Inva extended a hand with an envelope to Phaedra, but when the half-‘loth reached for it, the tiefling paused and momentarily held it back.
“Well technically, it’s not addressed to you.” Inva said. “It’s addressed to Ankita.”
Phaedra recalled that she’d signed the Fortune’s Wheel’s registry under that particular nom de guerre. Either the King of the Crosstrade knew who she was and either didn’t care, or was completely disregarding her heritage, potentially as a slight, or the fiend was actually ignorant that she was anyone beyond the human sorceress named Ankita.
“Hardly bloody likely.” Phaedra muttered under her breath.
“I’m not what?” Came Velkyn’s questioning voice as both Inva and Phaedra turned around at both it and the sound of his door opening.
“I’m sorry Velkyn,” Inva said. “You’re a social loser… or a victim of an incompetent runner handling a fiend’s outgoing mail.”
“Bah!” The half-drow replied as he craned to see the letters as the tiefling played keep away with the stack in her hand.
“Mr I-Have-A-Giant-F’ing-Signiture” Phaedra explained. “You remember him from the logbook downstairs?”
“Yeah, Nerath.” Velkyn nodded, “I’d heard of him before then, and that seemed to fit his personality to a T.”
Inva grinned, “Well he’s inviting us to dinner for a meet and greet.”
“Inviting?” Phaedra asked as she scanned the text of her own invitation. “More like a summons if you ask me.”
From what she knew –and her father referred to him as “The Ponce”- Nerath was powerful and oftentimes petty, playing up a role as a social dandy and playboy, like a male mirror image of his predecessor Shemeska the Marauder, complete with all the gender-specific differences that entailed. Whatever public role he presented, it would be best to humor him, because the fiend’s lipstick’d and perfumed public face covered something black and merciless.
At that point the rising voices of conversation served as a summons all their own, and the rest of the group, Marcus, Victor, Garibaldi, and Francesca, opened their doors and stepped out into the central room of the suite.
“It’s dinner and social conversation with a very powerful person in Sigil.” Inva retorted as she handed Velkyn the invitations to distribute to the others.
“He’s a full-blooded fiend and I don’t particularly want anything to do with him.”
Inva’s tail emphatically pointed downwards. “And he apparently lives one floor below us, so probably best to be good neighbors.”
“Or stomp around late at night…” Phaedra muttered.
“Screw the invitation.” Velkyn said and he handed them to the others. “I’m showing up regardless.”
Marcus read over the notice, “This should be interesting.”
Victor however took the invitation from Velkyn like it were glowing red from hellfire and sealed with a kiss from a syphilitic prostitute.
“I don’t know about this…” The cleric said as he read over the letter. “I’m all for not angering a fiend by blowing off an invitation, but I don’t like that I’m living near him, much less eating the same food and making small talk.”
“He’s not going to make you eat elf babies or anything.” Inva said.
Phaedra gave her a stare.
“Ok.” Inva added. “I really doubt that he will.”
Velkyn stepped in and put a hand on the cleric’s shoulder. “Show up, say what needs to be said and consider it a test of faithful endurance. Plus, it’s infinitely better to play nice and humor a person like Nerath than to get on his bad side.”
“To say the least.” Phaedra said, remembering her mother’s dealings with Nerath’s predecessor, and how they got ugly and eventually violent, especially when city politics became involved.
“Come on.” Inva said. “Show up and look virtuous by comparison. You can play good cop to his bad cop. Otherwise we’ll just see Evil as being rich and glamorous and we won’t have anyone else to show us anything different.”
Victor knew she was one to talk, but he got her point and that seemed to change his mind, even if he wasn’t going to like it while he was there.
“And what about you?” Victor asked. “I assume you’re up for this?”
“I’m invited to dinner by someone who’s wealthy and powerful in more ways than one.” Inva replied matter-of-factly, twitching her tail as though the appendage was a physical manifestation of her pondering the matter. “Hmm…”
“You’d sooner keep a tanar’ri away from an all you can eat archon baby buffet.” Velkyn said. “Or something like that.”
Inva’s grin said it all.
“Well that settles it then?” Velkyn asked. “We’ll meet back here say an hour before the time and then go as a group?”
That got a circle of nods and some discussions about what to wear and what to bring as they began to move to scatter to their rooms or move towards the door.
“Not so quick…” Inva said, slapping her tail against her thigh to gather their attention. “I know about Velkyn and Phae, but how about the rest of you?”
“Hmm?” Victor asked.
“You’re from the prime material for the most part.” She said. “What sort of experience do any of you have with fiends, and fiends in high society?”
“I’ve…” Garibaldi began, and Inva cut him off perfunctorily.
“The tanar’ri in the Great Barrow don’t count.”
The tiefling blinked, swallowed, and clapped her hands together like a professor about to begin a long and complex lecture to a group of students new and entirely naïve to a topic.
“I’m going to assume that beyond killing some tanar’ri, knowing Phaedra, and perhaps getting temporarily possessed by a balor, you don’t know much about dealing with fiends, especially full-blooded arcanaloths, or dealing with ‘loths in general, or ones in high society.”
“Well there was this one ‘loth I’ve met.” Marcus said. “But he seemed rather nice actually. Owned a shop and…”
“A’kin doesn’t count.” Velkyn explained.
Victor had a confused look on his face, “Huh?”
“A’kin is…” Velkyn searched for words. “A’kin is A’kin. Don’t make any assumptions based on him.”
Phaedra kept her mouth shut, but that didn’t make what Velkyn said any less true. She was his daughter and she wouldn’t make any assumptions either. The more she knew about him, she wasn’t sure if she understood him better, or was just more confused for the trying.
“Alright.” Inva said. “I’ve worked with people like him before, and I’ve worked for powerful ‘loths before, so let me give you a rundown on what to expect and how to act. We don’t want you insulting a powerful fiend, especially one with as much money and public standing as he has.”
Phaedra slinked off back to her room, but Velkyn took a seat and made himself comfortable. He knew exactly what he’d be wearing, and he knew just what he’d be bringing to give as a gift –even if that meant pilfering his father’s private liquor stash- but that could wait a little while before he needed to get anything ready. In the meantime however, he wasn’t going to pass up watching Inva play schoolmarm.
And so the tiefling began her little rundown on what you do, and don’t do or say around the King of the Crosstrade. The poor confused looks on their faces, and the momentarily flustered looks on Inva’s face made Velkyn chuckle more than once. Eventually though he got up and left, still chuckling, when she shot him a look that seemed to promise a punch in the face in a dark alley for making light of her attempts to keep them safe from accidentally painting targets on their faces when they met the fiend who lived below them.
A solid hour later Inva seemed content with her four students and gave them her blessing to go find something nice to wear and debate what to bring as gifts. Having finished, she then turned to leave.
Victor looked at the tiefling, “So where are you going?”
“Shopping.” Was her blunt reply.
“Shopping?”
“Not only am I going to go shopping to get something nicer to wear, I’ll be working this for all I can, regardless of the intent behind the invite. Trust me, I’ve dealt with his type before. Dangerous yes. Unhealthy possibly. Unseemly, depends on your perspectives.” She glanced at Victor and winked. “But they pay if you’re worth it, and I intend to make myself –look- worth it.”
Of course, the others had a need for the same, both to buy something nicer to wear, and also to find a gift of sorts for the fiend. Sigil was the place to be to find both of those things, and back in her room for the moment, Phaedra knew exactly where she’d be going first, even if just for advice.
***
With the jingle of a tarnished silver bell –irony in and of itself- the door to the Friendly Fiend swung inwards and a rather unremarkable elf stepped inside. The words “Hi dad” died somewhere between her brain and her tongue as she surveyed the shop and saw that her father was already occupied with a pair of customers.
“So whom exactly are you buying this for?” A’kin asked, prodding the buyers for more information, given that they were paying him an outlandish sum for a relatively rare but exceptionally useless piece of junk. “It’s very nice yes, but I think we could find something better to fit your needs if…”
One of the buyers nudged the other, and a moment later they elbowed back and exchanged looks. A’kin of course kept right on smiling.
“We’re trying to buy something as a gift of courtesy for Nerath the Marauder.”
“Marcus you absolute idiot!” Phaedra thought.
“A’kin is A’kin and that’s what he does, but didn’t Inva advise you not to spread that information around?”
She frowned to herself and wandered over to seem like she was looking at a pickled beholder’s eye. Perhaps her personal dislike of Marcus was festering a bit more than it should, and A’kin wasn’t the worst person to spill the beans to –she would have been doing it herself- but that didn’t bode well for Marcus keeping those details to himself in the future with anyone else.
Eventually they settled on something and as Marcus and Francesca paid her father his asking price and then waited for him to gift wrap it with a nice bow on top, Phaedra glanced at A’kin and thought back to the last meeting with him in his shop. Dealing with her father was always an experience and she still hadn’t managed to get used to it. Standing there disguised as something other than what she really was, watching him interact with Marcus and Francesca, watching that ubiquitous smile play across his face, she realized just how little in some ways she truly understood him.
She was his daughter, one of three siblings, and easily the one most like him. He did seem to dote on her, and most of her more expensive and unique possessions came from him, but she supposed it was still an open question in her mind if he loved her. Given what he was, was he even capable of it? Perhaps he didn’t give a damn, perhaps it was just a show and an act to humor her mother and probably keep his head attached to his shoulders.
A’kin meanwhile was still folding paper and tying ribbons while Marcus and Francesca seemed quite happy about their purchase, whatever little bit of planar marginalia it was. A moment later and the friendly fiend was offering them a sample of chocolate mephit and starting up small talk, plying them for information in more ways than one, and they were entirely unaware of it.
Phaedra glanced away. Part of her wanted to be optimistic and assume that he cared because she truly cared, while the other part of her said she knew better. Whether it was the cynical pragmatism of the ‘loth in her speaking, or the wisdom of the guardinal in her showing through, she couldn’t say, and she wasn’t sure she really wanted to know.
A few minutes of conversation passed after he finished up the sale, but once his customers left, A’kin wandered over to the door, locked it, and flipped the shop’s sign hanging in the window to “Closed”.
“So what’s wrong?” He asked as Phaedra dropped back into her normal shape.
“We all have to go have dinner with Nerath. That’s what’s wrong.” Phaedra’s tone and expression made no pretense about just how miserable she was. “The stupid fiend sent us invitations, and you don’t even have to read between the lines to see that it’s not an optional event, or wise to not show up dressed to the nines and bearing gifts. Plus Inva actually
wants to go, and oh this…”
She trailed off and looked away, sulking, oblivious to the amused expression playing across her father’s face.
“Back up a moment and start at the beginning.” He said as he gave her a hug and looked into her eyes. “It can’t be that bad.”
Phaedra caught him up to speed on what she’d been doing, her opinions on her new companions -and A’kin keenly noted that he’d apparently already two of them before she mentioned them- and her new living arrangements.
Phaedra passed Nerath’s invitation across the counter and strummed her fingers on the surface as her father slipped on a pair of reading glasses –not that he needed them, but likely enchanted to pierce any non-standard illusions- and looked over the invitation with a serious look that gradually turned into an enigmatic and vaguely amused smile.
“You’re staying at the Fortune’s Wheel you say?” A’kin asked while he read over the invitation.
Phaedra nodded. “It’s expensive, but it’s getting paid for. The neighbors however…”
“Well for starters,” A’kin replied. “And ignoring the neighbors, I’d also ignore what the wizardly Starweather, as opposed to the crazy Starweather, has to say about the Fortune’s Wheel. He’s still bitter about getting poisoned the first time he ate there, but the food really is quite deserving of its reputation outside of his experience. You’ll enjoy what it has to offer. And oh, when you go back tonight, do say hello to the dragon for me. We go back a long time and I’m really happy that the place is looking and doing well these days. He deserves it, especially with what happened to the place blowing up years ago and all, back before you were born. A shame all of that.”
That put Phaedra a bit more at ease with the place, but it didn’t address the Marauder at all, and on that note, A’kin was grinning as he finished Nerath’s invitation.
“You’ve got that look.” Phaedra said.
“Normally my advice would be to stay away from the Marauder.” A’kin explained, looking up after a moment’s thought. “He might not be as prone to burning my shop down as his predecessor, but he’s a pain in the *ss nonetheless. Give him a wide berth, don’t accept any offers especially if they involve the words “free” or “trust me”, and if he comes off as charming, don’t even go there, you don’t know where he’s been.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Knowing him, he’ll try something just to get on my nerves. I think he gets off on that. But he should have the sense to not do anything more than make a nuisance of himself, which is better than his former mistress. I think he’s learned from her mistakes.”
A’kin chuckled to himself on that last bit. Phaedra didn’t understand why, but he didn’t elaborate on the irony of it all. Her father or not, it was patently obvious that in true arcanaloth fashion, he wasn’t free with all of his secrets.
“Maybe he won’t do anything at all.” A’kin paused and nibbled on a remaining bit of chocolate mephit. “Hopefully.”
“Hopefully?” Phaedra asked. “That doesn’t exactly make me feel better about having to meet him.”
“So you get to meet Nerath, the Queen of the Crosstrade, my not so up to snuff foil. Big deal. Show up, enjoy the social positioning and probable propositioning, and leave with him having gained nothing.”
He sounded like Inva the way he said it.
“Dad…”
He waved his hand dismissively, “You’re not in any danger. He won’t do anything to you. Besides, you could use the experience dealing with his type.”
Phaedra looked at her father and shook her head, “In any event I’m also here for the same reason I’m guessing Marcus and Francesca were.”
“You don’t want to show up standing the fiend’s parlor without a gift.”
“Exactly.” Phaedra replied. “Do you have anything interesting and appropriate that I could buy?”
“Absolutely not, but I’m sure I have plenty of things I could give you.” A’kin said as he telekinetically tied a second knot in the loose strings on the purse at Phaedra’s belt. “You can play the independence game later. Right now I get to play the doting father.”
So what did a fiend want? A’kin was precisely the person to ask, being what he was, but there was still the matter of personal taste and the impression that each gift might give. The junk in the front of the shop was right out. It might be full of curios to sell to people of average means, but nothing that you might give to the second richest individual in Sigil.
A’kin motioned her into the back room, “Come on back and we’ll see what we can find.”
Phaedra frowned at the goblet full of soul gems, and then frowned at the other goblet full of imprisoned tanar’ri.
“What?” A’kin asked.
Phaedra sighed and shook her head, “Nothing…”
Artwork was possible, but once A’kin went into detail about what sorts of things the Marauder had purchased at public (and private) auction over the years, Phaedra stuck her tongue out and had him move on to other potential gifts. Jewelry was possible, and so were books, but there was still that matter of personal taste, and for books, there was once more than unseemly look on Phaedra’s behalf and A’kin moved on once more.
“A flower?” Phaedra asked, looking at an incredibly delicate and glowing blossom sealed within a crystalline sphere A’kin held up for her to examine.
“You could call it that I suppose.” A’kin said.
“So what exactly is it?”
“It’s a unique form of Ysgardian petitioner.” A’kin replied, and the corrected himself a moment later. “Or rather, it’s a unique form of an ex-petitioner. When particular petitioners merge with the plane as a whole, a select few of them on a specific layer near a few particular deific domains take this form. And no, it’s no longer a petitioner, and it’s not sentient.”
If he said so… plus it really was absolutely gorgeous, and rare, which seemed to suit the qualifications of what to give to the Marauder.
“I’m not giving a soul away am I?” Phaedra asked, looking for confirmation.
A’kin shook his head, “It’s not a petitioner, no. I know that you’re not willing to sell souls, and this doesn’t go against that. So don’t worry.”
“Been there, done that.” Phaedra muttered under her breath, adding in an even lower tone. “Wouldn’t do it again…”
A’kin heard the first bit and it triggered a hug and a spiel about how proud he was of her, his little girl growing up, etc. Phaedra wasn’t sure if he’d heard the last part of what she’d said, or he’d just discounted it, or what, but he seemed pleased at her for something she regretted doing.
Figures….
A’kin wrapped the flower up and as he did so, he looked thoroughly amused and the wheels in his head were clearly working on something. Phaedra wasn’t even sure if his amusement was related to her, what she’d said, or even the whole situation of her having to sit down and have dinner with Sigil’s other resident ‘loth. A’kin didn’t offer any explanation whatsoever, and eventually once the flower was boxed, he handed it over.
“But oh.” A’kin said as Phaedra was turning to leave. “One more thing.”
Her ears perked curiously at his tone.
“Do you remember that dress I gave you for a present a few years ago? The green one?”
Phaedra nodded. She hadn’t worn it in some time, just because she hadn’t had a chance to attend any parties or social functions that really needed something that fancy. But fancy was a bit of an understatement where that particular gown was concerned, it must have cost a fortune and it looked handcrafted right down to the last bead and gemstone. Where her father had found it, who had made it, and how much he’d paid for it, he’d never answered.
“Yeah, I remember it. Why?”
“Wear it to Nerath’s little meet and greet. Trust me, it’ll fit the occasion.”
A’kin smiled, gave her a hug and sipped at a steaming mug of tea as she left, an archetypal ‘loth’s grin peaking over the rim as the tea fogged his spectacles as opaque as his intentions and thoughts behind the matter were to his daughter. Oh that dress would certainly fit the occasion, in more ways than she knew. Nerath would
appreciate it, so to speak, and probably try and burn the shop down, but it would be worth it a hundred times over.
***
