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Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
- Thread starter Shemeska
- Start date
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bluegodjanus
Explorer
Shemeska said:
And it is well worth the SH delay, too.
Shemeska
Adventurer
Post 666 for me. An update and the Mark of the Beast at once. How so very 'lothy
Several days had passed. The mood about Sigil, and indeed the planes themselves, was still subdued and pensive, the nerves of some seemed set on edge, waiting to see what would happen next. A bloody, ragged hole had been torn from the heart of Elysium, and it was as if, on that matter, the planes were holding their collective breath at what response might be seen. But no response came. No crusade, no revenge, no invasion of the Waste to reclaim what did not belong to it.
Nothing happened, though some within Sigil did indeed call loudly for something to be done. But those voices were not the voices of the important, the powerful, or the influential. All of those voices that might have mad a difference were still, hushed, and silent. Those who could have done something, they did nothing as if they were still in shock at what had transpired in so short a time, and with little to no warning.
The influx of refugees into Sigil from The Waste and the gatetowns bordering the three planes of conflict ebbed, slowed, and finally reversed themselves. The riots were quashed, and order was restored by the efforts of the city watch, the Sons of Mercy, and the questionable, but effective methods of the Sodkillers. The status quo returned to the City of Doors, and sooner than anyone expected.
The Blood War was uninterrupted and yugoloth presence upon the untold battlefields of the War Eternal seemed as ubiquitous as always, unperturbed by the sea change within their upper hierarchy. The status quo returned to the lower planes, and, like Sigil, faster than any might have considered possible. Rumors of bloody purges amongst their own ranks, of masses of greater yugoloths being put to the sword while their lesser watched, and of the desperate flight of Ultroloths who had failed to ally themselves with the winning side of their civil war, all those stories and more were whispered and retold in hushed tones.
Officially, as glibly phrased from behind the glossy white fangs of the arcanaloths who served as their race’s spokesman to their clients and to the curious in general, little had changed and rumors were only that. Yes there had been a change in power, the former Oinoloth, an Ultroloth prince of minor consequence, had been deposed, and Vorkannis the Ebon ruled from Khin-Oin as Oinoloth of the Waste. That a portion of Elysium now lay merged with the Waste was glossed over and no comment was given, nor was much comment given to the reports of the uncountable thousands of bodies and severed heads that swung like obscene wind chimes, slowly rustling about in the wind as they hung from the ramparts of Khin-Oin, from base to top, decorating the Wasting Tower with their gory and silent reminders of the price of disloyalty to He who sat and ruled, twenty two miles up.
In Sigil, such questions posed to The Marauder were scoffed at and rebuffed, though the fiend seemed in a remarkably better mood than usual. It almost seemed like the jackal-headed rumormonger and mistress of less than legal dealings had to intentionally hold back her glee at what had recently happened.
“I buy and sell dark and rumor, but I can’t say that I’ll vouch for such rumors one way or the other. Now, I’m not any sort of official spokesman for my race, though I do hear things from time to time, and I’m pleased with what I’ve seen and heard out of the Wasting Tower of late. Beyond that, I have no comment.”
The Marauder had then leaned back and grinned at the clustering of reporters from a half dozen of Sigil’s papers. She inhaled deeply from the long, crystalline tip of the waterpipe perched on the bejeweled and gilded skull of what looked disturbingly like a cervidal, and then blew a steam of smoke at the collective gathering of the press.
“Now, if you’d like to do business with me, my door is open and my schedule too. But,” she said, twin streams of thin smoke curling up from her nostrils, “I run a business, and I know that none of you make very much. If you’re that curious, we can talk about making you a loan, but otherwise gentleman, I’m in a deliciously good mood, and lets not do anything to spoil that, yes?”
“But Ma’am, we’d like a confirmation or not on some of the…” An aasimar reporter for the Tempus Sigilian said before being cut off.
“I prefer ‘your grace’.” The King of the Cross trade said curtly to the reporter. “And again, I have better things to do than publically speculate on things you should be paying for me to speculate upon. Do dawdle off and report on something else. I heard that Aram Oakwright was scragged four days ago but his faction has been trying to keep it under wraps as they try to raise him from the dead.”
“But… your grace…” The same reporter said, “I still don’t…”
“That wasn’t a polite request.” The fiend said, baring several fangs, and leaning forward to point a single, manicured, claw tipped finger in the berk’s direction. “Don’t make me make an impolite request. You wouldn’t like that.”
Much like the rest of the city, the mood inside the Portal Jammer was grim and taciturn. Clueless was tending the bar and serving drinks to the slow stream of regular customers, many of whom had begun hitting the ‘jammer after the riots earlier in the week. Toras had been visiting the small chapel to his god in the Temple district of The Lady’s Ward, as had Florian, though Tyr’s temple within Sigil was significantly larger and more prosperous than that of Andros. Nisha had been wandering in and out at random, doing whatever it was that Nisha did to amuse herself. Knowing the chaotic tiefling, that was a rather long, eclectic and delightfully sporadic list of things.
Fyrehowl had spent perhaps a day sulking and brooding angrily, but had very quickly gone to the Great Gymnasium, training more and more with various members of the Transcendent Order. In the end, most of her waking hours were split between there and the Jammer, doing rather than sitting in her room and thinking over things that she couldn’t personally change, at least not yet.
Tristol had mainly bottled himself up in his lab, going through the spellbooks that had once belonged to the Imshenviir Mercane, and also the spellbook that had belonged to the arcanaloth Parphinias, late of the tower in Belarian. The latter was scribed in a sort of personal code, likely to keep the fiend’s own discoveries safe from his fellows. But regardless of the intend and purpose the dead fiend had behind the ciphers in the book, it was taking most of the aasimar’s time to translate the runes into infernal, and from there into draconic for him to learn the spells within. And, given the nature of the spells, most wouldn’t have cared to learn them at all. Tristol learned them anyways, even if he might never use them.
Oddly enough, Skalliska had been staying in her own quarters back at her place of business, rather than taking a room at the Jammer. The kobold had also been embroiling herself in a bit of research concerning the pantheon of gods that had formerly served her people on her own native world. For several days, she had been clustered around a number of fairly thick books on the subject of dead gods, missing gods, obscure pantheons, and the history of kobolds on the prime material.
During her research, Skalliska had kept mostly to herself, and hadn’t been too terribly talkative about the reasoning behind her research. Still, she seemed quite avid about whatever it was that she was looking for. During the second day of the kobold’s work, Nisha had sat down at the same table and was staring oddly at a dish of… something… that Skalliska’s was snacking on.
“Skalliska? Why are you eating Illithid tentacles?” The tiefling said, reaching for one.
Skalliska chuckled, “Not Illithid. Some sort of prime animal called an octopus. Illithid’s expensive and hard to get this time of year.”
Nisha grinned and played with a number of the tentacles, making them dangle and talk to one another in a way that could only be said was exactly her way of thinking. Then she paused and looked at the kobold a bit more seriously.
“…wait… You can get Illithid? You’ve eaten one of them before? I’m both sickened and impressed and curious at the same time.” She said with a giggle.
Skalliska pushed the dish towards Nisha. It has heaped with several dozen of the purplish tentacles, many of them graced by oversized suckers. “Help yourself if you like them.”
“Thank you, I think I will.” The tiefling said, hiding a mischievous grin as she picked up five of the tentacles, stuck them to her fingertips, and dangled them in front of her face…The last anyone saw, she was walking off towards the direction of Tristol’s lab.
“Sir? I was instructed to deliver a package to you.” The messenger said as he held out a note and a box to Clueless.
“Oh? Who from?” The half-fey asked from behind the bar as he took the two items.
“I’m sorry sir, but I wasn’t told. They were both delivered to us anonymously with instructions to deliver them to you at this time. I’d tell you more if I knew. But, alas, I don’t.”
Clueless nodded, tossed the runner a silver piece from behind the bar and thanked him. The runner smiled and headed quickly out the door, on his way to his next assignment, leaving his last puzzled and looking at the package.
Clueless was about to open the box when there was a sudden, distinctly Nisha sounding, cry of “Aasimar Brains!!!!!” from Tristol’s lab, followed immediately by a distinctly Tristol sounding, “AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!” Most of the bar patrons turned to look at the screams, the subsequent crash of clattering furniture and books, then the fierce giggle and sounds of a laughing tiefling running away and up the stairs as fast as her hooves could handle.
Tristol came walking out of his lab a few moments later, several purple tentacles still draped over his head and dangling over his forehead. He was trying very hard not to laugh himself, despite being flushed red in the face. He calmly walked over to Skalliska, his tail bottlebrushed out behind him, and plopped the tentacles down on the table.
“Don’t encourage her, please don’t encourage her…” The mage said before he walked away, chuckling under his breath.
Clueless laughed and offered Tristol a drink before turning back to his own package that had arrived a few minutes prior.
“Weird, wonder who it’s from…” He said, quickly casting a minor dweomers to discern any magic upon either box or letter. A single, and paltry, spell flickered on the envelope for the letter, one likely to alert the writer if the intended recipient was the one who opened it. Otherwise, there was nothing else of note.
Shrugging, Clueless opened the box, and immediately stepped back as he gazed at the cleanly severed humanoid hand that lay within the nestled confines of the package. He quickly moved the box out of view of the patrons of the inn while he took a closer look. The hand was clearly githzerai, probably an elderly githzerai.
His mind pictured the face of the githzerai who had originally aided him in restoring his lost memories, and that the man had been absent the past week, and that none of his fellows seemed to know, or in typical bleaker fashion, seem to apply much meaning or import to it.
“Sh*t…” Clueless softly cursed in a language that few in the inn would have recognized, except perhaps to mistake it for a highly ornate and bizarre derivative of elven or sylvan.
The envelope was ripped open a second later and its short, brief contents read silently before he was gone and out the door before anyone could stop him. The contents read simply:
Suicide Alley. Peak.
As Clueless rushed out the door, it was ten minutes till peak.
The Bladesinger arrived at the filth-strewn alleyway in the Hive, not a moment late. He touched down on the ground and drew his sword immediately while his wings folded down to the sides. But, contrary to his expectations, there was no gang of thugs awaiting him, nor a boisterous and gloating yugoloth or a flunky of the same, waiting for him to deliver a mocking speech while he was expected to wait till they were finished and then act.
There was only a single person, and they were perched at the rim of the alley, tottering by the second and threatening to fall over the side and over the edge, out of the ring of Sigil. It was the Bariaur who had once been a companion of Clueless’s, and who, like him and the elven cleric, had been deceived, captured, and drug to that Tower in Carceri where the yugoloth who now sat atop the throne of the Wasting Tower had implanted each of them with a gemstone in their ankles.
The bariaur kicked the side of the wall to push himself off balance, and then dropped a bag to the cobblestones of the alley. As the momentum swung him over the side, his eyes grew wide with the flicker of awareness, and then it was gone as he tumbled over the edge and into oblivion with a scream.
“No!” Clueless shouted before launching himself to the edge, but it was too late. There was nothing over the edge. No void. No darkness. No blank space. Nothing. Unable to wrap his mind over what it was that existed beyond the edge, the half-fey averted his eyes and dropped down to the ground of Suicide Alley, so aptly named this time and for countless others.
The bladesinger exhaled in defeat, having watched a friend vanish into oblivion, or whatever it was that awaited any who leapt from the edge of Sigil’s ring. In all of Sigil’s history, none had ever done so and returned to tell the tale. The Fraternity of Order even had a standing offer to pay the families of those wishing to kill themselves by that act, if only they would return and given an account to the faction if they did survive, before they tried some other way of killing themselves.
“F*cking sons of b*itches…” He lamented as he kicked the wall harshly and picked up the bag. “So what the hell do you have for me that cost you your life?”
He opened the bag and dumped the contents into the palm of his hand. A single, glimmering gemstone rolled out, glowing the same color as the orb in his leg, just smaller. The controlling gem.
“What the hell…” Clueless said as he stared at the gem, instinctively feeling the urge to touch the gemstone in his hand with that in his leg. There was a synchronous vibration that seemed to pass between, and resonate between the two.
A moment later he did what simply felt right. He merged the two stones. They glowed brilliantly and flowed together like droplets of water joining. The feeling was one of relief, almost analogous to shutting a window on a frigid winters day to prevent the escape of warmth from a roaring fire. Likewise, Clueless felt a door in his mind slam shut and lock, leaving only him with its key.
Still, a pile of questions still lurked in his mind about what had happened to him, and what had just happened. Why was he given the controlling gem back? It seemed hard to believe that the Marauder would willingly return it to him. Was it simply a case of her having finished with her toys and casting them aside? Did someone else within the Wheels take it and return it to him? Was the Cheshire Fiend involved? What was the reasoning behind the tasks that he and his two other former companions had been forced to perform?
He wasn’t sure, but he did have one more thing to look into, one more avenue to explore. Clueless gazed down at the severed githzerai hand before he walked off to find a cleric.
“Wake up.” The voice seemed familiar but distant as his conscious mind flooded back into his body, called back by a cleric of Nephthys.
Delsar Mur’alt, factotum of the Bleak Cabal, opened his eyes and looked up into the face of the man that he had willingly betrayed. He closed his eyes, shutting them tight and grimacing. He should have refused the call to return to the world of the living…
The sudden images of exactly where his petitioner had been wandering before that call, they lingering hauntingly in his mind. It had not been pleasant…
“Your alive. Now what the hell happened to you? Why did friend… a friend who’s now dead… why did he kill you?” Clueless asked as he stood over the Bleaker.
Delsar sighed and sat at, swinging around to the opposite side of the cot where the priestess had revived him. He was silent for several minutes, oblivious to the bladesinger’s questions, before finally, he answered.
“I’m sorry.”
“Excuse me? What?” Clueless asked.
“Your memories that you recovered, I intentionally gave you back only a fraction of them. That was what I was paid to do by the people using you.” The gith said with pained regret.
“…” Clueless was taken back by the admission.
“They wanted you to think I had done my best effort, and being as good as I was with such things, that you wouldn’t dig deeper into those memories except at the safe rate at which I had set them into unraveling.” The bleaker looked up at Clueless with deep, yellowed eyes, red at the edges with emotion.
“They had you on the payroll as well, I should have figured…” Clueless said, looking away.
“They wanted to control every aspect of whatever it was that they were doing to you, and using you for. No, I don’t know anything about it besides what I saw in your mind, and what you already know yourself.” Delsar replied, “But still, I knew a bit too much for them, and in the end I was having second thoughts about what I had helped them do to you. They killed me for it.”
Clueless looked at him rather pointedly, “Who was paying you?”
“I don’t know. I was contacted mind to mind originally, bargained with by those means, and paid by hired courier. The mind was cold and dark, dreadfully so, a fiend most likely. The voice would change when they talked to me, so I can’t say if they were male, female, or something else, but regardless of how they dressed it up, the touch was the same.”
“Why?” Clueless asked.
“I didn’t know you, and I wasn’t directly hurting you. I didn’t know what they would do to you, and by the time I saw some of those memories you had come back into your mind, I couldn’t say no. They would have seen to it that I was punished.” Delsar said, starting to tear up. “As for why I even agreed to it? The money, it was significant, and I was donating the vast bulk of it to the orphanage and soup kitchen we run out of the Gatehouse. In the lack of any meaning in this world, none that I’ve found, none that I think exists, I can give myself a reason to exist and survive by seeing to it that I might better the harsh lives of those around me.
You were only one man, and I was helping so many others… please forgive me for what I’ve done to you…”
“It wasn’t your fault, and I know who it was that was doing it to me. Though I don’t know exactly all of the details.” Clueless said.
“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. They killed me once, and they may do worse the next time. Please don’t give them reason.” The gith said quickly.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell you. And you don’t need me to forgive you. You’re not the only person that they’ve ensnared, both willing and unwilling. And you’re far from the last. It wasn’t your fault, it’s just something that I have to make right. That won’t be something I can do now, but eventually…” Clueless said calmly as the githzerai nodded and slowly rose from the cot.
“Forgiving myself is something that I have to worry about though. Meaning comes from within, and so must forgiveness. It may take me some time to find what may be as elusive as meaning, but we shall see. Thank you for bringing me back from the dead, I will find some way to repay you eventually. Thank you, but I have a great deal of introspection and meditation to see to.”
Clueless nodded to the Gith who shuffled off back to the Hive, and then thanked the cleric for her work. Still running through his head though, were the same questions that had sprung up back in Suicide Alley, and they didn’t have any ready answers.
One week later, the tensions in Sigil had decreased even more, and it seemed that no dire predictions of bloody revenge or crusades would take place, nor the rumors of even more black and dire actions by the children of the lower planes. The status quo rained. But still, there were indications that not all was normal, and some things, once released and thrust into the light of their own making, were loathe to entirely creep back into the shadows and be dismissed or forgotten.
Skalliska was walking between the Portal Jammer and the Great Library, taking a more roundabout path than might be normal. At the same time, Fyrehowl was returning from her daily training and meditation at the Great Gymnasium where she had been practicing with the githzerai aide to former Factol Rhys, an experience which she felt was highly beneficial to her both for her combat prowess, learning more and more about the philosophy of the now ‘officially’ defunct faction, and an experience that she had begun to involve Clueless in as well, hoping that the two of them might learn to coordinate their fighting styles for use in the future.
Wandering home by perhaps odd paths, both Skalliska and Fyrehowl happened upon each other in front of a disturbing scene. Perhaps fifteen members of the City Watch stood in front of the outside wall of a large counting house, blocking the close observation and approach of many in the quickly growing crowd of onlookers. The lupinal noticed Skalliska and approached her.
“Oh, hey there Fyrehowl. I was just walking past and I saw something going on here. However, my height being a bit lower than the average here, I can’t see a bit of what’s going on. What’s going on up there by the building?” Skalliska asked.
Fyrehowl moved in and out, between and around, several members of the assembled crowd before she caught a full glimpse of what was being blocked off by the watch. It wasn’t pretty, and what she recognized made her see red.
“Fyrehowl? Where’re you going? What’s up there? Hey!” Skalliska shouted after the lupinal as she abruptly left the scene.
The kobold shrugged and deftly worked her way under the line of guards and finally managed to take a close look at what they were blocking off. At once she understood the lupinal’s reaction.
The building’s wall was a snarl of only vaguely trimmed razorvine, though one patch of the wall had been cleared, and recently as well. A single naked and bloodied body was ensnarled and wrapped up within the razorvine, ragged and mangled from its apparent struggle against whoever had thrown them to their death. A silver and carnelian, Mercykiller helmet was fitted over their head, and was indeed the only article of clothing they wore, besides the razorvine that cut deep and suspended them several feet above the ground.
Skalliska blinked as she noted that the victim appeared to have been hung by several thick strands of razorvine, dying by that just as much as they did from blood loss during their struggle to escape. And then there were the words written in the victims own blood on the patch of the wall that had been recently cleared of the razorvine.
"The Wheels grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine."
The words were underlined and signed with a symbol of the Wheels Within Wheels.
Skalliska narrowed her eyes at the obvious link to the yugoloth cabal that seemed connected to every ill that had befallen them lately, and then she moved on to return back home and spread the word to the others. Several days later the press would report the victim’s identity as the former Mercykiller known only as The Lady’s Executioner. He had apparently been missing for some time, though his personal finances seemed to indicate that he had been paid a substantial amount of jink just prior to his vanishing, at which time there had been no evidence of foul play, only that he had packed for a trip and vanished by way of a portal, possibly to the Ethereal Plane.
Several days later, Clueless was checking the daily mail. He idly tossed a number of advertisements for rival inns through the fire portal, and then gingerly held one advertisement away from the others. That particular advertisement was dripping some sort of foul smelling, rancid goop.
“I told him to leave us off his damn mailing list…” Clueless said as he looked at the note that accompanied the dripping bundle that seemed to have, a week or two ago, been a cranium rat and was well into the decay process.
You must have been drunk or not thinking straight when you asked me to stop sending you free samples and news on weekly specials. So, in your best interest, and mine, I’m sending you this.
This week we’re running a special of spleens. Two dozen species. Fresh and bloody, pickled, dried, frozen, living, undead, you name it and I’ve got it.
- Seamusxanthuszemus, Merchant Most Excellent, Slayer of Fiends, Purveyor of Death.
P.S. Enjoy the free assorted cranium rat parts. Best quality anywhere in Sigil.
Clueless tossed the putrefied remains of the rat through the fire portal as well, and then yelled out to Toras.
“Hey Toras! Seamusxanthu…whatever the hell his name is, he sent us some more free samples.”
There was a pause, followed by a surprised and miffed reply from the half-celestial. “He what?! I thought you went over to his shop and demanded he stop sending us stuff!”
Clueless laughed, “Yes, I did. He put us back on his list anyways. Said he thought I was drunk or not in my right mind when I asked to be removed from the mailings.”
There was a loud, exasperated cry from the other room. “Son of a b*tch! That damn mephit sends us anything more and I’m going over there myself and stuffing him into his own damn hat!”
Clueless laughed, and then Toras walked into the main taproom.
“You think I’m kidding? I’ll take him and I’ll fit him into his own damn hat, whether he fits or not, he’s going in there if I have to go to that shop myself.”
“Toras, you’ll have entirely too much fun if you do that.” Clueless said before handing the fighter a sealed letter.
“What’s this?” Toras asked.
“A letter, one addressed to each of us with our named in gold ink. I haven’t gotten around to opening mine yet, so I can’t say really what it’s about.” Clueless said as he walked off to wash the rat goop off of his fingers.
Indeed, there was a crisp and well scribed letter addressed, by name, to each of the seven. Inside each envelope was a single, delicately folded letter, baring their name and any official titles. The letters read:
Dear X,
You are hereby cordially invited by Jeremo the Natterer, The Lady’s Jester, to attend a grand banquet and social event at the Palace of the Jester in The Lady’s Ward, held in the honor of Sigil’s property owners, prominent citizens, and political figures. Come as you are.
Seven past peak in two days time.
Jeremo the Natterer, Factol of the Ring Givers
Several days had passed. The mood about Sigil, and indeed the planes themselves, was still subdued and pensive, the nerves of some seemed set on edge, waiting to see what would happen next. A bloody, ragged hole had been torn from the heart of Elysium, and it was as if, on that matter, the planes were holding their collective breath at what response might be seen. But no response came. No crusade, no revenge, no invasion of the Waste to reclaim what did not belong to it.
Nothing happened, though some within Sigil did indeed call loudly for something to be done. But those voices were not the voices of the important, the powerful, or the influential. All of those voices that might have mad a difference were still, hushed, and silent. Those who could have done something, they did nothing as if they were still in shock at what had transpired in so short a time, and with little to no warning.
The influx of refugees into Sigil from The Waste and the gatetowns bordering the three planes of conflict ebbed, slowed, and finally reversed themselves. The riots were quashed, and order was restored by the efforts of the city watch, the Sons of Mercy, and the questionable, but effective methods of the Sodkillers. The status quo returned to the City of Doors, and sooner than anyone expected.
The Blood War was uninterrupted and yugoloth presence upon the untold battlefields of the War Eternal seemed as ubiquitous as always, unperturbed by the sea change within their upper hierarchy. The status quo returned to the lower planes, and, like Sigil, faster than any might have considered possible. Rumors of bloody purges amongst their own ranks, of masses of greater yugoloths being put to the sword while their lesser watched, and of the desperate flight of Ultroloths who had failed to ally themselves with the winning side of their civil war, all those stories and more were whispered and retold in hushed tones.
Officially, as glibly phrased from behind the glossy white fangs of the arcanaloths who served as their race’s spokesman to their clients and to the curious in general, little had changed and rumors were only that. Yes there had been a change in power, the former Oinoloth, an Ultroloth prince of minor consequence, had been deposed, and Vorkannis the Ebon ruled from Khin-Oin as Oinoloth of the Waste. That a portion of Elysium now lay merged with the Waste was glossed over and no comment was given, nor was much comment given to the reports of the uncountable thousands of bodies and severed heads that swung like obscene wind chimes, slowly rustling about in the wind as they hung from the ramparts of Khin-Oin, from base to top, decorating the Wasting Tower with their gory and silent reminders of the price of disloyalty to He who sat and ruled, twenty two miles up.
In Sigil, such questions posed to The Marauder were scoffed at and rebuffed, though the fiend seemed in a remarkably better mood than usual. It almost seemed like the jackal-headed rumormonger and mistress of less than legal dealings had to intentionally hold back her glee at what had recently happened.
“I buy and sell dark and rumor, but I can’t say that I’ll vouch for such rumors one way or the other. Now, I’m not any sort of official spokesman for my race, though I do hear things from time to time, and I’m pleased with what I’ve seen and heard out of the Wasting Tower of late. Beyond that, I have no comment.”
The Marauder had then leaned back and grinned at the clustering of reporters from a half dozen of Sigil’s papers. She inhaled deeply from the long, crystalline tip of the waterpipe perched on the bejeweled and gilded skull of what looked disturbingly like a cervidal, and then blew a steam of smoke at the collective gathering of the press.
“Now, if you’d like to do business with me, my door is open and my schedule too. But,” she said, twin streams of thin smoke curling up from her nostrils, “I run a business, and I know that none of you make very much. If you’re that curious, we can talk about making you a loan, but otherwise gentleman, I’m in a deliciously good mood, and lets not do anything to spoil that, yes?”
“But Ma’am, we’d like a confirmation or not on some of the…” An aasimar reporter for the Tempus Sigilian said before being cut off.
“I prefer ‘your grace’.” The King of the Cross trade said curtly to the reporter. “And again, I have better things to do than publically speculate on things you should be paying for me to speculate upon. Do dawdle off and report on something else. I heard that Aram Oakwright was scragged four days ago but his faction has been trying to keep it under wraps as they try to raise him from the dead.”
“But… your grace…” The same reporter said, “I still don’t…”
“That wasn’t a polite request.” The fiend said, baring several fangs, and leaning forward to point a single, manicured, claw tipped finger in the berk’s direction. “Don’t make me make an impolite request. You wouldn’t like that.”
****
Much like the rest of the city, the mood inside the Portal Jammer was grim and taciturn. Clueless was tending the bar and serving drinks to the slow stream of regular customers, many of whom had begun hitting the ‘jammer after the riots earlier in the week. Toras had been visiting the small chapel to his god in the Temple district of The Lady’s Ward, as had Florian, though Tyr’s temple within Sigil was significantly larger and more prosperous than that of Andros. Nisha had been wandering in and out at random, doing whatever it was that Nisha did to amuse herself. Knowing the chaotic tiefling, that was a rather long, eclectic and delightfully sporadic list of things.
Fyrehowl had spent perhaps a day sulking and brooding angrily, but had very quickly gone to the Great Gymnasium, training more and more with various members of the Transcendent Order. In the end, most of her waking hours were split between there and the Jammer, doing rather than sitting in her room and thinking over things that she couldn’t personally change, at least not yet.
Tristol had mainly bottled himself up in his lab, going through the spellbooks that had once belonged to the Imshenviir Mercane, and also the spellbook that had belonged to the arcanaloth Parphinias, late of the tower in Belarian. The latter was scribed in a sort of personal code, likely to keep the fiend’s own discoveries safe from his fellows. But regardless of the intend and purpose the dead fiend had behind the ciphers in the book, it was taking most of the aasimar’s time to translate the runes into infernal, and from there into draconic for him to learn the spells within. And, given the nature of the spells, most wouldn’t have cared to learn them at all. Tristol learned them anyways, even if he might never use them.
Oddly enough, Skalliska had been staying in her own quarters back at her place of business, rather than taking a room at the Jammer. The kobold had also been embroiling herself in a bit of research concerning the pantheon of gods that had formerly served her people on her own native world. For several days, she had been clustered around a number of fairly thick books on the subject of dead gods, missing gods, obscure pantheons, and the history of kobolds on the prime material.
During her research, Skalliska had kept mostly to herself, and hadn’t been too terribly talkative about the reasoning behind her research. Still, she seemed quite avid about whatever it was that she was looking for. During the second day of the kobold’s work, Nisha had sat down at the same table and was staring oddly at a dish of… something… that Skalliska’s was snacking on.
“Skalliska? Why are you eating Illithid tentacles?” The tiefling said, reaching for one.
Skalliska chuckled, “Not Illithid. Some sort of prime animal called an octopus. Illithid’s expensive and hard to get this time of year.”
Nisha grinned and played with a number of the tentacles, making them dangle and talk to one another in a way that could only be said was exactly her way of thinking. Then she paused and looked at the kobold a bit more seriously.
“…wait… You can get Illithid? You’ve eaten one of them before? I’m both sickened and impressed and curious at the same time.” She said with a giggle.
Skalliska pushed the dish towards Nisha. It has heaped with several dozen of the purplish tentacles, many of them graced by oversized suckers. “Help yourself if you like them.”
“Thank you, I think I will.” The tiefling said, hiding a mischievous grin as she picked up five of the tentacles, stuck them to her fingertips, and dangled them in front of her face…The last anyone saw, she was walking off towards the direction of Tristol’s lab.
“Sir? I was instructed to deliver a package to you.” The messenger said as he held out a note and a box to Clueless.
“Oh? Who from?” The half-fey asked from behind the bar as he took the two items.
“I’m sorry sir, but I wasn’t told. They were both delivered to us anonymously with instructions to deliver them to you at this time. I’d tell you more if I knew. But, alas, I don’t.”
Clueless nodded, tossed the runner a silver piece from behind the bar and thanked him. The runner smiled and headed quickly out the door, on his way to his next assignment, leaving his last puzzled and looking at the package.
Clueless was about to open the box when there was a sudden, distinctly Nisha sounding, cry of “Aasimar Brains!!!!!” from Tristol’s lab, followed immediately by a distinctly Tristol sounding, “AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!” Most of the bar patrons turned to look at the screams, the subsequent crash of clattering furniture and books, then the fierce giggle and sounds of a laughing tiefling running away and up the stairs as fast as her hooves could handle.
Tristol came walking out of his lab a few moments later, several purple tentacles still draped over his head and dangling over his forehead. He was trying very hard not to laugh himself, despite being flushed red in the face. He calmly walked over to Skalliska, his tail bottlebrushed out behind him, and plopped the tentacles down on the table.
“Don’t encourage her, please don’t encourage her…” The mage said before he walked away, chuckling under his breath.
Clueless laughed and offered Tristol a drink before turning back to his own package that had arrived a few minutes prior.
“Weird, wonder who it’s from…” He said, quickly casting a minor dweomers to discern any magic upon either box or letter. A single, and paltry, spell flickered on the envelope for the letter, one likely to alert the writer if the intended recipient was the one who opened it. Otherwise, there was nothing else of note.
Shrugging, Clueless opened the box, and immediately stepped back as he gazed at the cleanly severed humanoid hand that lay within the nestled confines of the package. He quickly moved the box out of view of the patrons of the inn while he took a closer look. The hand was clearly githzerai, probably an elderly githzerai.
His mind pictured the face of the githzerai who had originally aided him in restoring his lost memories, and that the man had been absent the past week, and that none of his fellows seemed to know, or in typical bleaker fashion, seem to apply much meaning or import to it.
“Sh*t…” Clueless softly cursed in a language that few in the inn would have recognized, except perhaps to mistake it for a highly ornate and bizarre derivative of elven or sylvan.
The envelope was ripped open a second later and its short, brief contents read silently before he was gone and out the door before anyone could stop him. The contents read simply:
Suicide Alley. Peak.
As Clueless rushed out the door, it was ten minutes till peak.
The Bladesinger arrived at the filth-strewn alleyway in the Hive, not a moment late. He touched down on the ground and drew his sword immediately while his wings folded down to the sides. But, contrary to his expectations, there was no gang of thugs awaiting him, nor a boisterous and gloating yugoloth or a flunky of the same, waiting for him to deliver a mocking speech while he was expected to wait till they were finished and then act.
There was only a single person, and they were perched at the rim of the alley, tottering by the second and threatening to fall over the side and over the edge, out of the ring of Sigil. It was the Bariaur who had once been a companion of Clueless’s, and who, like him and the elven cleric, had been deceived, captured, and drug to that Tower in Carceri where the yugoloth who now sat atop the throne of the Wasting Tower had implanted each of them with a gemstone in their ankles.
The bariaur kicked the side of the wall to push himself off balance, and then dropped a bag to the cobblestones of the alley. As the momentum swung him over the side, his eyes grew wide with the flicker of awareness, and then it was gone as he tumbled over the edge and into oblivion with a scream.
“No!” Clueless shouted before launching himself to the edge, but it was too late. There was nothing over the edge. No void. No darkness. No blank space. Nothing. Unable to wrap his mind over what it was that existed beyond the edge, the half-fey averted his eyes and dropped down to the ground of Suicide Alley, so aptly named this time and for countless others.
The bladesinger exhaled in defeat, having watched a friend vanish into oblivion, or whatever it was that awaited any who leapt from the edge of Sigil’s ring. In all of Sigil’s history, none had ever done so and returned to tell the tale. The Fraternity of Order even had a standing offer to pay the families of those wishing to kill themselves by that act, if only they would return and given an account to the faction if they did survive, before they tried some other way of killing themselves.
“F*cking sons of b*itches…” He lamented as he kicked the wall harshly and picked up the bag. “So what the hell do you have for me that cost you your life?”
He opened the bag and dumped the contents into the palm of his hand. A single, glimmering gemstone rolled out, glowing the same color as the orb in his leg, just smaller. The controlling gem.
“What the hell…” Clueless said as he stared at the gem, instinctively feeling the urge to touch the gemstone in his hand with that in his leg. There was a synchronous vibration that seemed to pass between, and resonate between the two.
A moment later he did what simply felt right. He merged the two stones. They glowed brilliantly and flowed together like droplets of water joining. The feeling was one of relief, almost analogous to shutting a window on a frigid winters day to prevent the escape of warmth from a roaring fire. Likewise, Clueless felt a door in his mind slam shut and lock, leaving only him with its key.
Still, a pile of questions still lurked in his mind about what had happened to him, and what had just happened. Why was he given the controlling gem back? It seemed hard to believe that the Marauder would willingly return it to him. Was it simply a case of her having finished with her toys and casting them aside? Did someone else within the Wheels take it and return it to him? Was the Cheshire Fiend involved? What was the reasoning behind the tasks that he and his two other former companions had been forced to perform?
He wasn’t sure, but he did have one more thing to look into, one more avenue to explore. Clueless gazed down at the severed githzerai hand before he walked off to find a cleric.
***
“Wake up.” The voice seemed familiar but distant as his conscious mind flooded back into his body, called back by a cleric of Nephthys.
Delsar Mur’alt, factotum of the Bleak Cabal, opened his eyes and looked up into the face of the man that he had willingly betrayed. He closed his eyes, shutting them tight and grimacing. He should have refused the call to return to the world of the living…
The sudden images of exactly where his petitioner had been wandering before that call, they lingering hauntingly in his mind. It had not been pleasant…
“Your alive. Now what the hell happened to you? Why did friend… a friend who’s now dead… why did he kill you?” Clueless asked as he stood over the Bleaker.
Delsar sighed and sat at, swinging around to the opposite side of the cot where the priestess had revived him. He was silent for several minutes, oblivious to the bladesinger’s questions, before finally, he answered.
“I’m sorry.”
“Excuse me? What?” Clueless asked.
“Your memories that you recovered, I intentionally gave you back only a fraction of them. That was what I was paid to do by the people using you.” The gith said with pained regret.
“…” Clueless was taken back by the admission.
“They wanted you to think I had done my best effort, and being as good as I was with such things, that you wouldn’t dig deeper into those memories except at the safe rate at which I had set them into unraveling.” The bleaker looked up at Clueless with deep, yellowed eyes, red at the edges with emotion.
“They had you on the payroll as well, I should have figured…” Clueless said, looking away.
“They wanted to control every aspect of whatever it was that they were doing to you, and using you for. No, I don’t know anything about it besides what I saw in your mind, and what you already know yourself.” Delsar replied, “But still, I knew a bit too much for them, and in the end I was having second thoughts about what I had helped them do to you. They killed me for it.”
Clueless looked at him rather pointedly, “Who was paying you?”
“I don’t know. I was contacted mind to mind originally, bargained with by those means, and paid by hired courier. The mind was cold and dark, dreadfully so, a fiend most likely. The voice would change when they talked to me, so I can’t say if they were male, female, or something else, but regardless of how they dressed it up, the touch was the same.”
“Why?” Clueless asked.
“I didn’t know you, and I wasn’t directly hurting you. I didn’t know what they would do to you, and by the time I saw some of those memories you had come back into your mind, I couldn’t say no. They would have seen to it that I was punished.” Delsar said, starting to tear up. “As for why I even agreed to it? The money, it was significant, and I was donating the vast bulk of it to the orphanage and soup kitchen we run out of the Gatehouse. In the lack of any meaning in this world, none that I’ve found, none that I think exists, I can give myself a reason to exist and survive by seeing to it that I might better the harsh lives of those around me.
You were only one man, and I was helping so many others… please forgive me for what I’ve done to you…”
“It wasn’t your fault, and I know who it was that was doing it to me. Though I don’t know exactly all of the details.” Clueless said.
“Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. They killed me once, and they may do worse the next time. Please don’t give them reason.” The gith said quickly.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell you. And you don’t need me to forgive you. You’re not the only person that they’ve ensnared, both willing and unwilling. And you’re far from the last. It wasn’t your fault, it’s just something that I have to make right. That won’t be something I can do now, but eventually…” Clueless said calmly as the githzerai nodded and slowly rose from the cot.
“Forgiving myself is something that I have to worry about though. Meaning comes from within, and so must forgiveness. It may take me some time to find what may be as elusive as meaning, but we shall see. Thank you for bringing me back from the dead, I will find some way to repay you eventually. Thank you, but I have a great deal of introspection and meditation to see to.”
Clueless nodded to the Gith who shuffled off back to the Hive, and then thanked the cleric for her work. Still running through his head though, were the same questions that had sprung up back in Suicide Alley, and they didn’t have any ready answers.
***
One week later, the tensions in Sigil had decreased even more, and it seemed that no dire predictions of bloody revenge or crusades would take place, nor the rumors of even more black and dire actions by the children of the lower planes. The status quo rained. But still, there were indications that not all was normal, and some things, once released and thrust into the light of their own making, were loathe to entirely creep back into the shadows and be dismissed or forgotten.
Skalliska was walking between the Portal Jammer and the Great Library, taking a more roundabout path than might be normal. At the same time, Fyrehowl was returning from her daily training and meditation at the Great Gymnasium where she had been practicing with the githzerai aide to former Factol Rhys, an experience which she felt was highly beneficial to her both for her combat prowess, learning more and more about the philosophy of the now ‘officially’ defunct faction, and an experience that she had begun to involve Clueless in as well, hoping that the two of them might learn to coordinate their fighting styles for use in the future.
Wandering home by perhaps odd paths, both Skalliska and Fyrehowl happened upon each other in front of a disturbing scene. Perhaps fifteen members of the City Watch stood in front of the outside wall of a large counting house, blocking the close observation and approach of many in the quickly growing crowd of onlookers. The lupinal noticed Skalliska and approached her.
“Oh, hey there Fyrehowl. I was just walking past and I saw something going on here. However, my height being a bit lower than the average here, I can’t see a bit of what’s going on. What’s going on up there by the building?” Skalliska asked.
Fyrehowl moved in and out, between and around, several members of the assembled crowd before she caught a full glimpse of what was being blocked off by the watch. It wasn’t pretty, and what she recognized made her see red.
“Fyrehowl? Where’re you going? What’s up there? Hey!” Skalliska shouted after the lupinal as she abruptly left the scene.
The kobold shrugged and deftly worked her way under the line of guards and finally managed to take a close look at what they were blocking off. At once she understood the lupinal’s reaction.
The building’s wall was a snarl of only vaguely trimmed razorvine, though one patch of the wall had been cleared, and recently as well. A single naked and bloodied body was ensnarled and wrapped up within the razorvine, ragged and mangled from its apparent struggle against whoever had thrown them to their death. A silver and carnelian, Mercykiller helmet was fitted over their head, and was indeed the only article of clothing they wore, besides the razorvine that cut deep and suspended them several feet above the ground.
Skalliska blinked as she noted that the victim appeared to have been hung by several thick strands of razorvine, dying by that just as much as they did from blood loss during their struggle to escape. And then there were the words written in the victims own blood on the patch of the wall that had been recently cleared of the razorvine.
"The Wheels grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine."
The words were underlined and signed with a symbol of the Wheels Within Wheels.
Skalliska narrowed her eyes at the obvious link to the yugoloth cabal that seemed connected to every ill that had befallen them lately, and then she moved on to return back home and spread the word to the others. Several days later the press would report the victim’s identity as the former Mercykiller known only as The Lady’s Executioner. He had apparently been missing for some time, though his personal finances seemed to indicate that he had been paid a substantial amount of jink just prior to his vanishing, at which time there had been no evidence of foul play, only that he had packed for a trip and vanished by way of a portal, possibly to the Ethereal Plane.
***
Several days later, Clueless was checking the daily mail. He idly tossed a number of advertisements for rival inns through the fire portal, and then gingerly held one advertisement away from the others. That particular advertisement was dripping some sort of foul smelling, rancid goop.
“I told him to leave us off his damn mailing list…” Clueless said as he looked at the note that accompanied the dripping bundle that seemed to have, a week or two ago, been a cranium rat and was well into the decay process.
You must have been drunk or not thinking straight when you asked me to stop sending you free samples and news on weekly specials. So, in your best interest, and mine, I’m sending you this.
This week we’re running a special of spleens. Two dozen species. Fresh and bloody, pickled, dried, frozen, living, undead, you name it and I’ve got it.
- Seamusxanthuszemus, Merchant Most Excellent, Slayer of Fiends, Purveyor of Death.
P.S. Enjoy the free assorted cranium rat parts. Best quality anywhere in Sigil.
Clueless tossed the putrefied remains of the rat through the fire portal as well, and then yelled out to Toras.
“Hey Toras! Seamusxanthu…whatever the hell his name is, he sent us some more free samples.”
There was a pause, followed by a surprised and miffed reply from the half-celestial. “He what?! I thought you went over to his shop and demanded he stop sending us stuff!”
Clueless laughed, “Yes, I did. He put us back on his list anyways. Said he thought I was drunk or not in my right mind when I asked to be removed from the mailings.”
There was a loud, exasperated cry from the other room. “Son of a b*tch! That damn mephit sends us anything more and I’m going over there myself and stuffing him into his own damn hat!”
Clueless laughed, and then Toras walked into the main taproom.
“You think I’m kidding? I’ll take him and I’ll fit him into his own damn hat, whether he fits or not, he’s going in there if I have to go to that shop myself.”
“Toras, you’ll have entirely too much fun if you do that.” Clueless said before handing the fighter a sealed letter.
“What’s this?” Toras asked.
“A letter, one addressed to each of us with our named in gold ink. I haven’t gotten around to opening mine yet, so I can’t say really what it’s about.” Clueless said as he walked off to wash the rat goop off of his fingers.
Indeed, there was a crisp and well scribed letter addressed, by name, to each of the seven. Inside each envelope was a single, delicately folded letter, baring their name and any official titles. The letters read:
Dear X,
You are hereby cordially invited by Jeremo the Natterer, The Lady’s Jester, to attend a grand banquet and social event at the Palace of the Jester in The Lady’s Ward, held in the honor of Sigil’s property owners, prominent citizens, and political figures. Come as you are.
Seven past peak in two days time.
Jeremo the Natterer, Factol of the Ring Givers
****
primemover003
First Post
Ironically also the 555th post in this thread...
Very cool, I've wanted to see some more of the Natterer!!!
Very cool, I've wanted to see some more of the Natterer!!!
Shemeska
Adventurer
primemover003 said:
You'll get to see quite a lot of him in this next plot arc, and in anything involving politics in Sigil from then on for the most part. He was a fun character, though my characterization of him will differ from that written up on Planewalker in some ways.
