Game Description
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"Whisper one part, darkness comes. Speak two parts, delirium welcome! Cry three parts, you are done!"
Rule-of-Three
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Month 9, Day 23, Year 127 of the Reign of Factol Hashkar
The Flying Monkey, Gremlin Crescent, Lower Ward, Sigil
Everyone knew that the
Flying Monkey served the best
nasi timbel in Sigil. And the reason they knew this was because Mama Muljana had hired the gentleman sitting at the large corner table to tell them. Harys Hatchis was the best blurbmeister in Sigil, and since Sigil was the center of the multiverse, this meant he was, quite simply, the best. He could sell matches to an efreet, and leave the other berk smiling.
"Thomas! Good to see you, good to see you! I didn't know you were back from the Astral already!" Harys bounced up, shaking the hand of the tall, weathered human who had just come to the table. Professor Thomas Carter had been a ruggedly handsome man in his youth, and he wore his age lightly, his honey-brown hair streaked with grey. "You absolutely
must tell me all about it, the Athar are absolutely raving about your finds."
"And Vitani! Lean down, you're too tall!" The blurbmeister turned to Carter's companion, a tawny-furred, hyena-faced creature with a red feather dangling from one of her many bone earrings. The gnoll smiled a little, her ears flicking forward as she obediently let Harys plant two kisses on the sides of her muzzle. "How are you, how
are you! Sigil's all abuzz with the Cania job, darling! A
gelugon, really, what will you do to top that."
"It's because of the Cania job that we want to talk to you, Harys." Vitani said, her voice a low, sinister growl. Even after all these years in Sigil, she hadn't lost her accent. In the background, Carter flagged down a passing orangutan and ordered a
nasi timbel. The mercenary boss continued. "See, we're looking to hire some new blood..."
..."Need some help here!" Moie screamed, just barely bringing up his sword in time. The gelugon's spear skittered across it, missing the Encantado's head by millimeters, but skewering his straw hat and taking it right off his head. "NEED A LOT OF HELP!"
"Working on it. Moie, DUCK!" Carter said, trying to get a bead on the ice devil. Who'd have thought that a giant mantis-beetle would be that fast? The creature swung its tail around and knocked Moie off his feet, causing the dolphin man to fall to the ground. "Or that. That works."
There was a rifle crack, and a small crater formed on the gelugon's carapace. On the bright side, this kept the thing from finishing off Moie. On the not so bright side, Carter now had the devil's undivided attention. It somersaulted forward, showing far too much grace for a thing that big. "Kalli! Cover me!"
"On it!" The tiefling said, grinning with entirely too many teeth. She made a quick gesture with her hand, and her shadow made a different gesture, and a curtain of foul-smelling acid appeared between Carter and the Gelugon. Carter didn't wait for the ice devil to figure out that the curtain was an illusion. He scarpered, coming to a stop next to a frozen couch with Vitani.
"Where in the Mists is that bloody frog?" Carter hissed...
"I still can't believe you hired a slaad." Carter said, looking up from his banana-and-rice dish. It really
was delicious.
"It was cheap." The gnoll admitted, a trifle sheepishly. There was nothing quite like a six-foot-eight gnoll being sheepish.
"It tried to
eat me." Carter said, between mouthfuls.
"It was
very cheap." Vitani emphasized. "Anyway, we've some gaps in our roster now..."
..."Do not fear, Golzgum is here!" The Blue Slaad cried, as it swung into the battle, swinging a table as if it was a club. A bearded devil that had the misfortune of being in its way ended up flying through a window. Behind the slaad, a feather-haired woman in a colorful tunic, pointed at the Gelugon. "Xico, attack!"
An enormous jaguar, with white fur and rainbow-colored rosettes, leaped at the ice devil. The giant insect regarded the oncoming problem with alien calm, before clicking its mandibles twice. A wall of ice interrupted the jaguar in mid-spring, and then the devil vanished in a flash of blue light.
"Where did it go?" Miranda of the Dust murmured, crouching behind the same frozen couch as Carter and Vitani. The necromancer wiped the blood from her face, the result of a spray of icy shards earlier.
"Don't know." Vitani flared her nostrils. She recognized that spell, and she recognized that acrid smell, powerful and getting more so. Wait. "SCATTER!"
A length of pale blue metal sprouted from Miranda's throat, her death rattle sounding suspiciously like a final chuckle...
"Moie decided to retire after that job." Carter ticked off on his fingers. "Something about enjoying time with his remaining toes. And Miranda wouldn't let us raise her from the dead, faction beliefs. And Golzgum..."
"Left." Vitani said dryly. To be precise, the Blue Slaad had wandered off somewhere in Cania, and somehow, no one really felt like going back to look for it after the
last screw-up.
"...so even after Raising Ellie," Carter continued, "We're unusually flush with cash..."
..."A present, for me? Really, Vitani, you shouldn't have." The dapper, jackal-headed fiend said, watching as the ragged members of the Last Argument ambled up to her table at the Fortune's Wheel. Vitani, who was sporting an arm in a sling, just snorted and tipped out the sack onto Shemeska the Marauder's table. A large, insectoid head clattered out, carefully emptied of flesh and boiled by her earlier.
"One traitorous devil, as promised." Carter said, rubbing at the side of his head. A tiny orrery floated nearby, evidently concerned by the knocks that he'd taken to the head during the battle. Dissonance had made it clear that at Carter's age, a concussion was no laughing matter.
"And I seem to recall something about a bag o' jink?" A brightly colored parrot inquired on Kalli's shoulder inquired.
"Yes, of course Kharmione." Shemeska laughed, a soft, crooning sound. She picked up the gelugon's head with a smile that could chill blood. "Oh Seven-Wing, you really should have known better than to turn stag on me. Silly goose." She waved a hand. "Colcook, pay them." The yugoloth smiled even wider, taking on a sardonic tinge. "And you also have a daemon's gratitude. I'm sure we'll do business again."
"...Shemeska's been carrying that head around for the last week." Carter said. He missed the days when things like this were still weird for him. As it was, at least one person had complimented Shemeska the Marauder on her fashion sense. "People are talking, and we're looking at business picking up."
"So, we're hoping you can put out an advertisement for new members." Vitani finished, folding her hands in front of her. Harys Hatchis had listened rapt to the story, his mind spinning like all the cogs of Mechanus.
"A simple advertisement could, of course, work..." The blurbmeister mused. "But I have a better idea. When I'm done, they'll ask
you for the permission to sign up. Vitani, Thomas, we're going to hold an
adventurer's audition."
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"You lucky Berks, I wish I could sit and listen to me all day!"
Factol Rowan Darkwood
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