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Story Hour
Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour - (Updated 14February2024)
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<blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 7266053" data-attributes="member: 11697"><p>That the fire was something other than an accident -a stray ember carried on the wind, or the collapse of a shelf holding a candle- was immediately obvious as Fyrehowl pulled upon the heavy brass handle of the building’s front pair of doors. A single pull fueled by urgent worry should have sufficed, but a sudden jarring wrench and clatter of metal from the other side indicated that the doors, rather than being locked, were haphazardly barred from the inside.</p><p></p><p>“What the hell?” The lupinal tilted her head to one side before emitting a soft growl and glancing down at the thin space between the door and the pavement. Although thin wisps of smoke curled and licked from the space, it would suffice for her entry.</p><p></p><p>With a smooth motion that belied the natural sorcery at place that still bubbled in her blood, no matter her actual alignment, Fyrehowl evaporated into a cloud of mist. Rapidly pouring into the open space to gain entry into the library beyond, she took but a single moment to survey her surroundings before she congealed back into solid flesh.</p><p></p><p>The library was less a true library intended for public or even private perusal and more a repository for bound and compiled records, with virtually every volume the same in size, shape, and color except for the numerical designation upon their spine and the prominent stamp of the Fraternity of Order. The repository was also in the process of immolation. Dozens of now raging fires dotting the room in a dozen disparate places, with the scent of accelerant used to douse the stacks rushing into the lupinal’s senses.</p><p></p><p>Her eyes wide and her brain struggling to find a purpose behind the arson, as well as the absence of any obvious perpetrator, Fyrehowl’s preternatural abilities as a Cipher had her ear’s turning and her body spinning to avoid the immediate danger a fraction of a second after she materialized, danger prefaced by a sharp and metallic *PING* of a crossbow.</p><p></p><p>Fyrehowl spun and dodged the first pair of barbed, metallic bolts as they embedded into the flagstones below her feet with a burst of erupting magic. Before she could take action and fully look at the source however, a second pair of bolts burrowed into her right shoulder and back. The pain was immediate and agonizing, the bolts imbued with penetrating magic of their own, and the metal itself fragmenting and burrowing wider like dozens of burrowing worms as soon as it pierced her flesh. What was more, the pain rapidly dulled with a flash of nausea and radiating numbness, the hallmark of poison.</p><p></p><p>Instinct took over and Fyrehowl rolled forward, drawing her blade and looking up at the ceiling where it met one of the columns supporting the room, there to find a single figure perched like a hungry spider, feet adhered to the stone, holding a crossbow in one hand and clutching a satchel of books and papers pillaged from the stacks below.</p><p></p><p>“What the f*ck!” The lupinal blurted, momentarily more shocked by the face staring down at her than by the bolts lodged in her flesh and the poison slowly leaching into her veins.</p><p></p><p>“You should have died back in Carceri…” Alisohn Nilesia sneered, her fingers moving with the motions of a spell, “Alas.”</p><p></p><p>In shock at the presence of a woman she’d watched be flayed alive by The Lady’s shadow, Fyrehowl didn’t respond in words as she dove to the side, narrowing avoiding the detonating a fireball far more powerful than standard. The former Mercykiller Factol had always been a profoundly talented caster, bordering upon prodigy, a trait all too often overlooked amongst her other traits and blood-soaked history.</p><p></p><p>“We should have left you in Carceri!” Fyrehowl shouted back, drawing a shriek of anger and another eruption of magical flames narrowly avoided once again.</p><p></p><p>Still adhered like a great and snarling spider, partly obscured and seemingly unconcerned with the billowing smoke from the fires increasing in intensity moment by moment, Fyrehowl look a moment and caught better measure of the woman risen from oblivion. Something was off. While she’d always been a tiefling of mixed and uncertain heritage, the Factol’s flesh was a much duller grey than when she’d cut a dabus in half in public. Nilesia’s eyes flickered red, a color that she hadn’t possessed previously, and while Fyrehowl’s senses were dulled by pain, poison, and her own dubious and ongoing fall from grace, the potency of evil that radiated from Nilesia was beyond that which any mortal could possibly exhibit.</p><p></p><p>“I watched you die!” Fyrehowl shouted, “I watched The Lady’s shadow flay you!”</p><p></p><p>“I am Justice and Justice cannot die!!!” The mad Factol shrieked before vanishing in a magical flash to appear on the opposite wall, depriving the lupinal of cover and firing another volley of poisoned bolts with a ragged, manic cackle.</p><p></p><p>Fyrehowl dove, her reactions growing duller by the moment as the poison from the earlier bolts raging within her blood. It was enough however to avoid the latest volley from ripping into her chest, instead embedding inches deep into the floor. Prone and suffering, the lupinal wasn’t able to dodge Nilesia’s next spell as a blanket of choking, acidic darkness enveloped her partial cover and set her into an agony of corrosive pain.</p><p></p><p>Through it all the Factol laughed, deranged and vengeful as Fyrehowl struggled to scramble out of the spell’s area of effect before she suffocated within its vapors. Although the mystery of how a woman she’d watched die a permanent death was still alive, setting light to a library, and the open question of just what she’d stolen remained, Fyrehowl’s only thoughts were of escape. By herself she wasn’t a match for the mad archmage clinging to the walls like a great and vengeful spider.</p><p></p><p>Seemingly less bent on death and punishment and more on simply arson and theft, Nilesia’s laughter abruptly ended with the flash of a teleportation spell as the flames devoured the structure around her and her would-be victim alike. Vomiting in pain and then gasping for breath as she struggled to shrug off the poison, Fyrehowl tore the bolt free from her flesh, or at least most of it as the brittle, naturally poisoned metal broke as she wrenched upon it. Struggling to remain on her feet and conscious amidst the smoke and her injuries, Fyrehowl’s last memory before she blacked out was the moment of triumph as she stepped clear of the burning building and stumbled out onto the street.</p><p></p><p>The mystery could be solved later, but at least for the moment she was still alive and free of the deathtrap behind her.</p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p><p></p><p></p><p>Outside the shop front of The Friendly Fiend, several figures moved with purpose, emerging from the surrounding alleyways and hefting flasks and bottles of incendiary fluids, tieflings all of them. They wore rags, and all were best described as street rats more fit for the Hive than the Lower Ward, but the gold in their pockets would soon transform their social class, courtesy of a much better dressed pair of tieflings who’d recruited and tasked them, both of the latter more apt for the Lady’s Ward than the Lower Ward.</p><p></p><p>“F*ck you!”</p><p></p><p>“Screw you smiling b@stard!”</p><p></p><p>“Your shop sucks!”</p><p></p><p>The first of the bottles hurled awkwardly through the air to shatter upon the front window, spraying its payload across the thick plate glass and instantly igniting into a burst of flames. Wood burst into flame, paint bubbles and peeled, and then the other tieflings, emboldened by the drunken vandalism of their most eager member, they too let fly their own bottles. Better and more deliberately aimed, they shattered through the shop’s windows, spraying glass and burning oil throughout the room. Carpets, drapes, and all manner of mundane and magical bric-a-brac went up in flames without delay.</p><p></p><p>The tieflings shouted in triumph, though truthfully none of them had ever met the shop’s owner or even bore him any ill will. Their motivation wasn’t hate, but hate by proxy, with another fiend’s gold in their purses and that other fiend’s desires now made manifest in the smoke and rushing flames now gutting the Friendly Fiend’s interior.</p><p></p><p>Not waiting for either the Sod Killers or Sons of Mercy to arrive on the scene, let alone any possible magical countermeasures set in place by the shopkeep –and Heaven’s forbid the smiling ‘loth himself- the tieflings didn’t tarry long. A few more shouted insults and they melted back into Sigil’s pseudo-night, the flames casting their shadows long and pronounced against the street’s battered cobblestones and the brick walls of the buildings across the street.</p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p><p></p><p></p><p>The study was vast, rows of ornately hand carved bookshelves packed with thousands of tomes, ledgers, and scroll cases extending to fill the demiplane to its capacity. Objects of curiosity sat within decorative holders and ensconcements, each tailored to display the artwork, cultural or historical curiosity, or indeed magical item or artifact that sat there in place. Far more than a private library, the room was palatial and would have easily set an archmage’s casting of Private Sanctum to shame. A series of freestanding archways marked with symbols and shorthand known only to their maker stood like ornamental trees amidst the rich surroundings of a wizard’s private demesne. Crystalline globes filled with flickering illusory flames drifted about the room’s heights like errant, wandering stars, with a minor constellation of them aggregated in a circle above a massive desk at which sat the demiplane’s sole occupant.</p><p></p><p>A’kin the Friendly Fiend sat in an overly plush and cushioned chair, dutifully writing in a heavy and full-color spellbook. Each elaborate page wasn’t simply written, but fully illuminated, as much artwork as diagrammatic and inked Spellcraft, the words and figures alike crafted in multicolored inks and metallic paints. As the ‘loth’s fingers danced between quill and ink-pot with one hand, it was clear that his scribing was beyond standard. Free of the page and the prosaic if masterwork penmanship upon the physical book, the fiend’s other hand danced with the motions of a spellcaster, orchestrating the actions of a trio of quills, each penning his words in duplicate upon a secondary and tertiary tome and a scroll that collectively hung in the air, held aloft by magic.</p><p></p><p>Blotting his quill within a pot of dark and crystalline sand, he smiled, spoke a word to dry the physical page and then prepared to turn the page and continue his work, or rather he would have continued if not for the sudden interruption. Heard within his mind but yet also causing his ears to involuntarily perk, an alarm spell triggered with a sharp klaxon, followed shortly thereafter by a dozen other contingent wards activating in sequence.</p><p></p><p>Frowning, A’kin’s ears and whiskers twitched with annoyance. Briefly closing his eyes, the fiend sighed and physically exhaled upon the page out of habit before opening his eyes and standing up. Pale blue robes swishing about his ankles, the claws of his bare feet clattering upon the stone in-between ornate lengths of carpet, A’kin made his way to one of the freestanding archways scattered throughout the study. Glancing down to conjure a pair of slippers for his feet, he looked back at the archway and spoke a single command word to cause the archway to activate with a flickering flash of magic. Without yet stepping forward he raised a hand and made a lazy, scrolling gesture and watched as a progression of gate locations rotated past, each filling the archway for but a moment before he arrived on the one that went to a location adjacent to a natural portal to Sigil, one conveniently entering into his shop.</p><p></p><p>Without the slightest concern he stepped forward, emerging into a second demiplane wherein the natural portal stood only a dozen feet away, set within the bound space of a decorate and ancient mosaic ripped free from its original moorings and deposited within a much more secure and private location for his own use. Several more steps and a whispered song in a long dead language and the portal opened and deposited the ‘loth into his shop, whereupon he emerged into a raging firestorm.</p><p></p><p>“Really?” A’kin muttered.</p><p></p><p>Immune to the flames, he glanced about and proceeded to frown with even greater annoyance as he watched the laughing pack of drunk and soon to be drunk tieflings dash away and back into the night. Gritting his teeth and managing to avoid raising his hands to cast, he stood there as the flames harmlessly licked at him and his robes, even as it devoured his shop and its myriad of items, reducing tens of thousands of gold pieces of inventory to ashes. Of course, any objects of importance or any real value stored in view of the public and casual shoppers were still safe amidst the flames, each protected behind multiple layers of wards that sprang up as soon as the first bottle of burning pitch and oil had broken through the front display window. It didn’t matter in the long run and the damage could be repaired without much unnecessary trouble or expense.</p><p></p><p>“Fine, act like a spoiled f*cking child…” A’kin shook his head, rolled his eyes, stepped back to his study and allowed the shop to burn.</p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p><p></p><p></p><p>“There he is!”</p><p></p><p>“I don’t think he’s breathing!”</p><p></p><p>“Damn it! Help me shove this beam to the side before the whole building goes down!”</p><p></p><p>Clueless and Florian coughed and struggled to breathe as they stood within the fire-gutted and still burning building a street away from the Portal Jammer. When Toras hadn’t responded to a sending spell, they followed as fast as they could, figuring something had happened and indeed something had happened.</p><p></p><p>The cleric and bladesinger had arrived to find the building half-consumed by flames, the top floor fully collapsed, and Toras’s body pinned beneath a roof beam and exposed to their view when an exterior wall collapsed into the street amidst a torrent of bricks, ashes, and charred plaster.</p><p></p><p>They hadn’t taken the time to look for anyone else when they found their friend and companion motionless, nor did they pause to wonder at blood that covered his chest and back, nor did they immediately notice the half-dozen neat and precisely placed wounds in his chest from where a blade had lanced through his heart and punctured both lungs. He’d bled out and died well before they found his corpse and dragged it free.</p><p></p><p>“Down to the street!” Clueless shouted as both he and Florian felt a shudder run through the floor and the entire building began its collapse.</p><p></p><p>Hefting Toras’s body and grabbing onto Florian, Clueless swiftly cast a dimension door and carried them both to safety below. The collapse and rising, outflowing cloud of embers and burning dust and ash was however an entirely secondary concern as they stared at Toras’s lifeless corpse.</p><p></p><p>Clueless was shouting but Florian wasn’t listening as they instinctively reached for her holy symbol and the reagents needed to bring Toras back. The diamond was in her mailed fist as she recited the words, only to briefly have flashbacks of the last time she raised someone from the dead, or tried to, back in the depths of Gehenna in the Vale of Frozen Ashes, and there at that time, there wasn’t a soul to bring back with Alex. Her mind raced with the horror of losing someone she’d been through so much with, but that panic receded and vanished as she finished her prayer and the fighter’s wounds began to heal, his eyes flickered and opened, and he inhaled with a sharp and sudden gasp, the slashes in his lungs whistling for a moment before his flesh knitted itself back together and restored his breath and heartbeat to normal.</p><p></p><p>“What the hell just happened?” Clueless put out a hand to help Toras back to his feet. The bladesinger’s own heart still raced, pounding in his chest, from having witnessed his toughest companion dead and stuck within a burning building like a piece of broken masonry. The image would haunt him for some time.</p><p></p><p>Toras was white as a sheet as he lay there, his only motions a blink of his eyes against the falling snowfall-like ashes and the heavy breathing of a man who’d seen something that shouldn’t have been possible. Stunned from what he’d witness and experienced, he didn’t reach for Clueless’s hand and simply lay there on the street.</p><p></p><p>“What happened?” Florian demanded, “You died! That doesn’t happen! You just died and we brought you back, so there really shouldn’t be anything to keep you from answering as to just what a**hole knifed you in the back… repeatedly!”</p><p></p><p>Clueless redoubled his own questions and it took several long, uncomfortable moments for Toras to finally look up at them both and answer as best he could, the memory of the voice in his ear still sharp and poignant, as well as having watched his killer’s figure walk away as his vision faded and failed.</p><p></p><p>“It was a dead woman.”</p><p></p><p></p><p style="text-align: center">****</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Shemeska, post: 7266053, member: 11697"] That the fire was something other than an accident -a stray ember carried on the wind, or the collapse of a shelf holding a candle- was immediately obvious as Fyrehowl pulled upon the heavy brass handle of the building’s front pair of doors. A single pull fueled by urgent worry should have sufficed, but a sudden jarring wrench and clatter of metal from the other side indicated that the doors, rather than being locked, were haphazardly barred from the inside. “What the hell?” The lupinal tilted her head to one side before emitting a soft growl and glancing down at the thin space between the door and the pavement. Although thin wisps of smoke curled and licked from the space, it would suffice for her entry. With a smooth motion that belied the natural sorcery at place that still bubbled in her blood, no matter her actual alignment, Fyrehowl evaporated into a cloud of mist. Rapidly pouring into the open space to gain entry into the library beyond, she took but a single moment to survey her surroundings before she congealed back into solid flesh. The library was less a true library intended for public or even private perusal and more a repository for bound and compiled records, with virtually every volume the same in size, shape, and color except for the numerical designation upon their spine and the prominent stamp of the Fraternity of Order. The repository was also in the process of immolation. Dozens of now raging fires dotting the room in a dozen disparate places, with the scent of accelerant used to douse the stacks rushing into the lupinal’s senses. Her eyes wide and her brain struggling to find a purpose behind the arson, as well as the absence of any obvious perpetrator, Fyrehowl’s preternatural abilities as a Cipher had her ear’s turning and her body spinning to avoid the immediate danger a fraction of a second after she materialized, danger prefaced by a sharp and metallic *PING* of a crossbow. Fyrehowl spun and dodged the first pair of barbed, metallic bolts as they embedded into the flagstones below her feet with a burst of erupting magic. Before she could take action and fully look at the source however, a second pair of bolts burrowed into her right shoulder and back. The pain was immediate and agonizing, the bolts imbued with penetrating magic of their own, and the metal itself fragmenting and burrowing wider like dozens of burrowing worms as soon as it pierced her flesh. What was more, the pain rapidly dulled with a flash of nausea and radiating numbness, the hallmark of poison. Instinct took over and Fyrehowl rolled forward, drawing her blade and looking up at the ceiling where it met one of the columns supporting the room, there to find a single figure perched like a hungry spider, feet adhered to the stone, holding a crossbow in one hand and clutching a satchel of books and papers pillaged from the stacks below. “What the f*ck!” The lupinal blurted, momentarily more shocked by the face staring down at her than by the bolts lodged in her flesh and the poison slowly leaching into her veins. “You should have died back in Carceri…” Alisohn Nilesia sneered, her fingers moving with the motions of a spell, “Alas.” In shock at the presence of a woman she’d watched be flayed alive by The Lady’s shadow, Fyrehowl didn’t respond in words as she dove to the side, narrowing avoiding the detonating a fireball far more powerful than standard. The former Mercykiller Factol had always been a profoundly talented caster, bordering upon prodigy, a trait all too often overlooked amongst her other traits and blood-soaked history. “We should have left you in Carceri!” Fyrehowl shouted back, drawing a shriek of anger and another eruption of magical flames narrowly avoided once again. Still adhered like a great and snarling spider, partly obscured and seemingly unconcerned with the billowing smoke from the fires increasing in intensity moment by moment, Fyrehowl look a moment and caught better measure of the woman risen from oblivion. Something was off. While she’d always been a tiefling of mixed and uncertain heritage, the Factol’s flesh was a much duller grey than when she’d cut a dabus in half in public. Nilesia’s eyes flickered red, a color that she hadn’t possessed previously, and while Fyrehowl’s senses were dulled by pain, poison, and her own dubious and ongoing fall from grace, the potency of evil that radiated from Nilesia was beyond that which any mortal could possibly exhibit. “I watched you die!” Fyrehowl shouted, “I watched The Lady’s shadow flay you!” “I am Justice and Justice cannot die!!!” The mad Factol shrieked before vanishing in a magical flash to appear on the opposite wall, depriving the lupinal of cover and firing another volley of poisoned bolts with a ragged, manic cackle. Fyrehowl dove, her reactions growing duller by the moment as the poison from the earlier bolts raging within her blood. It was enough however to avoid the latest volley from ripping into her chest, instead embedding inches deep into the floor. Prone and suffering, the lupinal wasn’t able to dodge Nilesia’s next spell as a blanket of choking, acidic darkness enveloped her partial cover and set her into an agony of corrosive pain. Through it all the Factol laughed, deranged and vengeful as Fyrehowl struggled to scramble out of the spell’s area of effect before she suffocated within its vapors. Although the mystery of how a woman she’d watched die a permanent death was still alive, setting light to a library, and the open question of just what she’d stolen remained, Fyrehowl’s only thoughts were of escape. By herself she wasn’t a match for the mad archmage clinging to the walls like a great and vengeful spider. Seemingly less bent on death and punishment and more on simply arson and theft, Nilesia’s laughter abruptly ended with the flash of a teleportation spell as the flames devoured the structure around her and her would-be victim alike. Vomiting in pain and then gasping for breath as she struggled to shrug off the poison, Fyrehowl tore the bolt free from her flesh, or at least most of it as the brittle, naturally poisoned metal broke as she wrenched upon it. Struggling to remain on her feet and conscious amidst the smoke and her injuries, Fyrehowl’s last memory before she blacked out was the moment of triumph as she stepped clear of the burning building and stumbled out onto the street. The mystery could be solved later, but at least for the moment she was still alive and free of the deathtrap behind her. [center]****[/center] Outside the shop front of The Friendly Fiend, several figures moved with purpose, emerging from the surrounding alleyways and hefting flasks and bottles of incendiary fluids, tieflings all of them. They wore rags, and all were best described as street rats more fit for the Hive than the Lower Ward, but the gold in their pockets would soon transform their social class, courtesy of a much better dressed pair of tieflings who’d recruited and tasked them, both of the latter more apt for the Lady’s Ward than the Lower Ward. “F*ck you!” “Screw you smiling b@stard!” “Your shop sucks!” The first of the bottles hurled awkwardly through the air to shatter upon the front window, spraying its payload across the thick plate glass and instantly igniting into a burst of flames. Wood burst into flame, paint bubbles and peeled, and then the other tieflings, emboldened by the drunken vandalism of their most eager member, they too let fly their own bottles. Better and more deliberately aimed, they shattered through the shop’s windows, spraying glass and burning oil throughout the room. Carpets, drapes, and all manner of mundane and magical bric-a-brac went up in flames without delay. The tieflings shouted in triumph, though truthfully none of them had ever met the shop’s owner or even bore him any ill will. Their motivation wasn’t hate, but hate by proxy, with another fiend’s gold in their purses and that other fiend’s desires now made manifest in the smoke and rushing flames now gutting the Friendly Fiend’s interior. Not waiting for either the Sod Killers or Sons of Mercy to arrive on the scene, let alone any possible magical countermeasures set in place by the shopkeep –and Heaven’s forbid the smiling ‘loth himself- the tieflings didn’t tarry long. A few more shouted insults and they melted back into Sigil’s pseudo-night, the flames casting their shadows long and pronounced against the street’s battered cobblestones and the brick walls of the buildings across the street. [center]****[/center] The study was vast, rows of ornately hand carved bookshelves packed with thousands of tomes, ledgers, and scroll cases extending to fill the demiplane to its capacity. Objects of curiosity sat within decorative holders and ensconcements, each tailored to display the artwork, cultural or historical curiosity, or indeed magical item or artifact that sat there in place. Far more than a private library, the room was palatial and would have easily set an archmage’s casting of Private Sanctum to shame. A series of freestanding archways marked with symbols and shorthand known only to their maker stood like ornamental trees amidst the rich surroundings of a wizard’s private demesne. Crystalline globes filled with flickering illusory flames drifted about the room’s heights like errant, wandering stars, with a minor constellation of them aggregated in a circle above a massive desk at which sat the demiplane’s sole occupant. A’kin the Friendly Fiend sat in an overly plush and cushioned chair, dutifully writing in a heavy and full-color spellbook. Each elaborate page wasn’t simply written, but fully illuminated, as much artwork as diagrammatic and inked Spellcraft, the words and figures alike crafted in multicolored inks and metallic paints. As the ‘loth’s fingers danced between quill and ink-pot with one hand, it was clear that his scribing was beyond standard. Free of the page and the prosaic if masterwork penmanship upon the physical book, the fiend’s other hand danced with the motions of a spellcaster, orchestrating the actions of a trio of quills, each penning his words in duplicate upon a secondary and tertiary tome and a scroll that collectively hung in the air, held aloft by magic. Blotting his quill within a pot of dark and crystalline sand, he smiled, spoke a word to dry the physical page and then prepared to turn the page and continue his work, or rather he would have continued if not for the sudden interruption. Heard within his mind but yet also causing his ears to involuntarily perk, an alarm spell triggered with a sharp klaxon, followed shortly thereafter by a dozen other contingent wards activating in sequence. Frowning, A’kin’s ears and whiskers twitched with annoyance. Briefly closing his eyes, the fiend sighed and physically exhaled upon the page out of habit before opening his eyes and standing up. Pale blue robes swishing about his ankles, the claws of his bare feet clattering upon the stone in-between ornate lengths of carpet, A’kin made his way to one of the freestanding archways scattered throughout the study. Glancing down to conjure a pair of slippers for his feet, he looked back at the archway and spoke a single command word to cause the archway to activate with a flickering flash of magic. Without yet stepping forward he raised a hand and made a lazy, scrolling gesture and watched as a progression of gate locations rotated past, each filling the archway for but a moment before he arrived on the one that went to a location adjacent to a natural portal to Sigil, one conveniently entering into his shop. Without the slightest concern he stepped forward, emerging into a second demiplane wherein the natural portal stood only a dozen feet away, set within the bound space of a decorate and ancient mosaic ripped free from its original moorings and deposited within a much more secure and private location for his own use. Several more steps and a whispered song in a long dead language and the portal opened and deposited the ‘loth into his shop, whereupon he emerged into a raging firestorm. “Really?” A’kin muttered. Immune to the flames, he glanced about and proceeded to frown with even greater annoyance as he watched the laughing pack of drunk and soon to be drunk tieflings dash away and back into the night. Gritting his teeth and managing to avoid raising his hands to cast, he stood there as the flames harmlessly licked at him and his robes, even as it devoured his shop and its myriad of items, reducing tens of thousands of gold pieces of inventory to ashes. Of course, any objects of importance or any real value stored in view of the public and casual shoppers were still safe amidst the flames, each protected behind multiple layers of wards that sprang up as soon as the first bottle of burning pitch and oil had broken through the front display window. It didn’t matter in the long run and the damage could be repaired without much unnecessary trouble or expense. “Fine, act like a spoiled f*cking child…” A’kin shook his head, rolled his eyes, stepped back to his study and allowed the shop to burn. [center]****[/center] “There he is!” “I don’t think he’s breathing!” “Damn it! Help me shove this beam to the side before the whole building goes down!” Clueless and Florian coughed and struggled to breathe as they stood within the fire-gutted and still burning building a street away from the Portal Jammer. When Toras hadn’t responded to a sending spell, they followed as fast as they could, figuring something had happened and indeed something had happened. The cleric and bladesinger had arrived to find the building half-consumed by flames, the top floor fully collapsed, and Toras’s body pinned beneath a roof beam and exposed to their view when an exterior wall collapsed into the street amidst a torrent of bricks, ashes, and charred plaster. They hadn’t taken the time to look for anyone else when they found their friend and companion motionless, nor did they pause to wonder at blood that covered his chest and back, nor did they immediately notice the half-dozen neat and precisely placed wounds in his chest from where a blade had lanced through his heart and punctured both lungs. He’d bled out and died well before they found his corpse and dragged it free. “Down to the street!” Clueless shouted as both he and Florian felt a shudder run through the floor and the entire building began its collapse. Hefting Toras’s body and grabbing onto Florian, Clueless swiftly cast a dimension door and carried them both to safety below. The collapse and rising, outflowing cloud of embers and burning dust and ash was however an entirely secondary concern as they stared at Toras’s lifeless corpse. Clueless was shouting but Florian wasn’t listening as they instinctively reached for her holy symbol and the reagents needed to bring Toras back. The diamond was in her mailed fist as she recited the words, only to briefly have flashbacks of the last time she raised someone from the dead, or tried to, back in the depths of Gehenna in the Vale of Frozen Ashes, and there at that time, there wasn’t a soul to bring back with Alex. Her mind raced with the horror of losing someone she’d been through so much with, but that panic receded and vanished as she finished her prayer and the fighter’s wounds began to heal, his eyes flickered and opened, and he inhaled with a sharp and sudden gasp, the slashes in his lungs whistling for a moment before his flesh knitted itself back together and restored his breath and heartbeat to normal. “What the hell just happened?” Clueless put out a hand to help Toras back to his feet. The bladesinger’s own heart still raced, pounding in his chest, from having witnessed his toughest companion dead and stuck within a burning building like a piece of broken masonry. The image would haunt him for some time. Toras was white as a sheet as he lay there, his only motions a blink of his eyes against the falling snowfall-like ashes and the heavy breathing of a man who’d seen something that shouldn’t have been possible. Stunned from what he’d witness and experienced, he didn’t reach for Clueless’s hand and simply lay there on the street. “What happened?” Florian demanded, “You died! That doesn’t happen! You just died and we brought you back, so there really shouldn’t be anything to keep you from answering as to just what a**hole knifed you in the back… repeatedly!” Clueless redoubled his own questions and it took several long, uncomfortable moments for Toras to finally look up at them both and answer as best he could, the memory of the voice in his ear still sharp and poignant, as well as having watched his killer’s figure walk away as his vision faded and failed. “It was a dead woman.” [center]****[/center] [/QUOTE]
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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour - (Updated 14February2024)
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