Author's note: I don't have any of the old Planescape material, so I'm
using my limited knowledge of the planes. Please do not gripe about
inaccuracies of things or places. Or do. If you do, I can get it right if
I ever write such a thing again.
************************************************************************
I suppose you want to know how I lost my hand. Everyone does. Its the first thing out of a stranger's mouth. Not "hello" or "My name is", but "What happened to your hand?". Well, to get the inevitable over with, I'll tell you. I didn't so much lose it as give it up, berk. I could tell you what happened in short, but that wouldn't be any good. You'd ask more questions and just get under my skin, so I'll tell you the whole story just to save time.
***
Plenty long ago, I was missing my whole left arm, and not just my hand. Now, I've since trained myself to use my right like a normal person, but I was left handed when the whole damn arm got taken off in a fight. I gave the sod my regards right between the eyes for it, but that didn't change anything. I was alive but I couldn't do anything. This really begins when I was reading the newspaper. I came across an ad placed by the Baatezu, recruiting for the Blood War, and it seemed the thing was written just for me. As payment for mercenary services, one of the things they said they'd do was grow a guy like me back any lost limbs. What looked better was that the service was only a month. I'd fought in wars on the prime that lasted years, so what was a month is this "Blood War"?
Well of course I signed right up with them, as right then I would have done anything to get my arm back. Well I show up at their little recruitment office, sign a contract to serve for a month, and this big Pit Fiend mutters something and I've got an arm and not a stump any more. Few seconds later I've also got a sword in my hand, helmet on my head, armor on my back, and had been pushed through a waiting portal.
The next few days were like being run through a machine. I lost my name for the most part and was basically a number, one more statistic to put out on the front lines. Of course, fiends don't like working with mortals, so I was put in a slightly more personal human regiment. Companies were five people who worked together for the whole thing, and my company was an oddball lot. It consisted of myself and four others who were also signing for some sort of odd service and not for gold. The other four were Mouser, Medic, Kara, and Dave.
Dave was the weirdest of the lot. He never told us exactly why he was there but said he owed the fiends a favor, and that the full story involved three orcs, a barrel of oil, a fire devil, and half a head of cabbage. I can only wonder.
Mouser's problems were pretty straight forward. He had been given a choice after getting caught stealing from a devil; a month in the war, or ten years hard labor in Dis. Seeing how he was a scrawny but nimble little guy, I could understand why he picked the war. Not to mention that the war would have gotten him home a lot faster.
Kara. Well, that's complicated. She eventually trusted the rest of us enough to tell, but I won't whisper the dark of it out of equal parts fear and respect. Let's suffice with what she told everyone at first: She had gotten on the wrong side of Asmodeus.
Medic was a more usual case, or at least as usual as they can come. Apparently, he had a split personality thing going, where his normal side would heal people and some evil alter ego would kill 'em. He signed on and got the alter ego, apparently a demon that had possessed him, removed. While we were all wary of him at first, it became pretty clear that he was perfectly stable.
Seeing as mortals have problems with the Gray Wastes, where the fighting started when we were assigned, we were put up in a small keep on a level ledge in Gehenna. The Styx formed a moat all the way around it, and our band (consisting of about eight companies the size of ours) was the only group of humans there. Most of my month ran out without even the lowest Tanar'ri rearing its head.
Our little band was relatively tight knit. All of us trusted one another, Mouser even giving each of us one of his old sets of thieves' tools. Dave taught us about sixty different card games and tricks and gave me an Illusionist's deck (rigged to make illusions easier). I think now that Kara fancied me, but I didn't notice it then. This was all fine until some of us noticed that the Baatezu high-ups, Pit fiends and such, were all pulling out of the keep. Sure, they left plenty of devils behind, but in any situation, when the commanders start to quietly slip away, something bad is going to happen.
Then the worst day of my life dawned. The hellish sun rose red through the volcanic smoke of the Four-fold Furnaces, and there was something coming along the Styx. Two somethings, moving fast. Wherever the somethings were spotted, weird things happened. After an hour, they were close enough to identify: Two of the Ships of Chaos.
Ships of Chaos. The dreaded, but before then untested, war caravels of the demons. Their powers were, until that day, pure rumor. For that matter, their existence was pure rumor as well. Imagine the terror in the ranks when someone said that two were coming down the river Styx right for us. Can't? It was madness. The new highest ranks of Baatezu in the keep started fleeing like mad, and the lower ranks knew they had only the choices to fight or to die. Several humans, though none in my company, took dives into the Styx, somehow seeing that fate as better than whatever the Ships of Chaos would inflict. One thing was clear: They would arrive by noon.
The ships pulled aside the keep walls, and devils started dropping like flies just in their aura. The ladder came up, and demons started swarming over the walls. Most didn't even need ladders, they crawled up the walls of the keep like massive ants. My company was stationed on a tower, though directly above the second ship. We had been fighting off ladders and ropes when a demon broke through the door behind us. There was just one, so apparently the forces of the demons were fanning out. It spotted Dave and screamed "YOU!" Dave said a polite goodbye and slid down a climbing rope to one of the lower levels of the keep. The Demon jumped down after him cursing. What happened to him, and what he did to cause it, I do not know.
Strangely, Dave's eccentric exit created an odd plan. Kara was the firs to come up with it, leaning over the edge of the battlements and seeing the barley guarded ship. Just a few 'loths left behind.
"We can take it." She said confidently.
"Take what?" Mouser asked, "I'm all for taking."
"The Ship!" she exclaimed. The next time they throw up a rope, we slide down it."
It was a brilliant idea, or at least better than waiting to be overrun on out little ledge. The rope came not seconds later. I waited until the climbing demon was halfway up and slid down. My boot met the foul creature in the face and it fell off into the Styx. Kara was only a foot behind me, followed by Medic and finally Mouser. We dropped onto the deck of the ship to find only a handful of 'loths on the deck. Mouser broke for the controls when a door to the below deck opened up underneath him and he was staring down that ship's last demon, a Balor.
Mouser screamed at us to break for the helm. The 'loths were coming up behind us, and the Balor was in front. Medic, Kara, and I ran anyway. As we got within the demon's reach, Mouser ducked between its legs and hamstringed it. It roared in pain and we charged past into the control box. I was the first in and grabbed the wheel and Medic locked the door behind us. Mouser didn't get in. I watched in horror as the Balor picked him up in one claw and ripped him in half. The mental hit start to hammer at me, even though the battle would be over before I really realized what had happened.
The 'loths that had been chasing us backed away and let the Balor in to pound at the door. The demons may have built the ship, but they built it well. The door continued to hold. We regained our composure. Medic was the first to speak.
"This is a fine pickle. What are we going to do about it?"
Any answer was cut off by an explosion. The other ship, or something on it, had attacked us. It took out the Balor, but was clearly aiming for us. I shoved forward on the controls and the ship began to lurch ahead.
"What are you doing?" Kara asked, worried. I didn't know how I could tell her, so I merely said that I was doing the only thing I could do.
She recognized my purpose for herself. The broad side of the other ship was to us, and our ship was gaining speed. She kissed me on the cheek and told me she hoped I knew what I was doing.
The other ship saw, and fiends of every description that had swarmed up from below its deck were diving into the foul waters or else climbing the walls madly. The 'loths that remained on our ship broke through the door at last. Medic threw Kara his bandoleer of potions and herbs and rushed them, knocking the pair that had stormed through to the railing. Before the 'loths or Medic recovered, the impact came, and all three were thrown overboard.
The ship I was on crashed through the other and rocked back and forth. I fell to one side and pulled the wheel spinning. Kara fell beside me and we both tried to stand as the entire wreck, our ship lodged through the other which was practically cloven in half, turned town the slopes of Gehenna. The Ships of Chaos went down in a plume of dust created by the grinding against the old stone and ashes of the fiery mounts of Gehenna. The two of us stood up to see a straight fall ahead and a lava flow to the right. We were moving at an absurd speed, so the pit miles off was not long away.
"The lava!" Kara shouted. "These ships are supposed to sail on seas of fire, its out only chance!"
I twisted the wheel around, and the ship responded, sliding down on its side and inching right. It plunged into the lava flow, the shattered ship I had rammed burning up, but ours, which didn't have any major hull damage, stayed afloat in the deep and wide river of lava. Though the slow flow was carrying us towards the fall, I turned up the stream and pressed hard forward, and the ship began to lurch up the river of fire. It didn't pass near the keep, but we could see the smoke of battle and the portals that allowed a devilish recapture force to swarm down on the stronghold. I never did find out just how that battle turned out, but it never really matters. The Blood War will march on until the end of time, and no battle has any significance. We ascended the burning mount, knowing that there was another Baatezu keep further up the mount. However, once our ship was stable, the last fiendish occupant showed its head from the hold into which it had fallen. I slammed forward and the ship lurched and went faster, despite fighting both flow and gravity. The 'loth didn't even pause. It drew its sword and kept on coming at a controlled pace. I let go of the wheel and went for my weapon. Kara grabbed my arm.
"You keep us on course. I can take this one."
Having lost her own sword, she pulled one from where it had become wedged in the deck and prepared for battle with the 'loth. It only lasted a few swings after they closed. Kara parried and threw the creature back a few feet then thrust her arms forward. A beam of blinding white light leapt from her palms and struck the 'loth in the chest. Its skin began to burn even as the force of her attack. The 'loth howled in pain and fury, but Kara kept up her attack, finally, the creature threw its sword, nailing Kara. A huge surge of power wend down the beam and struck the 'loth. In an instant, the beam was gone, and the loth was nothing more than cinders and sparks. I tried to slow the ship, but the controls were jammed. The river of lava turned ahead, at a crag in the lee of which the Baatezu hold stood in. I let go of the controls and ran over to Kara. Before I reached her, our ship struck the crag and started to very slowly sink back into the lava., its hull split and defenses against the fire fading away.
Kara spoke to me. It was clear she was dying. Her lips were flecked with blood and her voice was weak.
"Please." She said "I need you to do something for me."
"What?" I asked.
"Tell my father. He needs to know."
"How will I find him?" I asked. I didn't want her to die. Before I joined that company I had never kept any friends, and just then the last was about to pass.
"Take my ring." She replied, slipping it off of her finger with what little movement she had. I picked up. It was a crystal band with a strange gemstone set in it. "Go to the market ward in Sigil. Ask around for its origin, you'll find him."
I started to pick her up. Kara cried in pain from moving. "Don't try to move me. Better that I slide back into the fire when the ship goes than I be surrendered to fiends."
She coughed, and closed her eyes. Her hand, which had been holding mine tightly, went limp. She would never open those eyes again. I left the shattered ship and stood upon the crag. I watched as the slow flow of lava carried it down under the current burning. As it drew Kara's body down with it. When the last timber was gone in flames, I turned and went to the Baatezu hold. Of each of my friends, only one thing remained. Trick cards from Dave, lock picks and thieves' tools from Mouser, Medic's bandoleer, and Kara's ring. I told the Pit Fiend at the outpost rather unceremoniously that I was quitting. If the Blood War didn't kill me, it would empty me again. It still hadn't quite dawned one me just how emptied I already was. Because I didn't complete my month of service, I hadn't quite worked off my arm, so with a flaming claw, the fiend reclaimed my hand. That's why I only have one intact. He gave me a swift shove and I fell through a portal in their hold and out the other end in Sigil.
***
I suppose you want to know exactly how everything wrapped up. Everyone always does. I'll tell you straight away what happened in Sigil. I came here after leaving, so I guess that really was the end to my adventures.
***
I wandered around the City of Doors for a few hours. The wound was cauterized by the fire, and so I didn't have to worry about bleeding to death, but I was still too dazed by the events of the battle to do anything. I found a place to spend the night in the hive ward. Thankfully warm, I slept out the night and rose to fulfill Kara's request.
I found one merchant who dealt in jewelry easily. I showed him the ring. He looked at it for just a moment and then spoke. "This isn't magic, but it's Netheril make. Where did you come by such a thing?"
"It was a gift." I replied. I didn't feel like spilling my heart, and trying to stay dispassionate was all I could do then to avoid breaking down. "Can you tell me who in Sigil would carry such a thing?"
The jeweler leaned forward. "Only man who deals in Netherese things around here is a Chaosman. He changes the name of his shop weekly, its location half as often, and his name daily. Last I heard, the place was called Xaos Things and was located down that road on the left." He pointed me the right way and I departed, giving him a stinger for his services, that being a quarter of the money I had left.
Xaos Things was not hard to find. The old man running it didn't use scramblespeak, but was clearly a Chaosman. I showed him the ring, he looked down at it in the palm of my hand and immediately looked into my eyes, afraid and a bit angry.
"Where is my daughter?" he asked
"She died on the mounts of Gehenna." I replied. The old shopkeeper was grief stricken.
"Gehenna? Why would she ever be there?"
I whispered to him what Kara had told me and the rest of the company and what I will not tell you. His eyes filled with horror. I then told him that I knew her because we had been fighting in the Blood war together. Though on the verge of tears, he said nothing, turning away as soon as I was done.
"Sir," I called. "The ring?"
"You keep it." He told me. And so I did.
***
I spent most of my remaining jink on the first portal key to a prime that I could find, and it happened to let out near this little town here. I found a job that didn't require two hands and have been working it ever since. The only friends I ever made, I lost in one horrible day. I have a token to remember each by, and that helps get me through the day. I'll not go back to the planes. Not out there. I've had my fill of angels and fiends, factions and rules of three. I've seen enough to last me this lifetime and several more to come. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to tending to my shop.
I suppose you want to know how I lost my hand. Everyone does. Its the first thing out of a stranger's mouth. Not "hello" or "My name is", but "What happened to your hand?". Well, to get the inevitable over with, I'll tell you. I didn't so much lose it as give it up, berk. I could tell you what happened in short, but that wouldn't be any good. You'd ask more questions and just get under my skin, so I'll tell you the whole story just to save time.
***
Plenty long ago, I was missing my whole left arm, and not just my hand. Now, I've since trained myself to use my right like a normal person, but I was left handed when the whole damn arm got taken off in a fight. I gave the sod my regards right between the eyes for it, but that didn't change anything. I was alive but I couldn't do anything. This really begins when I was reading the newspaper. I came across an ad placed by the Baatezu, recruiting for the Blood War, and it seemed the thing was written just for me. As payment for mercenary services, one of the things they said they'd do was grow a guy like me back any lost limbs. What looked better was that the service was only a month. I'd fought in wars on the prime that lasted years, so what was a month is this "Blood War"?
Well of course I signed right up with them, as right then I would have done anything to get my arm back. Well I show up at their little recruitment office, sign a contract to serve for a month, and this big Pit Fiend mutters something and I've got an arm and not a stump any more. Few seconds later I've also got a sword in my hand, helmet on my head, armor on my back, and had been pushed through a waiting portal.
The next few days were like being run through a machine. I lost my name for the most part and was basically a number, one more statistic to put out on the front lines. Of course, fiends don't like working with mortals, so I was put in a slightly more personal human regiment. Companies were five people who worked together for the whole thing, and my company was an oddball lot. It consisted of myself and four others who were also signing for some sort of odd service and not for gold. The other four were Mouser, Medic, Kara, and Dave.
Dave was the weirdest of the lot. He never told us exactly why he was there but said he owed the fiends a favor, and that the full story involved three orcs, a barrel of oil, a fire devil, and half a head of cabbage. I can only wonder.
Mouser's problems were pretty straight forward. He had been given a choice after getting caught stealing from a devil; a month in the war, or ten years hard labor in Dis. Seeing how he was a scrawny but nimble little guy, I could understand why he picked the war. Not to mention that the war would have gotten him home a lot faster.
Kara. Well, that's complicated. She eventually trusted the rest of us enough to tell, but I won't whisper the dark of it out of equal parts fear and respect. Let's suffice with what she told everyone at first: She had gotten on the wrong side of Asmodeus.
Medic was a more usual case, or at least as usual as they can come. Apparently, he had a split personality thing going, where his normal side would heal people and some evil alter ego would kill 'em. He signed on and got the alter ego, apparently a demon that had possessed him, removed. While we were all wary of him at first, it became pretty clear that he was perfectly stable.
Seeing as mortals have problems with the Gray Wastes, where the fighting started when we were assigned, we were put up in a small keep on a level ledge in Gehenna. The Styx formed a moat all the way around it, and our band (consisting of about eight companies the size of ours) was the only group of humans there. Most of my month ran out without even the lowest Tanar'ri rearing its head.
Our little band was relatively tight knit. All of us trusted one another, Mouser even giving each of us one of his old sets of thieves' tools. Dave taught us about sixty different card games and tricks and gave me an Illusionist's deck (rigged to make illusions easier). I think now that Kara fancied me, but I didn't notice it then. This was all fine until some of us noticed that the Baatezu high-ups, Pit fiends and such, were all pulling out of the keep. Sure, they left plenty of devils behind, but in any situation, when the commanders start to quietly slip away, something bad is going to happen.
Then the worst day of my life dawned. The hellish sun rose red through the volcanic smoke of the Four-fold Furnaces, and there was something coming along the Styx. Two somethings, moving fast. Wherever the somethings were spotted, weird things happened. After an hour, they were close enough to identify: Two of the Ships of Chaos.
Ships of Chaos. The dreaded, but before then untested, war caravels of the demons. Their powers were, until that day, pure rumor. For that matter, their existence was pure rumor as well. Imagine the terror in the ranks when someone said that two were coming down the river Styx right for us. Can't? It was madness. The new highest ranks of Baatezu in the keep started fleeing like mad, and the lower ranks knew they had only the choices to fight or to die. Several humans, though none in my company, took dives into the Styx, somehow seeing that fate as better than whatever the Ships of Chaos would inflict. One thing was clear: They would arrive by noon.
The ships pulled aside the keep walls, and devils started dropping like flies just in their aura. The ladder came up, and demons started swarming over the walls. Most didn't even need ladders, they crawled up the walls of the keep like massive ants. My company was stationed on a tower, though directly above the second ship. We had been fighting off ladders and ropes when a demon broke through the door behind us. There was just one, so apparently the forces of the demons were fanning out. It spotted Dave and screamed "YOU!" Dave said a polite goodbye and slid down a climbing rope to one of the lower levels of the keep. The Demon jumped down after him cursing. What happened to him, and what he did to cause it, I do not know.
Strangely, Dave's eccentric exit created an odd plan. Kara was the firs to come up with it, leaning over the edge of the battlements and seeing the barley guarded ship. Just a few 'loths left behind.
"We can take it." She said confidently.
"Take what?" Mouser asked, "I'm all for taking."
"The Ship!" she exclaimed. The next time they throw up a rope, we slide down it."
It was a brilliant idea, or at least better than waiting to be overrun on out little ledge. The rope came not seconds later. I waited until the climbing demon was halfway up and slid down. My boot met the foul creature in the face and it fell off into the Styx. Kara was only a foot behind me, followed by Medic and finally Mouser. We dropped onto the deck of the ship to find only a handful of 'loths on the deck. Mouser broke for the controls when a door to the below deck opened up underneath him and he was staring down that ship's last demon, a Balor.
Mouser screamed at us to break for the helm. The 'loths were coming up behind us, and the Balor was in front. Medic, Kara, and I ran anyway. As we got within the demon's reach, Mouser ducked between its legs and hamstringed it. It roared in pain and we charged past into the control box. I was the first in and grabbed the wheel and Medic locked the door behind us. Mouser didn't get in. I watched in horror as the Balor picked him up in one claw and ripped him in half. The mental hit start to hammer at me, even though the battle would be over before I really realized what had happened.
The 'loths that had been chasing us backed away and let the Balor in to pound at the door. The demons may have built the ship, but they built it well. The door continued to hold. We regained our composure. Medic was the first to speak.
"This is a fine pickle. What are we going to do about it?"
Any answer was cut off by an explosion. The other ship, or something on it, had attacked us. It took out the Balor, but was clearly aiming for us. I shoved forward on the controls and the ship began to lurch ahead.
"What are you doing?" Kara asked, worried. I didn't know how I could tell her, so I merely said that I was doing the only thing I could do.
She recognized my purpose for herself. The broad side of the other ship was to us, and our ship was gaining speed. She kissed me on the cheek and told me she hoped I knew what I was doing.
The other ship saw, and fiends of every description that had swarmed up from below its deck were diving into the foul waters or else climbing the walls madly. The 'loths that remained on our ship broke through the door at last. Medic threw Kara his bandoleer of potions and herbs and rushed them, knocking the pair that had stormed through to the railing. Before the 'loths or Medic recovered, the impact came, and all three were thrown overboard.
The ship I was on crashed through the other and rocked back and forth. I fell to one side and pulled the wheel spinning. Kara fell beside me and we both tried to stand as the entire wreck, our ship lodged through the other which was practically cloven in half, turned town the slopes of Gehenna. The Ships of Chaos went down in a plume of dust created by the grinding against the old stone and ashes of the fiery mounts of Gehenna. The two of us stood up to see a straight fall ahead and a lava flow to the right. We were moving at an absurd speed, so the pit miles off was not long away.
"The lava!" Kara shouted. "These ships are supposed to sail on seas of fire, its out only chance!"
I twisted the wheel around, and the ship responded, sliding down on its side and inching right. It plunged into the lava flow, the shattered ship I had rammed burning up, but ours, which didn't have any major hull damage, stayed afloat in the deep and wide river of lava. Though the slow flow was carrying us towards the fall, I turned up the stream and pressed hard forward, and the ship began to lurch up the river of fire. It didn't pass near the keep, but we could see the smoke of battle and the portals that allowed a devilish recapture force to swarm down on the stronghold. I never did find out just how that battle turned out, but it never really matters. The Blood War will march on until the end of time, and no battle has any significance. We ascended the burning mount, knowing that there was another Baatezu keep further up the mount. However, once our ship was stable, the last fiendish occupant showed its head from the hold into which it had fallen. I slammed forward and the ship lurched and went faster, despite fighting both flow and gravity. The 'loth didn't even pause. It drew its sword and kept on coming at a controlled pace. I let go of the wheel and went for my weapon. Kara grabbed my arm.
"You keep us on course. I can take this one."
Having lost her own sword, she pulled one from where it had become wedged in the deck and prepared for battle with the 'loth. It only lasted a few swings after they closed. Kara parried and threw the creature back a few feet then thrust her arms forward. A beam of blinding white light leapt from her palms and struck the 'loth in the chest. Its skin began to burn even as the force of her attack. The 'loth howled in pain and fury, but Kara kept up her attack, finally, the creature threw its sword, nailing Kara. A huge surge of power wend down the beam and struck the 'loth. In an instant, the beam was gone, and the loth was nothing more than cinders and sparks. I tried to slow the ship, but the controls were jammed. The river of lava turned ahead, at a crag in the lee of which the Baatezu hold stood in. I let go of the controls and ran over to Kara. Before I reached her, our ship struck the crag and started to very slowly sink back into the lava., its hull split and defenses against the fire fading away.
Kara spoke to me. It was clear she was dying. Her lips were flecked with blood and her voice was weak.
"Please." She said "I need you to do something for me."
"What?" I asked.
"Tell my father. He needs to know."
"How will I find him?" I asked. I didn't want her to die. Before I joined that company I had never kept any friends, and just then the last was about to pass.
"Take my ring." She replied, slipping it off of her finger with what little movement she had. I picked up. It was a crystal band with a strange gemstone set in it. "Go to the market ward in Sigil. Ask around for its origin, you'll find him."
I started to pick her up. Kara cried in pain from moving. "Don't try to move me. Better that I slide back into the fire when the ship goes than I be surrendered to fiends."
She coughed, and closed her eyes. Her hand, which had been holding mine tightly, went limp. She would never open those eyes again. I left the shattered ship and stood upon the crag. I watched as the slow flow of lava carried it down under the current burning. As it drew Kara's body down with it. When the last timber was gone in flames, I turned and went to the Baatezu hold. Of each of my friends, only one thing remained. Trick cards from Dave, lock picks and thieves' tools from Mouser, Medic's bandoleer, and Kara's ring. I told the Pit Fiend at the outpost rather unceremoniously that I was quitting. If the Blood War didn't kill me, it would empty me again. It still hadn't quite dawned one me just how emptied I already was. Because I didn't complete my month of service, I hadn't quite worked off my arm, so with a flaming claw, the fiend reclaimed my hand. That's why I only have one intact. He gave me a swift shove and I fell through a portal in their hold and out the other end in Sigil.
***
I suppose you want to know exactly how everything wrapped up. Everyone always does. I'll tell you straight away what happened in Sigil. I came here after leaving, so I guess that really was the end to my adventures.
***
I wandered around the City of Doors for a few hours. The wound was cauterized by the fire, and so I didn't have to worry about bleeding to death, but I was still too dazed by the events of the battle to do anything. I found a place to spend the night in the hive ward. Thankfully warm, I slept out the night and rose to fulfill Kara's request.
I found one merchant who dealt in jewelry easily. I showed him the ring. He looked at it for just a moment and then spoke. "This isn't magic, but it's Netheril make. Where did you come by such a thing?"
"It was a gift." I replied. I didn't feel like spilling my heart, and trying to stay dispassionate was all I could do then to avoid breaking down. "Can you tell me who in Sigil would carry such a thing?"
The jeweler leaned forward. "Only man who deals in Netherese things around here is a Chaosman. He changes the name of his shop weekly, its location half as often, and his name daily. Last I heard, the place was called Xaos Things and was located down that road on the left." He pointed me the right way and I departed, giving him a stinger for his services, that being a quarter of the money I had left.
Xaos Things was not hard to find. The old man running it didn't use scramblespeak, but was clearly a Chaosman. I showed him the ring, he looked down at it in the palm of my hand and immediately looked into my eyes, afraid and a bit angry.
"Where is my daughter?" he asked
"She died on the mounts of Gehenna." I replied. The old shopkeeper was grief stricken.
"Gehenna? Why would she ever be there?"
I whispered to him what Kara had told me and the rest of the company and what I will not tell you. His eyes filled with horror. I then told him that I knew her because we had been fighting in the Blood war together. Though on the verge of tears, he said nothing, turning away as soon as I was done.
"Sir," I called. "The ring?"
"You keep it." He told me. And so I did.
***
I spent most of my remaining jink on the first portal key to a prime that I could find, and it happened to let out near this little town here. I found a job that didn't require two hands and have been working it ever since. The only friends I ever made, I lost in one horrible day. I have a token to remember each by, and that helps get me through the day. I'll not go back to the planes. Not out there. I've had my fill of angels and fiends, factions and rules of three. I've seen enough to last me this lifetime and several more to come. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to tending to my shop.