Post by Varis/G'Lorth/Sundilar on Feb 22, 2018 13:28:42 GMT
Excerpt from the journal of Varis Nailo
20th day of Alturiak
It seems some of my fellow pioneers in this new land have been dabbling in...dubious magicks. One of the foremost residents of Daring, the Warlock Nowhere recently conspired to open a portal to Sigil, the City of Keys, and while suspicious of such sorcery, I could not resist a call for aid from William, a young bard who wished help in finding information about a stolen heirloom.
We stepped through the portal into a truly remarkable garden, and an even more remarkable cityscape. Sigil is set on the inside of a titanic ring, the horizon bending up before you to eventually place some districts over your head before curving back down behind. What power keeps those above from falling onto our heads, or indeed we onto theirs, is beyond my imagining, but this place is ancient, and those who built it no doubt have power beyond mortal ken.
The owner of the garden and now, I suppose, gatekeeper of our portal, soon made herself known. A reptilian woman who called herself Vermillion, and demanded a toll for passage, which I gathered from my companions it was wise to pay without quibbling. After an exchange of information (nothing, it seems, is free in Sigil) we learned that the person William sought, an information broker named Lothor, could most easily be found by first seeking another such dealer of secrets, a beholder named Panoptica. We bid Vermillion farewell and set out into the streets of Sigil.
The City of Keys is a troubling place, a kind of moral limbo, where power is the only true currency, and the most profound power is information. To the unwary, the ill-informed, or the slow witted, this place is death. Celestial beings, fiends, foul abominations and the worst that the mortal races have to offer are all present here. There is wonder too, and beauty, though the cost may be far greater than it seems at first glance.
We found the beholder without much difficulty - the abomination was hard to miss - and after some wrangling (including a brief period during which William was transformed into a chicken) and the trade of what some might consider dangerous information about Kantas and its inhabitants, Panoptica left us with the knowledge of where to find Lothor. We proceeded to a ramshackle ruin of a house in the lower ward. The place reeked of necromancy, and sure enough, on descending into this Lothor's basement abode, we found the walls lined with skulls.
Again, this creature demanded information in trade for information, and after one of my companions, the dwarf Dvargar, fed him some nonsense about Xvarts or some such, he used his black sorcery to reveal that the thief of William's family lute was in fact in The Expanse itself, at a previously unknown Minotaur settlement on the north east coast.
We left the necromancer and headed to the local tavern for a drink, where we found a human merchant named Solomus wallowing in self-pity. It seemed he had been suffering from unusually bad luck all day, and while I was fairly content to leave him to his (undoubtedly well deserved) misery, one of my companions noticed another patron of the tavern behaving very oddly, staring at Solomus, and clearly exerting some kind of magical force on him. Some attempt was made to distract this mystical assailant, but eventually the creature lost patience and attacked young William, and despite the best efforts of Rholor, the founder of the temple of Selune in Daring, battle could not be avoided, resulting unsurprisingly in this thing's death, though not before it revealed that it had been hired by Solomus' mercantile rival Tarik to ruin him.
We did our best to get the man back on his feet, some of us even gifting him with gold, before returning to Vermillion's garden and from thence to Kantas. One thing on the journey back did strike us - we ran into some odd, mechanical creatures which one of my compatriots recognised as Modrons, who were apparently searching for another of their kind lost in Sigil.
Reflecting upon what I have seen in the City of Doors, it is becoming clear to me that my master's at The Order were right. Evil, and what is sometimes worse, amorality, will not vanish of their own accord. Creatures such as the power brokers of Sigil seek only to serve their own interests, with no care for the harm they cause. I cannot stand idly by as such wickedness is allowed to flourish. Mercy is no longer a vice I can afford.
20th day of Alturiak
It seems some of my fellow pioneers in this new land have been dabbling in...dubious magicks. One of the foremost residents of Daring, the Warlock Nowhere recently conspired to open a portal to Sigil, the City of Keys, and while suspicious of such sorcery, I could not resist a call for aid from William, a young bard who wished help in finding information about a stolen heirloom.
We stepped through the portal into a truly remarkable garden, and an even more remarkable cityscape. Sigil is set on the inside of a titanic ring, the horizon bending up before you to eventually place some districts over your head before curving back down behind. What power keeps those above from falling onto our heads, or indeed we onto theirs, is beyond my imagining, but this place is ancient, and those who built it no doubt have power beyond mortal ken.
The owner of the garden and now, I suppose, gatekeeper of our portal, soon made herself known. A reptilian woman who called herself Vermillion, and demanded a toll for passage, which I gathered from my companions it was wise to pay without quibbling. After an exchange of information (nothing, it seems, is free in Sigil) we learned that the person William sought, an information broker named Lothor, could most easily be found by first seeking another such dealer of secrets, a beholder named Panoptica. We bid Vermillion farewell and set out into the streets of Sigil.
The City of Keys is a troubling place, a kind of moral limbo, where power is the only true currency, and the most profound power is information. To the unwary, the ill-informed, or the slow witted, this place is death. Celestial beings, fiends, foul abominations and the worst that the mortal races have to offer are all present here. There is wonder too, and beauty, though the cost may be far greater than it seems at first glance.
We found the beholder without much difficulty - the abomination was hard to miss - and after some wrangling (including a brief period during which William was transformed into a chicken) and the trade of what some might consider dangerous information about Kantas and its inhabitants, Panoptica left us with the knowledge of where to find Lothor. We proceeded to a ramshackle ruin of a house in the lower ward. The place reeked of necromancy, and sure enough, on descending into this Lothor's basement abode, we found the walls lined with skulls.
Again, this creature demanded information in trade for information, and after one of my companions, the dwarf Dvargar, fed him some nonsense about Xvarts or some such, he used his black sorcery to reveal that the thief of William's family lute was in fact in The Expanse itself, at a previously unknown Minotaur settlement on the north east coast.
We left the necromancer and headed to the local tavern for a drink, where we found a human merchant named Solomus wallowing in self-pity. It seemed he had been suffering from unusually bad luck all day, and while I was fairly content to leave him to his (undoubtedly well deserved) misery, one of my companions noticed another patron of the tavern behaving very oddly, staring at Solomus, and clearly exerting some kind of magical force on him. Some attempt was made to distract this mystical assailant, but eventually the creature lost patience and attacked young William, and despite the best efforts of Rholor, the founder of the temple of Selune in Daring, battle could not be avoided, resulting unsurprisingly in this thing's death, though not before it revealed that it had been hired by Solomus' mercantile rival Tarik to ruin him.
We did our best to get the man back on his feet, some of us even gifting him with gold, before returning to Vermillion's garden and from thence to Kantas. One thing on the journey back did strike us - we ran into some odd, mechanical creatures which one of my compatriots recognised as Modrons, who were apparently searching for another of their kind lost in Sigil.
Reflecting upon what I have seen in the City of Doors, it is becoming clear to me that my master's at The Order were right. Evil, and what is sometimes worse, amorality, will not vanish of their own accord. Creatures such as the power brokers of Sigil seek only to serve their own interests, with no care for the harm they cause. I cannot stand idly by as such wickedness is allowed to flourish. Mercy is no longer a vice I can afford.
