Running the Jars - 14/12/2021 - A Kavel Perspective

Kavel’s Corner for Strength and Conditioning - Levels Up

I stayed at Fort Ettin this week. While I was missing my woodcarving tuition with Morgana, I took the time to practice on my own, and apply what I’ve learned to the fence I made surrounding Kavel’s Corner for Strength and Conditioning. This was smart; I kept up with my practice, and now, the fence around the training grounds’ southwestern corner looks less shit. In fact, I would say it’s a very good fence. The new wooden posts I carved are in the shape of heavy clubs. This is good branding. My time back at the Fort has been well spent. Well, except for…

The less said about my rounds in the Fighting Pit the better. But, to be fair, my opponent Susan Goldstone was magnificent. Arms like tree trunks. A goliath cut from the same cloth as me. She wiped the floor with me in the first round. I did better in the second, and then I came close to beating her in the third round, but she had me beat. I congratulated her on her victory when we were done. She is quite sweet. She mentioned she had battle nerves she was trying to conquer through pit fighting. I told her while I was here in the Fort I would train with her in Kavel’s Corner. The gym now has a regular patron!


New Comrades On The Way To Sigil - The City of Doors

A note requesting adventurers arrived at the Fort.

We have money. We need things done. Come to Sigil. The Hive. The Rat's Nest. We talk.

Concord

I had not heard of this place called Sigil. I wonder where it is? As it turned out, Comrade Glint had been there before and could lead the way. I had not seen my academic comrade since our time in the Kobold and Goblin village near Daring Heights. I believe he sought some academic aid for the young children we met who were magically gifted. Before that adventure, Glint sought to reform some jackalwere bandits and helped find them employment with the City Watch. I wonder who out of our new opposition Glint will help this time?

Comrade Tayz was with us too. I had not seen my aarakocra friend since our adventure escorting a caravan of mining equipment to Stoneleaf Quarry. Together we beat up a bunch of bandits who ambushed our caravan. Me and Tayz had a few of them on the run. They fled from me with my poleaxe, and him with his airborne Guiding Bolts. Then when comrade Dwirhian figured out we had been conned by our employers, who were witches, we beat them up instead and said sorry to the bandits, who were actually good people. In my defense, I remember Tayz attacked first. I was merely following his lead.

I had some new comrades too. The lizardfolk Pipper was the second artificer I have ever met. Like Sterling, Pipper had many metal contraptions about her all hiding different surprises. Unlike Sterling, Pipper was not abrasive. She had a metal arm. On first inspection, I did not realise the arm was mechanical. You could hardly say she was handicapped given how dextrous that arm was. The blue sphere on the arm suggested magic, which would make sense. After seeing so much frivolous wild magic in my last adventure, it was good to see that an artificer’s magic is very useful.

Iorveth was new to me too. I heard the elf performing at Fort Ettin when I took time off in the evening from remaking my Kavel’s Corner fence. He was really good. Susan was with me that evening. She said she had heard him perform many times before, and he was mediocre at best. I couldn’t imagine this talented bard giving a poor performance. Even between songs, when he would tell a tale, he was very entertaining. I couldn’t wait to hear a tale from him on this journey!

Lastly, there was Marto, the halfling warrior. As a small raced humanoid, I thought Marto would have to jog to keep pace with us larger folk, but he kept up pace with us well. In fact, he looked pretty strong. Both the tallest and shortest members of this team were likely the strongest members of the team. Funny.

We trekked to the Angelbark forest where the portal for Sigil could be found. This took us four hours. I gather the walk or boat journey to Sigil must be much longer, or we would not be using a portal to get there. The magic words to open the portal was, “pay your tabs”. I was told Cole came up with that.

We stepped through the forests’ stone archway covered by magical runes, and reappeared in a garden on someone’s estate.


First Steps in Sigil

We had stepped in from the expanse of the Angelbark forest, a place too huge to belong to any one person, and walked out directly into someone’s garden. This was jarring. If I had a garden, I would not want a portal that others could use to be in it.

The nice lady who owned the estate told us to seek out a green skinned tiefling at the end of the road. He was a tout and would give us direction and take us to the Rat’s Nest for a price.


Negotiating With The Tout

Tayz spoke first. Tayz was clear that he disapproved of someone charging money for directions. He made it clear - directly to the tout. It did not seem to me, a less business-orientated person, that insulting the guide would get us closer to where we needed to go.

I cut straight to the point, “where is the Rat’s Nest and the Concord?”

The tout turned towards me and spoke. In the couple of sentences he uttered, I did not get the answer to my question. In fact, he seemed to be talking with subtext. I turned to my team and leaned down and asked, “is this man negotiating with me?”

Iorveth took over. This was good. Negotiation was probably his speciality. It proved very much to be the case. Instead of agreeing a monetary price for guiding us to the Rat’s Nest, Iorveth convinced the tout that the story he would tell us on the way to the Rat’s Nest would be worthy of the guide’s time and payment enough. The tout agreed.

We went on our way, and to think I would be present for a special storytelling performance from Iorveth to a small audience. I looked forward to the tale. The way Iorveth described it when pitching to the tout, it sounded like it would be better than his performance the other day at the Fort!


Arriving at the Rats Nest

Now I see what Susan was saying about Iorveth. The tale he told us was shit.

Where was the performer from a few days ago? Heck. Where was the man that pitched the tale only hours ago? Maybe he hadn’t practiced it in a while, like doing a difficult exercise without warming up?

As we walked into the city, it was strange. Perhaps having a portal in your garden isn’t so strange, if there are portals everywhere? In the city, many doors to ordinary places seemed to be portals for a time.

Travelling through the city, we went from solidly built buildings with wide streets to houses seemingly stacked on top of each other. Our guide said this was The Hive. We came to a stop in front of a building with a set of stairs going down. Above the doorway to the stairs, there was a tavern sign above the entrance of a group of rats. We had come to The Rat’s Nest.

Our guide demanded 2gp for bringing us here. Understandably, Iorveth’s overselling of his tale came back to bite us, as it did not satisfactorily count as payment.

The width of the corridor down to The Rat’s Nest was small. The entrance’s height too was small. This did not give me confidence that this tavern was going to be spacious enough for goliaths.


Meeting Our Employer(/s?) - Concord

Iorveth had to crouch a little when we arrived downstairs. I needed to take a knee.

We were introduced to Concord.

When I first saw Concord I thought this was a man in desperate need of Kavel’s Corner for Strength and Conditioning. The trench coat appeared to be poorly concealing a very overweight physique, but then I saw the one rat head above the collar of the trenchcoat with a purple glow, and then I realised the person underneath the clothing were a bunch of rats. The ones at the bottom must be very strong for rats. Then again, since Concord lurched when they moved, maybe what I’m seeing here is magic. Then, if further proof was needed that this was magic, Concord spoke directly into our brains, and I noticed the heads of the rats weren’t just glowing with a purple colour, the brains were also exposed.

“You are from kantas. You want to help me with the task?” These words echoed in our minds.

Concord’s competitor, The Horns of Mead were sabotaging The Rat’s Nest’s operations. There were two deliveries we were to pick up and deliver safely back to Concord. I asked, “what is special about the two packages”. One was an exotic spice blend for their beers. The other was a magical defense for Concord, a crystal that will enhance their already impressive telepathy. We were told not to touch it with our bare hands.

Before anyone could ask where we needed to go, Concord telepathically inserted the location of the packages into our minds. Off to the industrial area of Sigil we went.

We ascended the stairs back to The Rats Nest’s entrance outside, where I got a good stretch in to relieve the discomfort of having to squat in the warren-like bar below. Pipper, new to adventuring, asked if she should put her armour on now. I said, “yes”. She then touched one of the many fancy cubes on her person and a fancy-splint armour enveloped her body. It was pretty cool. Everyone complimented Pipper on her cool armour. Glint’s academic nature kicked in, as he asked to study the armour and Pipper’s arm. Tayz’s self interest kicked in as he asked if Pipper could make armour for him. While the armour was no doubt very good, I couldn’t understand why people don’t invest in their conditioning. You don’t need strong armour if your body is strong.


The Lower Ward - The Industrial Site

If the Hive was a place for the poor, the Lower Quarter was for people poorer than that. We walked towards the warehouse we literally had in our minds. About a hundred feet away from where we need to be, a wagon teleports in - on fire. Surrounding the burning wagon are some tieflings and flying imps. The tieflings have stolen items from the wagon while the imps set it on fire. We lock eyes with them, now about eighty feet away. Both groups clearly understand why the other group is here. Simultaneously, we run; Us to catch them, them to flee from us.


The Chase - Running the Jars

The team is chasing after the thieves. I take a quick detour to our burning wagon, rip off a wheel and hurl it at the thieves. The wheel crashes to the floor just behind them. Our prey tries to escape down a corner, but with Tays in the sky, it will be hard to lose us. Furthermore, my new artificer comrade, Pipper has a magical surprise - she has transformed her boots to have mini wagon wheels below them, and is now in front leading the chase. Pipper leads us to a shimmering door to follow the thieves. As we pass through, we find ourselves in a busy warehouse, running amongst workers in hot pursuit of the thieves. “Wait! We don’t want to hurt you!” Glint shouts at the people running away from us. They must have mixed signals now. One of us speaks non combative words, whilst another has hurled part of a wagon at them.

We follow the robbers through another shimmering door, exiting the warehouse and now back in The Hive. But, we are now on top of buildings, still hot on the heels of the robbers as we traverse building to building along some connecting walkways.

Their attempt to lose us through different portals and arriving in different environments is annoying me.

“If I have to go through one more doorway, the next object I hurl will hit you!” As I shout this, I can see the two tieflings at the back acknowledge the piece of information I have put in front of them, as they exchange looks. Pipper adds more words for them to consider. Something about a Zariel? Though they are still running, they look like they are bricking themselves. They run through another doorway anyway!


One In Five

We blast through the doorway and find ourselves back on the ground, in a square of The Hive. And we come across five different doors in very close proximity. Damn! Which one? Furthermore, we have another problem - they are all closed, and we don’t know how to open them.

A young, male dwarf gets our attention. He says he saw which door our robbers went through and will help us ‘run the jars’ for payment. Apparently the ‘Davos’ maintain the doors in Sigil, but don’t come down to The Hive much, so the doors here are poorly maintained if at all. So, unlike the portal we took from the Angelbark here, some of these doors, though they have passcodes to open them, the passcodes could be overridden to gain access. Tayz and Marto promptly hand over some gold to the dwarf to hear the secret to how to use the doors. Sorry. Marto promptly hands over some gold, Tays questions the young dwarf’s character and honesty, but thankfully pays him the rest of the agreed amount when we learn that if you pretend to cast a spell the magic doors will open for you. We also notice that recently used doors have an active rune shimmer in the top right hand corner. We’ve found the right door, and Glint pretends to cast his Web spell and the door shimmers and unlocks. Away we go!


Back In Pursuit!

The doorway opens up onto a sloping iron roof. I stabilise myself, as does Marto - the rest tumble down the roof. Pipper catches herself and is back on her wheeled boots, now speeding down the roof in hot pursuit of the robbers who are on the next rooftop. They took a breather thinking they had fooled us with the five doors. Unlucky for them, as Pipper rolls down our rooftop and leaps on to their gravel roof, as they turn to go through another doorway. Me and Marto, unaided by wheeled footwear, display our athleticism and jump over to join Pipper. Iorveth and Glint style-out their tumbling descent with magic and teleport over to join us, and Tayz demonstrates why wings are very useful on rooftops.

We ran through the doorway.


The Marketplace

We come out of the rooftop doorway and enter a nice marketplace. I don’t think we are in The Hive anymore. People here are dressed nicely. Certainly nicer than us in our clothes covered in sweat and soot from our pursuit and the Industrial Site. The tieflings and Imps have scattered.

Glint sends Stryx up with Tayz to get an aerial view of our split up hunt. Tayz spots two of them together and casts some holding magic at them as they freeze midstep. Tayz directs me towards them. When I get there, I rage in their faces. They can’t move right now, but their eyes open wide. They are immobile, but to be sure we have them, I stack them on one shoulder. Pipper joins me, so I kneel down to let her frisk them. Pipper finds what must be the special ingredient that Concord requested in a jar, but also two pearls.

I hear Iorveth cast magic from somewhere else. Me, Tayz and Pipper rejoin Iorveth. Iorveth seems to have made one of the other tieflings a friend.

My athletic comrade, Marto, appears to be magically equipped too, as he announces he will cast Message, and whispers in several directions, and then informs us the last tiefling will be joining us shortly. The imps, however, have fled.


What’s With These Thieves?

Marto’s tiefling, who trepidatiously rejoined us, had a lacquered box on him. Inside was the crystal for Concord. Iorveth’s new friend has 180gp on him. I let my two captives down off my shoulder, and stand them in front of me. I keep a hand on a shoulder of each of them.

Glint asks, “Who hired you?”

Iorveth’s new friend volunteers the answer immediately, “the Horns of Mead hired us”

There is much talk about positions in life and how opportunities aren’t always present for people of certain status. Glint, it seems, has found more people to help. As I believe I mentioned earlier, Glint helped get jackelweres’ jobs with the City Watch. The kobold and goblin children, Glint got them something with the Daring Academy. Glint is offering the tieflings something with the Daring Council. Glint is like a recruitment specialist. Maybe he can help get me more members for Kavel’s Corner?

Our reformed robbers agreed to come with us back to, as they put it, “The Prime,” where they could see what the sky really looks like. I have no idea what they mean. I ask Iorveth, he points up at the sky and says, “we’re quite far from Kantas, my friend.”

My magical comrades identified the lacquered box and jar of spice. The box contained a crystalised mindflayer’s brain - having learned that everybody also remembered not to touch it, like Concord told us.. The jar contained dried angel tears. I thought the crystallised brain sounded exotic enough. Dried Angel tears? Something about the name doesn’t sound like the substance was extracted agreeingly.


Back at the Rat’s Nest

We returned to Concord at the Rat’s Nest. I did some stretches before entering the warren tavern - and then when inside returned to my resting semi-squat and kneeling position from last time I was here.

We handed over the recovered crystalised brain and spice jar to Concord. Marto introduced the tieflings as our associates. “Locally recruited,” as Iorveth put it.

Concord does not seem bothered by our new recruits or how we came by them. I think of nothing but Kavel’s Corner in case they are reading my mind.

The mindflayer’s brain goes up an arm of Concord’s trench coat. More rats crawl into the trench coat from cracks in the wall and down from the stairs. Concord’s voice is now clearer and louder in our minds as we hear, “thank you” from them. They are convinced they will become the ultimate drinking establishment in Sigil now. I don’t understand how, but it does prompt me to ask them, “Can I try one of your angel tear beers?”

Concord is more than happy to let us sample the new ale. We sat down with our new recruits. A stein each. We later compared notes. We all hallucinated a vision of the celestial plane and saw a glimpse of what could make angels cry. Iorveth, Pipper, Glint and three of the four tieflings were knocked out cold by the beer.

Concord paid us 150gp each and some magical items, which I was happy for the others to distribute among us. One of the items was a Brew of Hill Giant Strength - I don’t require a magic brew to be really strong - I’m already there.


Return to Fort Ettin

Back at the Fort, the tieflings were amazed at all the trees. Glint accompanied the tieflings to the Daring Heights Council and used a favour to set the tieflings up as messengers. We agreed they could have the 180gp to help start their new life.

It was a strange parting of the group. Iorveth almost appeared to be in tears as he walked away from Marto. I don’t know what that was about. I also didn’t have time to gossip and find out.

I was heading back to Daring Heights too. But, I went ahead of Glint and the recruits. The emergency mission followed by an excursion to Sigil had made me forget about my next scheduled wood carving lesson with Morgana. So I ran back to Daring Heights. I usually enjoy long walks. Good for the legs. But it did make me think, “if Sigil has many portals, Daring Heights and Fort Ettin are lacking in them.”