Prologue: A Sacred and Terrible Air

To those who came to Sigil, the city deemed the Center of the Multiverse by its many denizens, the city was surely a sight, a wonder and a fright to see. Curving city built upon the inside of a torus, above the infinitely high Spire? Surely, that was something to tell a tale about. But this wasn't about those big, fancy facts. No, you wouldn't talk about those things when you first came to Sigil. Unless someone had already told you of the burg and you just had to show the people of Sigil some respect by telling them those facts over and over again, until they were forced to put a knife on your back to shut you up.

No, the very first thing you felt in Sigil was its air. Especially if your introduction to the City of Doors was the Lower Ward.

There were many things to say about the air of the Lower Ward. And honestly, none of them were a good thing. The air was foul, putrid, thick to the point one could choke on it should they enter the ward on a bad day. Only the Lady and the dabus could know what was inside of it. Some said it was the smog from this ward that was responsible for polluting the entire city.

That could be true, as any other chants in the city. Like a wizard, the people of Sigil always chanted, the difference being one chanting arcane words and syllables of magic, the other chanting rumor and gossip.

And the chant about the air was simple, it was the most infuriating thing to exist, but no one could change it at all, so everyone had to put up with it. The rich and plentiful used rings imbued with magic imitating the environment of the Plane of Air, generating an invisible shell filled with clean, breathable air. The middle class could use masks, stuffed to the brim with chemicals and herbs, sometimes enchanted but for most of the time not. Those masks were clunky, heavy and rather uncomfortable to use, not to mention that the designs weren't exactly made to be fashionable (though some found ways to overcome this hindrance), but they worked, and to those who lived on this ward, that was enough. At least they fared much better than those of the lower rung. They reached their middle age at the age of 20, and could be called an elder at the age of 50, in rare cases that some could live past 50, the locals considered those to be the ancients.

The smog wasn't kind, neither were the numerous factories, foundries, forges and shops that dotted across the ward. They made an honest man's hand turn charcoal black, leaving an armor of callus on their body, and their skin all shared the same pale yellowish tone. People are always coughing, spitting, vomiting their own organs out.

No matter where or when, you could always find a forge burning with fire imported from the Plane of Fire or fuel imported from the Prime Material or Baator. No matter where you laid your eyes upon, you could always see a shop running, spewing, grinding out wastes and good alike. The streets were as clean as a soot covered floor could be, and the sky was as equally bright as the streets. On a good day, you might be able to see glimmers of the sky above, should the smog become thin enough.

Its very air slowly corroded the ward away. Chemical smoke and grime etched their path upon any surface they could touch: the streets, the roofs, the walls and your very clothes. All being slowly eaten away by the acidic smog and soot, to the point one had to enchant their structures with magic just to delay the process. It bleached the hair of the living pale, hollowed out their eyes and clung onto your body, refusing to leave no matter how hard you tried to get rid of them. Like a foul miasma tried to consume all, the smog always returned and rarely came back thinner than it was.

Damned were those who born, lived and died upon the Lower Ward.

Yet, the smog was also a sign, a good one, as bizarre as it sounded. From where did the smog come from? And how could it possibly grow so thick?

The Lower Ward was more than just a bad place for the living. It was a haven to the industrious. The smog wasn't a curse, not one from an outside force at least, but a byproduct of the ward's buzzling industrial activities. From the smallest jewelry workshops, to the massive complex that was the Great Foundry, everything, everyone, every single establishment, always making, forging, melting, casting, printing, smithing, crafting something. Iron ores were smelted as much as the coal needed to smelt them. Crucibles and molds were never left empty for long. The sound of machinery, hammers and footsteps droned out the booming voice of the foremans and announcement from the speakers. The fire of the forges burned as bright and constant was that of the Elemental Plane of Fire.

For those of the Lower Ward, the smog was an indicator, a proof of their industrial might, or their miraculous trades, of the ward's collection of the best craftsmen in the entirety of Sigil, and in extension, of the Multiverse.

The smog was sacred to those of the trade. Without it, what could possibly be their signature? The very smog that corroded the ward was also the one used to prove the quality of their blades. The foul stench it carried was created by the diverse materials used for crafting and smithing, from common copper ores to Baator's green steel. The harshness of the ward made the craftsman, as only those of the highest expertise would last long on it.

To breathe in the air was both a blessing and a curse. Life on the ward was miserable, but also rich in ideologies.

Such was the Lower Ward, such was anywhere else in Sigil.

But not all embraced it. Of course, that was expected. But worst of all, there were those who tried to burn it down.

A dabus was found dead outside of the Sword and Buckler.

Cause of death: unknown.

The killer: unknown.

The dark of it?

The Lady hadn't done anything, yet. No dabus came to retrieve their kind. No announcement from Her Serenity or anyone. Which was the reason why the entire burg was stirred.

See, the death of a dabus isn't your everyday murderer cases. It's a messy event, one nobody dares to get involved in, or even witness it. Why you ask? Here's the dark of it, the dabus are the Lady of Pain's handmaid, servant, followers, whatever you wanted to call them, it's the same either way. And the Lady of Pain hates it when someone messes with her belongings, be it her city, Sigil, or her handmaid, the dabus. No matter who you are, no matter what you are or who is behind your back, you should never, never ever ever, never ever in any cases, hurt a dabus. Else it's the Maze for you. What's the Maze you ask? That's not the question you are supposed to ask. The real question is 'Do you want to know what it is or not?'.

So we had a murdered dabus, which usually resulted in a berk getting Mazed by the Lady. But as the chant went, no one was Mazed. Not a soul came to the corpse, neither did the Lady descend to personally put the berk who painted his hand red to the Maze. The chant got louder, becoming a howl, a howl of a killer who yet to be punished, howl of a Maze without a prisoner. Howl of a monster lurking in the Lower Ward, attracting the Lady's attention upon it, Her rage upon it. It was as if the Lady had already announced her demand in silence: find the killer, or the entire burg would suffer.

As any sane basher would do, the burg turned to the 'officials', what was left of it to be exact. A merchant by the name Ginat assured the people of the Lower Ward that he would find the killer and give them the rope, bring them to the Lady on a silver platter to calm her anger.

The next day, twenty light boys were hired to put posters all across the city. Whoever found the killer shall be rewarded a gad of jinks, quite a fortune, for their service, with extra garnishes by the side should they find the killer soon enough.

Needless to say, the bright minds got brighter and more motivated by the poster rather than the fire that was slowly making its way to the Lower Ward.