out of the plane.”
“And we…” Clueless began before Trenevain cut him off.
“Shut up boy. When in possession of my property the compass will point the way to the appropriate portal. You’ll follow its directions and it will serve as a portal key that one time, giving you access to a safe location to hand over my possessions to me.”
“You’re awful talkative for a dead man.” Toras said while looking directly at the wizard.
Again, one of the Nycaloths glanced down at Trenevain and the other drew his gaze though nothing was said. Aren narrowed her eyes at them as she sat quietly in the corner, not having said anything during the meeting as of yet. Fyrehowl glanced over at her curiously before Trenevain coughed to regain their attention.
“The door out of this room is a portal to Acheron. In this box, aside from your compass is the portal key. You’ll be leaving directly from here to that plane. However a word of advice before you go. You’ll likely be cube hopping so I’d advise you to utilize the Styx if possible. One of the ferrymen will accept you upon payment, and don’t be cheap if you wish to stay above water during your trip. Additionally, I’d hurry because the group or orcs in possession of my property are likely to be swamped by a force of goblin petitioners washing across several of the cubes presently. Getting caught in the wars between their respective pantheons would be unfortunate and likely deadly to you. Hopefully though you’ll be able to use that chaos and confusion in both of their ranks to slip in and reclaim what is mine.” With that, the genasi drew a small box out of his robe and held it out as he walked up to the boundary of the force wall.
“Take it one of you, you have placed to go and I have other matters to attend to.” He pushed the box through the force wall and held it out. The five blinked at him penetrating the barrier.
“How did you…?” Nisha asked. Trenevain ignored her question as Clueless walked up to take the box.
As he took it however he smirked at the wizard, “And oh… tell your minders we’re sorry if we have to kill you after this is over. Oh… did I say minders, I meant bodyguards. Truly I did.”
The wizard snarled at the half-fey and threw a punch through the barrier separating them both that caught Clueless across the face. Clueless fell to the ground clutching his jaw as the box clattered on the ground and Trenevain spat at him.
“Fool, I’m your owner and you’re an idiot to think any otherwise. Don’t make the mistake of taking me for less than I am ever again. Get out of my sight.” He walked towards the door he had come from originally and passed through still scowling. But sure enough as he passed his bodyguards they both looked at him in unison before following after him. Again, Aren stared in their direction with a look on intense concentration on her face.
Clueless slowly recovered and smacked the once again solid barrier with an open hand. “That’s just not sodding fair.”
“You’re telling me, I want to know how he did that!” Nisha chirped from where she still sat on the floor playing with the same copper piece. Toras muttered a string of curses and walked over to offer Clueless a hand up. “He’s dead, and so are those two Nycaloths.”
“I’ll help you, believe me. I just wish I knew more than I did about this.” Clueless replied as he stood up and opened the book that Trenevain had given them. Inside was a dried and broken bird’s wing, from its color, likely that of an executioner’s raven, now little more than a collection of feathers and bones; presumably the portal key to Acheron. Next to it and glowing a faint green was a smooth pearly orb, roughly the size of a large hen’s egg. Clueless took the wing and handed the orb to Fyrehowl then looked over towards the priestess of Bast.
“What was it that had you so quiet during that little speech?” Clueless asked.
Aren nodded back in the direction of the door that Trenevain and his bodyguards had left through. “Those two Nycaloths were talking to him most of the time he was talking to us. I couldn’t catch what they were saying, but they seemed to be telling him what to say and how to respond. Almost like they were coaching him. Bodyguards don’t do that sort of thing.”
“That was what I was thinking too. Who wants to bet that he’s as much a pawn in this as we are?” Clueless said back.
“Sounds reasonable, but I wonder just who it is we’re working for if it isn’t him.” Fyrehowl nodded and rolled the compass around between her paws.
“Just three more people to go along with that tiefling who’re going to die.” Toras said as he drew his sword and walked towards the exit, “Shall we get going?”
“Lighten up big guy, you might get to take out some of that anger here in a few minutes. Acheron has plenty of that stuff.” Nisha said without looking up from her spinning copper piece. “Plenty of that stuff, just hopefully not right on the other side of the portal, that would be bad.” She stood up and palmed the copper coin back to wherever she’d pulled it from in the first place.
The group gathered around the door and waited as Clueless took the broken bird’s wing and pushed it past the plain of the bound space of the doorway. Instantly the door vanished and was replaced with a swirling whorl of colors, mostly rusty browns and reds mixed with gray. The five companions looked at each other, drew their weapons and jumped through the portal.
