Author's Note:
The following story follows a major NPC in my current campaign who's
been tasked with negotiating a truce between the PCs and a figure of Sigil's
underworld I'm sure you'll all recognise.
The PCs themselves are out of town for their own safety, the lucky
berks. Any strange in-jokes can be
explained if you're willing to email me and sit through my disturbingly large
collection of gaming anecdotes.
___________________________
The Truce
There are magnificent times in a cutter's life. Absolutely marvelous, wonderful moments when
everything seems to be going perfectly and nothing else in the whole multiverse
seems as good as what you're doing right now.
As I lie, face down, at the edge of the putrid waters of
the Ditch, I wonder why I haven't devoted my entire sodding life to
experiencing one after another of these moments. Would it really have been that difficult to pursue a long life of
hedonistic excess, instead of visiting what seems like every miserable place on
every miserable plane? As a corpse
floats across the water and comes to rest against my leg, I decide that yes, on
balance that seems like a splendid idea, and a much better life than the one I
seem to have led.
I've also just noticed that I'm narrating to myself. That's not good. When I start narrating to myself I find myself doing barmy
things, and thinking that it's a good idea to get out of town, or out of touch,
on some planewalking ride again.
Experience has taught me to ignore myself when I start thinking like that. My planewalking days brought me… well
admittedly they did bring me vast scads of jink and little known darks. And they did make me one of the real bloods
among Sigil's chant brokers. But
generally speaking they've caused me nothing but trouble and grief. Generally speaking.
For yea, I am Jekkhus (or Jek the Hat, if you prefer,
cutter): tiefling, Bleaker, planewalker, blood and apparently a magnet for the
Clueless. And this is Sigil, City of
Doors, possibly the worst place in all the planes for the Clueless to go. Naturally, this is where most of them
arrive. I've lost count of how many
leatherheaded berks I've had to nurse through their first years on the planes,
and I really, really don't know how I keep getting myself talked into it. I mean, it's certainly not because I'm the
kindest cutter on the streets of the Cage.
This I know for a fact. If I've
lost count of the addle-coves I've known, is it any wonder that I don't know
any more how many I've bobbed, peeled or written in to the dead-book?
Not that I didn't have good reasons for doing it, at the
time.
Not that those reasons actually meant anything anyway…
But still, no matter how meaningless the reasons we have,
it always seems satisfying to have them.
Somewhere up on the banks of the Ditch, for example, a rather irate
fiend is looking for me, and my blood's guess is that it's not to give me a
friendly smile and help me towards the life of luxury I believe I may have
mentioned earlier. In fact, I strongly
suspect that what it's really looking to do is scrag me a little, torture me a
lot, and write me a line in the dead book of my very own. That, in my view, is a good enough reason to
want to kill it. Its name is Launkatian, by the way, and it's very good at
scragging, torturing and killing.
So, once more, I present myself: lying face down in the
mud at the edge of the filthiest, most rank-smelling body of water I have ever
encountered after the River Styx itself, my trademark hat and swords hidden
under my body, and some deader half covering my legs. It's not very dignified, I know, but you don't get too many
dignified corpses in the Ditch, so that's probably a good thing.
In case you're wondering at this point, I am still very
much alive. The few deaders I've
actually known well either didn't care enough to run or could give a body the
laugh much more stylishly than this.
No, what I'm trying to do here (although, if you're a real blood you'll
have already guessed, and may even have pulled the same trick yourself) is look
like just another poor sod who wound up paying the music to some high up and
has been left to float and rot, at least until the Collectors get him. The rather sorry state of my gear, coupled
with the magical tattoo on my back, should let me blend in just fine.
The tattoo, you see, is of the burg where I grew up. A grand little place called Hopeless. And if you think I'm in a position I don't
want to be in at the moment, well cutter, I can only say that you should have
met me when I was younger. Blending
into crowds, shadows and piles of garbage isn't just a handy talent for an
orphan in Hopeless, it's an important survival skill. And my half-memories of hiding from anything bigger than I was in
that town fuel the magic that that barmy dabus Fell somehow stuck on my skin
years ago. With a little bit of luck,
I'll just blend into the background here, and in a couple of minutes I can look
back on this and laugh.
So I'll wait for a while…
It's just occurred to me that I haven't lifted my face and
taken a breath in rather a long time.
This is another peril of auto-narration. I briefly toy with the idea of just leaving my face pressed into
the reeking mud until I'm well and truly lost, but decide that on balance I'm
much more valuable to a certain bunch of bashers as I am, rather than as a
petitioner somewhere. I've got some
rather important work to do at the moment, and being a deader's not going to
help me much. It's all a rather long
story, but I promise you that if I pull this off and survive, I'll tell it to
you later.
Pulling my face out of the Ditch-mud is a little harder
than I expected, but certainly not beyond the capacity of an experienced blood
such as myself. I peer around in the
half-dark, looking for anything unfriendly.
No, actually make that unfriendly and fiendish… or unfriendly, fiendish
and searching for something… It's beginning to worry me that I need to be this
specific. Perhaps I should move
somewhere friendlier when I'm through here.
In any case, I can't make out much in the dark. For some reason the berks who made me
decided not to give me the kind of good eyes that every other addle-cove seems
to be walking around with.
Yes, I do mean 'made' as in 'built'. If you're patient I might tell you about it
sometime.
I blink a little to clear my vision, which turns out to be
a bad idea, 'cause it only ends up getting more mud in them and blurring them
further. But just as I'm about to get
up and rub them clear I catch a glint of light on a brass chain. Obviously I can't be completely sure, but
I'm willing to bet quite a bit that it leads from Launkatian's claw to its
'loth-mutt, which means that my days of carefree Ditch-lying are be coming to
an abrupt end. They're not too close
though, which means that if I'm careful I can sneak away again. It helps that the canoloth can't smell too
well this close to one of the filthiest spots in the Cage, and its nycaloth
master ain't paying as much attention to the piles of garbage and corpses as it
really should. Sodding typical really. If you want a place searched properly, hire
Modrons.
So I take a quick look around and see where I can
run. The options are pretty limited,
even if I don't rule out going straight over Launkatian's ugly bone-box. I can try to head towards the buildings near the bank, in which
case I've got a hard climb ahead which won't actually get me away from
Launkatian for long, or I can go further along the bank, which will make more
than enough noise for the 'loth-mutt to pick out where I am. Neither one seems likely to keep me out of
trouble for long. So that leaves
swimming across the Ditch itself.
Believe me, if you've ever been near the Ditch, you'll understand why I
have to seriously weigh up whether being scragged by fiends is actually worse
than trying this. It's not that I
couldn't swim the distance, it's just that I don't think I'd ever be clean
again if I tried.
Both
'loths growl, and from the sound of it I'd say they're getting closer. And in that moment I decide that a quick
swim would probably be good for my health.
It may seem strange, but if I stay out of the dead-book long enough, I
think I'll record this feeling in one of the Sensate's stones so anyone can
know just how much a sound like those two growls helps your survival instinct
come to the fore. As quietly as I can I
start pulling myself out of the mud. My
hat's a total loss, but at the moment I'm not too worried about it. I'm just about to pick my swords out from
the gunk when something behind me grabs my arms.
Now according
to a lost friend of mine, when this happens you're supposed to push backwards
into whatever's grabbed you, and try to hit it in the face with the back of
your head. But even though this cutter
was a veteran of the Acheron wars, and walked away from more dust-ups than I
can recall, I don't think he ever had to do this while knee deep in mud with
fiends looking for him. My pathetic
attempts to struggle quietly only make this thing laugh.
'Feisty,
ain'cha fiendlin'?' it says, much louder than I'd really like it to. 'Normally don' get many strugglin' ones
roun' here.'
I know
the accent. It's a gnoll. There's plenty of them living in the Hive
ward, and they're natural Collectors.
Only trouble with 'em is that they have a tendency to make their own corpses
when their bellies start to get empty.
And this one seems to have no idea of when to politely let someone who's
hiding stay hidden.
'Bar it,'
I whisper over my shoulder.
'Or
wha'?' it snickers back.
'Or the
'loths that're after me will make you wish you'd done as I told you,' I say, as
politely as I can manage.
'Loths
eh? You'd be worthin' a bit o' th'
jink, I's thinkin'!'
I almost
don't believe how truly leatherheaded some berks can be. In fact, if I hadn't made a good living at
times off the stupidity of addle-coves like this one, I'd probably think he was
faking it. I can hear the squelching
footsteps and clinking of a chain as the two fiends get closer. I don't know if they've heard us yet, but
they will soon.
'I've got
jink, if that's what you want.'
'Yeh, but
they's havin' jink an' sparkles. Makin'
us a high-up!'
Well, at least I tried to settle this nicely. 'You want to try your luck, berk? Go ahead!'
So the clueless leatherhead raises his voice and calls out
'Hey loths! I's havin' you' fiendlin'
'ere!' Now I really can't believe how
stupid he is. Launkatian and its mutt
are approaching quickly, so I've either got to do something very canny or learn
to enjoy being tortured to death. I've
never been a fast learner, so I opt for the first option. As quietly as I can I whisper one of my most
useful spells.
Describing the sensation of Astral travel is best left to
poets and philosophers, but let me briefly say that it's both blissfully
relaxing and bowel-wrenchingly horrifying at the same time, especially when you
have to do it very quickly. So when I
land on top of a roof overlooking the banks of the Ditch, it's quite
understandable that I have to take a minute or two to get my bearings
again. It's about the point where I've
just finished checking that all the limbs I started with are still where I want
them to be that I realise although I'm perfectly safe up here, I've left two
extremely valuable, antique, heavily enchanted swords down where two fiends and
a luckless gnollish collector are meeting each other.
So I peer down at them, hoping that none of them think to
look up here. Judging by the screaming
and sounds of snapping bone coming from down there, though, they'll all be
occupied for a little while. I've got a
little bit of time to think, but not too much.
My first thought is to try to snare them in a magical despair, which has
served both the Faction and myself well over the years, but I don't think I'm
close enough, and Launkatian could probably shrug it off anyway. I'm going to have to fog its mind up a
little first, it seems.
I'm still out of breath from the chase that landed me here
– I'm certainly not the young cutter I once was – but I manage to get the
incantation off smoothly. Without
getting closer, though, I can't tell whether or not it's worked. 'Loth's seem to love hurting things no
matter how addle-coved you make 'em. So
I climb as far down the wall as I can, which is enough that the fall at the end
doesn't produce more than a minute of ankle-clutching agony, and creep over
towards the two fiends.
I've never been terribly good at creeping around. I really prefer for the folks that find me
to think that I'm meant to be wherever I am.
So when I make too much noise for Launkatian and its pet not to notice,
but it doesn't seem to distract them, I figure I've probably pulled the first
part off. From as close to the bank as
I can manage, I put the despairing hex on the two of them. I almost whoop with sadistic joy when the
canoloth stops its chewing and Launkatian sits down heavily in the Ditch-side
sludge, 'cause this means that I've given them the laugh. What's more, they're going to have to go
back to their high-up, who I happen to know is Shemeshka the Marauder, one of
Sigil's premiere knights of the post, and tell her that they lost me.
I wander on down towards them. Launkatian has the blankly glum expression I recognise from years
of doing this sort of thing, and the mutt has the gnoll's arm in its
mandibles. Where the rest of the gnoll
is, the Powers only know.
I reach down into the muck and pull out my swords, the
Thrashing Dragon's Tail and the Serene Dragon's Tongue. I've carried these through enough of the
worst parts of the planes to realise that they're worth coming back for. I turn around, ready to tell Launkatian to
pass a message on to Shemeshka that I'm not quite ready to be lost yet, but
find I'm a little groggy, and the words don't seem to want to put themselves in
the right order.
This can only mean that I've wandered into the Mind Fog
like an idiot. And that means that
whatever I plan to do, I need to finish it fast before it takes a hold of
me. There's probably no time for speeches,
so I thrust the Tail as hard as I can between to of the chitinous plates on the
canoloth's head. It slumps to the
ground like five hundred pounds of dead fiendish flesh, releasing the arm,
which rolls into the Ditch, floats for a while and then sinks from view. Turning to Launkatian, I smile, and then use
the Tail to slit its fleshy throat.
As I stumble off into the darkness of the Lower Ward, I
feel slightly annoyed that I had to write those two into the dead book, but
Launkatian will be back in a few years anyway, and canoloths can be had for a
fistful of stingers if you're after that sort of thing.
At the same time, I'm glad I did make them lost, 'cause
I'm not finished with Shemeshka yet.
Soon, but not yet.
