Session Ten: Unstable
From the logs of M'K'Splswap
Scene 1: Bard from Entry
We finally arrived at Sigil. The center of the wheel. The mighty donut.
The whale skidded to a stop on the shipyard's tarmac. It didn't seem happy; whales don't have landing gear. Doktor, a Sigil native, led M'k and Aephyr into the biggest city they'd ever seen.
We were immediately approached by a very average-looking human looking for work. He explained that he was a bad cook, out of shape, and a poor fighter, but that he was a skilled storyteller and entertainer. We explained that we routinely put ourselves in deadly combat situations and that, should he join our crew, he would almost certainly die horribly. He didn't care; he said he wanted to make the Wheel a better place. What a go-getter! We hired him. His name is Samuel.
Samuel also explained his personal goal of harvesting belief until he could become a god. We wished him luck, although Doktor reminded the human, who was also new to Sigil, that the Lady of Pain probably wouldn't appreciate such talk.
We went to do some shopping. We had just purchased some drive and detox when a strange beast, huge and long-trunked and led by an elf, snorted up Aephyr's shadow. We later learned that the thing was called an "umbravore", and that the shadow constituted or represented an Umbra-bound part of our halfling's soul. Losing it is not good for you.
Despite not fully understanding this at the time, we did recognize that this asshole had stolen something from us.
When we challenged the elf, he leapt on the umbravore and bolted. Octocat used her magic to command the umbravore to stop, but the elf was still uncooperative.
M'k teleported in front of the thing and cut the elf's leg nearly off with his power sword. By this point the umbravore was cuddling with Octocat. M'k cast a portal on a nearby window, to be able to give the elf a painful but non-lethal fall if he decided to make a break for it on foot.
That didn't turn out to be necessary. As Doktor kindly applied some biofoam to stabilize the bloody leg wound, Samuel proved his worth by coaxing the elf into dialogue.
Meanwhile, M'k spotted someone stealing some kind of big, shiny orb from something with big wings covered with smaller wings covered with even tinier wings (and so on). Clearly a Celestial. M'k decided to retrieve the orb. The owner might be Vectron-aligned!
The thief had already run around the street corner and escaped from sight, but M'k caught up in time to see the him slink into the crowd, while a decoy, who looked exactly the same, was being apprehended.
M'k cast another portal beneath the thief's feet, to give him that painful but non-lethal fall.
Returning to the group, M'k realized that he'd failed to notice that his initial portal had been cast directly above a stall selling "Artisanal Stabby-Sticks". The thief's blood was tracing artful but non-non-lethal patterns over the intricately-carved sticks. M'k silently prayed to Vectron for the poor thief's soul.
The Celestial, whom I'll refer to as Wings, searched the corpse, but couldn't find the orb. M'k returned to the decoy, explaining that his partner was dead and that he should probably return the stolen goods. The decoy hit M'k with a mango, punched his armor to even less effect than you'd expect, and then slipped and fell on his ass. M'k realized the decoy was performing slapstick to make a scene intentionally. The decoy also didn't have the orb.
M'k cast another portal under the decoy, dispelling the one above the stabby-store and leaving the decoy falling back and forth through the two portals on the floor. This is the same way M'k sleeps; now that's an air mattress. M'k returned to the rest of the party and cast a portal on a wall at street level, safely dumping the decoy, who didn't try to escape.
Samuel drew from the thief the barest mention of some sort of cult. At this, the thief's face melted half off.
The thief having clammed up, Samuel turned his attention to Wings, who explained that the stolen orb was a trapped fellow Celestial by the name of Mirror Eyes, the freedom of whom they had been trying to purchase. Wings requested our help retrieving Mirror Eyes, who served as a gatekeeper against hostile incursion from the Umbra. This seemed both important and fun, so we agreed.
Before we could decide what to do with our two captives (melty-face and the decoy), we spotted a tiny pixie sniper on a nearby rooftop, rifle trained on us but not firing. M'k teleported up to question him, but the pixie took off towards the "roof" of Sigil, where they could lose themself in the crowd. Hollow donut, remember?
M'k could ignore gravity, of course, but Doktor had warned him not to reveal his status as a demiurge. M'k asked for permission to pursue, which was denied. M'k instead magically hailed the pixie, commanding him to stop in the name of Vectron; the pixie replied with a traditional Vectronian blessing. Huh. They couldn't be that bad.
Samuel decided to help out by throwing a grenade at the pixie, who was some forty meters away from him in midair and would therefore only be reached by an incredibly precise throw. Samuel managed to throw the grenade about three meters, nearly killing himself and Aephyr and lightly scratching Doktor's armor. Bards...
Doktor attempted to pin the pixie with suppressing fire, to...limited effect.
Wings was convinced to fly up and capture the pixie, who after all might be involved with Mirror Eyes' captors. Our Celestial friend remanded the pixie to Meetslab's fist.
The pixie, who declined to share their name but whom I'll call Pixie, turned out to be innocent of both crimes -- obviously, given that they followed Vectron. Pixie had been watching the shadow thief, along with their partners in crime, who had also been leading umbravores around and stealing shadows, though we hadn't seen them from within the crowd. Pixie had spotted the band of thieves retreating to the undercity, which we learned was a place under the city.
We decided to take our captives somewhere more private, and rented a room at the nearest tavern.
Scene 2: Spirited Conversation
Leaving the umbravore in the tavern's stables, we were led to our reasonably nice and unreasonably expensive lodgings, and we continued to interrogate the shadow-stealing elf. Unfortunately, his mouth was firmly shut, apart from the gaping hole that continued to weep foul, black pus. He made it clear that he was willing to die before he said another word. Doktor surmised that the man might be a follower of Acerath, which would explain the melting face and his willingness to die before revealing any more secrets, and which was tentatively confirmed by the elf refusing to reveal his alignment when pressed.
We turned our attentions to the decoy orb-thief. Inspecting him for the first time, we noticed that he was wearing around his neck a mirror draped in feathers. The mirror showed the reflection of a vague form that was not actually present in the room, or at least, not in the Materium.
Wings chimed in that he recognized the device: it held in place a spirit, which was controlling the decoy. We decided to release the spirit, but first we wanted to get Aephyr drunk, so that he might have a better shot at capturing it. Aephyr was always better at stealing metaphysical objects when he was a little tipsy. Or so we assumed, anyway. It stands to reason.
We sent Aephyr down to the bar to pick up a half-pint bottle of brandy; he returned with three, one of which he had already finished. M'k nabbed the second, and took a swig; Aephy stole it back and took a swig; M'k took it back and cast Call Item on it; Aephyr snatched it back and took a swig; M'k Called it and took a swig, and so on. They'd finished the bottle before Doktor could confiscate the third, which Aephyr was already moving to open. Realizing that Aephyr might actually die, we convinced him to induce vomiting. Great. The room was carpeted, by the way.
It worked out, though. We removed the mirror, and Aephyr managed to capture the smokey cloud of escaping spirit in one of the empty bottles.
The decoy, unensorcelled, identified himself as Johnos. We gave him detox for the polymorphine he'd taken to look like the thief; back in his own skin, he seemed to relax. He told us that he'd been captured after being lured to a cult orgy, where he'd been strapped to an altar and drenched in liquid shadow until some of it had taken root in him. They'd chanted something about their "mighty will" "pushing through the veil". Johnos gave us directions to the cult's temple in the undercity.
Johnos continued, explaining that the orb-thief had also been under the control of a spirit; M'k felt pretty bad about the whole "accidentally killing him" thing, and prayed for the forgiveness of mighty Vectron. Furthermore, the orb had been hidden in a barrel of produce owned by a shopkeep who had also been possessed against his will.
M'k immediately teleported back, but the barrel was gone, along with the rest of the stall.
Back in the tavern, the party planned a raid on the cult; Johnos, still peeved, agreed to help.
Scene 3: Of One's Former Self
A robed figure strode with poise and confidence through the gloom of the undercity, stopping before the outstretched palm of the drab building's lone guard, who issued a challenge.
"Where the veils go thin?"
"Stories make freedom."
"Was your quest successful?"
"It was."
As the guard moved aside, something smaller emerged from the cloak, crept towards the guard, made two quick motions, and then returned, unseen.
Five adepts of the order greeted the robed figure within. Three humans, a gnome, and one with too many eyes. The something smaller passed by each of them, unseen, before returning to its concealment. A caged bird of prey the size of a Dobermann ignored the cultists, instead watching with hunger the five tethered umbravores.
"Open the way!"
One of the cultists untied the umbravores and shooed them into the pen, which surrounded an eldritch-looking pylon covered in runes and messy wiring. He activated the pylon, and lightning arced out to strike the animals, which shook, and bellowed, and then vomited shadows, which pooled on the floor.
The cultists began to chant about that which would come through. The bird's iron perch slowly melted beneath its talons.
Aephyr's tranq hit the cultists all at once. Two doses each were enough to level them instantly; a thud outside the door marked the guard succumbing. Samuel dropped his robe, revealing the halfling, Octocat, and M'k's floating Eye.
In a nearby alley, M'k and Doktor were steadily demolishing deep-fried salamander dogs from the kind of street cart you normally don't approach unless stumbling drunk. M'k idly inscribed Exploding Runes on the stack of receipts he'd bought from the vendor. A portal to nowhere waited on a brick wall next to them.
Seeing the cultists fall, M'k got Doktor's attention, handed him the receipts, and teleported. The portal opened to reveal the cultists' headquarters, and Doktor stepped through.
Octocat was in the midst of befriending the giant jet-black raptor. Aephyr was trying to scoop up the shadows from the floor, and failing.
M'k, realizing that the shadow Aephyr needed was still in the tavern stables, teleported back. He led the umbravore through a portal and into the pen, where it was zapped by the pylon, then shook, bellowed, and vomited.
Aephyr failed to capture the shadow that emerged. The party was now concerned: the shadows had begun to thin and fade. By Vectron's boots, we would not lose this shard of Aephyr's soul.
M'k again teleported to the tavern to find Wings, who was nursing a Jynnan Tonyx at the bar. M'k frantically ushered the Celestial through a portal to Aephyr's aid, but it was already too late: the shadow dissipated before their eyes. Aephyr sat staring at the floor. The door slammed open, and in strode a familiar face, the same one that the orb-thief and his decoy had worn. He was holding the orb that was Mirror Eyes. That he had chosen to disguise his catspaws as himself begged for explanation, but it would have to wait: Doktor seemed relieved at the simplicity of his task as he tackled the interloper, roaring at the top of his lungs. Our captain collected the orb and swiftly backed away, the weight of a ten-foot orc in power armor having led the cultist to relieve himself.
Doktor stared at the orb, poking and twisting at it ineffectually, before handing it to Wings, who twisted it just as Doktor had.
The orb blossomed, expanding into peaks and folds and jagged ridges, the exact shape of its perfectly mirrored surface impossible to discern.
We asked Mirror Eyes what would become of Aephyr without his shadow, and were told that he hadn't lost much of his soul, that he would probably be mostly OK, and that what was lost could perhaps regrow, mostly, with time.
We had to kill the umbravores, which would have stolen more shadows if released. M'k activated his power sword, strode into the pen, was hit by the pylon's lightning, and started vomiting. Aephyr unplugged the pylon and reminded M'k that he was risking his shadow; M'k blinked away to let Aephyr do the job, relieving some of his frustration by cutting the beasts down one by one. We ignored Octocat's forlorn pleas to spare her "friends".
Mirror Eyes told us that the cultist who'd brought the orb was not the mastermind, but another spirit-snatched thrall of a multitude demon, wearing its preferred form. When we threatened to find and free the daemon's other bodies, it started answering our questions. The cult was bringing in spirits to spread the daemon. The bird was from a place called Menagerie, was nearly immortal, and caused "unimportant" things around it to fade to nothingness. On the cultist with too many eyes, we had found a chain of manacles, shackled to each other: it was the key to a portal leading to a primitive prime world; the portal, which could be traversed in either direction, was an archway by a certain fountain in Sigil. We took the thrall's mirror pendant, releasing the shopkeeper, who accepted a dose of detox to regain his own appearance. Aephyr captured the spirit.
Octocat cheered up when we agreed to keep the bird as a pet, although it would need to be kept away from the redshirts -- the ones without names, at the very least.
While we searched the other cultists, freeing those who were thralls and finding tranq and polymorphine, Samuel talked to the Celestials, explaining his worldview and goals. Mirror Eyes invited us to his office in the highest heaven of Celestia, and offered to take Samuel there, though that would require Samuel's death; he declined the offer. Mirror Eyes showed us the rune that would identify him, should we make our way by other means. Pretty chill guy, for a huge shiny blob.
M'k portalled the party back to the whale, where we prepared for what would surely be the most dangerous part of the day: dinner.
Scene 4: Sleepy Pete's Fried Frogs and Friendly Fire
When Sleepy Pete opened his eponymous restaurant, he christened it with a simple two-word possessive noun phrase. But one fateful evening, during an otherwise unremarkable bar fight, a pair of errant krak missiles struck and mortally wounded an uninvolved patron. The customer was a powerful warlock; with his dying breaths, he first left a glowing review of the soup of the day, then placed a memetic curse on the establishment's neon sign, appending words that were never the same twice. The same effect bound any who spoke or wrote the name, forever warning travellers of this most dangerous corner of Sigil.
Captain Doktor Meetslab wasn't eager to bring the rest of us to his old workplace. He explained to the party that patronizing Sleepy Pete's Fish Head Soup and Tire Irons was horrifically dangerous at best, and that it might be significantly worse to visit in the company of an employee who was now late for work by nearly a year. But he had told too many tales of the restaurant's unique culinary thrills, and the party insisted on making the pilgrimage. Dewey wanted to come, too.
We donned or cast our heaviest armor, our weapons at the ready. M'k sent his Eye to the restaurant, sparing us the trek through Sigil's most dangerous neighborhood, less ghetto than warzone. When it arrived, allowing M'k to portal the party in, the Eye was dripping flaming napalm and was being chewed on by some sort of imp. Karen's otherworldly resilience worked in our favor, for once. Doktor shooed the monster away, absently, as we made our way past the bouncer, who was bleeding to death and half-melted by some sort of acid. Doktor remarked on the tiny bipedal warbots that had replaced the mutant fire-breathing guard pigs, and which were defending the bouncer's aspiring corpse from thieves, as we crossed the threshold into the cacophonous, fragrant bustle.
"MEEEEEETSLAAAAAAB! YOU ARE LATE FOR WORK!"
We braced for combat with the proprietor. He was a massive ork, nearly Doktor's size, wearing ancient and warworn power armor, bald, with shaggy eyebrows to match his mighty salt-and-pepper beard, his face scarred and deeply wrinkled. But Pete was in fine humor, merely ordering our captain to clean the toilets. The rest of us were led to a booth in the back, near the kitchen, secluded enough that only one knife fight was visible from our vantage point.
We ordered. Octocat: Reuben. M'k: pulled pork. Aephyr, still tipsy: "what they had". Sam: barbecued wampa. Dewey: mystery ribs.
Doktor emerged from the bathrooms just as the food arrived (including Aephyr's meta-sandwich, a Reuben and a pulled pork stacked between even more bread), and Sleepy Pete beckoned for him to join us at our booth. Our captain spoke with care as he explained that he might not be able to continue his employment at Sleepy Pete's Bludgeoned Horse and Rat Traps.
Sleep Pete narrowed his eyes, and Meetslab began to tell the story from the beginning. "When I stepped into the bathroom..."
Sometime around when, in the story, the party was fighting an invincible naked man next to a portal to hell, Sleepy Pete interrupted, turning to the rest of us.
"How are the sandwiches?"
"Fucking awesome."
"That was when M'k here ascended into being some sort of demigod."
M'k smiled and waved. Sleepy Pete raised his eyebrows and nodded approval.
"...and so, you see, I have a crew now. I have obligations."
"I understand, Doktor, unusual as this is for me. You are not beholden. Do you remember Steve?"
"Of course. We had a pool going, on how he would die. Did he...?"
"Yes. He was attempting the Unstable Sandwich."
"...that fool."
"Yes. So," Sleepy Pete addressed the group, "Is there anything with which I can help you?"
We asked a number of questions. No, Sleepy Pete didn't know anything about Helvetica, creator of the Marble. Nor of Orobas. The most powerful tattoo artist in Sigil was Fell, a Dabu. The most powerful bard was at the forefront of the infinite rave -- the party that swept endlessly around Sigil, enrapturing all in its wake.
Doktor described the necrodermis heart and soulstone dagger we had found, and the transorkist goal he hoped to accomplish with them. He asked if Sleepy Pete knew of a soul mage who could provide assistance.
"The creator of Baron Vash."
The ruler of the Vash Barony was very, very old. He was as old as Sigil's 13 factions, and had been a main player in the war that had sundered them. Sleepy Pete went to his office and returned with a bounty poster, which showed a squat, cylindrical machine, no larger than our stack of plates (licked clean). The Barony stretched across a cluster of spheres.
"Be warned that Vash is far more powerful than he appears. You wouldn't guess it, but he fits an MP lascannon in there, and a nullray. And his territory...anyone can enter, but none can leave."
"Now, Meetslab. You haven't eaten. For my most resilient and accomplished employee, I would like to make something special. Would you like to attempt...the Unstable Sandwich?"
Doktor went silent and still.
"Yes."
Sleepy Pete solemnly took his leave. We waited in hushed anticipation -- apart from Aephyr, who left to piss -- as from the kitchen came the sound of beating hammers, the rev of chainsaws, the bleating of slaughtered animals, the hiss of arc welding, the murmured chorus of chanted incantations, the indescribable yet regrettably familiar howl of warp phenomena, and, finally, the ding of an oven timer.
The sandwich that Sleepy Pete brought out on a meter-wide platter was larger than Aephyr. It was piled high with too many ingredients to list in full, among them dragon meat, unicorn meat, irradiated normal beast, and spices I could be killed for naming, including the one that turns your eyes blue. The bread looked to be a fine Lamuellan ciabatta.
It took Doktor an hour to finish the abomination, and it was no sure thing. He wept fluids that did not seem wholly biological in nature, and the sweat that dripped from his brow burned pits in his armor. Thin grey smoke escaped from every orifice and assumed portentous shapes before dissipating with tiny screams.
When he had taken the final bite, he licked his plate clean, and he leaned back in his seat, his face a picture of blissful exhaustion. We stared in awe, Sleepy Pete glowing with approval, as Doktor took several minutes to compose himself.
"That was...it was..."
Sleepy Pete waved away Doktor's attempt at thanks. Our captain straightened, suddenly alert.
"Sleepy Pete. Boss. I should warn you. The portal that took me from here was in the third stall in the men's room. It leads to Yehket, which is crawling with zombies. I do not know its key."
"Also, where is Aephyr?" . . . .