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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
- Thread starter Shemeska
- Start date
Shemeska
Adventurer
Gender bending surprises, dinner, dates, and fiends that show up late
Fyrehowl stood on the stairwell just above the taproom of the inn, her tail twitching randomly from side to side, curling slightly inwards towards her legs as it did so. She’d been standing there for nearly an hour, running over and over in her mind how she would finally ask Clueless out.
“Oh yeah, you’re doing real well here. You’ve willingly faced a small army of lesser Tanar’ri; you’ve fought an archmage inside one of The Lady’s mazes, and you’ve ventured into every single one of the lower planes. But yet you can’t work up the nerve to ask a friend out on a date.”
Fyrehowl sighed and rubbed a hand over the side of her muzzle, “Now I know what ‘s meant by ‘nothings sadder to see than watching a cipher trip’…”
Another deep breath and she closed her eyes, steeled herself and walked down into the main room of the inn. Clueless sat behind the counter washing several dirty glasses and keeping a loose eye on the patrons. He looked up as the lupinal sat down in the seat in front of him with a smile.
“Hey there, want something to drink?” He asked, putting down the mug and the dishrag he’d been using to clean.
She paused, smiled again and popped the question. “Would you be willing to go out with me at some point? Maybe grab dinner somewhere nice? I know that you’ve got a girlfriend, but from what I gather you and her are pretty much in it for sex and not much else. I’m looking for something possibly leading a bit deeper and meaningful than that.”
Clueless paused and his wings twitched.
“You don’t have to answer now, maybe just think about it.”
Clueless’s mouth hung open awkwardly for a few more moments before he blinked and managed to reply. “Umm… no.”
Fyrehowl winced.
“No no no,” Clueless shook his head and put a hand over hers. “It’s not that you’re not interesting or that I wouldn’t be interested. I won’t date or have any sort of relationship with anyone within the party, it’s simply something I make off limits. I did in my previous adventuring groups, and I’m keeping that in place now. It keeps tension down and jealousy at a minimum, depending on who all makes up the group.”
Fyrehowl’s sullen frown lessened slightly and she nodded, “Well, that makes some sense I guess. I figure that I should tell Florian too since…since he was interested in you too.”
Clueless’s eyes went wide, “Florian too?! Am I that oblivious to these things? I didn’t really know that either of you had any interest in me whatsoever…”
The lupinal laughed, “Yeah, since almost the first time we met you. Remember when we were working for the mercane and were resting before going out into the ethereal?”
Clueless nodded slowly, “Yeah, and?”
“Well, the two of us were trying to get close to you without trying to look like we were competing with each other to snuggle up closer…”
Clueless put his hands on his hips, “Yeah, I am that oblivious then. I didn’t catch any of that at the time… the namesake fits apparently.”
Fyrehowl laughed genuinely, “Yeah, it does.”
The half-fey gave a bewildered shake of his head, “I hope you’re not angry at me. If I’d actually realized this was such a big deal to you both, well, I’d have explained myself earlier.”
She nodded back, “Yeah, I guess I do. I’m sorry for not being as direct as I should have originally.”
“Well no, don’t feel sorry. It’s as much my fault as not, and so long as we understand each other here I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. Sorry if you were hoping to have me as a date for Jeremo’s party though. At this rate I don’t think that any of us are going to have dates. My sensate is in Arborea for the next week or so, so I’ll be doing this alone too.” Clueless said with a shrug as he poured Fyrehowl and himself a drink.
Fyrehowl sat across from Florian in the latter’s room on the second floor of the Portal Jammer and looked at the outfit spread across the cleric’s bed. She nodded her approval.
“Well, I approve. Are you sure that you want to wear it though?” She asked up to Florian.
Florian laughed, “Yeah, I think so. And for two reasons.” He frowned slightly for a moment before sitting up straighter with a look of firm resolution.
The lupinal perked an eyebrow, “Do tell.”
He nodded and pointed a finger at the ceiling, “One: I honestly don’t give a damn if anyone notices and I seriously doubt that anyone is going to recognize me and send word back to my family.”
Fyrehowl nodded.
“Secondly: I just want to see the look on their faces.” Florian said as he gestured at the outfit that he’d had custom tailored the day before to wear to Jeremo’s party.
“Nisha knows.” Fyrehowl said with a chuckle. “Or, rather, I’m pretty sure she knows, but she wouldn’t admit to it.”
“Wouldn’t admit to it?”
“Oh, you know. She knows, or at least I think so, but she was playing clueless and waiting for me to say it myself.” Fyrehowl said.
“Aaaaaand when you admitted anything she was going to act like she didn’t know a thing. Yeah, that sounds like her. Amusing, greatly amusing.” Florian laughed.
“Anyways, speaking of Clueless, you understand what I said before about his reasons for not dating either of us?”
Florian held the outfit up in front of him, posing with it in front of a mirror as he looked back to reply to Fyrehowl’s question. “Yeah, though to tell the truth I’d more or less given up on it. I was going to let you take your chance and not get involved with it unless you broke it off for whatever reason. He’s cute, but he lives up to that name of his…”
“Yeah, he does that sometimes. Though given that he’s seeing a sensate, and from his reactions to things, I really don’t think it mattered to him, all things considered. Him, more than anyone else, I want to see how he reacts to that outfit.”
The cleric unlaced the back of the gold and scarlet bundle of cloth, “Give me a bit to get into this and we’ll see. Besides, the party is tonight so I may as well get dressed now. I’ll meet you downstairs at five past peak, alright?”
Fyrehowl stood up from where she had been sitting, “Works for me. And besides, while my clothes aren’t as elaborate as yours, I need the time to just brush myself out.”
“Never thought about that, but yeah, it makes sense. See you then.” Florian said as he waved to Fyrehowl, closed the door and got dressed.
It was nearly five past peak, only two hours before the Natterer’s party, when the group began to assemble in the back room of the Portal Jammer. Toras was dressed in an elaborate and gilded ornamental breastplate, fine silk trousers and a long red cloak. He smiled as Clueless walked into the room dressed much the way he normally did, though the clothes were new and of a tighter cut than normal.
Tristol showed up several minutes later dressed in a fine orange robe with faded to white in the front and darkened to black at the cuffs and bottom trim. Clearly his inspiration for the color scheme was solidly grounded in his ancestry and even his own appearance. He smiled as he knocked on the inside of the doorframe with the silver head of his new staff, tapping a pattern on the wood with the silver fox that perched atop its tip.
“You look nice,” came Skalliska’s reply as she looked up at him.
“And you look…” Tristol paused and searched for words as he looked down at the very nearly nude kobold.
Skalliska was dressed in almost nothing besides her plumed hat and a cane. Anything socially import was obscured by a swatch of cloth and not much else, though her scales were either painted or somehow tattooed by a swirling, slowly changing pattern of abstract designs and illustrated scenes from their past encounters in the Ethereal, Acheron, and Elysium.
“Ok, that’s impressive. Magical I assume? Who did it?” The mage asked, impressed both at the level of artistry, as where the others in the room, and with whatever technique was used to create them.
“A little tattoo parlor in the Hive, run by a Dabus. Fell. He does good work, even if some people get scared away by what he is.”
“And by the fact that every so often his tattoos come alive and act on their own when he makes them.” Nisha said as she poked her head through the doorway.
“Wow…” Tristol said with a blink as Nisha walked into the room with a soft clip-clop from her hooves.
She blushed and chuckled softly, then stuck her tongue out as she shifted awkwardly in the short, tight, restrictive evening gown she was dressed in.
“You have no idea how awkward this is for me.” The tiefling said as the others looked at her.
Nisha’s dress was a soft green in color, shot through with bits and flashes of scarlet and silver. It was cut around mid-thigh, and was strapless and moderately low cut up top as well. Judging from the girl’s self-consciousness about the attire, she wasn’t used to dressing up in any way.
“Ugg. I don’t look completely out of place do I?” She said as she reached up and poked at the boning in the front of the dress.
“Honestly? You look really nice Nisha.” Tristol said.
“Are you wearing makeup?” Clueless said with a chuckle.
“…I hate to be the one to have to ask, but why is the Factol Karan doll wedged in your cleavage?” Fyrehowl asked as she slipped into the room.
Nisha looked at them oddly like it was a normal, everyday thing and they were the weird ones for asking such a question. She hold up a finger and answered, “One: They don’t make pockets in evening gowns. Two: I don’t have my satchel. Three: It was convenient and he didn’t seem to protest! Besides, I brought him along for the fashion advice! It’s not like I’ve ever dressed up for a night on the town before. We didn’t exactly have high culture in the Hive when I was squatting in the Slags.”
“Eh, true. I’ll grant you that.” The lupinal said.
“Karan gives good fashion advice. You should take his shopping with you more often if this is what he brings back to us.” Tristol said with a wink.
Nisha grinned, crossed her eyes and grabbed Karan, promptly putting her hair up and weaving him into the braid for no reason other than she could. “Just keep telling me that it’s only for one night and that I’ll probably never see half of those people again. This is seriously uncomfortable you guys, I don’t have a clue how certain folks pull this off all the time.”
“Oh, now if you don’t mind, I have something to show you all…” Fyrehowl said as she motioned to someone outside the room.
“What? Your new robes? They look nice.” Toras said.
“I swear, they didn’t make evening gowns for people with tails…” Nisha said, fairly oblivious to anything else.
“Come on in Florian…” Fyrehowl said as she moved out of the way and Florian stepped into the room in her new dress for the evening.
The silence was deafening outside of Nisha’s fussing with putting a hole for her tail in the back of her gown. Florian stepped into the room in a red and gold evening gown, and it fit her without any awkwardness in the least.
“Since when did you have breasts?” Skalliska asked with confusion. “I thought only female humans had them…”
“Well sh*t…” Clueless said, absolutely stupefied.
“Surpriiiiise…” Florian said as she smiled at the largely flabbergasted group.
Tristol blinked, “You’re a woman?!”
“How nice of you to notice.” She replied before patting the wizard on the head.
“…wha…” Toras said, feeling incredibly dense at never having noticed.
“Who knew and didn’t tell me?” Clueless asked.
“I knew fairly early on and she asked me not to tell. And Nisha knew, but I don’t know when, or how.”
The tiefling looked up from where she had been magically mending the back of her gown to let her tail through. “Oh, a month or two ago I think. I was climbing around the side of the building and Florian’s window was open. I didn’t look for more than a second, but some things are obvious.”
Clueless looked at her, “I won’t ask why you were doing that.”
“I’ll ask later, this has to be good.” Tristol replied.
“Ok… why?” Clueless asked Florian. “Why pretend to be male for so long and not tell us?”
“Well, for starters, it’s safer when traveling, at least where I’m from. And secondly, I didn’t want to be recognized by anyone and word to be sent back to my family.” Florian said, making a face at the mention of her house. “Suffice to say that my parents have an arranged marriage set up for me, and if I ever go back there, or get forced into going back there, I’ll probably not be able to get out of it. And the guy is a real jerk. Rich yes. Connected yes. Ugly and with the personality of drunken bulezau, most definitely.”
Skalliska shuddered, “I don’t want to see a drunken bulezau, or any other type of Tanar’ri drunk… I’ll take your word for it.”
“I don’t think we can blame you at all, but still, it’s a bit of a shock. So don’t be surprised if you refer to you as a guy for a while still. You look really good though, very nice outfit.” Clueless said.
“Oh, and before we go, we got two letters with offers of employment in the mail today.” Toras said, holding up the two envelopes.
“Oh? Who from, we can deal with them when we get back.” Fyrehowl asked curiously.
“Someone in Sylvania, and someone in Rigus.” Toras replied, looking briefly over the headers of the two offers. “Some Institute in the first gatetown, and the other from a Professor Cilret Leobtav in Rigus. I think the two might be connected, but I didn’t read them fully yet.”
Clueless shrugged, “Eh, something to deal with later if we’re interested and need the money.”
“But now, we have a party to crash, without crashing it, because we’re invited, but because I can still pretend I’m crashing it anyways!” Nisha said with a grin and a pat on Karan’s head.
“And because…” Tristol said.
“And I’m all out of becauses.” The tiefling replied as she ruffled the mage’s tail just because.
Dressed up and smiling, the group of seven walked several blocks from their inn and through a portal that led to the Noble’s District of The Lady’s Ward. From there it was only a short walk towards the northern edge of the Triad District where the massive and sprawling edifice that was the Palace of the Jester rose up across from the Square of the Singing Fountain and the City Courts. In truth, the Palace of the Jester could have comfortably held both of the former, such was the sheer size of the area of land that it occupied.
Already the hazy sky of Sigil was dotted with its own constellations of flickering ‘stars’, the cooking fires, streetlamps, and smokestacks of the opposite side of the city all filtered dimly through the smog and smoke. The darkness of the hour was offset by the rosy glow of newly hung lanterns atop the spires that dotted the exterior retaining walls of the Palace itself. The gates of the Palace were open into the largely empty courtyard that, during the day, would have held a circus-like atmosphere of performers, debates, speakers on varied subjects, and a ripe atmosphere for the more underhanded political intrigues of Sigil.
But, given the hour, the sprawling expanse of the courtyard was empty and deserted, and a trio of armored pikemen and an air genasi dressed in a spangled courtier’s costume flanked the gates. The genasi held a list of names and was admitting those invited guests who arrived by foot, magic, or carriage, while the pikemen turned away those who might attempt to crash the evenings festivities.
Beyond the gates, the lights of the Palace could be seen dimly, and a golden, glittering path meandered through the darkness towards the warm glow of the open entrance. The way was lit by a path of brilliantly glowing, gilded lanterns that hung from etched and inlayed wrought-iron poles set into the ground. Every twenty feet the color of the lanterns changed as their source of fuel shifted by some internal mechanism, either mundane or magical, and the path alternated with bands of rose, blue, golden, and emerald light all the way up to the entrance to the palace proper.
The palace itself was truly grandiose, seeming to be a combination of dozens or more styles of architecture, unified by the common themes of spikes, spires, and bladed ornamental buttresses that seemed ubiquitous within Sigil. But Jeremo’s kip itself was ancient, and even its commonalities to the mansions and chateaux of the Nobles District were superficial, like they were simply copies, cut from the original mold of the Palace of the Jester.
“And so I told him, that’s what I said the other week!” Came the loud punchline to a joke, followed by a burst of laughter from a group of richly attired nobles and merchants who stood around the first speaker, an even more richly robed, blue-skinned ogre-magi who stood several heads above his cadre of fellow merchants, admirers and toadies.
Clueless smirked as Estevan of the Planar Trade Consortium turned and motioned his fellows through the open entrance and into the warm light that flowed like golden honey out into the sooty air of Sigil.
“Don’t like him?” Florian asked the bladesinger as they slowed their approach so as not to catch up within hearing range of the powerful merchant lord and company.
Clueless made a face, “My inner Indep can’t stand his business practices. He’s corrupt as they come, and he’s been making moves on trade in Tradegate ever since he lost some of his pull in Sigil. Long story there, ask me about it later. The walls here may have ears.”
The cleric nodded back and stepped to one side as another newly arrived guest floated along towards the entrance. A Lillend, one of the natives of Ysgard and the Infinite Staircase, the woman had the lower body of a green and golden serpent, and her upper body was wrapped in a gossamer wrap of lapis silk and minute tassels of orange beads. As she passed the group she greeted them briefly in a fluted dialect of celestial from behind a silver and porcelain harlequins mask she held in front of her face.
“Good evening to you Milori, good to see you invited as well. Perhaps we can talk later if time permits.” Skalliska said up to the floating Lillend.
“We shall see, though I expect I may be busy with prior engagements. But it is good to see you again Skalliska, perhaps you’ll even meet someone this evening.” Milori said with a friendly chuckle as she removed the mask and smiled back to the kobold before floating past and into the palace.
“Worked with her before?” Clueless asked as his eyes followed the drifting coils of the woman’s lower body till she was out of sight.
“Yes, she’s translated some material for me before and she taught me some bits and pieces of Ignan when I was first learned that language. She’s a nice person, if usually extremely busy and in demand for her services. It’s good to see her here though.” Skalliska replied.
“So, are we going to sit here outside and wait for it to rain, or are we going into the party?” Florian asked.
“Rain would be bad.” Tristol said, “And I for one happen to be curious about this place. I’ve heard of it before, but since I’ve not been in Sigil for very long I’ve never actually been inside.”
“Besides, the longer you wait out here, the more impatient I get, and an impatient Nisha is a Nisha who dashes inside, leaves you behind, and tries to walk out with expensive furniture.” Nisha quipped, motioning towards the warmth of inside with her tail, softly jingling with an attached silver bell as she did so.
Nisha gazed up at the surroundings as they wandered through the corridors of the Palace of the Jester. She seemed to be nearly drooling at the level of wealth that the very architecture itself seemed to insinuate. The walls were a combination of exotic marbles, equally or more exotic woods, and plaster that was decorated in exquisite frescos or mosaics more often than not. All said it was gorgeous and breathtaking, but designed in such a way that it never became ostentatious or overbearing.
“Someone? Please pinch me. I think I’m dreaming, I really do. And I’m probably passed out in the Hive somewhere in a gutter, maybe even drooling all over myself in my sleep.”
“Owwww!” Nisha jumped forward a few steps and nearly blundered into Toras before she rubbed at her tail tip.
Clueless snickered softly when the tiefling glanced back at him and stuck out her tongue.
Tristol leaned over to her and whispered as they walked forwards, “Hey, don’t do that. I have it on good authority from some Halruaan transmuters that if you keep doing that, your face’ll stick that way.”
Fyrehowl repressed a laugh as Nisha only redoubled her efforts at sticking her tongue out, first to Clueless and then at Tristol, adding sound effects when she made faces at the mage. A few moments later and she tired of it all and went back to drooling over the surroundings some more as they passed into a crystal tiled chamber and were directed into a second corridor that branched off to the right.
“They have to be absolutely loaded here. What I wouldn’t give to just hide here and wait till after the party and…” Nisha idly mused.
“I wouldn’t suggest it. Jeremo isn’t loaded for no good reason, and I’d put a wager on this place having more security than the Prison and the Barracks combined.” Toras said preemptively.
“Maybe, I haven’t seen too many guards since we’ve been here though. Still, they’ve closed all the doors into adjoining rooms and closed off most of the other hallways except for the route into where the party is being held.” Fyrehowl said, “And I’d wager that they’re doing so to discourage people from wandering and taken home souvenirs.”
“Than I’ll feel special that they had me in mind when they set everything up tonight, because all of those doors are locked a dozen times over and more. I’ve checked.” Nisha said as her tail flicked happily from side to side while she grinned.
“You checked? When?” Tristol asked.
Nisha looked at him cross-eyed, “When I tried to get in earlier today, that’s when.”
She looked at the blank stares from the others, “What? I was curious. I didn’t take anything, and I barely got a few hundred feet inside. The place is very unfriendly to unannounced guests.”
They continued walking and chatting at a leisurely pace for several more minutes before Tristol paused abruptly in the hallway.
Nisha looked back at him, “I got over ogling the décor Tristol, you can too. Hurry up or we’ll leave you behind and I’ll steal your chair.”
“No… hold on guys, this is just weird.” He said, looking intently at the shut door that would have otherwise led off from the hallway.
“What?” Skalliska asked.
Tristol looked at the doors that branched off of the hallway that they were in and he narrowed his eye as they sparkled with the dim hint of magic. As he examined the doors, the floor, the walls and even the ceiling, the entire structure of the palace seemed nearly alive with magic. The doors were not only locked, if what Nisha had said was true, they appeared to have been mage locked, sealed with walls of force and a number of contingencies seemed veritably layered upon their surfaces, all keyed to activate if the doors were forced open.
“This place is locked down tighter than an archmage’s study or a king’s treasury.” He said with some certainty.
“I told you…” Nisha said as she tried to peer through one of the keyholes unsuccessfully.
“No, but it’s weird. I’d swear that those wards are all pointed in to those rooms, not out into the hallway here.” Tristol said, looking at the doors warily.
“Anyways, someone else is coming down the hall, let’s get going. Maybe Jeremo’ll explain later if we ask him.” Fyrehowl said as her ears swiveled and perked at the sound of approaching footsteps and laughter from another newly arrived reveler.
And so they continued down the marked path, deeper and deeper into the heart of the Palace of the Jester, the single oldest structure in Sigil, heading towards the great banquet hall that the Lady’s Jester had prepared for his guests. Still, something was nagging on their minds as they entered the lush chamber, some incongruity in the event and the level of protection placed upon the palace itself. Tristol was certain it was for the protection of Jeremo’s guests, rather than protecting the Jester’s possessions from any attempts at theft. And considering the sheer level of those protections, frankly it frightened him.
“Wow,” Skalliska said as she looked up into the banquet hall of the palace. A dozen lengthy tables, apparently carved from single pieces of Arcadian hardwood, stood in rows within the chamber. Each of the tables was decorated with exquisite floral decorations and arrangements, gleaming golden tableware and lush padded seats for the guests. Clearly Jeremo was sparing no expense.
“Oh, that’s just cute.” Nisha said as she dashed over to a seat on one of the tables near to the entrance. The chair was taller than she was, and it stood out from all of the others in the room. A small card upon the golden plate set at the spot on the table the chair faced, read “Zadara, the Titan of Potential.”. Clearly the chair was reserved for her, and, looking around, each spot at the various tables was reserved for a specific guest, with the chairs and even the choice of dinnerware being selected and appropriate for the assigned.
“Awww… no silver silverware.” Nisha mock pouted as she pointed to the uniform use of gold.
“I thought you’d be happy with more expensive dishes and utensils?” Tristol said as he poked her in the ribs.
“Well yeah, there is that, but that’d be rude to steal it now. No, what I meant is that we don’t get to watch any fiends light up on fire when they tried to eat dinner with a silver fork.” She winked as she walked back to join the others.
“Honored guests, if I might have your invitation and your names, I’ll direct you to your seats if you wish me to help you. There are several hundred of you here tonight and so the seating arrangement is in a specific order to suit all involved.” One of Jeremo’s servants said to the group as they approached him. The man was dressed in a uniform of black and green with highlights of gold trim, and by the looks of him he was probably some flavor of aasimar.
They handed him their invitations and he escorted them to a group of seven chairs arranged across from one another together on one of the tables along the outside edge of the chamber, facing the rear of the room where Jeremo’s throne sat upon a small dais. Nisha giggled again as she noted that her chair, along with Skalliska’s and Fyrehowl’s all had open backs to accommodate their tails. Additionally, the kobold’s chair was slightly smaller, but raised up to provide her with an equal vantage point for the evening’s festivities.
Toras smiled as he walked over to pull out the chairs for each of the female party members, and they graciously accepted, although Nisha had already jumped over the back of her own chair and taken a seat. Once they were seated, they began to take a look at the names of those that were to be sitting around them for the evening.
Clueless glanced over to his left, reading the name on the card. It read, “Lissandra the Portal Seeker, Guildmistress of the Doorsnoops Guild.” The half-fey smiled puckishly across the table to where Tristol sat. The mage simply chuckled and rolled his eyes as he looked at the nametag next to himself that read, “Alluvius Ruskin, Tivum’s Antiquities.”
On the other side of their group, Nisha was giggling from where she sat between Tristol and Toras on one side of the table.
Toras looked over at her, “What?”
She said nothing but pointed over to the nametag on the plate next to Toras. It read, “Seamusxanthuszemus, Purveyor of Death, Merchant Most Excellent, Slayer of Fiends: ‘Parts and Pieces’.”
“Oh hells no!” Toras said with a string of curses added onto the end of the statement. Nisha was nearly snorting her glass of water as she hysterically laughed at the fighter’s plight of seating partners.
Across from Toras, Fyrehowl warily glanced over at the card next to where she herself sat, hoping to avoid the same plight as Toras. There was no plate at the spot next to her, though there was still a name at the spot that read simply, “Ylem”. The name meant little to her and so she simply shrugged and glanced over sympathetically to Toras.
“There’s no way I’m sitting next to that over glorified dustbunny! I’ll end up stuffing him into his hat by the time the drinks arrive!” Toras said in a harsh whisper.
Next to him, Nisha continued to giggle.
“It can’t be that bad Toras, Florian said from across the table before failing to suppress a chuckle of her own.”
“It is that bad. He’ll probably walk in dressed up in a rotting skull or a dress of cobwebs or something. He’ll stink, regardless of how f*cking annoying he is. I’m not putting up with that for the next couple hours.” Toras replied, getting more and more adamant about it.
“A dress? Do mephits even have proper genders?” Nisha asked, abruptly ending her snicker fit.
Opposite Toras, Fyrehowl’s ears swiveled back towards the entrance and the sound of a high pitched, incessantly annoying voice. “Don’t look now, but I can hear the mephit walking up the hall.”
“And you thought you wouldn’t have a dinner date for this evening…” Clueless said with a snicker over towards the fighter who had started to grit his teeth as he began to hear the mephit’s voice echo up from the entrance hall.
“The hell with that, I’m not sitting next to elemental annoying, someone else will, like it or not.” Toras said as he stood up and grabbed Seamus’s seating card and dashed across the room to the next table and a row of unoccupied seats.
He glanced at the names on the open seats, looking for any that might be less offensive to him to sit next to. “No, not sitting next to the high priest of the Temple of the Abyss, definitely not…”
He continued to muse over the names, before noticing one name in particular. The chair was elegant, high backed, and more well padded than any of the others, and the name tag upon the golden and bejeweled plate that sat in front of it read, “Shemeska the Marauder, King of the Crosstrade”.
Toras grinned evilly as he snatched up the nametag on the chair next to the Marauder’s and replaced it with the dust mephit’s name. “Enjoy your date together sweethearts, I’m sure you’ll make a lovely couple tonight.”
Having exchanged the nametags, he hurried back to his own chair, still snickering with malicious glee, and placed the nametag of his new dinner companion on the spot previously reserved for the mephit. The new nametag read, “Verden, owner and proprieter: Azure Iris Inn, Lady’s Ward.”
Over the next fifteen minutes or so, most of the few hundred invited guests had arrived and taken their seats, slowly filling in the open spaces at the tables, though Toras noted that the Marauder had yet to arrive when Jeremo himself entered the chamber and jumped onto his throne with a startling level of exuberance.
“This is going to be interesting,” He said as he watched Seamusxanthuszemus march up to his assigned seat with his own bit of pomp and circumstance, dragging his hat on the floor behind him, trailing, rather than gathering dust the entire time.
The mephit grinned like a fool as he twirled the loose end of his hat in the air like a parade baton and climbed up into his seat. “Let the festivities begin! Seamusxanthuszemus, Merchant Most Excellent has arrived!”
There was a groaned murmur of discontent from those at the same table as the dust mephit, and a few muffled calls of “Pike it!” “Shut it you sodding mephit!” and “If you like death so much, please, go right ahead and take the plunge yourself and save us the misery of your company!”. Seamus, as odd as it might seem, seemed pleased as punch with the reaction as he grabbed a knife and fork in his grubby little hands and stuffed the tablecloth under his collar in preparation for a meal.
From his throne, the Lady’s Jester chuckled from under the rim of his goblet of wine as his eyes focused on the mephit and then moved to mentally catalogue those guests present and those few not.
Toras snickered as he wondered what would happen when the mephit’s honored dinner companion arrived. A moment later, a frizzy haired old tiefling woman, Allusvius Ruskin, “Old ‘Lu”, sat down next to Tristol, bundled up in a dozen layers of scarves, shirts, sweaters and a woolen cloak, even gloves on her hands. She turned and greeted Tristol with a crooked toothed but friendly smile, though a pair of dark spectacles perched on her nose obscured her eyes.
Fyrehowl likewise watched as her own neighbor at the table, Ylem, approached and moved his chair out from under the table. The rogue modron looked nothing so much as a metallic box with spindly arms, legs, and a stubby pair of metal wings. It looked up at the lupinal without any real emotion on its vaguely humanoid face that was dotted with a small, reddish, star-shaped pattern on its forehead.
“Greetings to you berk! Pleased to make kip with you this evening. Hopefully we will tumble to the jink of it together.”
Fyrehowl just sort of stared at the odd looking modron before giving him/her/it a confused but polite smile and a hasty reply of, “Uhh, yes, sure.”
She edged her chair closer to Florian, “Switch seats with me? Please? I’m sitting next to a barmy modron, if that’s possible.”
Florian laughed, “Not a chance!”
Fyrehowl warily glanced back over to the modron that was just staring blankly at her. “Please? Whatever it is, it’s completely daffy!”
“Enjoy.” Florian said with a snicker before turning around to talk to Clueless.
Clueless was meanwhile chatting up a young wizardress garbed in a light purple robe and a silver shawl. Lissandra was chatting the half-fey up quite happily, and Clueless was likewise enjoying their conversation. Soon enough their two person discussion was joined by both Tristol and Old Lu, all of them mages of some sort or another.
Toras abruptly stopped his chuckling at the Dust Mephit’s new seating arrangement when a slim, gorgeous wood elf women dressed in a shimmering blue down stepped up to the table next to him. Verden smiled at the fighter with a face framed by coppery brown hair and glowing with a warm, light brown complexion.
“Good evening to you, let me help you with your chair.” Toras said almost immediately, standing up and moving the elf’s chair out, letting her sit and them pushing her close to the table.
“Thank you, it’s so uncommon to find a gentleman.” She said with a gracious laugh as she extended a hand daintily to Toras. “Too often I have to put up with the worst of high society: rich noblemen on midnight escapades of gambling and other less palatable pursuits, and women of less than noble bearing seeking to snare them after a few too many drinks. It gets to be too much sometimes and it’s a pleasure to have a change from that here tonight. Pleased to meet you.”
Toras took the offered hand and kissed it softly before launching into smalltalk with her. From across the table, Clueless gave an impish thumb up to the fighter, though he didn’t really see it, as entranced as he was with his dinner companion. Florian laughed, Fyrehowl rolled her eyes, and Skalliska and Tristol were too busy chiding Nisha who was biting the golden knife and fork one her plate to test their metal content.
The man known as The Lady’s Jester, owner of the Palace of the Jester, Factol of the Ring-Givers, and one of the richest men upon the planes, Jeremo the Natterer, sat upon his throne and smiled at the assembled crowd. He was dressed in a richly tailored but intentionally mismatched costume of green and gold breeches and a patchwork tunic of cloth from a hundred different worlds and planes. His straw colored hair was short but fussy and almost uncombed by design as he adjusted a tarnished crown atop his head so that it would sit ever so slightly off angle. Even the Jester’s eyes kept the same pattern of designed disorganization, one of them brilliant blue and the other chocolate brown and shimmering with a canny understanding of the people around him.
The notoriously garrulous factol grinned like a little boy with delight as he looked out at the assembled crowd. Jeremo lounged crosswise on his throne, legs over one of the arms of the chair, as informal and at home as an important man of power and prestige might appear, and it seemed to come naturally like he bubbled up charisma from some hidden wellspring deep inside.
He took a sip from a golden chalice in his right hand, pouring the liquid down into his mouth from where he leaned his head backwards over the other arm of his throne, and then without a moments warning he leapt to his feet and placed the cup down. He clapped his hands and immediately gained the attention of the suddenly quiet room, the center of attention for all of Sigil’s rich and powerful, and he smiled.
“Greetings my friends, my fellows, my peers. Fiends, celestials, primes, planars… all of you my honored guests, welcome.”
Fyrehowl stood on the stairwell just above the taproom of the inn, her tail twitching randomly from side to side, curling slightly inwards towards her legs as it did so. She’d been standing there for nearly an hour, running over and over in her mind how she would finally ask Clueless out.
“Oh yeah, you’re doing real well here. You’ve willingly faced a small army of lesser Tanar’ri; you’ve fought an archmage inside one of The Lady’s mazes, and you’ve ventured into every single one of the lower planes. But yet you can’t work up the nerve to ask a friend out on a date.”
Fyrehowl sighed and rubbed a hand over the side of her muzzle, “Now I know what ‘s meant by ‘nothings sadder to see than watching a cipher trip’…”
Another deep breath and she closed her eyes, steeled herself and walked down into the main room of the inn. Clueless sat behind the counter washing several dirty glasses and keeping a loose eye on the patrons. He looked up as the lupinal sat down in the seat in front of him with a smile.
“Hey there, want something to drink?” He asked, putting down the mug and the dishrag he’d been using to clean.
She paused, smiled again and popped the question. “Would you be willing to go out with me at some point? Maybe grab dinner somewhere nice? I know that you’ve got a girlfriend, but from what I gather you and her are pretty much in it for sex and not much else. I’m looking for something possibly leading a bit deeper and meaningful than that.”
Clueless paused and his wings twitched.
“You don’t have to answer now, maybe just think about it.”
Clueless’s mouth hung open awkwardly for a few more moments before he blinked and managed to reply. “Umm… no.”
Fyrehowl winced.
“No no no,” Clueless shook his head and put a hand over hers. “It’s not that you’re not interesting or that I wouldn’t be interested. I won’t date or have any sort of relationship with anyone within the party, it’s simply something I make off limits. I did in my previous adventuring groups, and I’m keeping that in place now. It keeps tension down and jealousy at a minimum, depending on who all makes up the group.”
Fyrehowl’s sullen frown lessened slightly and she nodded, “Well, that makes some sense I guess. I figure that I should tell Florian too since…since he was interested in you too.”
Clueless’s eyes went wide, “Florian too?! Am I that oblivious to these things? I didn’t really know that either of you had any interest in me whatsoever…”
The lupinal laughed, “Yeah, since almost the first time we met you. Remember when we were working for the mercane and were resting before going out into the ethereal?”
Clueless nodded slowly, “Yeah, and?”
“Well, the two of us were trying to get close to you without trying to look like we were competing with each other to snuggle up closer…”
Clueless put his hands on his hips, “Yeah, I am that oblivious then. I didn’t catch any of that at the time… the namesake fits apparently.”
Fyrehowl laughed genuinely, “Yeah, it does.”
The half-fey gave a bewildered shake of his head, “I hope you’re not angry at me. If I’d actually realized this was such a big deal to you both, well, I’d have explained myself earlier.”
She nodded back, “Yeah, I guess I do. I’m sorry for not being as direct as I should have originally.”
“Well no, don’t feel sorry. It’s as much my fault as not, and so long as we understand each other here I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. Sorry if you were hoping to have me as a date for Jeremo’s party though. At this rate I don’t think that any of us are going to have dates. My sensate is in Arborea for the next week or so, so I’ll be doing this alone too.” Clueless said with a shrug as he poured Fyrehowl and himself a drink.
****
Fyrehowl sat across from Florian in the latter’s room on the second floor of the Portal Jammer and looked at the outfit spread across the cleric’s bed. She nodded her approval.
“Well, I approve. Are you sure that you want to wear it though?” She asked up to Florian.
Florian laughed, “Yeah, I think so. And for two reasons.” He frowned slightly for a moment before sitting up straighter with a look of firm resolution.
The lupinal perked an eyebrow, “Do tell.”
He nodded and pointed a finger at the ceiling, “One: I honestly don’t give a damn if anyone notices and I seriously doubt that anyone is going to recognize me and send word back to my family.”
Fyrehowl nodded.
“Secondly: I just want to see the look on their faces.” Florian said as he gestured at the outfit that he’d had custom tailored the day before to wear to Jeremo’s party.
“Nisha knows.” Fyrehowl said with a chuckle. “Or, rather, I’m pretty sure she knows, but she wouldn’t admit to it.”
“Wouldn’t admit to it?”
“Oh, you know. She knows, or at least I think so, but she was playing clueless and waiting for me to say it myself.” Fyrehowl said.
“Aaaaaand when you admitted anything she was going to act like she didn’t know a thing. Yeah, that sounds like her. Amusing, greatly amusing.” Florian laughed.
“Anyways, speaking of Clueless, you understand what I said before about his reasons for not dating either of us?”
Florian held the outfit up in front of him, posing with it in front of a mirror as he looked back to reply to Fyrehowl’s question. “Yeah, though to tell the truth I’d more or less given up on it. I was going to let you take your chance and not get involved with it unless you broke it off for whatever reason. He’s cute, but he lives up to that name of his…”
“Yeah, he does that sometimes. Though given that he’s seeing a sensate, and from his reactions to things, I really don’t think it mattered to him, all things considered. Him, more than anyone else, I want to see how he reacts to that outfit.”
The cleric unlaced the back of the gold and scarlet bundle of cloth, “Give me a bit to get into this and we’ll see. Besides, the party is tonight so I may as well get dressed now. I’ll meet you downstairs at five past peak, alright?”
Fyrehowl stood up from where she had been sitting, “Works for me. And besides, while my clothes aren’t as elaborate as yours, I need the time to just brush myself out.”
“Never thought about that, but yeah, it makes sense. See you then.” Florian said as he waved to Fyrehowl, closed the door and got dressed.
****
It was nearly five past peak, only two hours before the Natterer’s party, when the group began to assemble in the back room of the Portal Jammer. Toras was dressed in an elaborate and gilded ornamental breastplate, fine silk trousers and a long red cloak. He smiled as Clueless walked into the room dressed much the way he normally did, though the clothes were new and of a tighter cut than normal.
Tristol showed up several minutes later dressed in a fine orange robe with faded to white in the front and darkened to black at the cuffs and bottom trim. Clearly his inspiration for the color scheme was solidly grounded in his ancestry and even his own appearance. He smiled as he knocked on the inside of the doorframe with the silver head of his new staff, tapping a pattern on the wood with the silver fox that perched atop its tip.
“You look nice,” came Skalliska’s reply as she looked up at him.
“And you look…” Tristol paused and searched for words as he looked down at the very nearly nude kobold.
Skalliska was dressed in almost nothing besides her plumed hat and a cane. Anything socially import was obscured by a swatch of cloth and not much else, though her scales were either painted or somehow tattooed by a swirling, slowly changing pattern of abstract designs and illustrated scenes from their past encounters in the Ethereal, Acheron, and Elysium.
“Ok, that’s impressive. Magical I assume? Who did it?” The mage asked, impressed both at the level of artistry, as where the others in the room, and with whatever technique was used to create them.
“A little tattoo parlor in the Hive, run by a Dabus. Fell. He does good work, even if some people get scared away by what he is.”
“And by the fact that every so often his tattoos come alive and act on their own when he makes them.” Nisha said as she poked her head through the doorway.
“Wow…” Tristol said with a blink as Nisha walked into the room with a soft clip-clop from her hooves.
She blushed and chuckled softly, then stuck her tongue out as she shifted awkwardly in the short, tight, restrictive evening gown she was dressed in.
“You have no idea how awkward this is for me.” The tiefling said as the others looked at her.
Nisha’s dress was a soft green in color, shot through with bits and flashes of scarlet and silver. It was cut around mid-thigh, and was strapless and moderately low cut up top as well. Judging from the girl’s self-consciousness about the attire, she wasn’t used to dressing up in any way.
“Ugg. I don’t look completely out of place do I?” She said as she reached up and poked at the boning in the front of the dress.
“Honestly? You look really nice Nisha.” Tristol said.
“Are you wearing makeup?” Clueless said with a chuckle.
“…I hate to be the one to have to ask, but why is the Factol Karan doll wedged in your cleavage?” Fyrehowl asked as she slipped into the room.
Nisha looked at them oddly like it was a normal, everyday thing and they were the weird ones for asking such a question. She hold up a finger and answered, “One: They don’t make pockets in evening gowns. Two: I don’t have my satchel. Three: It was convenient and he didn’t seem to protest! Besides, I brought him along for the fashion advice! It’s not like I’ve ever dressed up for a night on the town before. We didn’t exactly have high culture in the Hive when I was squatting in the Slags.”
“Eh, true. I’ll grant you that.” The lupinal said.
“Karan gives good fashion advice. You should take his shopping with you more often if this is what he brings back to us.” Tristol said with a wink.
Nisha grinned, crossed her eyes and grabbed Karan, promptly putting her hair up and weaving him into the braid for no reason other than she could. “Just keep telling me that it’s only for one night and that I’ll probably never see half of those people again. This is seriously uncomfortable you guys, I don’t have a clue how certain folks pull this off all the time.”
“Oh, now if you don’t mind, I have something to show you all…” Fyrehowl said as she motioned to someone outside the room.
“What? Your new robes? They look nice.” Toras said.
“I swear, they didn’t make evening gowns for people with tails…” Nisha said, fairly oblivious to anything else.
“Come on in Florian…” Fyrehowl said as she moved out of the way and Florian stepped into the room in her new dress for the evening.
The silence was deafening outside of Nisha’s fussing with putting a hole for her tail in the back of her gown. Florian stepped into the room in a red and gold evening gown, and it fit her without any awkwardness in the least.
“Since when did you have breasts?” Skalliska asked with confusion. “I thought only female humans had them…”
“Well sh*t…” Clueless said, absolutely stupefied.
“Surpriiiiise…” Florian said as she smiled at the largely flabbergasted group.
Tristol blinked, “You’re a woman?!”
“How nice of you to notice.” She replied before patting the wizard on the head.
“…wha…” Toras said, feeling incredibly dense at never having noticed.
“Who knew and didn’t tell me?” Clueless asked.
“I knew fairly early on and she asked me not to tell. And Nisha knew, but I don’t know when, or how.”
The tiefling looked up from where she had been magically mending the back of her gown to let her tail through. “Oh, a month or two ago I think. I was climbing around the side of the building and Florian’s window was open. I didn’t look for more than a second, but some things are obvious.”
Clueless looked at her, “I won’t ask why you were doing that.”
“I’ll ask later, this has to be good.” Tristol replied.
“Ok… why?” Clueless asked Florian. “Why pretend to be male for so long and not tell us?”
“Well, for starters, it’s safer when traveling, at least where I’m from. And secondly, I didn’t want to be recognized by anyone and word to be sent back to my family.” Florian said, making a face at the mention of her house. “Suffice to say that my parents have an arranged marriage set up for me, and if I ever go back there, or get forced into going back there, I’ll probably not be able to get out of it. And the guy is a real jerk. Rich yes. Connected yes. Ugly and with the personality of drunken bulezau, most definitely.”
Skalliska shuddered, “I don’t want to see a drunken bulezau, or any other type of Tanar’ri drunk… I’ll take your word for it.”
“I don’t think we can blame you at all, but still, it’s a bit of a shock. So don’t be surprised if you refer to you as a guy for a while still. You look really good though, very nice outfit.” Clueless said.
“Oh, and before we go, we got two letters with offers of employment in the mail today.” Toras said, holding up the two envelopes.
“Oh? Who from, we can deal with them when we get back.” Fyrehowl asked curiously.
“Someone in Sylvania, and someone in Rigus.” Toras replied, looking briefly over the headers of the two offers. “Some Institute in the first gatetown, and the other from a Professor Cilret Leobtav in Rigus. I think the two might be connected, but I didn’t read them fully yet.”
Clueless shrugged, “Eh, something to deal with later if we’re interested and need the money.”
“But now, we have a party to crash, without crashing it, because we’re invited, but because I can still pretend I’m crashing it anyways!” Nisha said with a grin and a pat on Karan’s head.
“And because…” Tristol said.
“And I’m all out of becauses.” The tiefling replied as she ruffled the mage’s tail just because.
***
Dressed up and smiling, the group of seven walked several blocks from their inn and through a portal that led to the Noble’s District of The Lady’s Ward. From there it was only a short walk towards the northern edge of the Triad District where the massive and sprawling edifice that was the Palace of the Jester rose up across from the Square of the Singing Fountain and the City Courts. In truth, the Palace of the Jester could have comfortably held both of the former, such was the sheer size of the area of land that it occupied.
Already the hazy sky of Sigil was dotted with its own constellations of flickering ‘stars’, the cooking fires, streetlamps, and smokestacks of the opposite side of the city all filtered dimly through the smog and smoke. The darkness of the hour was offset by the rosy glow of newly hung lanterns atop the spires that dotted the exterior retaining walls of the Palace itself. The gates of the Palace were open into the largely empty courtyard that, during the day, would have held a circus-like atmosphere of performers, debates, speakers on varied subjects, and a ripe atmosphere for the more underhanded political intrigues of Sigil.
But, given the hour, the sprawling expanse of the courtyard was empty and deserted, and a trio of armored pikemen and an air genasi dressed in a spangled courtier’s costume flanked the gates. The genasi held a list of names and was admitting those invited guests who arrived by foot, magic, or carriage, while the pikemen turned away those who might attempt to crash the evenings festivities.
Beyond the gates, the lights of the Palace could be seen dimly, and a golden, glittering path meandered through the darkness towards the warm glow of the open entrance. The way was lit by a path of brilliantly glowing, gilded lanterns that hung from etched and inlayed wrought-iron poles set into the ground. Every twenty feet the color of the lanterns changed as their source of fuel shifted by some internal mechanism, either mundane or magical, and the path alternated with bands of rose, blue, golden, and emerald light all the way up to the entrance to the palace proper.
The palace itself was truly grandiose, seeming to be a combination of dozens or more styles of architecture, unified by the common themes of spikes, spires, and bladed ornamental buttresses that seemed ubiquitous within Sigil. But Jeremo’s kip itself was ancient, and even its commonalities to the mansions and chateaux of the Nobles District were superficial, like they were simply copies, cut from the original mold of the Palace of the Jester.
“And so I told him, that’s what I said the other week!” Came the loud punchline to a joke, followed by a burst of laughter from a group of richly attired nobles and merchants who stood around the first speaker, an even more richly robed, blue-skinned ogre-magi who stood several heads above his cadre of fellow merchants, admirers and toadies.
Clueless smirked as Estevan of the Planar Trade Consortium turned and motioned his fellows through the open entrance and into the warm light that flowed like golden honey out into the sooty air of Sigil.
“Don’t like him?” Florian asked the bladesinger as they slowed their approach so as not to catch up within hearing range of the powerful merchant lord and company.
Clueless made a face, “My inner Indep can’t stand his business practices. He’s corrupt as they come, and he’s been making moves on trade in Tradegate ever since he lost some of his pull in Sigil. Long story there, ask me about it later. The walls here may have ears.”
The cleric nodded back and stepped to one side as another newly arrived guest floated along towards the entrance. A Lillend, one of the natives of Ysgard and the Infinite Staircase, the woman had the lower body of a green and golden serpent, and her upper body was wrapped in a gossamer wrap of lapis silk and minute tassels of orange beads. As she passed the group she greeted them briefly in a fluted dialect of celestial from behind a silver and porcelain harlequins mask she held in front of her face.
“Good evening to you Milori, good to see you invited as well. Perhaps we can talk later if time permits.” Skalliska said up to the floating Lillend.
“We shall see, though I expect I may be busy with prior engagements. But it is good to see you again Skalliska, perhaps you’ll even meet someone this evening.” Milori said with a friendly chuckle as she removed the mask and smiled back to the kobold before floating past and into the palace.
“Worked with her before?” Clueless asked as his eyes followed the drifting coils of the woman’s lower body till she was out of sight.
“Yes, she’s translated some material for me before and she taught me some bits and pieces of Ignan when I was first learned that language. She’s a nice person, if usually extremely busy and in demand for her services. It’s good to see her here though.” Skalliska replied.
“So, are we going to sit here outside and wait for it to rain, or are we going into the party?” Florian asked.
“Rain would be bad.” Tristol said, “And I for one happen to be curious about this place. I’ve heard of it before, but since I’ve not been in Sigil for very long I’ve never actually been inside.”
“Besides, the longer you wait out here, the more impatient I get, and an impatient Nisha is a Nisha who dashes inside, leaves you behind, and tries to walk out with expensive furniture.” Nisha quipped, motioning towards the warmth of inside with her tail, softly jingling with an attached silver bell as she did so.
Nisha gazed up at the surroundings as they wandered through the corridors of the Palace of the Jester. She seemed to be nearly drooling at the level of wealth that the very architecture itself seemed to insinuate. The walls were a combination of exotic marbles, equally or more exotic woods, and plaster that was decorated in exquisite frescos or mosaics more often than not. All said it was gorgeous and breathtaking, but designed in such a way that it never became ostentatious or overbearing.
“Someone? Please pinch me. I think I’m dreaming, I really do. And I’m probably passed out in the Hive somewhere in a gutter, maybe even drooling all over myself in my sleep.”
“Owwww!” Nisha jumped forward a few steps and nearly blundered into Toras before she rubbed at her tail tip.
Clueless snickered softly when the tiefling glanced back at him and stuck out her tongue.
Tristol leaned over to her and whispered as they walked forwards, “Hey, don’t do that. I have it on good authority from some Halruaan transmuters that if you keep doing that, your face’ll stick that way.”
Fyrehowl repressed a laugh as Nisha only redoubled her efforts at sticking her tongue out, first to Clueless and then at Tristol, adding sound effects when she made faces at the mage. A few moments later and she tired of it all and went back to drooling over the surroundings some more as they passed into a crystal tiled chamber and were directed into a second corridor that branched off to the right.
“They have to be absolutely loaded here. What I wouldn’t give to just hide here and wait till after the party and…” Nisha idly mused.
“I wouldn’t suggest it. Jeremo isn’t loaded for no good reason, and I’d put a wager on this place having more security than the Prison and the Barracks combined.” Toras said preemptively.
“Maybe, I haven’t seen too many guards since we’ve been here though. Still, they’ve closed all the doors into adjoining rooms and closed off most of the other hallways except for the route into where the party is being held.” Fyrehowl said, “And I’d wager that they’re doing so to discourage people from wandering and taken home souvenirs.”
“Than I’ll feel special that they had me in mind when they set everything up tonight, because all of those doors are locked a dozen times over and more. I’ve checked.” Nisha said as her tail flicked happily from side to side while she grinned.
“You checked? When?” Tristol asked.
Nisha looked at him cross-eyed, “When I tried to get in earlier today, that’s when.”
She looked at the blank stares from the others, “What? I was curious. I didn’t take anything, and I barely got a few hundred feet inside. The place is very unfriendly to unannounced guests.”
They continued walking and chatting at a leisurely pace for several more minutes before Tristol paused abruptly in the hallway.
Nisha looked back at him, “I got over ogling the décor Tristol, you can too. Hurry up or we’ll leave you behind and I’ll steal your chair.”
“No… hold on guys, this is just weird.” He said, looking intently at the shut door that would have otherwise led off from the hallway.
“What?” Skalliska asked.
Tristol looked at the doors that branched off of the hallway that they were in and he narrowed his eye as they sparkled with the dim hint of magic. As he examined the doors, the floor, the walls and even the ceiling, the entire structure of the palace seemed nearly alive with magic. The doors were not only locked, if what Nisha had said was true, they appeared to have been mage locked, sealed with walls of force and a number of contingencies seemed veritably layered upon their surfaces, all keyed to activate if the doors were forced open.
“This place is locked down tighter than an archmage’s study or a king’s treasury.” He said with some certainty.
“I told you…” Nisha said as she tried to peer through one of the keyholes unsuccessfully.
“No, but it’s weird. I’d swear that those wards are all pointed in to those rooms, not out into the hallway here.” Tristol said, looking at the doors warily.
“Anyways, someone else is coming down the hall, let’s get going. Maybe Jeremo’ll explain later if we ask him.” Fyrehowl said as her ears swiveled and perked at the sound of approaching footsteps and laughter from another newly arrived reveler.
And so they continued down the marked path, deeper and deeper into the heart of the Palace of the Jester, the single oldest structure in Sigil, heading towards the great banquet hall that the Lady’s Jester had prepared for his guests. Still, something was nagging on their minds as they entered the lush chamber, some incongruity in the event and the level of protection placed upon the palace itself. Tristol was certain it was for the protection of Jeremo’s guests, rather than protecting the Jester’s possessions from any attempts at theft. And considering the sheer level of those protections, frankly it frightened him.
“Wow,” Skalliska said as she looked up into the banquet hall of the palace. A dozen lengthy tables, apparently carved from single pieces of Arcadian hardwood, stood in rows within the chamber. Each of the tables was decorated with exquisite floral decorations and arrangements, gleaming golden tableware and lush padded seats for the guests. Clearly Jeremo was sparing no expense.
“Oh, that’s just cute.” Nisha said as she dashed over to a seat on one of the tables near to the entrance. The chair was taller than she was, and it stood out from all of the others in the room. A small card upon the golden plate set at the spot on the table the chair faced, read “Zadara, the Titan of Potential.”. Clearly the chair was reserved for her, and, looking around, each spot at the various tables was reserved for a specific guest, with the chairs and even the choice of dinnerware being selected and appropriate for the assigned.
“Awww… no silver silverware.” Nisha mock pouted as she pointed to the uniform use of gold.
“I thought you’d be happy with more expensive dishes and utensils?” Tristol said as he poked her in the ribs.
“Well yeah, there is that, but that’d be rude to steal it now. No, what I meant is that we don’t get to watch any fiends light up on fire when they tried to eat dinner with a silver fork.” She winked as she walked back to join the others.
“Honored guests, if I might have your invitation and your names, I’ll direct you to your seats if you wish me to help you. There are several hundred of you here tonight and so the seating arrangement is in a specific order to suit all involved.” One of Jeremo’s servants said to the group as they approached him. The man was dressed in a uniform of black and green with highlights of gold trim, and by the looks of him he was probably some flavor of aasimar.
They handed him their invitations and he escorted them to a group of seven chairs arranged across from one another together on one of the tables along the outside edge of the chamber, facing the rear of the room where Jeremo’s throne sat upon a small dais. Nisha giggled again as she noted that her chair, along with Skalliska’s and Fyrehowl’s all had open backs to accommodate their tails. Additionally, the kobold’s chair was slightly smaller, but raised up to provide her with an equal vantage point for the evening’s festivities.
Toras smiled as he walked over to pull out the chairs for each of the female party members, and they graciously accepted, although Nisha had already jumped over the back of her own chair and taken a seat. Once they were seated, they began to take a look at the names of those that were to be sitting around them for the evening.
Clueless glanced over to his left, reading the name on the card. It read, “Lissandra the Portal Seeker, Guildmistress of the Doorsnoops Guild.” The half-fey smiled puckishly across the table to where Tristol sat. The mage simply chuckled and rolled his eyes as he looked at the nametag next to himself that read, “Alluvius Ruskin, Tivum’s Antiquities.”
On the other side of their group, Nisha was giggling from where she sat between Tristol and Toras on one side of the table.
Toras looked over at her, “What?”
She said nothing but pointed over to the nametag on the plate next to Toras. It read, “Seamusxanthuszemus, Purveyor of Death, Merchant Most Excellent, Slayer of Fiends: ‘Parts and Pieces’.”
“Oh hells no!” Toras said with a string of curses added onto the end of the statement. Nisha was nearly snorting her glass of water as she hysterically laughed at the fighter’s plight of seating partners.
Across from Toras, Fyrehowl warily glanced over at the card next to where she herself sat, hoping to avoid the same plight as Toras. There was no plate at the spot next to her, though there was still a name at the spot that read simply, “Ylem”. The name meant little to her and so she simply shrugged and glanced over sympathetically to Toras.
“There’s no way I’m sitting next to that over glorified dustbunny! I’ll end up stuffing him into his hat by the time the drinks arrive!” Toras said in a harsh whisper.
Next to him, Nisha continued to giggle.
“It can’t be that bad Toras, Florian said from across the table before failing to suppress a chuckle of her own.”
“It is that bad. He’ll probably walk in dressed up in a rotting skull or a dress of cobwebs or something. He’ll stink, regardless of how f*cking annoying he is. I’m not putting up with that for the next couple hours.” Toras replied, getting more and more adamant about it.
“A dress? Do mephits even have proper genders?” Nisha asked, abruptly ending her snicker fit.
Opposite Toras, Fyrehowl’s ears swiveled back towards the entrance and the sound of a high pitched, incessantly annoying voice. “Don’t look now, but I can hear the mephit walking up the hall.”
“And you thought you wouldn’t have a dinner date for this evening…” Clueless said with a snicker over towards the fighter who had started to grit his teeth as he began to hear the mephit’s voice echo up from the entrance hall.
“The hell with that, I’m not sitting next to elemental annoying, someone else will, like it or not.” Toras said as he stood up and grabbed Seamus’s seating card and dashed across the room to the next table and a row of unoccupied seats.
He glanced at the names on the open seats, looking for any that might be less offensive to him to sit next to. “No, not sitting next to the high priest of the Temple of the Abyss, definitely not…”
He continued to muse over the names, before noticing one name in particular. The chair was elegant, high backed, and more well padded than any of the others, and the name tag upon the golden and bejeweled plate that sat in front of it read, “Shemeska the Marauder, King of the Crosstrade”.
Toras grinned evilly as he snatched up the nametag on the chair next to the Marauder’s and replaced it with the dust mephit’s name. “Enjoy your date together sweethearts, I’m sure you’ll make a lovely couple tonight.”
Having exchanged the nametags, he hurried back to his own chair, still snickering with malicious glee, and placed the nametag of his new dinner companion on the spot previously reserved for the mephit. The new nametag read, “Verden, owner and proprieter: Azure Iris Inn, Lady’s Ward.”
Over the next fifteen minutes or so, most of the few hundred invited guests had arrived and taken their seats, slowly filling in the open spaces at the tables, though Toras noted that the Marauder had yet to arrive when Jeremo himself entered the chamber and jumped onto his throne with a startling level of exuberance.
“This is going to be interesting,” He said as he watched Seamusxanthuszemus march up to his assigned seat with his own bit of pomp and circumstance, dragging his hat on the floor behind him, trailing, rather than gathering dust the entire time.
The mephit grinned like a fool as he twirled the loose end of his hat in the air like a parade baton and climbed up into his seat. “Let the festivities begin! Seamusxanthuszemus, Merchant Most Excellent has arrived!”
There was a groaned murmur of discontent from those at the same table as the dust mephit, and a few muffled calls of “Pike it!” “Shut it you sodding mephit!” and “If you like death so much, please, go right ahead and take the plunge yourself and save us the misery of your company!”. Seamus, as odd as it might seem, seemed pleased as punch with the reaction as he grabbed a knife and fork in his grubby little hands and stuffed the tablecloth under his collar in preparation for a meal.
From his throne, the Lady’s Jester chuckled from under the rim of his goblet of wine as his eyes focused on the mephit and then moved to mentally catalogue those guests present and those few not.
Toras snickered as he wondered what would happen when the mephit’s honored dinner companion arrived. A moment later, a frizzy haired old tiefling woman, Allusvius Ruskin, “Old ‘Lu”, sat down next to Tristol, bundled up in a dozen layers of scarves, shirts, sweaters and a woolen cloak, even gloves on her hands. She turned and greeted Tristol with a crooked toothed but friendly smile, though a pair of dark spectacles perched on her nose obscured her eyes.
Fyrehowl likewise watched as her own neighbor at the table, Ylem, approached and moved his chair out from under the table. The rogue modron looked nothing so much as a metallic box with spindly arms, legs, and a stubby pair of metal wings. It looked up at the lupinal without any real emotion on its vaguely humanoid face that was dotted with a small, reddish, star-shaped pattern on its forehead.
“Greetings to you berk! Pleased to make kip with you this evening. Hopefully we will tumble to the jink of it together.”
Fyrehowl just sort of stared at the odd looking modron before giving him/her/it a confused but polite smile and a hasty reply of, “Uhh, yes, sure.”
She edged her chair closer to Florian, “Switch seats with me? Please? I’m sitting next to a barmy modron, if that’s possible.”
Florian laughed, “Not a chance!”
Fyrehowl warily glanced back over to the modron that was just staring blankly at her. “Please? Whatever it is, it’s completely daffy!”
“Enjoy.” Florian said with a snicker before turning around to talk to Clueless.
Clueless was meanwhile chatting up a young wizardress garbed in a light purple robe and a silver shawl. Lissandra was chatting the half-fey up quite happily, and Clueless was likewise enjoying their conversation. Soon enough their two person discussion was joined by both Tristol and Old Lu, all of them mages of some sort or another.
Toras abruptly stopped his chuckling at the Dust Mephit’s new seating arrangement when a slim, gorgeous wood elf women dressed in a shimmering blue down stepped up to the table next to him. Verden smiled at the fighter with a face framed by coppery brown hair and glowing with a warm, light brown complexion.
“Good evening to you, let me help you with your chair.” Toras said almost immediately, standing up and moving the elf’s chair out, letting her sit and them pushing her close to the table.
“Thank you, it’s so uncommon to find a gentleman.” She said with a gracious laugh as she extended a hand daintily to Toras. “Too often I have to put up with the worst of high society: rich noblemen on midnight escapades of gambling and other less palatable pursuits, and women of less than noble bearing seeking to snare them after a few too many drinks. It gets to be too much sometimes and it’s a pleasure to have a change from that here tonight. Pleased to meet you.”
Toras took the offered hand and kissed it softly before launching into smalltalk with her. From across the table, Clueless gave an impish thumb up to the fighter, though he didn’t really see it, as entranced as he was with his dinner companion. Florian laughed, Fyrehowl rolled her eyes, and Skalliska and Tristol were too busy chiding Nisha who was biting the golden knife and fork one her plate to test their metal content.
The man known as The Lady’s Jester, owner of the Palace of the Jester, Factol of the Ring-Givers, and one of the richest men upon the planes, Jeremo the Natterer, sat upon his throne and smiled at the assembled crowd. He was dressed in a richly tailored but intentionally mismatched costume of green and gold breeches and a patchwork tunic of cloth from a hundred different worlds and planes. His straw colored hair was short but fussy and almost uncombed by design as he adjusted a tarnished crown atop his head so that it would sit ever so slightly off angle. Even the Jester’s eyes kept the same pattern of designed disorganization, one of them brilliant blue and the other chocolate brown and shimmering with a canny understanding of the people around him.
The notoriously garrulous factol grinned like a little boy with delight as he looked out at the assembled crowd. Jeremo lounged crosswise on his throne, legs over one of the arms of the chair, as informal and at home as an important man of power and prestige might appear, and it seemed to come naturally like he bubbled up charisma from some hidden wellspring deep inside.
He took a sip from a golden chalice in his right hand, pouring the liquid down into his mouth from where he leaned his head backwards over the other arm of his throne, and then without a moments warning he leapt to his feet and placed the cup down. He clapped his hands and immediately gained the attention of the suddenly quiet room, the center of attention for all of Sigil’s rich and powerful, and he smiled.
“Greetings my friends, my fellows, my peers. Fiends, celestials, primes, planars… all of you my honored guests, welcome.”
***
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Ohtar Turinson
Explorer
You were determined to use every single character in Uncaged, weren't you Shemmy?
Oh, and Ylem rocks
Oh, and Ylem rocks
Shemeska
Adventurer
Ohtar Turinson said:You were determined to use every single character in Uncaged, weren't you Shemmy?
Oh, and Ylem rocks
Almost all of them made at least a cameo appearance, being all either landowners or important people in the whole of the city. Jeremo cast a pretty wide net for his party.
Ylem only makes a brief appearance.
Shemeska
Adventurer
shilsen said:So when does Shemmy (the NPC, not the evil PC-molesting DM
Fashionably late.
So far in the storyhour she's just been an ass to Clueless, but not gone out of her way to make such an impression on the rest of the PCs. That changes relatively soon. Of course, it might be safe to assume that Jeremo is fully aware of the personalities of those he's invited. I so enjoyed having Seamus and Shemmy sitting next to each other during that party, so unexpected for them to pull that seat switch. *giggle*
I'll have another update friday or this weekend for what happens at the party.
Gez
First Post
Sorry but the spelling cop in me is too strong for me to resist this time.
Chateaux being already the plural form of chateau, it does never have an s. It's not Lilland, but Lillend (error made twice). Shouldn't be "good to see her here"? And something is odd in the last sentence about trailing and gathering dust.
And now I stop being obnoxious.
I loved that passage.
Shemeska said:
Chateaux being already the plural form of chateau, it does never have an s. It's not Lilland, but Lillend (error made twice). Shouldn't be "good to see her here"? And something is odd in the last sentence about trailing and gathering dust.
And now I stop being obnoxious.
Shemeska said:
I loved that passage.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Gez said:
I bow to your superior knowledge of the plural form of french words
Seriously, I didn't have a clue how to handle that one and I was lazy and didn't look it up. Mea culpa.
And I edited all the errors that jumped out at you. Hmm, and that was after I did a quick spelling/grammer check on it. I'll be more strict about it next time.
I loved that passage.
It'll get better. I almost feel bad for what that mephit went through... no, no I didn't.
![:]](http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png "Devious :]")
She however... she deserved what she got.
