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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 6903252" data-attributes="member: 11697">He’d mulled over his next course of actions for a solid twenty four hours, sleeping on the pending decision before waking up and confirming to himself that it was for the best. He’d slipped out the door before the break of down, unseen and unfollowed, though constantly looking over his shoulder for the latter with a hand perpetually drifting across his sword’s grip.Each touch of mildly acid breeze from Sigil’s false sky that tousled his hair gave rise to an inner paranoia of something lurking inside of his head, itching slightly against his skull, rattling within his brain like a grinning, chuckling imp. He was worried to be certain, but the day’s actions had long been in the making, originally out of curiosity, but now out of burgeoning fear. He’d already lived too many days of his life with something inside of him, watching always, but sometimes playing him like a puppet. He had no desire to return to that state of affairs if he could prevent it, even if blood might be shed.The Palace of the Jester was virtually a public location, despite being Jeremo’s home. Still, given the time of day the perimeter was guarded largely as a formality. With all of the Natter’s newest so-called faction members and followers coming and going, the guards would scarcely have glanced at a single man even if they’d seen him, which they never did. The guards never looked up as he fly above their heads and through the main entrance, and even if they had, he’d been completely invisible.A scuffle was the last thing that he needed or wanted. Jeremo wasn’t his reason for being there, and without any real reason, he actually trusted the man, for good or for ill and he’d been given no reason otherwise since he’d first arrived in Sigil.The maze-like interior was filled with corridors blocked off to the public, both because not all of them were mapped, and many of them contained poorly identified portals or simply blind endings that would have sent visitors and factioneers into confused wild goose chases, never reaching their destinations except for hours late if ever. One of those deliberately barred hallways was his destination of course, away from the risk of discovery and away from the risk of involving anyone not involved in his current task. It wasn’t anything within Jeremo’s abode that concerned him anyway, nor anyone within the Ring Givers as a neophyte faction, nor anyone even there on the surface of Sigil. No, it was something far, far below.The descent into the warren of passages below the Palace of the Jester was not easy. It never was given that the precise layout of the halls shifted and moved, eschewing any real attempt at mapping. Whether it was some aspect of their being located within the formless, unfathomable depths of “UnderSigil” or something innate to the Palace of the Jester, a building from a bygone era known only by a name devoid of original context and nothing more… the answer eluded him and all others who might have asked the same questions and followed the same path into the depths.The walls seemed alive.The walls had eyes.The walls had ears.They watched him as she descended down into Sigil’s past and a realm sheltered from the passage of time, the rise and fall of Factions and Guilds, and perhaps allowed to be so by the Lady’s grace if simply the fact that so far removed from the city, unknown and no longer remembered from their original heyday of blood and tyranny, the quiescent horrors there posed no threat and the bladed shadows passed them by.It knew he was there to find its master, and so by that master’s grace it allowed him to do so.The hallways were regal if antique; something out of the wildest dreams of Sigil’s golden lords in modern day mimicry of the splendor that still stood, forgotten, far below their feet. They meandered as he walked forward, almost as if they prolonged his route simply in order to display themselves for the greater grandeur of their master. He didn’t care. He simply wanted answers and a face and a name to a presence.Finally he stood before it. A silver casket with its locks sprung open and a damning emptiness within.“Where are you?” He called out, feeling a looming presence standing behind him as he enunciated those very words. His hand flew to his sword and a deep baritone chuckle cut the air, smooth as honey and the mental sensation of smoke and steel.He’d seen the statue before, and seen the antique painting of the same figure. The painting had drawn him in, showing a scene from the past, showing the figure and his tiny, inhuman familiar. Whatever the experience had been, the figure, the tall man in the antique great coat and wide-brimmed hat, had taken notice. In fact, they’d never stopped taking notice, watching ever since through his eyes.He turned around and saw the man standing there, only part of his face visible below the brim of his hat, and the short, robed figure of his familiar at his side, peering out from behind one of his legs, tentacles wriggling from its sleeves.“Just who the hell are you and why are you in my head?” Clueless demanded, never taking his hand off of Razor’s grip.There in his home, there below the Palace that had once and still remained his own, The Lady’s Jester smiled.****Toras arrived early at the Fortune’s Wheel with his gift/bribe carefully and professionally arranged for the fiend to unwrap and receive. The Marauder’s retinue of course made him wait until the precise minute of his meeting to actually take him up to the Marauder’s elevated balcony dinner-seating, despite the fact that she was actually already sitting down and had no other guests there to occupy her attention. Toras stood awkwardly but quietly until the time arrived.“You will not speak unless spoken to.” Colcook spoke in warning as he’d escorted Toras, taken the gift and letter, and shown him to his seat.Having invited him or not, the Marauder didn’t actually so much as glance at Toras when one of her groomer-guards introduced him by name. There was not yet a second chair at the table, and so Toras continued to stand. His bribe, the bejeweled decanter and vintage bottle of wine sat next to the fiend, unopened and ignored.Shemeska sat at her usual table alone, dressed in a blue and purple sleeveless keyhole gown, providing Toras with an uncomfortable view of the fiend’s cleavage highlighted by a glowing black sapphire at the top of the window in the fabric. Beyond the egg-sized gem and the sapphires and emeralds dangling in golden wire cages from her ears though, the ‘loth was dressed relatively modestly as far as her standards of obscene, self-promoting pomposity went.Toras tried not to stare and kept looking past her, though it was difficult as she ignored him and sipped a cocktail with four distinct layers, with a tiny insect of some sort impaled on the decorative glass sword holding an olive in the drink. Smiling to herself, she prodding the sword’s basket hilt every so often simply to hear the slowly dying creature squeal and inject another cloud of glimmering blood into the drink’s various immiscible layers.Toras continued to stand.The fiend’s disregard continued as with her feet propped up on the table and dress slid back to just above her knees, without words she sipped her drink and stared at the ceiling or the gambling floor of the Fortune’s Wheel down below. Time marched on and the fiend’s meal was delivered with great pomp. She picked at it, telekinetically lifting choice bites from the plate to her mouth and continuing to savor her drink. Eventually the ‘loth finished her meal, and with her feet still on the table, she motioned for a chair to be brought.“Sit.” She finally focused her eyes on Toras.Toras smiled and sat down, trying not to look directly at her except for her eyes, even as the fiend baited him with a view directly up her dress and the flesh-displaying window in her gown. Internally he gagged at the thought of either.“The decanter is well crafted, and the wine is actually an acceptable vintage.” Shemeska motioned casually and one of her attendants approached and made a show of opening the bottle and using the decanter for its intended purpose. The fiend remained silent through the process until the tiefling poured her –and only her– a half glass of the ruby liquid.“The moment of truth Toras…” Shemeska held the glass up, staring at the half-celestial through the ruddy distortion of the wine in her glass, and in turn providing her guest with a view of her lips and fangs, turned bloody through the lens of his gift. “If it’s corked, they’ll never find your corpse. But you already know that…”Toras gritted his teeth, wanting nothing more than to reach down and flip the table over, dumping both the wine and the fiend’s remaining food into her lap.Shemeska smiled and sipped the wine tentatively, keeping her eyes locked with Toras, her expression unreadable for a long, pregnant moment before she closed her eyes, smiled, and took a second, longer taste.“I commend you on your taste in wine Toras.” Shemeska opened her eyes and inclined the glass towards him. “I’m flattered that you would think of me. I can only imagine how much you spent for such a gesture.”Toras smiled and remained silent, imagining in his mind upending the bottle and placing it open, lip down through the flesh window in the ‘loth’s evening gown.“I forgive you Toras.” Shemeska smirked, the words coming almost with a bit of effort on her part, so alien to her nature they seemed. “Consider this a pardon for anything that you may have done, and consider the offer extended to your guardinals bitch of a companion as well. Her immortality has shifted in its nature enough that I’m not so much forgiving out of beneficence on my part as wanting to see where she goes from here.”Toras furrowed his eyebrows, blindsided and confused by whatever the hell the ‘loth was rambling on about. Fyrehowl herself wasn’t entirely aware of the fact that since Rubicon her link to Elysium had frayed and unraveled. She wasn’t fallen, not completely, but she no longer reflected the plane itself in her essence. The ‘loth however was absolutely aware of Fyrehowl’s status as having slipped into neutrality, smelling it like a feral jackal sniffing out the hint of rotting meat in the garbage heap in a poorly trafficked alleyway.“So you and the mangy bitch have my forgiveness for the events at the last Council meeting.” Shemeska paused and watched for Toras’s reaction as he waited for her to continue. “As for anyone else…”The ‘loth drew out the pause and took another sip of mine, swishing it around her mouth to stain her gums before she swallowed and smiled, giving the impression as if she’d just feasted on bloody meat.“The godslave wants forgiveness?” The Marauder curled her lips back and snarled, abandoning any cultured veneer as she put her feet back onto the ground, placed both hands on the table and leaning forward. “Forgiveness?! If that’s what she wants than she can come crawling on her hands and knees across a bed of broken glass, begging for it, and with me riding atop her back on a saddle!”Infuriated, Toras’s eyes went wide as he continued to struggle not to punch the Marauder in the throat for both her arrogance and the hideous image that she’d just put in his mind.“Toras…understand that people who insult me as she did end up dead. They’re tortured for my amusement and allowed to live crippled just long enough to witness the execution of everyone that they ever loved.” Shemeska snarled loudly enough to spray flecks of spit into Toras’s face, leaning in close enough so that he could smell the cloying intensity of her perfume and the brimstone that it covered. “She’s doing well for herself to have survived so long since then, or perhaps I’m simply feeling merciful. You can’t buy her my forgiveness, but by all means Toras, do keep on trying. It’s amusing watching insects wriggle and dance.”The ‘loth picked up the decorative glass sword from her Martini, holding it up and letting the insect impaled on its length wriggle and squirm in agony. Eyes locked with Toras, she held it up and slipped it into her mouth, devouring the creature and finally putting an end to its agony.Holding his hands clasped together, Toras held his breath as the ‘loth flicked the tiny glass sword at his face.“Please understand the enormity of what I’ve told you Toras. Count yourself lucky that you and one of your companions won’t find themselves on the wrong end of a portal to the Abyss or somewhere worse.” Shemeska spat at his face before waving a hand dismissively, “And if you buy me something else from that smiling little f*ck in the Lower Ward as a bribe ever again I’ll send it back to him, on fire, hurled through his front window. Don’t. You’re dismissed.”Never before in his life had Toras so badly wanted to punch someone in the mouth and feel the satisfying crunch of their breaking teeth on his knuckles. Somewhere between wanting to scream and wanting to cry at the injustice of it all, he felt absolutely powerless. Somehow, against all odds, he looked into the Marauder’s eyes and replied a simple, “Thank you Shemeska.”With that he stood, turned around without another word, and walked out, feeling the fiend’s eyes on his back and soon thereafter a peal of her laughter ring out in sick pleasure.The Marauder laughed and licked her lips, full of self-assured sadism. In her left hand a freshly prepared crystal flute filled with white wine, honey and asuras’ blood, and in her right hand, held against her thigh and out of sight the cold, crawling metal of the Shadow Sorcelled Key.“Run along little man and sleep as well as you can. You’ll need your rest in order to speak at a funeral or two in the coming days. You will suffer and you will suffer so beautifully.”****</blockquote>

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