Yeah, this was a lot of fun.
A Wedding in Sigil: Introduction
CONGRATULATIONS!YOU HAVE BEEN CORDIALLY INVITED TO ATTEND THE WEDDING OF CORDELIA BRIMSNOUT AND JACOB GRACE, TO TAKE PLACE UPON THE SEVENTH DAY OF THE THIRD MONTH AT NOON SHARP, UPON 5th STREET AND MAIN WITHIN THE HIVE.Formal attire only. Weapons shall be checked at the door.----
"Oh, look, dear. The invitation for Cordelia's wedding has arrived!" Cordelia's mother - the ravishingly attractive Sarah Brimsnout - held up the card with barely contained excitement. "And it's even engraved! Very classy." EXCELLENT. I SHALL WEAR THE RAIMENTS OF MY ENEMIES, SEWN FROM THEIR STRIPPED FLESH AND WITH THEIR STILL-SHRIEKING HEADS ATTACHED AS VILE TROPHIES. "Oh no, I'm sorry," Sarah clucked her tongue as her husband's voice caused several of the daisies to wilt in terror. "That one's still in the cleaners. It had a nasty stain on it from the last party. It probably won't be back in time." I SEE. IS MY TUXEDO STILL CLEAN? "Yes, dear. It's in the closet," Sarah cheerfully pointed out. There was a horrendous crash, followed by a blood-curdling scream. "Other closet, dear," Sarah sang.
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"Hum. What's this?" Mr. Theodore Grace - an aging man with a massive white handle-bar mustache currently dressed in pajamas - peered at the bundle of mail he had just snatched from the local delivery boy. Stepping back into his living room, he called out to the kitchen. "Honey, did Jacob mention anything about getting married?" "Yes, Theodore," Amelia Grace - a white haired old woman in sweeping indigo robes trimmed with gold - answered with calm diligence. "We've been talking about it for the past six months, in fact." "Really?" Theodore blinked with sincere confusion. "My boy? Getting married? We're talking about the same boy, right?" "We only have one son," Amelia reminded him patiently. "He's getting married to that nice Cordelia girl." Immediately, Theodore's mustache began twitching in derision. "Not that tiefling?!""Yes." Amelia shot a cold glance at the aging Paladin. "And you're going to behave this time, Theodore. You promised." "That girl's father - that Grimsnout brute - he's not going to be there, is he?" A sort of glazed look started to sweep through Theodore's eyes. It was a stare that Amelia knew all too well - and she quickly extinguished it by throwing the mug of scalding tea right into his face. "Augh! What in the 9 layers of Baator is wrong with you, woman?!" Theodore clutched at his red face, rubbing furiously at his eyes. "You aren't going to make a scene like last time. Not at their wedding," Amelia sternly lectured him. "We've done enough damage, what with that whole engagement fiasco." "That beast was going to eat the guests! I could see it in his eyes! I could smell his evil!" Theodore complained, rising back up and combing his prized mustache dry. "You promised to behave. No trying to smite the bride's father. No axes, no hammers, no swords - nothing. Are we clear?" "Yes, 'dear'," Theodore mumbled dejectedly.
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Another old man - this one far less hairy, but far more senile - sat in the warmth of his antique-laced office, staring at the curious package on his desk that had arrived only an hour before. Various mathematical formulas had been scribbled all around the package, forming a sort of numerical ring around it.It was not long before the door to the old man's office opened, and he was joined by an elf best described with three words - towering, muscular, and absurd."What's that?" Draken asked, peering at the mathematician's current object of obsession."A package," Jeremiah explained with a barely veiled sense of awe, as if marveling over it. "A package that arrived... today.""So? Open it." Draken - who was dressed not only to kill, but to pillage and sodomize - waltzed over towards the desk, cracking his knuckles and wiggling his greedy, package-opening fingers."No!" Jeremiah roared, leaping up from his desk. "Don't you see?! Until the moment of opening, this package could contain anything! The potential is limitless! Perhaps it is a new pipe, or spectacles, or a key, or nothing at all! Perhaps, contained in this very package," He struck the top of it for emphasis, "Is the very secret of the multiverse!""Maybe it's sherry.""Peh. Mathematically impossible." Jeremiah folded his arms over his chest. "The point is that until I open this package, its contents exist in a quasi-state of perpetual non-being, simultaneously existing as every possible thing it could be all at once.""I bet it's sherry.""It's not bloody sherry.""Let's find out." Before Jeremiah could stop him, Draken snatched the package up and tore it to ribbons, lazily flicking the loose paper aside. Once the package had been opened, the box was disposed of and the single small index card within inspected."It's not sherry," Draken lamented, then threw the card to Jeremiah."Hm..." Jeremiah grabbed his old pair of spectacles, adjusting them to read. "Oh. I've been invited to a wedding.""Maybe there'll be sherry there," Draken immediately cheered up at the thought."That Jacob fellow is marrying that Cordelia girl. Isn't she the tiefling?"Draken cheered up immeasurably at that. "Oh, yes. We certainly must go. We've been invited, so we are no doubt duty-bound.""I suppose," Jeremiah admitted, squinting his eyes. "Though I do hope that Theodore fellow doesn't show up. I'd hate it to turn into a fiasco like that engagement party, last year.""That was awful. They didn't even have any sherry."
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Packages were delivered to all fifty-three corners of the Multiverse, sometimes wrapped in brown - other times in black - and on the rare occasion, in mauve. All but one arrived quickly and safely, and it was not long before a multitude of guests - spanning the gambit from the angelic to the abhorrent - began to make their way towards a small church nestled on 5th and Main.An astute reader may notice that we have said 'All but one'. Some of these readers may conclude that 'one' is a very small number and not at all important. However, more mathematically inclined readers may point out that 'one' is exactly one more than zero, and that difference can be critical."And what do we have here?"The voice was so thick with sugared sweetness that it made even the most iron-clad of bellies curdle with nausea. It's owner - a sleek devil with an oil-slick suit and a smile of broken glass - grinned with barely contained delight as he perused the invitation."An invitation? For me? You shouldn't have." He turned to the still-gurgling corpse of the messenger, throat slit in mid-step on her way to deliver the invitation to it's rightful owner. "You really, really, shouldn't have."
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Likewise. Although the word is "gamut", not "gambit"