"Ah yes," he says from over your shoulder, "this was a very entertaining bit. I'm sure that Shemmie was thrilled to borrow a set of my dice which had been gifted to me by a fox. The results were most entertaining. I'm not sure if it was more to Tristol's detriment or the red wizard's."Shemeska said:
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Shemmy's Planescape Storyhour #2 (Updated x3 10-17-07)
- Thread starter Shemeska
- Start date
Shemeska
Adventurer
Just so folks know, there will not be an update till next week. I just got handed something today that I cannot refuse, but which has a deadline of the 27th. Only after that is finished will I be able to work on SH. Infer as you like on what it is that has a deadline that I couldn't pass up on. 
Normally, I would guess, but as seeing how your job isn't relevant enough to leave tantalizing hints for, and a little something is coming out here soon, I'll be quiet.
Besides, I wouldn't want them to know that I'm waiting for them. Or else something like this would occur: Shussh! I'm hunting *disentergrate*
Besides, I wouldn't want them to know that I'm waiting for them. Or else something like this would occur: Shussh! I'm hunting *disentergrate*
Burningspear
First Post
joshhg said:
I'll dodge the disintegrate and zap him with my "Demon-prod" at 10D6 damage
, just to make him wake up..
Shemeska
Adventurer
Some time earlier:
As soon as they were alone, A’kin chuckled and put an arm over Phaedra’s shoulder, walking her towards the back room where a pot of tea was just coming to boil and a cookie jar sat in the center of a table with exactly two chairs already arranged and pulled out.
“So, what’s on your mind?” A’kin asked.
“I just wanted to see what you were up to.” Phaedra said, fibbing for all her worth.
A’kin turned and opened up the cookie jar, grinning as he did so.
“And the real reason that you’re back here?” He asked. “Because you’ve got that look in your eyes. Your sister gets the same look before she does something incredibly stupid and usually dangerous, and your brother has that look before doing something stodgy and righteous. I figure you’ve been up to something notable, something that you’re proud of, and so I’m curious.”
Phaedra’s ear tips blushed.
“Paragons of virtue your ears are.” A’kin said with a wry smile. “They’re simply incapable of lying when you have something you want to brag about.”
Not that she’d be able to lie to him if she tried. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t cast a single spell since she’d walked into his shop, and that little fact wouldn’t handicap him in the least in figuring out her intentions, or the truth of anything she said. It was quite useless trying to hide the truth from a being as old as him; he’d seen it all before, and any even momentary deception on her part paled to the labyrinthine intrigues of the Tower Arcane that underlay her father’s still cloudy past.
Not that she was intending to lie to him, and not that he’d ever see the need to peer into her thoughts or divine if she were lying to him.
“We got our first job.” She beamed a grin at her dad and suppressed a squeal.
“Congratulations my dear!” He said, returning her grin and leaning over to give her a hug. “I’m sure that you and Velkyn will have a blast.”
She paused. “How’d you know that?”
A’kin gave an innocent shrug and opened the cookie jar. The oversized ceramic vessel was cast into a caricature of Helekanalaith, the Keeper of the Tower Arcane, modeled accurately right down to the golden spectacles perched on his muzzle and the tiny, ubiquitous notebook in his hands. Unlike the real Helekanalaith however, the cookie jar Keeper had a large scroll stuffed in one ear and out the other to serve as a handle for the jar lid. And as A’kin reached inside, it was probably a safe bet to say that Gehenna’s arcanaloth lord wasn’t filled with chocolate chip and apple cinnamon cookies either.
“I hear things from time to time.” He coyly admitted. “But the more important question I think is which particular flavor of cookie you want? And I’ve got fresh peanut butter cookies in the oven if they’re more your fancy.”
“You didn’t answer my question dad.” Phaedra protested, even as her mouth watered and her father waved the cookies under her nose.
“And you didn’t answer mine either.” He replied. “I’ll trade you.”
“Chocolate chip.”
“Velkyn’s father let slip that his son was going off gallivanting with you on the planes.”
She shook her head. “Way to spill the beans.”
“Fathers talk about their kids.” He replied. “What can I say?”
“So what else do you know before I start telling you?”
A’kin shrugged. “Perhaps everything, perhaps nothing. But regardless, I want you to tell me all about it, and I don’t want to spoil your mood. So get comfy, enjoy the cookie, and tell me all about it.”
Well that opened the floodgate. Phaedra was positively bubbly about having gotten paid to go do something, even if it was going to be somewhere cold and on the prime.
“Toril hmm?” A’kin mused. “Funny how that world keeps spitting out archmages. There was Karsus, Nezram, Darkwood in a roundabout way, Yuvaraj, and Tristol who in that last case has the crazy habit of listening in whenever his name is called so why don’t I sing something repetitive for a moment rather than counting my words and…”
“I think you hit his word limit.”
“Just being on the safe side.” A’kin said as he very obviously was counting each and every word after invoking Tristol Starweather’s name. “Not that it would work on me inside here for various reasons, but it’s an ingrained habit I suppose.”
“But you were saying something about Toril and all?”
A’kin nodded. “Indeed. Most of my time there was in Halruaa once or twice, and then in the Moonsea area a few times over the millennia, both pretty far to the west of the Great Dale where you and your group will be. Much warmer too I might add, although that’s quite relative I suppose.”
Phaedra glanced at the cookie jar and then at the obsidian knife sitting next to the fuzzy oven mitts on top of the stove. Much warmer than the Dale was a relative term indeed.
“But do continue. Pardon me if I comment about past experiences, I’m old.”
Phaedra took a bite of her cookie. “Gives me a chance to enjoy this though, so no problem.”
Telekinesis swept up the crumbs and a moment later his daughter was back to babbling about what she was expecting, how much she thought she might get paid, her experience in the little trial by fire their employers had set up for them in Acheron, about the cute tiefling in the group, and how one of the mortals was getting on her nerves. A’kin let her babble and added only the occasional commentary, enjoying her excitement more than anything else.
Phaedra finished and finished her cookie about the same time. “Can I have another one?”
“And the magic words are?” He asked.
“… that’s a loaded word with you dad. Please?” She replied. “You’re a wizard, and a really –really- powerful one at that. You could conjure cookies out of nothing.”
“But there’s no fun in that.” A’kin said as he handed her another cookie. “There’s no challenge to just conjuring them like I’d conjure up some arcane monstrosity or cast a wish. Besides, actually cooking them lets me use the mitts and apron your mom got me.”
Phae nibbled more on her cookie. “So how’s mom doing?”
“Your mother is doing well.” He replied. “Still in Elysium. I haven’t seen her in a little while, but she’s doing well. Busy preemptively saving the multiverse like all good ciphers.”
“They’re like that.” Phaedra replied. “Hey, the Cadence didn’t wig out and make her stay away from falling for you.”
“I suppose you could say that.” A’kin mused. “But back to you and your new job…”
Phaedra left her father’s shop with something of a resigned sigh and a lingering smile. Her father was… well A’kin was A’kin and there was little else to describe. You had to know him. It’d been a productive visit though, and it was good to know that he was doing well for himself, quite well on a number of fronts.
She licked her lips and the front of her fangs, enjoying the last traces of the tea she’d sipped with him over the course of the past hour, trying to figure out the exact sort of flavors that he’d spiced it with. But more so, she was trying to mull over in her mind what he’d told her and what he’d actually meant, damned layers of subtleties and double meanings in how his caste spoke. She’d be pondering that for days probably, despite what she was and despite having grown up exposed to it. It wasn’t easy.
Phaedra chuckled as she walked off into the Lower Ward, away from the Friendly Fiend. She rubbed a sleeve across her cheek where she’d grumbled and finally acquiesced to a kiss goodbye before she’d left to meet up with her companions and their trip to Toril.
“I’m one of your kids and I still don’t know what to think sometimes…”
Martin N’arlanth, otherwise known as Martin the Widdershins Knife thumbed through the notebook in his hands, checking and double checking that he’d included a succinct summary of the information that his master had requested, and references to the complete ledgers and where they could be found if the ‘loth wanted to read them.
“Of course, he always does.” The tiefling muttered to himself, slapping his leather-wrapped tail against his thigh impatiently.
Despite growing up an orphan and street-thief in the depths of the Hive, dangerously close to the Slags, surrounded by fiends, the fiend-blooded, and mortals who either out of desperation or environment might as well have been fiends in their own right, Martin could never really feel comfortable around his employer. Perhaps he’d grow out of it as he continued working for the King of the Crosstrade, getting that sort of callous moral detachment that anyone working in Nerath’s employ seemed to gain after a few years. Or perhaps not and he’d end up a corpse well before that point.
But in any event, the list looked good, and all he needed to do at that point was twofold: steel himself for meeting the fiend face to face again, and neaten himself up. For whatever reason, the ‘loth had a thing for every direct employee of his dressing fastidiously. Gender didn’t even matter -male, female, or otherwise in the case of some of the other ‘loths under his thumb- you still had to dress well and keep yourself groomed enough to impress should you suddenly be called in to accompany him or anyone else he chose to any of a dozen public functions or high-society events. From what he’d heard from one of the full-blooded fiends in his employ, metaphorically speaking, Nerath was chiseled from the same block of stone as his predecessor.
The tiefling took the time to polish his boots and put on a waistcoat and jacket not sullied by the soot and grime of a day spent working in the Lower Ward. He combed his hair and tied it underneath his hat, and finally belted on a more ornate short sword than he normally preferred to carry, though just like his favored blade, it too was both poisoned and magically sharpened. He might have looked the part of a dandy in the fiend’s employ, but the look covered the fact that all of the ‘loth’s agents were cold-blooded killers when it came down to it.
Leaving his room, Martin passed through a series of portals, skipping across the wards in a zigzag pattern before ultimately ending up in a secluded corner behind the Fortune’s Wheel. From there it was only a short trip up the back stairs and a steady ascent to the fiend’s suite on the second floor above the tavern, situated solidly on the footprint of where the old Azure Iris Inn had once been located. He paused at the door and flashed a hand signal to the guard on the right, another tiefling like him, and then turned to the similarly dressed aasimar on his left. Nerath had a thing for planetouched employees, similar to how his predecessor had had a thing for tieflings.
Martin rattled off the current, properly nonsensical password to the aasimar and received another phrase in reply. Both phrases were a garbled mess of yugoloth, and as far as any of them standing there at the door knew, it didn’t carry any actual meaning outside of making sure that someone at the door wasn’t shapechanged or mentally controlled. In reality though, had any of them understood the complexities and ferociously tangled double meanings and wordplay of high yugoloth, they’d have known that they’d each just propositioned the other to perform a sex act on a gacholoth. But what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, unless of course the Marauder happened to have a gacholoth in their presence. It wasn’t all that much of a stretch to think that he might.
But the door swung open and a wash of scented smoke, perfume, and some other immediately identifiable scents drifted out into the hallway due to the temperature difference between there and the warmth of the fiend’s office and sitting room.
“I have what you asked for sir.” Martin said as he stepped inside, eyes watering from the smoke, and happy for the protection afforded by the periapt pinned to his cloak.
Sprawled across a divan, propped up on one elbow and naked above the waist except for a few jeweled piercings, and only wearing a mostly transparent sarong below that point, Nerath the Marauder inhaled from the gold and glass stem of an ornate pipe and exhaled streamers of smoke through his teeth. Hardly a trick of the light, the smoke curdled and took the form of dozens of agonized spirits, each turning to look and beckon at the tiefling before the arcanaloth gave him any attention whatsoever.
Thankfully the fiend had picked a specific gender at the moment, and although he/she/it wasn’t alone in the room, and had clearly been active, so to speak, quite recently, the tiefling didn’t have to politely ignore any physical incongruities that might have stared daggers at his mortal psychology’s attunement to a neat dichotomy of genders. The ‘loth seemed keenly aware that his fluidity in that regard had just such an affect, and reveled in it from time to time just to keep his enemies and even his employees mentally preoccupied or downright disturbed.
“Do tell.” The fiend said with what came off as a mixture of curiosity and drug-induced torpor, though in almost all certainty the drugs swirling through the smoke hadn’t affected him in the least. “When someone decides to be neighbors, I like to know who they are, especially when they’re spending as much as they apparently are.”
“For some of them it wasn’t very difficult at all.” Martin said. “The cleric, his brother, and their cohorts were entirely transparent in their history, their –brief- history on the planes. And then the tiefling, Inva Ebonblade, she has a history with the yugoloths, apparently having briefly been in the employ of then-Overlord of Carceri, Shylara the Manged, approximately 140 years ago.”
The King sneered and rolled his eyes at the Oinoloth’s mention. “…rotten, overly-presumptive, disease-ridden whore.”
Apparently there was no love lost between the two of them, and for more reasons than Martin, or anyone else in the room, or really anyone else in Sigil short of A’kin might have actually known. Still sneering, Nerath exhaled the last bits of smoke in his lungs and sent them swirling off as another cloud of tormented souls, while the naked alu-fiend concubine who lay on a bed of pillows to his side leaned up and licked at his face to comfort him.
“It doesn’t appear to have been anything more than business however, and unlike some of the others that apparently accompanied her on that particular assignment, she left intact, physically and otherwise.”
Nerath’s ears were perked and swiveled to focus on the tiefling even as the ‘loth turned his head and gently sucked on his concubine’s extended tongue. Displays of physical affection notwithstanding, he was focused on the tiefling’s report, and there was a flurry of telepathic questions and comments flowing from his brain.
“But she’s not the one who was the most interesting case.” Martin continued.
Nerath raised an eyebrow and gestured at his other concubine with an open hand. As naked as the alu-fiend, the lithe cambion poured a glass of wine and handed it to his master, pausing only to kiss the ‘loth’s hand and nuzzle against his thigh once he sat back down upon the floor. The fiend’s enjoyment was visually obvious.
“As I was saying sir…” Martin cleared his throat, glad that the ‘loth hadn’t yet opted to engage in outright carnality with either of his whores of the week while he’d been in the room.
“As I was saying, those weren’t the most interesting ones. One of them is Jarleth’s son, and the other is A’kin’s daughter, the sane one.”
The tiefling winced at the telepathic barrage that came next, thinking the answers to the fiend’s questions as fast as his master was asking them, only to eventually find himself rigid and an immaterial psionic probe jabbed into his mind like a shunt into a vein, draining his thoughts directly into the ‘loth’s senses. It was unpleasant, but Nerath’s interest was focused, and after a minute he withdrew the telepathic lance and smirked.
“Hmmph…” He snorted. “The spawn of a bartender with too much ambition, and the miscegenation of a fallen lupinal and my oh so favorite grinning idiot. How pleasant.”
Nerath took a deep pull from his pipe and held the smoke in for several long moments, clearly deep in thought, his face a mixture of expressions.
“Politics and circumstance make for strange bedfellows.” The ‘loth muttered to himself. “But while there’s no closer place to keep your enemies than in your bed from time to time, I didn’t sign up to have his sodding, fey-touched brat living one floor above me. Should just lodge a gem in his ankle and walk him over the side of the ring…”
“Will there be anything more sir?” Martin kept a straight face, keenly aware that Nerath was waiting for the owner of the Portal Jammer to finally age and die and be out of his life, and that the mention of A’kin the Friendly Fiend was wont to send him into just as much of a frothing rage as his predecessor.
“Yes actually.” Nerath said as a wicked grin spread across his muzzle. “There will be quite a bit more, and I’ll be handling it personally.”
“Sir?”
“You’ll be coming with me, and I’ll have something for you to deliver to their door. Afterwards your time is yours till tomorrow at noon when you’ll be taking payment from the runners guild.”
The ‘loth sat up and snuffed his pipe, the sudden movement eliciting a prominent jingle from his myriad of earrings and other piercings, immediately visible or not. He stretched languidly and then leaned down to deeply kiss each of his concubines before standing up and conjuring a layered illusion of more clothing.
"Time for business darlings, daddy has to go."
Phaedra’s ears perked the moment that the envelope slid under the door.
“You have no idea how amusing that is when you do that.” Inva said, already crouched over the letter and giving it a once-over.
“When I do what?”
“When your ears swivel a half-second before the rest of you does.” She answered. “That’s… that’s cute.”
“And it’s also not something I’m consciously doing.” Phaedra quipped back. “… little miss I heard it at the same time and jumped to see what it was before Phaedra did.”
“I’ll take quick before cute any day.”
“Bah.” Phaedra stuck her tongue out. “So what got slipped under the door, and who’s it from?”
“From Mr. “I have a big f*cking signature” himself.” Inva said as she held up a series of envelopes up to the light.
“My dad warned me about him…” Phaedra said as she peered over at the elaborately sealed letters, each of them decorated in golden trim that resembled a curl of razorvine around their edges.
“Did your dad warn you about me?” Inva asked sarcastically. “No? Then this guy can’t be half bad.”
“That guy’s a ‘loth.” Phaedra said a moment before she got tossed one letter specifically addressed to her.
Inva stuck out her tongue. “So’s your dad.”
“Point.”
“Disobey him once again and have some fun tinged with danger.” Inva said as she opened her own letter with the bladed tip of her tail. “That’s what life is all about sometimes.”
“Eh?” Phaedra asked.
“Having fun in the face of very real danger.” Inva replied. “If my own experience with fiends is any indication.”
The half-‘loth grinned. “Does that include teasing me?”
“Are you dangerous?” The tiefling smirked.
Phaedra smiled a mouthful of fangs but didn’t reply. Inva giggled tellingly.
Those ears perked again in surprise. “We’re being invited to dinner.”
“Dress to fit the occasion.” Inva recited from the letter. “Signed “Nerath the Marauder, King of the Crosstrade, member of the Sigil Advisory Council.””
Phaedra was still looking at the full letter with some skepticism, but Inva was positively delighted at the affair like a moth tempted to dance around a flame.
“Wait.” Phaedra said. “You said that we’re all invited?”
“Looks like it.” The tiefling replied. “Why?”
“Because there’re only six letters. Me, you, Victor, Garibaldi, Francesca, and Marcus… no Velkyn.”
As soon as they were alone, A’kin chuckled and put an arm over Phaedra’s shoulder, walking her towards the back room where a pot of tea was just coming to boil and a cookie jar sat in the center of a table with exactly two chairs already arranged and pulled out.
“So, what’s on your mind?” A’kin asked.
“I just wanted to see what you were up to.” Phaedra said, fibbing for all her worth.
A’kin turned and opened up the cookie jar, grinning as he did so.
“And the real reason that you’re back here?” He asked. “Because you’ve got that look in your eyes. Your sister gets the same look before she does something incredibly stupid and usually dangerous, and your brother has that look before doing something stodgy and righteous. I figure you’ve been up to something notable, something that you’re proud of, and so I’m curious.”
Phaedra’s ear tips blushed.
“Paragons of virtue your ears are.” A’kin said with a wry smile. “They’re simply incapable of lying when you have something you want to brag about.”
Not that she’d be able to lie to him if she tried. As far as she could tell, he hadn’t cast a single spell since she’d walked into his shop, and that little fact wouldn’t handicap him in the least in figuring out her intentions, or the truth of anything she said. It was quite useless trying to hide the truth from a being as old as him; he’d seen it all before, and any even momentary deception on her part paled to the labyrinthine intrigues of the Tower Arcane that underlay her father’s still cloudy past.
Not that she was intending to lie to him, and not that he’d ever see the need to peer into her thoughts or divine if she were lying to him.
“We got our first job.” She beamed a grin at her dad and suppressed a squeal.
“Congratulations my dear!” He said, returning her grin and leaning over to give her a hug. “I’m sure that you and Velkyn will have a blast.”
She paused. “How’d you know that?”
A’kin gave an innocent shrug and opened the cookie jar. The oversized ceramic vessel was cast into a caricature of Helekanalaith, the Keeper of the Tower Arcane, modeled accurately right down to the golden spectacles perched on his muzzle and the tiny, ubiquitous notebook in his hands. Unlike the real Helekanalaith however, the cookie jar Keeper had a large scroll stuffed in one ear and out the other to serve as a handle for the jar lid. And as A’kin reached inside, it was probably a safe bet to say that Gehenna’s arcanaloth lord wasn’t filled with chocolate chip and apple cinnamon cookies either.
“I hear things from time to time.” He coyly admitted. “But the more important question I think is which particular flavor of cookie you want? And I’ve got fresh peanut butter cookies in the oven if they’re more your fancy.”
“You didn’t answer my question dad.” Phaedra protested, even as her mouth watered and her father waved the cookies under her nose.
“And you didn’t answer mine either.” He replied. “I’ll trade you.”
“Chocolate chip.”
“Velkyn’s father let slip that his son was going off gallivanting with you on the planes.”
She shook her head. “Way to spill the beans.”
“Fathers talk about their kids.” He replied. “What can I say?”
“So what else do you know before I start telling you?”
A’kin shrugged. “Perhaps everything, perhaps nothing. But regardless, I want you to tell me all about it, and I don’t want to spoil your mood. So get comfy, enjoy the cookie, and tell me all about it.”
Well that opened the floodgate. Phaedra was positively bubbly about having gotten paid to go do something, even if it was going to be somewhere cold and on the prime.
“Toril hmm?” A’kin mused. “Funny how that world keeps spitting out archmages. There was Karsus, Nezram, Darkwood in a roundabout way, Yuvaraj, and Tristol who in that last case has the crazy habit of listening in whenever his name is called so why don’t I sing something repetitive for a moment rather than counting my words and…”
“I think you hit his word limit.”
“Just being on the safe side.” A’kin said as he very obviously was counting each and every word after invoking Tristol Starweather’s name. “Not that it would work on me inside here for various reasons, but it’s an ingrained habit I suppose.”
“But you were saying something about Toril and all?”
A’kin nodded. “Indeed. Most of my time there was in Halruaa once or twice, and then in the Moonsea area a few times over the millennia, both pretty far to the west of the Great Dale where you and your group will be. Much warmer too I might add, although that’s quite relative I suppose.”
Phaedra glanced at the cookie jar and then at the obsidian knife sitting next to the fuzzy oven mitts on top of the stove. Much warmer than the Dale was a relative term indeed.
“But do continue. Pardon me if I comment about past experiences, I’m old.”
Phaedra took a bite of her cookie. “Gives me a chance to enjoy this though, so no problem.”
Telekinesis swept up the crumbs and a moment later his daughter was back to babbling about what she was expecting, how much she thought she might get paid, her experience in the little trial by fire their employers had set up for them in Acheron, about the cute tiefling in the group, and how one of the mortals was getting on her nerves. A’kin let her babble and added only the occasional commentary, enjoying her excitement more than anything else.
Phaedra finished and finished her cookie about the same time. “Can I have another one?”
“And the magic words are?” He asked.
“… that’s a loaded word with you dad. Please?” She replied. “You’re a wizard, and a really –really- powerful one at that. You could conjure cookies out of nothing.”
“But there’s no fun in that.” A’kin said as he handed her another cookie. “There’s no challenge to just conjuring them like I’d conjure up some arcane monstrosity or cast a wish. Besides, actually cooking them lets me use the mitts and apron your mom got me.”
Phae nibbled more on her cookie. “So how’s mom doing?”
“Your mother is doing well.” He replied. “Still in Elysium. I haven’t seen her in a little while, but she’s doing well. Busy preemptively saving the multiverse like all good ciphers.”
“They’re like that.” Phaedra replied. “Hey, the Cadence didn’t wig out and make her stay away from falling for you.”
“I suppose you could say that.” A’kin mused. “But back to you and your new job…”
Phaedra left her father’s shop with something of a resigned sigh and a lingering smile. Her father was… well A’kin was A’kin and there was little else to describe. You had to know him. It’d been a productive visit though, and it was good to know that he was doing well for himself, quite well on a number of fronts.
She licked her lips and the front of her fangs, enjoying the last traces of the tea she’d sipped with him over the course of the past hour, trying to figure out the exact sort of flavors that he’d spiced it with. But more so, she was trying to mull over in her mind what he’d told her and what he’d actually meant, damned layers of subtleties and double meanings in how his caste spoke. She’d be pondering that for days probably, despite what she was and despite having grown up exposed to it. It wasn’t easy.
Phaedra chuckled as she walked off into the Lower Ward, away from the Friendly Fiend. She rubbed a sleeve across her cheek where she’d grumbled and finally acquiesced to a kiss goodbye before she’d left to meet up with her companions and their trip to Toril.
“I’m one of your kids and I still don’t know what to think sometimes…”
***
Martin N’arlanth, otherwise known as Martin the Widdershins Knife thumbed through the notebook in his hands, checking and double checking that he’d included a succinct summary of the information that his master had requested, and references to the complete ledgers and where they could be found if the ‘loth wanted to read them.
“Of course, he always does.” The tiefling muttered to himself, slapping his leather-wrapped tail against his thigh impatiently.
Despite growing up an orphan and street-thief in the depths of the Hive, dangerously close to the Slags, surrounded by fiends, the fiend-blooded, and mortals who either out of desperation or environment might as well have been fiends in their own right, Martin could never really feel comfortable around his employer. Perhaps he’d grow out of it as he continued working for the King of the Crosstrade, getting that sort of callous moral detachment that anyone working in Nerath’s employ seemed to gain after a few years. Or perhaps not and he’d end up a corpse well before that point.
But in any event, the list looked good, and all he needed to do at that point was twofold: steel himself for meeting the fiend face to face again, and neaten himself up. For whatever reason, the ‘loth had a thing for every direct employee of his dressing fastidiously. Gender didn’t even matter -male, female, or otherwise in the case of some of the other ‘loths under his thumb- you still had to dress well and keep yourself groomed enough to impress should you suddenly be called in to accompany him or anyone else he chose to any of a dozen public functions or high-society events. From what he’d heard from one of the full-blooded fiends in his employ, metaphorically speaking, Nerath was chiseled from the same block of stone as his predecessor.
The tiefling took the time to polish his boots and put on a waistcoat and jacket not sullied by the soot and grime of a day spent working in the Lower Ward. He combed his hair and tied it underneath his hat, and finally belted on a more ornate short sword than he normally preferred to carry, though just like his favored blade, it too was both poisoned and magically sharpened. He might have looked the part of a dandy in the fiend’s employ, but the look covered the fact that all of the ‘loth’s agents were cold-blooded killers when it came down to it.
Leaving his room, Martin passed through a series of portals, skipping across the wards in a zigzag pattern before ultimately ending up in a secluded corner behind the Fortune’s Wheel. From there it was only a short trip up the back stairs and a steady ascent to the fiend’s suite on the second floor above the tavern, situated solidly on the footprint of where the old Azure Iris Inn had once been located. He paused at the door and flashed a hand signal to the guard on the right, another tiefling like him, and then turned to the similarly dressed aasimar on his left. Nerath had a thing for planetouched employees, similar to how his predecessor had had a thing for tieflings.
Martin rattled off the current, properly nonsensical password to the aasimar and received another phrase in reply. Both phrases were a garbled mess of yugoloth, and as far as any of them standing there at the door knew, it didn’t carry any actual meaning outside of making sure that someone at the door wasn’t shapechanged or mentally controlled. In reality though, had any of them understood the complexities and ferociously tangled double meanings and wordplay of high yugoloth, they’d have known that they’d each just propositioned the other to perform a sex act on a gacholoth. But what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, unless of course the Marauder happened to have a gacholoth in their presence. It wasn’t all that much of a stretch to think that he might.
But the door swung open and a wash of scented smoke, perfume, and some other immediately identifiable scents drifted out into the hallway due to the temperature difference between there and the warmth of the fiend’s office and sitting room.
“I have what you asked for sir.” Martin said as he stepped inside, eyes watering from the smoke, and happy for the protection afforded by the periapt pinned to his cloak.
Sprawled across a divan, propped up on one elbow and naked above the waist except for a few jeweled piercings, and only wearing a mostly transparent sarong below that point, Nerath the Marauder inhaled from the gold and glass stem of an ornate pipe and exhaled streamers of smoke through his teeth. Hardly a trick of the light, the smoke curdled and took the form of dozens of agonized spirits, each turning to look and beckon at the tiefling before the arcanaloth gave him any attention whatsoever.
Thankfully the fiend had picked a specific gender at the moment, and although he/she/it wasn’t alone in the room, and had clearly been active, so to speak, quite recently, the tiefling didn’t have to politely ignore any physical incongruities that might have stared daggers at his mortal psychology’s attunement to a neat dichotomy of genders. The ‘loth seemed keenly aware that his fluidity in that regard had just such an affect, and reveled in it from time to time just to keep his enemies and even his employees mentally preoccupied or downright disturbed.
“Do tell.” The fiend said with what came off as a mixture of curiosity and drug-induced torpor, though in almost all certainty the drugs swirling through the smoke hadn’t affected him in the least. “When someone decides to be neighbors, I like to know who they are, especially when they’re spending as much as they apparently are.”
“For some of them it wasn’t very difficult at all.” Martin said. “The cleric, his brother, and their cohorts were entirely transparent in their history, their –brief- history on the planes. And then the tiefling, Inva Ebonblade, she has a history with the yugoloths, apparently having briefly been in the employ of then-Overlord of Carceri, Shylara the Manged, approximately 140 years ago.”
The King sneered and rolled his eyes at the Oinoloth’s mention. “…rotten, overly-presumptive, disease-ridden whore.”
Apparently there was no love lost between the two of them, and for more reasons than Martin, or anyone else in the room, or really anyone else in Sigil short of A’kin might have actually known. Still sneering, Nerath exhaled the last bits of smoke in his lungs and sent them swirling off as another cloud of tormented souls, while the naked alu-fiend concubine who lay on a bed of pillows to his side leaned up and licked at his face to comfort him.
“It doesn’t appear to have been anything more than business however, and unlike some of the others that apparently accompanied her on that particular assignment, she left intact, physically and otherwise.”
Nerath’s ears were perked and swiveled to focus on the tiefling even as the ‘loth turned his head and gently sucked on his concubine’s extended tongue. Displays of physical affection notwithstanding, he was focused on the tiefling’s report, and there was a flurry of telepathic questions and comments flowing from his brain.
“But she’s not the one who was the most interesting case.” Martin continued.
Nerath raised an eyebrow and gestured at his other concubine with an open hand. As naked as the alu-fiend, the lithe cambion poured a glass of wine and handed it to his master, pausing only to kiss the ‘loth’s hand and nuzzle against his thigh once he sat back down upon the floor. The fiend’s enjoyment was visually obvious.
“As I was saying sir…” Martin cleared his throat, glad that the ‘loth hadn’t yet opted to engage in outright carnality with either of his whores of the week while he’d been in the room.
“As I was saying, those weren’t the most interesting ones. One of them is Jarleth’s son, and the other is A’kin’s daughter, the sane one.”
The tiefling winced at the telepathic barrage that came next, thinking the answers to the fiend’s questions as fast as his master was asking them, only to eventually find himself rigid and an immaterial psionic probe jabbed into his mind like a shunt into a vein, draining his thoughts directly into the ‘loth’s senses. It was unpleasant, but Nerath’s interest was focused, and after a minute he withdrew the telepathic lance and smirked.
“Hmmph…” He snorted. “The spawn of a bartender with too much ambition, and the miscegenation of a fallen lupinal and my oh so favorite grinning idiot. How pleasant.”
Nerath took a deep pull from his pipe and held the smoke in for several long moments, clearly deep in thought, his face a mixture of expressions.
“Politics and circumstance make for strange bedfellows.” The ‘loth muttered to himself. “But while there’s no closer place to keep your enemies than in your bed from time to time, I didn’t sign up to have his sodding, fey-touched brat living one floor above me. Should just lodge a gem in his ankle and walk him over the side of the ring…”
“Will there be anything more sir?” Martin kept a straight face, keenly aware that Nerath was waiting for the owner of the Portal Jammer to finally age and die and be out of his life, and that the mention of A’kin the Friendly Fiend was wont to send him into just as much of a frothing rage as his predecessor.
“Yes actually.” Nerath said as a wicked grin spread across his muzzle. “There will be quite a bit more, and I’ll be handling it personally.”
“Sir?”
“You’ll be coming with me, and I’ll have something for you to deliver to their door. Afterwards your time is yours till tomorrow at noon when you’ll be taking payment from the runners guild.”
The ‘loth sat up and snuffed his pipe, the sudden movement eliciting a prominent jingle from his myriad of earrings and other piercings, immediately visible or not. He stretched languidly and then leaned down to deeply kiss each of his concubines before standing up and conjuring a layered illusion of more clothing.
"Time for business darlings, daddy has to go."
***
Phaedra’s ears perked the moment that the envelope slid under the door.
“You have no idea how amusing that is when you do that.” Inva said, already crouched over the letter and giving it a once-over.
“When I do what?”
“When your ears swivel a half-second before the rest of you does.” She answered. “That’s… that’s cute.”
“And it’s also not something I’m consciously doing.” Phaedra quipped back. “… little miss I heard it at the same time and jumped to see what it was before Phaedra did.”
“I’ll take quick before cute any day.”
“Bah.” Phaedra stuck her tongue out. “So what got slipped under the door, and who’s it from?”
“From Mr. “I have a big f*cking signature” himself.” Inva said as she held up a series of envelopes up to the light.
“My dad warned me about him…” Phaedra said as she peered over at the elaborately sealed letters, each of them decorated in golden trim that resembled a curl of razorvine around their edges.
“Did your dad warn you about me?” Inva asked sarcastically. “No? Then this guy can’t be half bad.”
“That guy’s a ‘loth.” Phaedra said a moment before she got tossed one letter specifically addressed to her.
Inva stuck out her tongue. “So’s your dad.”
“Point.”
“Disobey him once again and have some fun tinged with danger.” Inva said as she opened her own letter with the bladed tip of her tail. “That’s what life is all about sometimes.”
“Eh?” Phaedra asked.
“Having fun in the face of very real danger.” Inva replied. “If my own experience with fiends is any indication.”
The half-‘loth grinned. “Does that include teasing me?”
“Are you dangerous?” The tiefling smirked.
Phaedra smiled a mouthful of fangs but didn’t reply. Inva giggled tellingly.
Those ears perked again in surprise. “We’re being invited to dinner.”
“Dress to fit the occasion.” Inva recited from the letter. “Signed “Nerath the Marauder, King of the Crosstrade, member of the Sigil Advisory Council.””
Phaedra was still looking at the full letter with some skepticism, but Inva was positively delighted at the affair like a moth tempted to dance around a flame.
“Wait.” Phaedra said. “You said that we’re all invited?”
“Looks like it.” The tiefling replied. “Why?”
“Because there’re only six letters. Me, you, Victor, Garibaldi, Francesca, and Marcus… no Velkyn.”
***
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Eco-Mono
First Post
Wow.
1) I still like A'kin.
2) Nerath is a character, and absolutely makes sense as the next step of that particular post. And yes, I'm aware of the details vis-a-vis his assumption of it. Just makes it all the more... I want to say inappropriately appropriate?
3) "The sane one"?!
1) I still like A'kin.
2) Nerath is a character, and absolutely makes sense as the next step of that particular post. And yes, I'm aware of the details vis-a-vis his assumption of it. Just makes it all the more... I want to say inappropriately appropriate?
3) "The sane one"?!
