| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Jek laughs. "If only those villagers could see you now..."
He begins trudging forward.
Magically mitigating the winds does not make reaching the portal any easier. But your persistence pays off as you one by one, one way or another manage to reach it. The Wraithworm that used to guard this area does not appear to have any visible wounds, how it died must have involved poison or some magical means that preserved the body.
The Chamber of Secrets
The walls of this room, once covered with symbols that stood for mighty words of power, are now blackened, scarred, and destroyed. None of the symbols remain. Sitting on the far end of the chamber is Tchunum with Evreth nowhere to be seen. If he recognizes your entrance to the chamber he does not acknowledge it.
Savi climbs out of her bottle. She had to experience this room from within a familiar satchel once already. This time, she’s gonna char it up.
(She checks with Lunk first to make sure he’s the friendlier of the two.)
“Hi, Mr. Tchunum! I’m Savi, not that we’ve ever met exactly.” She hovers at eye level, not in his face, but close enough for polite conversation. “You had a tall friend. It was probably before I was born. There were two pretty ladies and a pretty man—a cat owner—and then there was a metal guy, and… aww, the other man wasn’t ugly. I feel bad I called everyone else pretty. Or metal. The muscle-girl was pretty and metal.”
Savi realized she isn’t getting to the point.
“The point is, you were really nice to the people that came here. But this room was intact, and… your tall friend. Is he…?”
Savi fears something awful happened, and the other man died, and Tchunum might’ve been by himself for centuries for all she knows.
Tchunim lowers his head further and does not look up at Savi. With great sadness he only says, ”Poor Evreth.”
Savi flutters closer and places her tiny hand on his.
“I’m so sorry for your loss. I… we—me and all my friends here—met you and Evreth through the eyes of others. I saw through the eyes of a flying talking cat named Snowball.
“I know it must be hard, but… do you remember the cat and the other visitors?”
Baraxx looks around, ”What happened to all the funny words?”
“I know it must be hard, but… do you remember the cat and the other visitors?”
Tchunim speaks, barely a whisper, ”I remember.”
Baraxx looks around, ”What happened to all the funny words?”
”Destroyed along with my friend. It was gaunt and angular, almost shadowy and ethereal. Eyes, dark and piercing, stared out at us, but the creature said nothing. It seemed to know exactly what it wanted as it glanced around the room and finally found the symbol it sought. In no time at all, it mastered the word, and that alone speaks volumes about the being’s nature. The.. the most horrible of all, the word that it spoke to Evreth, almost as if to test it, to see if it really worked. The creature learned the Last Word.”
The proxy of long forgotten Powers slumps back down into his depression.
"The last word?" Nik asks.
”The Last Word sounds … bad.” Baraxx muses philosophically, fingers stroking his chin.
Savi shudders as her imagination tries to fill in the blank.
He didn’t just kill Evreth. The Last Word probably did something to Evreth’s soul… and does the creature just gotta SPEAK the word?
”So there’s a horrible creature out there that can… say the word, and…?”
Savi wants to be helpful, but really, she’s a fairy. Even if she were a demigoddess…
"You can leave with us if you like..." Jek offers.
With his face downcast he simply says, "Dead." He makes no move to leave when Jek suggests it.
"Well, that sounds bad." Nik-the-ossumental explains.
"I guess we're too late to do anything about the word getting stolen. And I don't feel like interrogating this poor guy. Shall we go?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The journey back to Sigil is mostly long and boring with endless stretches of sand ahead of you and behind. The only thing nearby is the realm of Nephythys, Amun-Thys. The literal necropolis, Bas-tiref is populated with the undead who reverie the Egyptian Power of death. A helpful mummy directs you to a portal that leads back to Sigil. The entrance to a crypt of some long forgotten ruler serves as the bounded space; the key is a dust reed, which luckily are plentiful within the realm. Someone has scratched above the portal ”Cage or crypt, it’s home.”
You tumble out into the lower level in Mortuary in the Hive. The dustmen familiar with Nik glare at him as news of his fall from grace seems to have circulated. A few also give Rinika a second glance, no doubt due to her affiliation with Eight-toes.
Nik keeps moving back and forth between different sides of Jek, opposite whichever side of Jek has the most glaring faces at the time.
I Really miss my shamblers now... I need... I need a portable hole or something...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Nik elbows Rinika. "Think you could ask a doomlet buddy that has worms in his brain box? We should probably go looking for that missing sparkle stick sooner rather than later."
Rinika will go poking around to see if she can wheedle any information on Pandemonium, to the 3rd or 4th layer, but she'll try to play coy about it and make veiled references to a secret mission.
As the group returns to The Cage Baraxx once again looks around at the group, completely lost in the big city, and gloms onto one of the other party members as they go about their business.
Having exhausted her Bleaker contacts, Rinika instead turns to her other contacts, four hours later she tracks down Lissandra the Gate-Seeker.
She is a tall woman with wide shoulders, thick blond hair that is barely restrained by a thin lavender headband. Strong features dominate her face, full brows, tip-tilted green eyes and a wide mouth. She wears a spare, sleeveless, yellow-and-lavender robe that’s split up the side for ease of movement. Her strong arms are bare, but for a luminous gold wristband and an amethyst ring on her left pinky. In her right is a thick book with leather straps at both ends. She gets to the point quickly, ”Normally I charge good jink for that kind of chant, but I’ve heard from a mutual friend about the work you’ve done for the Doomguard. The cause could use more people like you. So this one’s on the house. Between the Ditch and Bedlam Run there’s an alley, some berk’s scrawled ‘bye-bye berk!’ next to the busted window. The key’s a bit harder, a scream of sincere fear.”
Rinika jots down the instructions and gives Lissandra her best cheshire cat grin. "Harder, or more fun? I think I can manage to coax one out of someone." Her smile turns a bit sweeter. "Charmed, though. Appreciate the chant."
So, how far's this alley, and is everyone ready to go?
Jek dodges back and forth to help Nik avoid glaring faces. "You seem popular now... Is this normal? Are things ok?" Jek asks half-jokingly.
After a few random tavern stops, he begins to steer the group Sod-wards out of habit.
Savi flies over to Rinika. “Hive Ward, huh? Some of our Xaositect pals are here… I think.
“What exactly do you wanna know? Ever since we earned our badges, Lunk got smart or something.”
Lunk signs, <If you have questions, ask. I might get answers.>
At Jek's question, Nik shrugs, mumbles something about finding a zest for life, and hazards a glance at Rinika.
"Maybe ask if there's an abandoned magic item worth ten grand?" Nik suggests.
Rinika shrugs at Nik. "Sure. All I wanna know is how well trafficked the alley is, if we're gonna spook some berk into giving us his best scream."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Lunk thinks of ten questions…
1. How well trafficked is the alley?
2. Is there a safe way to travel so we don’t scare the hell out of anyone?
3. What exactly constitutes a ’best scream?’
4. Do you happen to know where an abandoned magical thing worth about ten thousand gold might happen to be lying around?
5. Hey. Y’know that cute naiad with the grappler arrow? (6.) Did she survive that experience we sensed through the stone. (7.) Do you think I’ll ever meet a girl like that? She’s cute, (8.) don’t you agree?
What the hell am I doing? <= (9)
…f&%$.
Lunk signs to Savi who signs back.
…
10. How’s Bedu doing these days?
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
1. How well trafficked is the alley?
Lunk receives a vision of a man lying in a pool of his own blood in the alley. It's early morning, the darkness from anti-peak still lingers heavily in the air. A bariaur kid with matted dirty fur is searching through his pockets, but settles on stealing the man’s shoes. It’s later in the morning, a woman with yellow pox marks and a hacking cough struggles to put the corpse into a cart already too full with bodies. It’s peak, with the day’s gray light washing over the alley, a dabus is scrubbing the blood from the cobblestone.
2. Is there a safe way to travel so we don’t scare the hell out of anyone?
A strange voice that sounds like a cricket trying to make words in common, ”For some definitions of safe.”
3. What exactly constitutes a ’best scream?’
Lunk sees a bubber stumble into the alley when from the shadows another man pulls a chiv on the first. ”Drop yer jink,” the knight of the cross trade whispers. But the bubber falls forward and the knight shoves the chiv into the bubber’s heart. The bubber shrieks in fear and pain before collapsing. The knight backs away but hits the low wall underneath the window that holds the now active portal. The knight trips backwards, presumably into Pandemonium.
4. Do you happen to know where an abandoned magical thing worth about ten thousand gold might happen to be lying around?
In an expanse of gray ash, raw sewage, and smoldering debris. Streets strewn with bones that wind past mountains of bricks and rubbles. In a spider choked crevasse, is a box of petrified wood bound in chains. Lunk has seen an area like this not too far from the Poor Sod, the Slags.
5. Hey. Y’know that cute naiad with the grappler arrow?
Fifteen to twenty voices overlap each other saying, ”No.”
(6.) Did she survive that experience we sensed through the stone?
You see that group of cutters exit the Last Spire, as seen by the sensory stone, but this time in addition to Kid Artemis’ perspective you see each of their perspectives over layed each other.
(7.) Do you think I’ll ever meet a girl like that?
Lunk sees a building of staggering grace and beauty. The magnificent structure soars more than 1000 feet upwards, its buttresses and supports leading from one pinnacle to another, making it a distinctive focal point in Sigil’s skyline. The Civic Festhall, amid the hordes of jugglers, singers, dancers, and other performers is a single cute woman who looks suspiciously like Kid Artemis, wearing the badge of a sensate. At a second glance she is clearly not Kid Artemis, but could be a sister or cousin.
(8.) She’s cute, don't you agree?
Lunk sees a juggler misjudge their juggle as the naiad passes by.
(9) What the hell am I doing?
Lunk sees himself concentrating on this spell the last time he was in Sigil.
10. How’s Bedu doing these days?
Lunk sees a number of coure eladrin flitting about Sigil but none are Bedu.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
After Lunk signs to Savi, she translates the answer to Rinika’s and Nik’s questions, then says, “If anyone sees a cute naiad sensate that makes jugglers drop their balls, let Lunk deal with her. Kay?”
Nik opens his mouth to say thanks, but stops and looks confused instead. He closes his mouth and opens it again to say something else.
He decides not to say that.
After a sigh of surrender, he simply says "'Kay."
"I have a date with a petrified box." He announces.
"Time to find out how abandoned it is..."
"Hrm. It's not a black, cubey kind of box, is it? I have some good friends looking for one of those."
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Baraxx mostly stays quiet and watchful as the group does confusing and magical things, somewhat hopeful somebody tries to jump them so he has a reason to get his violence on.
Rinika looks over at Baraxx thoughtfully for a moment. "I got a job for you, big guy. I think you can pull this offer better than I can, even. When we get to that alley, we're gonna hide. And when someone starts coming, I'm gonna make you invisible. Then you're gonna grab the poor berk, become visible right up in their face, and that's gonna scare the stuffing out of 'em. We should get a great scream."
Baraxx just grins hugely, showing off his mouth full of pointy teeth.
Lunk would like to tippy-toe out of the way so he doesn’t get blamed for whatever is it that will almost assuredly go head-explodingly awry.
Savi wills herself to be invisible! She finds a rooftop perch to see how the prank goes.
…which she will judge.
After setting your ambush for 15 minutes you a wispy voice say to Baraxx from behind you, "Hey guy. What's going on?"
Savi looks down at the voice, thinking, mucking up the prank already? Amateurs!
Baraxx turns around and looks at the voice m, ”Huh, wha?”
Lunk can't help but take a furtive glace at the disembodied voice. The red eyes bore into his soul and his heart freezes with terror. He lets out an unnatural shriek and the portal to Pandemonium opens. Lunk must move away from the eyes as he's frightened.