Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shemeska" data-source="post: 2813341" data-attributes="member: 11697">“Aren’t I the prettiest fiend in Sigil?!” The tiny doll snarled up in a whiny version of the Marauder’s own voice.    The fiendess arched her eyebrows and leaned back slightly.    “Don’t I have the prettiest smile?!” The doll said, flashing a ragged, drooling mouthful of fangs.    A hush fell over that corner of the inn. Tristol’s head was down on the table and his tail curled around the leg of his chair. Clueless had sudden images of their inn demolished by a series of explosions in the next few seconds.    “Yes I am.” Shemeska crooned down at the doll. “And yes I do.”    The doll looked up at its namesake and there was some whispered comment it made, something crude, something involving a ‘friendly fiend’ and a Balor. What followed were a few startled coughs, the rattle of glasses in unsteady hands, and silence from the ‘loth.    Without looking away from the doll, the Marauder extended a hand and beckoned with a finger to Clueless.    “Please don’t pitch a fit…” Clueless muttered as he winced and reluctantly walked over to the fiend’s table.    Of course his reluctance never showed as he put a gracious smile upon his face, even as his head swum with a duality of magic induced euphoria and the thought of ‘…you arrogant b*tch. Why don’t you go screw the spire.’    As Clueless walked up to the table, the little doll was looking at its reflection in the tiny mirror that came along with it, apparently admiring the way its gown flattered its ass. The real Marauder was simply watching its own antics in miniature played out on the table, a thin-lipped smile on her face, either on the verge of a grin or a snarl.    “So…” She asked, twirling a finger through the coil of razorvine atop her head, still without looking up. “What’s your opinion of the doll?”    Given the relative hush that had fallen over that portion of the inn, Tristol could hear the question from where he was sitting, even if he was trying to avoid looking. A dozen potential counterspells danced through his mind along with a dozen horrible, terrible ways the situation could fall apart.    “It really doesn’t hold a candle to you…” Clueless said, belated and forcibly adding, “…your fiendish majesty.”    “And if people don’t flatter me.” The doll squeaked out. “I pull that little trick with nails, a tree, intestines, and hellhounds!”    The ‘loth didn’t respond, and Clueless held his breath.    “But it’s most fun to just make people do what you want them to do.” The doll continued, as it played around with changing the colors of the paint on its claws. “Blackmail, threats, implied threats, magic…”    “Among other classics.” The real Marauder crooned, turning up towards Clueless and flashing a smile.    “You know, I am impressed on a number of levels.” She continued. “From what I’d gathered, all these little dolls were quite lifelike and well matched up to their namesakes. But I never expected this one to be so well modeled.”    Clueless blinked.    “You knew about this one?” He asked.    “Well of course I did.” She replied. “It concerns me. You really didn’t think that you’d be able to keep a present for me concealed? I don’t handle surprises well, but I do appreciate the intent.”    “Present?” Clueless asked, a sudden change of tone creeping into his voice.    “Well of course.” The fiendess replied with pompous self-assurance. “I wasn’t invited to the auction by that outcast little bootlicker in the Lower Ward. So, knowing that I like gifts, and knowing how much I do so like me, you bid on it as a present for me.”    “Umm…” Clueless stammered.    “And dear,” She said, reaching out running a claw down the bladesinger’s chest gently. “I really am touched by the gesture.”    Had he not been high at the time, Clueless would have screamed. Not only was she going to steal something they’d all purchased together in mockery of her, but also the way her finger was tracing its way down his chest… she seemed far too familiar with the contours of his musculature for his comfort.    “It was a good choice on your behalf, and it really is so very lifelike. I half expect that the craftsman might have spent his evenings peeking into my bedchambers and taking notes.” She said with a laugh, withdrawing her hand and touching it daintily to her chest. “Oh for them to be so lucky though I suppose.”    Clueless repressed a snarl and a sudden, intense desire to slit her throat.    “So my trip to the Clerk’s Ward hasn’t been the ordeal I though it would be.” The King of the Crosstrade continued. “I get to see your quaint little place again, with all the nostalgia for the Ubiquitous Wayfarer it invokes, and I’m gifted with this darling little version of myself.”    “I’m glad that you enjoy ma’am.” Clueless forced himself to say at about the point that she started to ignore him entirely.    “Let’s go find a place that –actually- knows how to make my favorite drink.” The doll said with a shrill little bark.    “Perhaps, but while you look gorgeous with a figure so very much like my own down to the sparkle in your eyes, you need to learn a thing about tact.” The Marauder instructed the doll.    “You see, each and every insult needs to be directed like a bolt of lightning rather than a wail of the banshee. Be precise in your mockery, and despite the illusion and appearance of whimsy, always mean what you say when you offend. And yes, I’m sure we can find a shot of higher end spirits at one of the nicer bars in the city.”     The Marauder’s lips curled back in a sneer as she adjusted the tangle of razorvine atop her head, and the doll proceeded to do much the same.    “But now you darling little facsimile,” Shemeska said down to the doll. “There’s misery in the Cage, and it’s high time we found some to partake of.”    Clueless was livid as the fiend gestured one of her servants over to pull back her chair, drape a black silk stole across her lower back between her arms, and place the doll inside a padded box they’d apparently arrived with. She’d come simply to pick up what she’d wanted, and in fact she’d probably had one of her people find the damn doll and bring it down to the common room for her to discover and graciously accept as a gift with the entire Cage’s supply of false humility.    It went without saying that there was neither payment nor a tip for the food her people had ordered as she stepped away and walked towards the exit, finally breaking into laughter as soon as she reached the street.    “Shaved.” Clueless exclaimed. “Definitely not good enough.”    With the fiend’s barking mockery fading into the distance, Clueless put his head down on the bar and exhaled. His head was swimming, his back was tingling like it had fallen asleep, and he was having random flickers of light play across his field of vision in time with the beating of his heart.    Either the Marauder had pushed his blood pressure up to near lethal levels with her little display, or he was having side effects of his experimentation with his back and the globe of syrupy, liquid magic earlier in the day. And though the ‘loth had done her fickle best, that wasn’t likely to be the cause of it all.    “Are you alright?” Tristol asked, walking up to the bar, the fur on his ears still slightly on end from the fiend.    “Hmm?” Clueless mumbled off key as he looked up.    “You don’t look very good.” The aasimar replied with some concern. “She do something to you?”    “No…” Clueless replied. “I just…”    The bladesinger’s speech slurred and he giggled.    “…” Tristol looked suddenly more worried.    “I’m just, y… I’ll be back later…” Clueless said as he stepped out from behind the bar. “Sleep…”    “You do that.” Tristol said. “I’ll have someone else fill in at the bar.”    “You have fuzzy ears.” Clueless said with a gleeful giggle as he staggered away.    Tristol frowned and paused to respond, or maybe even stop him to make certain that he hadn’t been drugged or something. But he let him go, watching him firmly till the bladesinger vanished up the stairs on the way to his room, resolving to check up on him later.***    Clueless slumped against the surface of his door and fumbled with the latch. His head was getting worse and his back felt numb. But strangely enough he wasn’t worried in the slightest, suffused as he was with a general sense of euphoria. Only seconds later, as he stepped into the room and sat down on the bed, something happened. Something popped in the back of his mind, his vision contorted and his eyes ached for a few painful seconds. But when it was over his perspective had suddenly changed, his surroundings vanishing and being replaced with somewhere else entirely. He was watching something but not controlling it, like a vision through a sensory stone or through a legend lore spell. He was having another flashback triggered by the globules of heavy magic spinning their way through his tattoo and into his flesh. But this time, he wasn’t choosing anything of what he was being shown.    The room was smaller and darker, the flickering light of a few sparkling globes, each filled with the bound essence of a lantern archon, illuminated only those portions of ‘his’ vision that he wished. A table, covered in a chaotic mess of loose papers, open books… and a golden globe filled with a glistening, honey-like liquid.    “Too old. Too old.” He said. “The Ape Who Would Fly discovered it independently, and much too late in the historical record to match where I found this little bauble.”    The view suddenly shifted back to focus on the speaker, revealing the supremely arrogant, hawk nosed countenance of Shekelor seated at his desk, glancing back and forth between a pair of books and his own reflection in the orb of golden liquid.    “I wonder… no, that couldn’t be it.” He said, openly musing to himself. “They wouldn’t have had a hand in this.”    The two massive tomes sprawled open upon Shekelor’s desk, they were like bookends upon the globe of heavy magic, each of them scrawled with the Incantifer’s own scrawled notes in the margins. The first book, ‘Magic and Antimagic – Karsus, Archwizard of Eileanar Enclave’ was bound in a heavy, maroon cover, with an exquisitely illuminated interior. But despite the obvious value of the book itself, the Factol of the Magicians treated it with a certain level of intellectual nonchalance.    Slipping a finger over a series of equations and schematics relating to the binding of specific types of magical energies together into a larger, self-sustaining whole, Shekelor smiled. Much like mathematics was a thing of beauty to a Guvner, so too was the working of magic something similar to the lord of the Incanterium. Like poetic little quatrains, he recited the words in Old Loross that described one tiny facet of the interactions between the threads of a mythallar, and stabilized heavy magic, and he smiled, genuinely happy for a brief few moments.    But then it was gone, his reverie broken, and his impatient, hungry mind moving on to another page entirely, looking for answers and ignoring the rest as superfluous. “The Netherese were dolts…” He muttered, reaching out to underline something in the Karsus text. “A shame they’re no longer extant. They had promise and potential. What fun they would have been.”His last statement was laced through with hunger, and it seemed that for a moment, lost in contemplation, he might very well drool upon the pages of the open book.    “I have to wonder though, did you really come up with the idea all on your own?” The Magician pondered. “Was it a stupendous, glorious mistake on your part? Did you die with some natal insight into the workings of the stuff, never deigning to write it down out of jealous pride?”     Shekelor smirked, “Believe me, I could have respected that.”    That said, he flipped another page and examined a few more details on the practical applications of the material, though for the most part, the first two pages were merely prefaced with statements of caution and blatant warnings as to the extreme volatility of such endeavors. Ultimately, after seeming to gain little from the text that he didn’t already know, Shekelor moved from the book and gazed into the depths of the glassy sphere itself.    “It’s a shame that I have other, more important things on my mind.” He said, speaking to the golden liquid. “I’ve got another little bauble to find, and I’ll be leaving shortly to find it. Had I more time I’d like deeply to learn just where you first came from.”    In the vision, reflected back in the surface of the orb, Shekelor’s luminous, liquid silver eyes gazed back at Clueless. Those hungry, inhuman orbs peered back at him in that flicker of disjointed memory, carried across the years by the same liquid he’d sat there in Sigil pondering over so very long ago.    And then, without warning, the memory skipped track, launching forward an uncertain period of time.    When his vision cleared again, Shekelor was still there at his desk, the globe of heavy magic still situated in front of him, only now he was glancing down at the second book he’d had upon his desk. That other tome was bound in simple brown leather, not given over to any overly elaborate decoration. It was a very simple, unassuming thing, in marked contrast to the first of the books he’d been studying.‘The Sublime Laws of the Arcane: implications and loopholes’, that was the name of the book; and while there was no author’s name given, the upper right corner of each page was stamped with a symbol very much like that of the Fraternity of Order.    “And if Karsus might have kept secrets, I –know- that you do.” Shekelor hissed as he glanced over a page that seemed to be more math than actual script. “Bloody brilliant in your own way, but too obsessed with the search for knowledge and understand how it all works in the minute, than you are with actually taking advantage of it.”    The Incantifer paused and circled a few portions of a page, jotting down some notes in some sort of personalized shorthand for later.    “At least with you, I can actually walk down to your damn office and ask you something myself.”    Shekelor obviously knew the author. That wasn’t entirely expected.    “Of course I have to deal with your fellow faction members’ peery eyes.” He said with some scorn. “But at least I’ll have an intelligent conversation if you’re around. Though you ask too many questions and you’re far too keen to play this little game of one-upmanship we’ve developed over the years. You’ve already lost simply because you picked the wrong faction my friend, and no amount of subtle insinuation that you’ve ‘found the biggest secret of all’ or ‘found other places’ and ‘found how to call to them’ or that you’ve ‘found some friends all your own’ will really make any difference in the matter. You’re not practical enough, and one of these days, it’s going to kill you.”    The curious condescension in the wizard’s voice was nearly palpable.    “And that last sending of yours, were you bragging?” Shekelor mused. “Babble about Keeping and Loopholes and Others. By the time you do anything practical I’ll have already found the Labyrinth Stone. Stop hitting the Arborean wine and you’ll make something of yourself.”    And with that, Clueless’s vision swam, the memory faded and be blacked out.    It might have been only a few minutes, or it might have been a few hours, he wasn’t immediately certain of how much time had passed when he came to and shook his head.    “That was different…” Clueless said to himself, standing up on unsteady feet.    His head was swimming still, but unlike a dream, the memory was firmly cemented into his mind and the details were curious to say the least. If he was learning things simply by association with objects, like some sort of random and unasked for bursts of physiognomy, it opened up avenues of inquiry that otherwise would have been firmly locked away in the past’s silent crypt.    “So Shekelor didn’t make you.” He said, looking at the orb of heavy magic. “And he didn’t know who did either.”    And then there were the books.    “I’ll have to ask Tristol if he knows where I can find a copy of the first one. I’ve got the name of the author for that one at least. The second one… that might take some more work.”    If nothing else, it might take the wizard’s mind off of the day’s experiences with the Marauder. Of course in the meantime though, Clueless himself was still a bit on edge about his own little episodes of unasked for divinations.“Hopefully I don’t start randomly getting flashes of memories like that.” He said as he tossed a cloth over top of the globe. “At least with divinations you can control when and what you’re looking at.”***    Tristol was sitting at one of the tables in the back room that he’d converted to a lab and a magical library. He’d retreated there and closed the door after the Marauder’s little escapade earlier, simply wanting to avoid people and any sort of bother, finding some solace in his books.    He’d even managed to find some of that desired peace in the time he’d spent there reading. No drunken customers, no pissant yugoloths, no dangerously amusing Xaositects. Well no, that last one he had a bit more tolerance for, more than tolerance actually, even if she was amazingly able to cause trouble.    But that solace thing he’d briefly managed to find, well, it didn’t last much longer once there was a knock at the door and Clueless stuck his head in.    “I’ve got a question for you Tristol.”</blockquote>

Verification