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Story Hour
Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
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<blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 2497200" data-attributes="member: 11697"><p>This is just a very short, quick update here to tide folks over while I'm at GenCon. My apologies in advance if I missed any typos here in my hurry to finish it before I had to pack etc.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">***</p><p></p><p></p><p>The next morning was a solemn affair once they all awoke and gathered to discuss the dream of the previous night. Clueless was unusually quiet, but the others didn’t take it as a sign of anything particularly wrong.</p><p></p><p> “Ten jink says that we see something from that whiskered rug-to-be in the next week.” Toras said.</p><p></p><p> “Can I have the hug?” Nisha asked. “Will it have the backwards paws and everything?”</p><p></p><p> Tristol chuckled.</p><p></p><p> “We’ll get you something like that even if Siddhartha doesn’t waltz into Sigil looking to kill us.”</p><p></p><p> “I really doubt he will.” Florian said. “Not his style.”</p><p></p><p> “Too demeaning to do it himself.” Fyrehowl said. “He might spill his tea.”</p><p></p><p> “Hired killers perhaps?” Toras asked.</p><p></p><p> “Seems likely.” Fyrehowl replied.</p><p></p><p> “Where’s Skalliska?” Clueless asked.</p><p></p><p> They glanced around, realizing that the kobold hadn’t gotten together with them that morning.</p><p></p><p> “She’s out shopping.” Nisha said. “She mentioned something about going down to buy something from Seamusxanthuszemus.”</p><p></p><p> “Oh don’t encourage that damn mephit…” Toras muttered.</p><p></p><p> “Whenever she gets back, whoever sees her first just make sure to mention to her that wandering around Sigil alone probably isn’t the best thing to be doing right now.” Fyrehowl said.</p><p></p><p> “We’ve got an angry noble Rakshasa pissed at us, and if he sends people into Sigil to kill us, which seems likely, we shouldn’t be out alone.”</p><p></p><p> Fyrehowl had just finished with that point when a piercing, rattling whine sounded through the door to the room. The lupinal’s ears twitched in instant aversion at the jarring sound.</p><p></p><p> “What the hell is that?” She asked as she walked over towards the door.</p><p></p><p> The sound wasn’t fading, though it seemed to fluctuate slightly along with a lower, base percussion that filtered through the door as well as a growing din of unhappy bar patrons.</p><p></p><p> By that point the others with less sensitive ears could make out the racket as well, though none of them seemed happy about it. It was truly atrocious and discomforting whatever it was, like nails on a chalkboard or slaadi mating calls, both things that nobody, absolutely nobody wanted to be within close proximity to witness.</p><p></p><p> “That’s not ending.” Florian said with a confused expression. “It’s getting louder. What the hell’s going on out there?”</p><p></p><p> “Meeting adjourned,” Clueless said. “If anyone has any other ideas mention them later.”</p><p></p><p> There was no objection and so they crept over towards the door, opened it and walked out into the main room of the Portal Jammer. None of the patrons seemed happy, many of them seemed on the verge of leaving, and some of them appeared to have already departed with only a drink left behind to perspire on the table they had otherwise been occupying.</p><p></p><p> “Are you going to do something about those two dullards out in front of the place? I come here after I work to relax, not listen to that mess!” One of the regular patrons, a mid-level functionary in the Hall of Information complained loudly.</p><p></p><p> “We’re seeing to it sir.” Florian replied as she gazed past the man, out the front door and to the two figures and their angry audience of hecklers out in the street in front of the Portal Jammer.</p><p></p><p> Nisha blinked and her tail drooped immediately.</p><p></p><p> “Oh not those two.” She said disparagingly. “Bleaknicks…”</p><p></p><p> Standing there on a stage made from an overturned rain barrel in the middle of the street was a garish black-clad figure gesturing with emphatic melodrama as he spouted lines of putrid, drawn out poetry. Next to him stood another figure all in black seated on a stool and playing a flute made from some form of fiend skull, occasionally banging a rhythm on a pale white drum.</p><p></p><p> Two male fensir twins, a type of troll or giant-kin unique to the plane of Ysgard, tall and spindly with gray skin, pronounced noses and chins and hideous fashion sense, they seemed intent to perform their wretched craft in the middle of the street there in front of the Portal Jammer. The speaker on top of the barrel squeaked from the movement of leather boots that went up to his knees as he motioned from one side to the next and spouted out lines of nonsensical so-called poetry. His head was shaved and tattooed with a black eclipsed sun and dark rings of wood ash circled his sunken blue eyes like a depressed mime.</p><p></p><p> The musician, his brother, was dressed and dolled up in a much less unique way, with simple black wool clothes, and only a shining silver ring in his nose standing out in any way. He piped away on his howler-skull flute, the source of the blaring noise driving away inn patrons, providing musical accompaniment to his brother’s poetry. While the fellow had a sense of rhythm, and actual talent, it wasn’t a style suited for public consumption outside of drunks in some of the avant-garde watering holes in the Hive near to the Gatehouse.</p><p></p><p> “Hey!” Florian shouted above the so-called music. “You can’t play here!”</p><p></p><p> They ignored her and continued, launching into another poem, much to the groans and catcalls of the crowd.</p><p></p><p> “Ohhhhhhhh Death…”</p><p></p><p> A discordant piping of the howler flute.</p><p></p><p> “Ohhhhhhh Misery…”</p><p></p><p> A rattled bang upon the drum.</p><p></p><p> “You make me laugh!”</p><p></p><p> A skyward wringing of the poet’s hands. A wheeze and shrill tone from the flute.</p><p></p><p> “You make me cry…”</p><p></p><p> A gloomy droning in lower tones from the howler-skull instrument.</p><p></p><p> “The point of it all…?”</p><p></p><p> The poet, Morvun hung his head and draped his arms in some exaggerated show of grief as the poem ended.</p><p></p><p> “Listen to me.” Florian shouted. “You can’t play here, you’re running off our customers.”</p><p></p><p> Again they ignored her and launched into another poem, Morvun’s <em>in</em>famous Death #258. Of course the crowd never heard them, and they never heard the crowd’s happy cheer because Florian grumbled and dropped a spell of silence over the brothers.</p><p></p><p> Eventually they realized what was going on and they paused, stopped, and moved over fifteen feet or so till they were out of the magical silence and free to start up once again. And, once more, Florian responded by dropped a bubble of silence over them again.</p><p></p><p> This happened three more times before she finally managed to get a response out of the pair of sullen performers.</p><p></p><p> “Why are you doing this?” She asked them.</p><p></p><p> “Well this is where we were hired to play today.” Morvun said.</p><p></p><p> “We never hired you.” Florian replied. “I’d have a massive hangover today if I had gotten drunk enough to willingly do so.”</p><p></p><p> Morvun frowned and looked away dramatically, his ego bruised.</p><p></p><p> “Never said –you- hired us.” Phineas said. “Just that we were indeed paid to play here.”</p><p></p><p> “By who?” Florian asked, though she already suspected the answer.</p><p></p><p> “Chap who owns the 12 Factols.” Phineas replied.</p><p></p><p> “Son of a…” Florian cursed. “How much did he pay you?”</p><p></p><p> “Enough to soothe this tormented genius’ soul…” Morvun said.</p><p></p><p> Phineas replied with an actual number.</p><p></p><p> “How about I pay you to stop playing?” Florian asked.</p><p></p><p> “An affront to my poetic genius I tell you.” Morvun replied quickly.</p><p></p><p> Phineas sighed.</p><p></p><p> “How about I pay you double to perform back in front of the 12 Factols?” Florian said, a slow grin appearing on her face.</p><p></p><p> Much more practical than his brother, Phineas took the hint, and double the payment, as he packed up his instruments and walked off with his brother over towards the Lady’s Ward and their next venue of performance.</p><p></p><p> “Not bad.” Toras said to Florian. “I just hope that jack*ss in the Lady’s Ward doesn’t just pay them to come right back here.”</p><p></p><p> The cleric shrugged.</p><p></p><p> “I doubt it. And I hope not. My ears couldn’t take much more of that garbage. Tempus forbid, that stuff was terrible.”</p><p></p><p> “Eh,” Toras said with a shrug. “We’ll see how it turns out. Can’t get much worse than that mess.”</p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">***</p><p></p><p></p><p>An hour later and on the other side of Sigil, Reiersen was beside himself as he marched out into the street and right up to the two so-called performers that he’d earlier hired to play outside of the Portal Jammer. He’d been sitting and looking over financial figures for the last month when the blaring racket from up on the street had filtered down to his ears and he realized what it was. He was not pleased in the slightest.</p><p></p><p> “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He said, jamming a finger into Morvun’s stomach, looking up angrily at the so-called poet.</p><p></p><p> “Performing… a bit of sullen irony… a flash of gloom…”</p><p></p><p> “Shut up.” Reiersen said, jabbing his finger into the poet again. “I didn’t pay you to run away –my- customers you idiot. What wasn’t clear about where I paid you to go perform?”</p><p></p><p> “Nothing sir.” Phineas said as he brushed his hair out of his eyes. “They didn’t care for us so they paid us more to come back here and perform for you and yours.”</p><p></p><p> “WHAT?!” Reiersen sputtered in fury.</p><p></p><p> “Quite lucrative actually.” The musician said as he readied his howler-skull flute for the next piece.</p><p></p><p> The owner of the 12 Factols was seeing red as he smacked at the musician’s flute and tried to push the fensir out of the way.</p><p></p><p>“Well if you don’t quit playing that sh*t you call music I’ll go hire myself a damn high hierophant of Ra! And once they have you turned into two sodding ugly hunks of stone I’ll have you carved down into something less depressing and rename my place the bloody 14 Factols!”</p><p></p><p> The two brothers glanced at one another.</p><p></p><p> “How much more you willing to pay us to go back to the Jammer?” Phineas asked.</p><p></p><p> Reiersen’s eyes went wide and he simply began screaming incoherent threats at them as they gathered up their meager belongings and left. After they left he stalked back to his office and began plotting some other way of snubbing the Portal Jammer, though his first idea met with little success. </p><p></p><p>Though it seemed like a great idea at the time: hiring some Xaositects to deface the front of his rivals’ inn, his attempts to actually hire them all seemed to come to naught. For whatever reason none of them wanted to work for him, and the most he ended up with was a letter penned back to him on what appeared to be upside down Fraternity of Order legal stationary. Written largely in scramblespeak and at least eight or nine languages, the only thing he could make out of it was a repeated phrase of ‘Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!’ and a signature of ‘Nisha, high lord of Xaos and bringer of frustration to spoiled Lady’s Ward tavern owners, except on every 6th Friday of the month when she’s known as Ygorl the cuddliest slaadi’.</p><p></p><p> Ultimately Reiersen decided to simply take the matter to court, maybe shop around for which judge he could buy off, given that the less than legal but not criminal route wasn’t exactly working. But of course, his actions and intentions hadn’t been missed by other persons watching such things.</p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">***</p><p></p><p></p><p> It was eight hours after peak when they arrived, just as the light had fully slipped over towards the hazy gloom of twilight and evening. Seventy-five garrulous dwarves, all members of the same clan and all members of the same massive mercenary and adventuring party. They were already singing as they moved down the street of that section of the Lady’s Ward, congregating outside of the façade of the 12 Factols, heady with wine purchased in Glorium only an hour earlier.</p><p></p><p> With shouts and slurred chanting they gathered there on Dossy Street, raising fists and weapons into the air amid the echo of their clan name and jubilation over their recent looting of the horde of a young fang dragon in the mountains south of Glorium there in the Outlands. They were laden with as much of their wealth as they could manage to carry into Sigil and they were in a mood to spend it till they passed out.</p><p></p><p> An hour earlier they had arranged for a massive delivery of ale and wine to the 12 Factols, an establishment that they were assured was large enough and well equipped enough to handle their numbers, their tastes, and their intended raucous celebration. Of course, things being what they were, while the alcohol had arrived in the storerooms and festhalls of the 12 Factols according to their needs, the letters and reservation of the rooms that they had sent along to the staff and owners of the establishment had suffered in transit…</p><p></p><p> “Sir?” Aranath Neilson asked over towards Jurgen Reiersen. </p><p></p><p>Aranath was a middle aged aasimar who served as the major domo for any larger festivities in the 12 Factols, but while he was normally a placid calm amidst any revelry, he had a worried expression on his face and in his tone of voice as he tried to catch the attention of his employer as he stood there in the door of his office.</p><p></p><p> “What is it Aran?” Reiersen asked without looking up from his copy of the Tempus Sigilian.</p><p></p><p> “Sir? The dwarves we set up for Storm Hall this evening. How many of them were there supposed to be?”</p><p></p><p> Reierson grumbled and looked up impatiently.</p><p></p><p> “Nine of them.” He said, “That’s what their letter said when they asked us to prepare a portion of the room. You should know that already, or am I paying you too much to do your job poorly?”</p><p></p><p> Aranath didn’t reply, and he didn’t need to as a low rumble and roar reached their ears. Reiersen’s wine glass began to rattle and then tipped over as he hurriedly dashed from his desk, pushing his employee aside and burst out into the open festhall beyond.</p><p></p><p> His eyes went wide as he watched the living tide of dwarves pouring down the 88 steps down from the street and into Storm Hall, shouting singing and already falling over one another onto the furniture and current patrons as they dashed for the alcohol.</p><p></p><p> “Dance with me sweetheart!” A drunken, stumbling dwarf slurred lustfully as he fell onto Reierson, knocking him over with the seemingly unending avalanche of already tipsy revelers.</p><p></p><p> Reierson was screaming at the top of his lungs as he could already see the potential for damage as the first few dozen dwarves began to make their way across the hall in a sprawl of stumbling bodies, broken furniture, and startled cries of more civilized patrons.</p><p> </p><p>“Get off me! You can’t come in here! You didn’t tell us ahead of time! We can’t handle this many people! This is an upstanding establishment not the Bottle and Jug down in the damn Hive!”</p><p></p><p>“You’re a right fine doxy!” The drunkard said as he felt up the inn’s owner who could only watch and whimper.</p><p></p><p> “NOOoooooooooooo…..!!!!!”</p><p></p><p> Outside the crash and din of the joyous obliteration of the 12 Factols main tap room, a tiefling turned and smiled at the fiend standing next to him. Her ears were perked to the sounds rising up and out of the entrance to the formerly high-class inn.</p><p></p><p> “I saw to the change in the number of revelers the 12 Factols were expecting,” The tiefling said politely to his employer. “I saw to inviting others as well. By the end of the evening they’ll likely see over three hundred, and the wine will be supplied to them for free the whole time, at least till they’re all drunk and wanting more, then they’ll probably break into the stocks in the storerooms down there. It should be amusing mistress.”</p><p></p><p> The King of the Crosstrade simply smiled.</p><p></p><p> “I’m such a whore for misery.”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Shemeska, post: 2497200, member: 11697"] This is just a very short, quick update here to tide folks over while I'm at GenCon. My apologies in advance if I missed any typos here in my hurry to finish it before I had to pack etc. [center]***[/center] The next morning was a solemn affair once they all awoke and gathered to discuss the dream of the previous night. Clueless was unusually quiet, but the others didn’t take it as a sign of anything particularly wrong. “Ten jink says that we see something from that whiskered rug-to-be in the next week.” Toras said. “Can I have the hug?” Nisha asked. “Will it have the backwards paws and everything?” Tristol chuckled. “We’ll get you something like that even if Siddhartha doesn’t waltz into Sigil looking to kill us.” “I really doubt he will.” Florian said. “Not his style.” “Too demeaning to do it himself.” Fyrehowl said. “He might spill his tea.” “Hired killers perhaps?” Toras asked. “Seems likely.” Fyrehowl replied. “Where’s Skalliska?” Clueless asked. They glanced around, realizing that the kobold hadn’t gotten together with them that morning. “She’s out shopping.” Nisha said. “She mentioned something about going down to buy something from Seamusxanthuszemus.” “Oh don’t encourage that damn mephit…” Toras muttered. “Whenever she gets back, whoever sees her first just make sure to mention to her that wandering around Sigil alone probably isn’t the best thing to be doing right now.” Fyrehowl said. “We’ve got an angry noble Rakshasa pissed at us, and if he sends people into Sigil to kill us, which seems likely, we shouldn’t be out alone.” Fyrehowl had just finished with that point when a piercing, rattling whine sounded through the door to the room. The lupinal’s ears twitched in instant aversion at the jarring sound. “What the hell is that?” She asked as she walked over towards the door. The sound wasn’t fading, though it seemed to fluctuate slightly along with a lower, base percussion that filtered through the door as well as a growing din of unhappy bar patrons. By that point the others with less sensitive ears could make out the racket as well, though none of them seemed happy about it. It was truly atrocious and discomforting whatever it was, like nails on a chalkboard or slaadi mating calls, both things that nobody, absolutely nobody wanted to be within close proximity to witness. “That’s not ending.” Florian said with a confused expression. “It’s getting louder. What the hell’s going on out there?” “Meeting adjourned,” Clueless said. “If anyone has any other ideas mention them later.” There was no objection and so they crept over towards the door, opened it and walked out into the main room of the Portal Jammer. None of the patrons seemed happy, many of them seemed on the verge of leaving, and some of them appeared to have already departed with only a drink left behind to perspire on the table they had otherwise been occupying. “Are you going to do something about those two dullards out in front of the place? I come here after I work to relax, not listen to that mess!” One of the regular patrons, a mid-level functionary in the Hall of Information complained loudly. “We’re seeing to it sir.” Florian replied as she gazed past the man, out the front door and to the two figures and their angry audience of hecklers out in the street in front of the Portal Jammer. Nisha blinked and her tail drooped immediately. “Oh not those two.” She said disparagingly. “Bleaknicks…” Standing there on a stage made from an overturned rain barrel in the middle of the street was a garish black-clad figure gesturing with emphatic melodrama as he spouted lines of putrid, drawn out poetry. Next to him stood another figure all in black seated on a stool and playing a flute made from some form of fiend skull, occasionally banging a rhythm on a pale white drum. Two male fensir twins, a type of troll or giant-kin unique to the plane of Ysgard, tall and spindly with gray skin, pronounced noses and chins and hideous fashion sense, they seemed intent to perform their wretched craft in the middle of the street there in front of the Portal Jammer. The speaker on top of the barrel squeaked from the movement of leather boots that went up to his knees as he motioned from one side to the next and spouted out lines of nonsensical so-called poetry. His head was shaved and tattooed with a black eclipsed sun and dark rings of wood ash circled his sunken blue eyes like a depressed mime. The musician, his brother, was dressed and dolled up in a much less unique way, with simple black wool clothes, and only a shining silver ring in his nose standing out in any way. He piped away on his howler-skull flute, the source of the blaring noise driving away inn patrons, providing musical accompaniment to his brother’s poetry. While the fellow had a sense of rhythm, and actual talent, it wasn’t a style suited for public consumption outside of drunks in some of the avant-garde watering holes in the Hive near to the Gatehouse. “Hey!” Florian shouted above the so-called music. “You can’t play here!” They ignored her and continued, launching into another poem, much to the groans and catcalls of the crowd. “Ohhhhhhhh Death…” A discordant piping of the howler flute. “Ohhhhhhh Misery…” A rattled bang upon the drum. “You make me laugh!” A skyward wringing of the poet’s hands. A wheeze and shrill tone from the flute. “You make me cry…” A gloomy droning in lower tones from the howler-skull instrument. “The point of it all…?” The poet, Morvun hung his head and draped his arms in some exaggerated show of grief as the poem ended. “Listen to me.” Florian shouted. “You can’t play here, you’re running off our customers.” Again they ignored her and launched into another poem, Morvun’s [I]in[/I]famous Death #258. Of course the crowd never heard them, and they never heard the crowd’s happy cheer because Florian grumbled and dropped a spell of silence over the brothers. Eventually they realized what was going on and they paused, stopped, and moved over fifteen feet or so till they were out of the magical silence and free to start up once again. And, once more, Florian responded by dropped a bubble of silence over them again. This happened three more times before she finally managed to get a response out of the pair of sullen performers. “Why are you doing this?” She asked them. “Well this is where we were hired to play today.” Morvun said. “We never hired you.” Florian replied. “I’d have a massive hangover today if I had gotten drunk enough to willingly do so.” Morvun frowned and looked away dramatically, his ego bruised. “Never said –you- hired us.” Phineas said. “Just that we were indeed paid to play here.” “By who?” Florian asked, though she already suspected the answer. “Chap who owns the 12 Factols.” Phineas replied. “Son of a…” Florian cursed. “How much did he pay you?” “Enough to soothe this tormented genius’ soul…” Morvun said. Phineas replied with an actual number. “How about I pay you to stop playing?” Florian asked. “An affront to my poetic genius I tell you.” Morvun replied quickly. Phineas sighed. “How about I pay you double to perform back in front of the 12 Factols?” Florian said, a slow grin appearing on her face. Much more practical than his brother, Phineas took the hint, and double the payment, as he packed up his instruments and walked off with his brother over towards the Lady’s Ward and their next venue of performance. “Not bad.” Toras said to Florian. “I just hope that jack*ss in the Lady’s Ward doesn’t just pay them to come right back here.” The cleric shrugged. “I doubt it. And I hope not. My ears couldn’t take much more of that garbage. Tempus forbid, that stuff was terrible.” “Eh,” Toras said with a shrug. “We’ll see how it turns out. Can’t get much worse than that mess.” [center]***[/center] An hour later and on the other side of Sigil, Reiersen was beside himself as he marched out into the street and right up to the two so-called performers that he’d earlier hired to play outside of the Portal Jammer. He’d been sitting and looking over financial figures for the last month when the blaring racket from up on the street had filtered down to his ears and he realized what it was. He was not pleased in the slightest. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He said, jamming a finger into Morvun’s stomach, looking up angrily at the so-called poet. “Performing… a bit of sullen irony… a flash of gloom…” “Shut up.” Reiersen said, jabbing his finger into the poet again. “I didn’t pay you to run away –my- customers you idiot. What wasn’t clear about where I paid you to go perform?” “Nothing sir.” Phineas said as he brushed his hair out of his eyes. “They didn’t care for us so they paid us more to come back here and perform for you and yours.” “WHAT?!” Reiersen sputtered in fury. “Quite lucrative actually.” The musician said as he readied his howler-skull flute for the next piece. The owner of the 12 Factols was seeing red as he smacked at the musician’s flute and tried to push the fensir out of the way. “Well if you don’t quit playing that sh*t you call music I’ll go hire myself a damn high hierophant of Ra! And once they have you turned into two sodding ugly hunks of stone I’ll have you carved down into something less depressing and rename my place the bloody 14 Factols!” The two brothers glanced at one another. “How much more you willing to pay us to go back to the Jammer?” Phineas asked. Reiersen’s eyes went wide and he simply began screaming incoherent threats at them as they gathered up their meager belongings and left. After they left he stalked back to his office and began plotting some other way of snubbing the Portal Jammer, though his first idea met with little success. Though it seemed like a great idea at the time: hiring some Xaositects to deface the front of his rivals’ inn, his attempts to actually hire them all seemed to come to naught. For whatever reason none of them wanted to work for him, and the most he ended up with was a letter penned back to him on what appeared to be upside down Fraternity of Order legal stationary. Written largely in scramblespeak and at least eight or nine languages, the only thing he could make out of it was a repeated phrase of ‘Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!’ and a signature of ‘Nisha, high lord of Xaos and bringer of frustration to spoiled Lady’s Ward tavern owners, except on every 6th Friday of the month when she’s known as Ygorl the cuddliest slaadi’. Ultimately Reiersen decided to simply take the matter to court, maybe shop around for which judge he could buy off, given that the less than legal but not criminal route wasn’t exactly working. But of course, his actions and intentions hadn’t been missed by other persons watching such things. [center]***[/center] It was eight hours after peak when they arrived, just as the light had fully slipped over towards the hazy gloom of twilight and evening. Seventy-five garrulous dwarves, all members of the same clan and all members of the same massive mercenary and adventuring party. They were already singing as they moved down the street of that section of the Lady’s Ward, congregating outside of the façade of the 12 Factols, heady with wine purchased in Glorium only an hour earlier. With shouts and slurred chanting they gathered there on Dossy Street, raising fists and weapons into the air amid the echo of their clan name and jubilation over their recent looting of the horde of a young fang dragon in the mountains south of Glorium there in the Outlands. They were laden with as much of their wealth as they could manage to carry into Sigil and they were in a mood to spend it till they passed out. An hour earlier they had arranged for a massive delivery of ale and wine to the 12 Factols, an establishment that they were assured was large enough and well equipped enough to handle their numbers, their tastes, and their intended raucous celebration. Of course, things being what they were, while the alcohol had arrived in the storerooms and festhalls of the 12 Factols according to their needs, the letters and reservation of the rooms that they had sent along to the staff and owners of the establishment had suffered in transit… “Sir?” Aranath Neilson asked over towards Jurgen Reiersen. Aranath was a middle aged aasimar who served as the major domo for any larger festivities in the 12 Factols, but while he was normally a placid calm amidst any revelry, he had a worried expression on his face and in his tone of voice as he tried to catch the attention of his employer as he stood there in the door of his office. “What is it Aran?” Reiersen asked without looking up from his copy of the Tempus Sigilian. “Sir? The dwarves we set up for Storm Hall this evening. How many of them were there supposed to be?” Reierson grumbled and looked up impatiently. “Nine of them.” He said, “That’s what their letter said when they asked us to prepare a portion of the room. You should know that already, or am I paying you too much to do your job poorly?” Aranath didn’t reply, and he didn’t need to as a low rumble and roar reached their ears. Reiersen’s wine glass began to rattle and then tipped over as he hurriedly dashed from his desk, pushing his employee aside and burst out into the open festhall beyond. His eyes went wide as he watched the living tide of dwarves pouring down the 88 steps down from the street and into Storm Hall, shouting singing and already falling over one another onto the furniture and current patrons as they dashed for the alcohol. “Dance with me sweetheart!” A drunken, stumbling dwarf slurred lustfully as he fell onto Reierson, knocking him over with the seemingly unending avalanche of already tipsy revelers. Reierson was screaming at the top of his lungs as he could already see the potential for damage as the first few dozen dwarves began to make their way across the hall in a sprawl of stumbling bodies, broken furniture, and startled cries of more civilized patrons. “Get off me! You can’t come in here! You didn’t tell us ahead of time! We can’t handle this many people! This is an upstanding establishment not the Bottle and Jug down in the damn Hive!” “You’re a right fine doxy!” The drunkard said as he felt up the inn’s owner who could only watch and whimper. “NOOoooooooooooo…..!!!!!” Outside the crash and din of the joyous obliteration of the 12 Factols main tap room, a tiefling turned and smiled at the fiend standing next to him. Her ears were perked to the sounds rising up and out of the entrance to the formerly high-class inn. “I saw to the change in the number of revelers the 12 Factols were expecting,” The tiefling said politely to his employer. “I saw to inviting others as well. By the end of the evening they’ll likely see over three hundred, and the wine will be supplied to them for free the whole time, at least till they’re all drunk and wanting more, then they’ll probably break into the stocks in the storerooms down there. It should be amusing mistress.” The King of the Crosstrade simply smiled. “I’m such a whore for misery.” [/QUOTE]
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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
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