Turtle Soup (Planescape 3.5e)

[The803]

Any party large enough to open a gate to the World Serpent is bound to start at either the Civic Festhall of the Sensates. By the time the three of you thread your way through Sigil's winding streets to the Clerk's Ward, a crowd of several hundred sods has gathered there.

Casks of bub, carried by muscular bariaur, are already threading their way through the crowd, pouring only for berks with a turtle shell. Githzerai guards flex their knotted muscles and practice their humorless gazes at the crowd as they move through it like sharks.

The word slowly trickles in as Andarin tries to get the dark of the occasion; a string of ramshackle houses and buildings, along the Clerks' Ward edge of the Hive, are being torn down against the wishes of those who make their kips there (most are squatters, but a few are charitable bloods who give shelter for one reason or another).

The party is to run in a line from place to place, and there's much argument in the crowd as to who is sponsoring the whole business; the hivers who want to protect their homes with an unending celebration or the landlords what want their homes torn apart by the revelry. The Xaositects, who have gathered here in force, don't care; it promises to be a party to remember.

Looking around, Jurgen notices a conspicuous absence of fiends other than the occasional tiefling. Rhys notices a large number of fey in the crowd.

 

[Boddynock]

"OK bloods," says Andarin, sipping from his shell full of bub, and pulling a wry face at the taste, "now that we're here, what do you want to do? I can get these berks dancing, if you like," said as he pulls his recorder partway out of his pocket, "or we can simply wander and tipple and see what's afoot."

"There's no way of telling at the moment who's calling the shots - whether it's the Hivers or the landlords, the Indeps could be backing them both. What's say we look for some talent - a diversion and delight of the moment? We could find Rhys that Sensate ... or look for some moxie for me! Ho, Blue, what about you? Are you interested in tripping the tango to a planar trio, or something more exotic still?"

 

[Lobo Lurker]

Jurden quaffs a shell full of foaming beer and grimaces. "Ack! You can get better swill on Baator..." He looks around guiltily. "Not that I'm given to partying on Baator or anything."

"Uhh... let just carouse and see what we find, shall we? Maybe we can help these hivers strike back at the esablishment while we're at it."

Jurden will be partying it up as only a Ysgardian can, drawing upon his experiences growing up in and around the festhalls of the Valkyries, Norse Powers, and thier petitioners. But he'll also keep an eye out for any fiends that might try to use the activity to get a drunken sod to sign-up for Blood War service... or even outright kidnap them.

While he's at it, he'll be rude and overly boisterous with the landlords (assuming he can identify any of them) and he'll encourage the hivers to really party it up. If there are any dabus around, he'll try to make himself somewhat scarce, but he'll pull any overly boistrous partiers away from the dabus if he can... "...no sense in anyone getting mazed or killed jus' cuz they spilled thier drink on a dabus." He reasons.

 

[The803]

As you refill your shells at one of the casks, the bariaur carrying it offers each of you a metal ladle that looks like a turtle's head.

Slow down there, bloods; this party's just getting started. There'll be plenty o' drink for ye in the belly o' the World Serpent, and better quality to be sure. Right now we need you shell-carriers to spread the bub around.

A githzerai guard chimes in, If you don't want to get mobbed, make a game of it. Make each bubber give you something, something that's anyone's to give, like a song or a poem or the answer to a riddle; anything that'll take a few moments for them to think of and do will give you a little time, and if it's entertaining will give you space.

The shell bowls hold enough liquid to fill the ladle 6 times. The githzerai guards are quick to defend shell-carriers and cask-bearers with fists and grapples, and several impressive fights break out as the entire crowd heaves towards the Hive, following the bariaur-borne casks and the small crowds of shell-carriers and guards that surround each one.

Bubbers approaching you are quick to ask "what's yer gimmick?" and generally do their best to perform. Some shell carriers team up, others let each previous bubber name the price for the next one.

What are your characters' gimmicks?

 

[LordAspen]

Rhys found the journey to the Hive to be quite an interesting experience. The pure diversity of the inhabitants of Sigil was quite staggering. An interplanar Crossroads indeed! The Fey-Touched was not nearly as shocked as his companions believed by the appearances of those their path crossed. He had after all spent decades living among the equally fantastic fairie folk. What was unbelievable to him, however, was the fact that mortal enemies somehow coexisted in this place.
“The Lady and her Dabus must be powerful indeed to be able to keep the order. It is no wonder Jurden tries to keep a low profile when the Dabus are present” the Fey-Touched thought to himself. Rhys was beginning to think that might not be such a bad idea.

Content to let the nimble halfling range ahead and letting the big Ghaele carve a path through the crowds, Rhys was able to ponder his situation a bit. The mysterious planar disturbance that occurred while traveling the Faerie cross roads and dropped him here was quite perplexing. He had used that Fey pathway for years without event. The fact that he was on his way to the Gathering when the irregularity had occurred was troubling. A Gathering is only called when some danger is posed to an entire Fey Enclave and can only be issued by emissaries of the Seelie Court currently ruled by King Oberon and Queen Tatiana. Rhys could only guess that it had something to do with their opposite, the wicked Unseelie court.

Stranded as he was in Sigil, Rhys shrugged and figured he would make the best of it for now. He was after all on his way to a party.

*****
“You see Jurden, my friend, it wasn’t the absurd tree sticking out of that things back that got me so, it was the damn squirrels. If only you could have seen where they were trying to hide their nuts!” Rhys loudly blurted out in laughter.

“You know this stuff tastes a lot better now. I think I might have another…”

Taking another big swig from his now nearly empty turtle shell the green haired man looked about for a refill. “Either of you want a refill? I’m buy…Hey look, Fey Folk! I think I’ll go mosey on over and chat with them. Looks like there might be a couple of gamers over there.” His gaze directed at a couple of the female persuasion, “Maybe I can line something up for ya, Andarin. What say ye?”

With that Rhys refills his turtle shell, smoothes his long green coat, ruffles his hand through his unruly hair and staggers over to a group of the Fey. When he arrives he introduces himself tries to glean any additional information about this evening’s festivities or any other news of import from them.

If any are bubbers and are interested in a swag of his brew Rhys demands that they dance a jig while reciting a racy poem. Unsurprisingly the truly exceptional looking ladies earn themselves a double and a wink.


{OOC: Darn you beat me to my post. Sorry took so long. Was sick last night and was tied up in meetings this morning}

 

[Lobo Lurker]

OOC: Gimmick? Uhh...

Jurden will make the hiver's wrestle each other (to the pin or tap out, not to the death or blood) for the right to a drink. Or they can see who can throw cinder blocks the furthest.

"C'mon then then, you can pin him!"

"No, use your toes!"

"Heh, she's just a teenzy-weenzy little tiefer, why're you all so afraid of her?"

OOC-2: I'm going out of town for 4 days. Takin' my wife on vacation. ^_^ "See" you guys/gals on Monday.

 

[Boddynock]

"A gimmick, eh? No problem! Step up bubbers, step up - step high and step lively and step up."

Managing with some difficulty to balance shell and ladle in his left hand, Andarin reaches into his pocket with his right and takes out his recorder. Smiling as he puts it to his lips, he pipes a lively tune. "Come now and dance then, my hearties - trip a toe-shuffle to The Lady!"

Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, the notes of his tune flood out over the party. If a cutter listens carefully she hears that he achieves the effect with fast tongued, repeated notes, rather than florid flourishes and scales. There is, after all, a limit to what a blood can achieve, when he's only using one hand.

Frowning at the interruptions to his playing that come with the serving of bub to those revellers who dance to his tune, he glances around and catches a skeg of a stunningly beautiful blood. Seeing her surrounded by a dozen admirers, he grins to himself and boldly strides to stand before her. "Mercy, Lady, I have my hands full and it would be a blessing if you'd help me to play here!" Flashing his best angelic smile, he reaches up and puts the bowl and ladle into her hands, sketches a bow, and then begins to play in a way set to ravish the souls of his hearers.

Continually bowing and nodding to his beautiful assistant, and looking wide-eyed and innocent at her irritated admirers, Andarin gradually increases the tempo. He raises the pitch of the party with care - leading not to violence but to delight and abandon. Pausing only to sip from the bowl, and to kiss his fair lady's fingers, he plays on and on, in his element and loving every minute of it.

 

[The803]

A crowd of attractive women gathers around Andarin and Rhys, and a crowd of thick-thewed bashers gathers around Jurgen. The strongest of the lot is a misshapen lump of, well, none of you are sure what it is. The thing appears to be unfamiliar with the language, but seems very inquisitive. Everyone is curious what it is, and it seems to have been caught up in the crowd like a fish in a drift net.

Andarin's lovely ladle-girl, Tselze, knows, and says with some wonderment: That's a Nethling, a bud-child of the plane that lives. A whole universe of living flesh with a single consciousness and no concept that anyone else exists. That there is one of its children. We ought to protect him from the Signers, or they'll carry him off to probe and study endlessly.

The Nethling is unsettling to be around and beyond clueless about what's going on, but it seems very quick on the uptake nonetheless, and it goes without saying that it's not going anywhere it doesn't feel like going. Some sod hands it a turtle shell and it pumps the crowd for random information as it doles out drinks.

The house itself is little more than a framework, but festive green cloth is draped all over the inside of the place, which is swarming with sunflies, celestial dragonflies that live on and radiate music and joy. More importantly, a motley group of indeps are gathered there, ready to distribute the makings of a great feast and festival.

An informal contest to name the Nethling begins as the party arrives at the house on the edge of the hive where the real party will be.

 

[Boddynock]

An informal contest to name the Nethling begins as the party arrives at the house on the edge of the hive where the real party will be.

"Hmm, let's see. 'Bloodlumps'? No, that's not right. 'Mugwumps'? What? 'Dabus-dumps'? Oh no - far too nasty. 'Basherbumps'! That has possibilities."

"Or 'One-from-One'? 'Hungry Hulk'? 'Twisted Tower'? What about 'Stands Alone'? Probably too subtle for these bubbers to tumble to. Still, that's no reason not to use it."

"Or take the tone from the Ysgardian skalds. 'Nethelinga' - that has a ringa!"

"What do you think, fair Tselze? How do we refer to our lumpy friend? And would the Signers really be its greatest threat? I would have thought the Guvners more likely to slice up this cutter. All in the name of Knowledge, of course."

Andarin raises his recorder to his lips again, then lowers it, frowning in thought. "Sweet Tselze, fairest of cupbearers, what else do you know about this Nethling creature? If its parent is aware of none but itself, what of the bud? Will it one day grow to planar size? Or is it a scout for its massive progenitor? Does Daddy look out of Buddy's eyes? What purpose does it have in the City of Doors?"

"No, I'm an addle-pate, needlessly imagining devious darks. Surely this is not scout but baby - some baby! - and this gathering of knowledge, which it does with alacrity, shapes its future in ways we don't skeg yet."

"Still, the question remains - what can we do for our plug-ugly friend here?"

"What do you say, bloods?" Andarin turns to his companions, awaiting their comments.

 

[Lobo Lurker]

Addressing the Nethling, "Whoa there big fella'! Take a drink and give the other basher's a chance. HA!" Jurgen continues coaching other wrestling/throwing matches and handing out beer. He wins some matches, he loses some and he hands out quit a bit of spirits. When he notes that the hivers are getting bubbsy he breaks out in a common Ysgardian drinking song, the one he learned from Thor's petitioners about four centuries ago.

When asked about the Nethling's name he says "...well, he's his own being... (it's a []he[] right?) so let him name himself? Oweing to his great physical strength, I'd suggest a name or rune relating to might or strength. What does he want? Maybe that should determine his name?"

"Oi! You there, big basher, yeah you! No, not you, the big fleshy blood next to you. No, not that one either, if I wanted the Slaad's attention I'd have asked for it... not a slaad?!? Then what in the abyss are you? A Gith!?! I'll drink to that!" Jurden double's over with laughter and empties his shell into the mug of the other.

He tries again, this time physically walking over to the hulking mound of flesh and rapping on it's arm. "Oi there basher? We're trying to figure out what to call you. Err... no, I don't need any bub, got some of my own see? Mine? But you've got a full shell in your hand!" After examining the cracked pavement after the Nethling's tantrum, he continues. "I see. Here you go then, drink up. The point is, what are you here for? What do you want?"

"No, not now, I mean in general, philosophically. What is it, as a sentient being, that you hope to achieve by being here? Maybe that will help us find a name for you? Though if you want my advice, you'll choose a unique name for youself. After all, you're name is the just about the only thing that no one can take from you."

---
OOC 1: The803, I was thinking about this during the 11 hours I was stuck in my car waiting for a bridge to be repaired (don't ask). My pc is not a cleric, therefore I can't spontaneously cast Cure spells. May I change the Command spell I currently have prepared to a Cure Light Wounds spell? We haven't had any combat encounters yet, so it wouldn't affect continuity.
OOC 2: Also, I just realized when re-reading this that I stated that my character was shaven-skulled instead of dreadlocked. I prefer the shaven skull so I'll update my pc entry to reflect that.