Puppets and Wolves (Solo)

OooooooooOOtooooOoo!

Rgootoo admires your prestidigitations. Drazek, on the other had, looks thoughtfully at you.

Well, Caldwell was the best legal means an outsider like yerself could make jink in this town... if yer lookin' for power.. this a'int the place. no one'ere cares about power - mos' just wanna live in peace.

I don' know what ye are.. I'd say yer some kinda weird kobold. Ye should go visit the rest 'o the Cage, see what else there is fer an ambitios cutter like yerself.

OOC: wait.. you know this, right? unless Igo's playing the fool - you have a basic knowledge of all races

Drazek gives you the basic explanation of what a kobold is - though it doesn't really help you at all. There's something different about you.

Huh? She seems confused and slightly perturbed. Whaddy'a mean the Big Bad? My 'istory a'int all that great, but I'm fairly swift that the goblins pitched kips on top 'o nothin' but solid ground.

Good question about why ye were in the Slags- a lotta shady dealin's go down in that area.. it's a bad neighborhood.

(she throws a slab of uncooked meat literally into an eagerly awaiting Rgootoo)

Say.. what'dya plan to do after workin for a month 'ere? There's got t' be better ways to rake jink and spend time. Maybe I can 'elp ya, but I doubt. I know a few darks about each o' the Cage's wards.

Undersigil?! That's a dangerous place blood- not only'vya got musties and shamblers, but leths, loths, zus and ari's!

wait.. rye aksin me 'bout goin down there?

Rgootoo gives you an inquisitive grunt.

Hmm. maybe ye sheould visit other parts o the cage... I mean.. even the Hive is better than down there.. why'd ye wanna go down ther t' begin with?!

Ye might find yerselves turn up in the Slags again. but this tim, ye may not be alive.

It's clear she's dead set against it.. though she could be manipulated.. or perhaps controlled. Magic..

Magic will allow you to control others!

Caldwell let's Igo stay at his kip... it's not the cleanest of circumstances, but it'll do.. for now.

OOC: do you want me to fast forward a month?

Long post tommorrow... sorry about the lack of excitement so far - i'll try to make it pick up

An uneventful month passes with your menial employment position at Caldwell's. You get to know your coworkers, though only as acquaintances - they seem to prefer to keep their distance and be more reserved around outsiders. You know your way around the Goblin Quarter now, and have made a few acquaintances in the Civic Center (a town-hall of sorts) - perhaps the only goblin you could really consider your friend is Drazek - and she isn't really what you'd consider a close friend... she's not a person you really enjoy being around, or love to spend time with, but more someone you can count on for being useful in terms of information or hospitality.

Rgootoo seems to have become ... different after his labor 'cleaning up' the gunk on the floor of Caldwell's. He has a darker complexion, and sharper teeth in his multifaceted maw. He also seems resistant to almost anything - there were a few days he got sick after licking a special blackish gunk, but quickly recovered, and went on licking the black gunk (and just about any other-colored gunk) without any issues. More importantly, you've gotten well acquainted with the chant around the Hive. Drazek, feeding your desire for adventure has suggested places other than Undersigil (though she really can't stop you):

You recall a few of her rants:

First, she suggested you visit the Mangled Leg on Lot's Lane in the Hive. It may help one with a lust for adventure, and/or blood as yourself. It's a place where you can run your luck... and so much more.


In the darkest quarter of Sigil's streets, the Hive holds some of the nastiest conditions outside the Lower Planes. Only the foolish, desperate and barmy individuals would willingly come to this part of town. But some do come for the pure excitement and danger of the locals. Others come to make a quick buck and walk away with enough jink to live forever. And still others come to gamble. With either their lives, safety or jink. Those wanting the latter usually find them selves on Lot's Lane near the Night Market. Here there is an "abandoned" warehouse that has an interesting marker over the door, the rotting, broken and twisted leg of a humanoid creature nailed to the wall.

A single guard stands at the door, a dark elf in chain mail. There are other drow here hiding in the shadows and using their invisibility ability. Once the doorman is paid his bribe, the visitors are escorted into the abandoned warehouse where a large dark cloaked figure escorts them to a door that leads to a set of stairs leading down. The bottom of the stairs opens into a huge room that is dimly lit. But the air is filled with the smells and sounds of many creatures engaged in gambling. This is the Hive's most notorious casino, The Mangled Leg. Here, a human can rub elbows with a fiends and worse as they wager against one another. The games range from knuckles, numerous dice games, to wheel games. Female tieflings and half-orcs make up the dealers and game bosses. The atmosphere is always violent as numerous fights break out. The gambling tables, wheels and other devices are made from steel so they can take the abuse.

The place is run by a stunningly beautiful woman (probably a disguised erinyes baatezu) named Tish. Don't let her appearance fool you into thinking she is kind; she's anything but. Her rules are simple. The house (a.k.a. Tish) is always right. You can't miss the rule because it is posted behind every table and wheel. (oh, and "the house always wins" -- this second rule is not really known by the public at large.) And to enforce these simple rules, she has a squad of nine barbazu and their squad commander, a cornugon called "Certain Death." When trouble breaks out (and believe me, it invariably does), the guards are more than happy to flay the offenders and even a few not involved in the situation. (They shouldn't have been there in the first place is the guards' attitudes.) Those creatures are then "subdued" and taken into a back room with an iron door.

But jink isn't the only thing sought after here. Hence, the second rule comes into play. The real mission of this casino is to get more "volunteers" for the Blood War. So, when a berk runs out of funds, (which seems to happen a lot) Tish invites them into her office. Here she uses her wiles and offers the poor creature a line of credit from the house, which they sign for, promising to return the money and interest within a specific time period. Now, most berks don't read the small print, (since Tish is very persuasive and encourages quick signatures) but they've just signed themselves up for a permanent tour of duty in the Blood War and their immortal souls to Tish. (That is after they lose the line of credit or default on the terms of course. Which, by the way, always occurs rather quickly as well.) These "contract breakers" are taken to a small room in the back of the casino with an iron door that has a portal to Avernus, the first layer of Baator. These bobbed berks are sent there, where a "representative" from one of the pit fiends await the new arrivals. Money won at the casino is also sent along to Baator where it is used to buy supplies for the Blood War.

Then, to learn more about your bright future, she told you about the Happy Medium on Petty Way, also in the Hive:


The Happy Medium is a small ramshackle shack with only one room, a table, and a bed in it. It's home to Exzema Scabes, a night hag with the unusual ability to predict the future. She makes a meagre living as a seer. How she gained her ability is a mystery never told but old Exzema is odd about her way of telling people what happens.

You see, most fortune tellers have an oath against telling people bad things are going to happen, it's bad for business and all that. Exzema delights in seeing bad things happen to people. She lives for it, and those with a happy future are shooed angrily from her house and told to return when they feel doomed. When you get a reading from Miss Scabes a sinister smile crosses her face and the more danger or death she sees the more and louder she laughs her cackling haggish laugh that makes the toughest willed of people shiver.

She likes keeping her customers nervous without lying so she makes her predictions vague. If she sees you facing a Glabrezu and you behead him with an axe she might say "I see tanar'ri about you an axe falls, blood spurts, and a head falls from the body it sat upon. If you go to the Abyss you will find death." However the customer never knows if its his own death or another's he will find. Exzema however is the one of the few seers who willingly reveal bad events which will happen in your future, and it's for this reason alone she's consulted!

She also suggested you become a mercenary or assasin, it would be safer to travel in a group of bashers. There's a place on Rue Bête in the Clerks' Ward - similar to a thieves' guild.. but not quite.

Dair's Mercenaries is a mercenary sect based in Sigil's Clerks' Ward. The building is a five story mansion, but still fits with the other buildings of the Ward. It is large and spacious inside, while strictly basic outside; walls and windows and little more to shed light on the goings-on inside. Apparently, that's the way Dair liked it.

The first floor contains many individual shrines to a very diverse group of deities such as Velsharoon, Kali, Loviatar, Sandra, Dairalantarial, and many more. There is also a receiving area, run by Snork. Snork is an orc, dressed in fine clothes, wears glasses, and looks like a simple scribe. Most berks are surprised when the see the basher take down anything that threatens him.

The second floor consists of special rooms for mercenaries that need somewhere to kip, a blue dragons' lair, and an environment that mimics the elemental plane of Fire. The third floor is mainly rooms for the rest of the bashers in the mercenary group. The fourth floor is the treasure room, briefing room and catalogue room, this floor is run by a blood named Ch'charen. The fifth floor is a training area, devoted to teaching mercenaries (who get it for free) and others (who must pay 20 jinx per day) to learn new spells, weapons, and skills.

A portal in the mercenary guild leads to Avernus on Baator (I hear that the portal is the entrance to the catalogue room on the fourth floor, the key is a blood coin. On the Baator side, it is the entrance to one of the rooms in Bel's Fortress).