****
Three weeks later, the bloodshed in the Lower Ward had finally settled down to its historical background of low-level murders and knifings. In the aftermath of the siege of the Shattered Temple, the Athar returned to the City of Doors to reestablish themselves in the heart of their former headquarters, though their presence was different from how it had been before.
Although the faction had never renounced their position as a formal faction in Sigil or out on the planes at large, they treated their newfound bastion as purely their own and not a public facility. They claimed no role in Sigilian politics, they refused to proselytize within the City of Doors, and would-be faction recruits showing up at the gates were turned away without comment. The truly devoted they figured would find their own way to the Outlands, there to discover the truth of the Godless’ creed.
Publicly the faction made no statement to justify or explain their brutal assault on the Shattered Temple and the slaughter of hundreds in the process. The corpses of their enemies were uniformly hurled into the Ditch and left to rot en masse. As for the Garianis clan, the decimated crime family mourned their losses and struggled to understand precisely what had happened. They knew not how, but the Marauder lay behind everything, and their patriarch Muriov had died as she watched and smiled. Revenge would come in time, but it would be years before they were even a force once again in the Lower Ward as they had been before.
While most of Sigil’s citizens continued about their business as usual, happily ignorant of the machinations of fiends and factions, the powerful and landed swiftly embroiled themselves in another power struggle entirely: the Sigil Advisory Council elections.
Only six seats upon the council were up for election, and three of them were occupied by sitting members seeking to return to their posts and largely considered safe. But with the retirement of two older mortals, and the death of another in the prime of life at the hands of a “tragic” accident upon the Endless Staircase, three seats were up for grabs by new members. Posters and public speeches plastered the walls and the ears, and eventually the political tide reached a high point and votes were cast and counted.
As the results reached the press and then the eyes and ears of touts and finally the general public, Fyrehowl’s mood darkened.
In the back room of the Portal Jammer, Fyrehowl snatched up the newspaper and flipped it open to the results of the Council Elections. Immediately her features fell and she frowned.
“I missed a seat by less than two hundred votes.” The lupinal softly snarled, losing her composure. Reflexively she twitched her fingers, grating her claws into the tabletop. “F*ck…”
“That’s not exactly the reaction I expected. You’re a lot more sour than if you’d only just lost out on a seat.” Florian preemptively winced, knowing full well from the posters which had plastered nearly every street corner the answer to her next question, “Who else managed to get in?”
“You can guess who.” The lupinal deadpanned, staring off into the distance.
Several minutes passed as Florian sipped her drink, staring uncomfortably as Fyrehowl continued to read the paper. The cleric grimaced, realizing that once again the ‘loth had gotten her way and they had little to no recourse. Among Sigil’s constants, it ranked alongside gloom-ridden skies and executioner’s ravens, wrapped in a dress worth more than most businesses in Tradegate and crowned with a coil of razorvine.
“Shemeska?”
“Yep…” She sighed with defeat, “The b*tch bought herself the votes.”
“I think that her winning a seat was going to be a given. With only landowners having votes, she only has to bribe or threaten a smaller number of people to ensure a victory before a single person actually casts their votes.” Florian spread her hands in concession to Fyrehowl’s disappointment, trying to help the lupinal understand that it wasn’t her fault at all. “Who else managed to gain a seat?”
“The high priest of the Temple of the Abyss of all people.” Fyrehowl scanned down the page, reading out the enigmatic cleric’s name, “Which is odd because he hasn’t really been seen in public for years.”
“Proxy vote for purchase then it is, probably right in Shemeska’s pocket as well, Foe Hammer preserve us all…” Florian sighed, shaking her head at the thought of not only a yugoloth on the Council but a pawn of the Abyss as well. “Please tell me that the other open seat at least has someone that isn’t a fiend or beholden to them? Please?”
At that Fyrehowl burst into laughter. Ears perked and eyes wide, still laughing madly, she folded the newspaper and walked over to a shelf to retrieve a flask of hard liquor.
“That’s not an answer Fyrehowl.” Florian motioned her hand through the air for an explanation as the lupinal continued to ignore her and drink straight from the flask. “No. Seriously. Who else won?”
Putting a hand to her lips, brushing away a few stray drops of whisky from her fur, Fyrehowl paused her laughter, taking her mirth down to just a snicker. “Oh this is too rich. Too, too rich. I want front row seats at the next meeting. Powers above this is beautiful. Hah!”
“Fyrehowl? Who got the last seat?”
Still not giving her friend an answer, Fyrehowl polished off the booze and tossed the newspaper onto the table as she walked out of the room and straight for the Portal Jammer’s front door. Idly she looked back, calling out, “I’ll be back.”
Snatching up the paper and only momentarily diverting her eyes from the page to the cipher’s retreating form, Florian’s jaw dropped as she read the results and come to much the same conclusion as had Fyrehowl.
“What the f*ck?! Haha! Yes!”
****
“Why are you covered in dust?” A’kin looked down at a doll crafted to resemble Emma Oakwrite, the dwarven former Factol of the Fated. The arcanaloth shopkeeper tilted his head to the side as if listening to her reply before he rolled his eyes. “Oh of course, it’s Factol Montgomery’s fault. Clearly. She hasn’t been on the shelf here since I sold her to the owners of the Portal Jammer, and besides, I expected more from the paragon of self-reliance and will than blaming your own condition on someone else.”
A’kin shook his head and commenced dusting the doll before moving on down the shelf to various other magical and not-so-magical bric-a-brac. As he continued his daily –and largely unnecessary– cleaning, he likewise continued his one-sided conversations with numerous dolls, figurines, and even a miniature diorama of a light-up demilich devouring the souls of a group of adventurers.
Eventually though, the curiously smiling ‘loth’s ears perked at the sound of the silver chime above the door ringing in a customer’s fresh arrival.
“Welcome welcome!” A’kin turned with his customary greeting, “I’m…oh…”
Backlit by the light of Peak streaming through the open doorway, at first A’kin could only see a vaguely canid figure in silhouette, and for a moment his hands nearly launched into the casting of defensive spells. A split second and a single step through the door calmed his nerves entirely as the emerging figure lacked a crown a razorvine and bore silvery blue rather than coppery fur.
“Congratulations A’kin.” Fyrehowl said, smiling in gracious concession with clearly mixed emotions playing across her muzzle. “I just wanted to drop in and say that, given that I fell short in my own attempt.”
A’kin’s previously bristled fur smoothed and his ears stopped their nervous twitching. The ‘loth’s brow furrowed and a genuine smile crept across his face. “I… thank you Fyrehowl.”
Fyrehowl blinked, uncertain that she’d ever seen the ‘loth ever actually say those exact words. He’d always been talkative beyond measure and kind as far as his kind went, almost to the point of absurdity, but the tone of his voice actually came across as genuine.
“You don’t look at all pleased though my dear.” The shopkeep frowned and tilted his head. “I feel rather guilty now for having won.”
“200 damn votes.” The lupinal waved away his concern even as she sighed, clearly upset over her loss despite her words of concession.
Unbidden, A’kin pulled a stool out from behind the counter and set it down for Fyrehowl to take a seat. “Take a seat and let’s chat.”
Fyrehowl did just that, and within moments she found herself with hands cupped around a mug of freshly made hot cocoa and the newest member of the Advisory Council lending her a more than sympathetic ear.
“I do apologize for having the final seat on the Council.” A’kin’s whisker’s drooped. “I wasn’t aware that you were running until far too late. Most of my advertising and most of the people who said they were voting for me were here in the Lower Ward.”
“No no, it’s not that you won…” Fyrehowl paused, debating how to ask her next question, taking a sip of cocoa in the interim. “Clearly we had different bases of support in different Wards, and I’m genuinely happy that you of all people are a voice on the council but…”
“Thank you dear,” A’kin smiled and sipped for a mug of his own, “But…?”
“Her.”
“Ah yes…” A’kin looked away, his expression hidden behind his mug and his eyes distant for a moment. “You’ve had unpleasant dealings with her and her proxies.”
Shemeska’s name went entirely unspoken but perfectly understood between the two of them.
“She wins everything.” Fyrehowl failed to suppress a snarl, causing A’kin to subtly move back in his own seat. “She’s the single most miserable creature in existence and she gets away with everything. Everything that she’s done to me and my friends and nothing -NOTHING!- has happened to her as a result of it all. It isn’t fair, and my losing in the election and her coasting to a bought and bribed victory is almost too much for me to take.”
Fyrehowl paused, realizing that she’d started to cry and that A’kin’s right hand lay outstretched on top of hers. She looked up into the fiend’s eyes and found them inexplicably full on concern.
“She wants you to suffer Fyrehowl.” A’kin sighed. “She desires a Sigil that dances to invisible strings in a concert of her own devising full of only the wailing of broken souls kept dancing only by the created and dangled false hope that she herself has manufactured for them. She is what we are designed to be.”
Fyrehowl’s heart skipped a beat as she looked down at A’kin’s hand atop her own and at the tone and tenor of his words. This wasn’t polite shopkeep banter. This was something more.
“You’re better than to fall into that trap.” A’kin continued, “Don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing you upset, jealous, or angry at her win. Be there in the front row with the first public comment at the next meeting. You don’t need a formal place in the engines of power and influence to have an effect. We can all be grease on the cogs or a wrench hurled into the mix if we so choose. Be the latter for her and not the former. You have that choice.”
“What do you… I…” Fyrehowl stumbled over the proper words for a response, feeling against all odds that she’d gained an insight into A’kin’s thoughts beyond his carefully cultivated public persona as the eponymous Friendly Fiend. In the end she only mumbled a ‘thank you’, squeezed his hand and looked at him with more than a little confusion, not expecting anything so genuine and warm to come from a ‘loth.
Realizing that she was still holding his hand, she blushed, removed it, and resumed sipping her cocoa.
“I hope that helps you feel a bit better?” A’kin smiled, just before the Cipher seated opposite him acted in true form without thought.
“So what exactly is the situation between you and her?” Fyrehowl asked, dropping the bombshell question that always lingered unspoken and ever unanswered regarding the City of Doors’ two resident arcanaloths.
“It… Fyrehowl…” A’kin paused, his mouth open for a moment before closing it again. Pursing his lips and twitching his whiskers, he glanced away in a moment of pronounced social awkwardness distinctly out of character for the normally loquacious ‘loth. “My life has been interesting, very very long, and distinctly not normal Fyrehowl. The issue is complex. Let’s leave it at that. Please.”
Whatever the situation was, Fyrehowl realized that she wouldn’t be receiving any further clarifications or insight into it anytime soon. A’kin’s actual tone was unreadable, carrying with it a sense of fiercely guarded reluctance and an undertone of worry and sadness. That moment was ephemeral and A’kin returned to his amusing and ever-smiling self, eager to chat and talk about anything and nothing. Still though, when she finished her cocoa she enjoyed a second mug and only left A’kin’s shop after spending nearly an hour there chatting with him about everything –but– politics. When she left, she left with a smile on her face.
“Take care of yourself Fyrehowl.” A’kin smiled and waved her goodbye. “Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself on the Council, though I’ll be sure to make sure that my chair isn’t next to our mutual everything-but-a-friend.”
“Take care A’kin, and thank you.”
“You’re more than welcome Fyrehowl.”
The lupinal left and the ‘loth smiled, chuckling to himself and ever unreadable as always. He resumed dusting his shop’s shelves as he’d been before Fyrehowl had dropped in, though perhaps smiling just a bit more than before.
****
Above the Portal Jammer, two floors higher and far away from concerns about both the intrigues and disappoints of the voting for the Sigil Advisory Council and the power struggles of Sigil’s underworld, a very happy planetouched couple sat and discussed a very different topic altogether.
“So my parents sent a letter.” Tristol said, peering up from his spellbook to look at Nisha. The tiefling lay curled alongside him, her tail occasionally flitting with a soft, metallic clatter of the silver bell at its tip.
“Oh oh! Lemme see!” Nisha snatched impulsively at the letter in her boyfriend’s hands.
“That’s not the response I expected actually,” Tristol’s ears which had begun folded back against his head in manifest apprehension now perked back up, even though he still held the letter itself just out of reach as Nisha started to clamber over him to reach it, “I thought that you’d be dreading this.”
“Why would I be dreading going to meet your folks and traveling to a strange magical land of wizards and strange prime material planar things and stuff?” Nisha shrugged off any and all concerns.
“Because this is my mom and that’s Halruaa.”
“So?”
“And…” Tristol hesitated, “I sort of failed to mention to her that you’re a tiefling.”
“Again, so?” Nisha shrugged a second time, utterly unconcerned.
Tristol waffled on how to explain it all before giving the Xaositect a brief overview of his home on the Prime, “Halruaa is rather bigoted when it comes to anyone but humans and mages. There’s a class system in place revolving around how much magic you can cast and who you’re related to and what they could cast. I sort of failed to mention much about you other than that you’re amazing and that I’m happy.”
“So she has no idea at all what to expect about me?” Nisha asked, suppressing a chuckle.
“… pretty much.” Tristol admitted, his ears falling flat against his head.
A grin fit for a scheming tanar’ri spread across Nisha’s face. The bubbling thoughts of mischief and mayhem on an unsuspecting mother-in-law and her nation were nearly palpable.
“I wanted to give her enough to just assuage any worries on her part but not enough to use to scry you. I told her that you’re a wizard and that’s about it.”
“A wizard am I?” Nisha giggled. “A wizard?”
“Well you are, technically.”
“Archmage,” Nisha pointed her index finger at Tristol’s nose, “I’m an archmage.”
“You’re not an archmage dear.” Tristol raised an eyebrow, “You can cast what, second sphere spells?”
Nisha stuck out her lower lip, pouting, “I wanna be an archmage…”
“You can be one if you’d like.” Tristol patted her on the head. “Just be aware that if you make that claim in Halruaa, and especially around my parents, they’re going to expect certain things from you.”
“Oh not to worry! I can fake being an archmage,” Nisha grinned, “That’s not a problem.”
“Fake being an archmage?” Tristol asked, “… what does that even mean?”
“You’ll find out now won’t you?”
Tristol’s eyes grew wide with worry about how the tiefling would compose herself around the hoi polloi of Halruaan society. In the end however, he figured that he really didn’t particularly care how it went. He loved her and she meant more to him than his mother’s expectations. Hopefully his father would at least help make sure that nothing too explosive happened she noticed that the family’s potential future daughter-in-law had horns, hooves, and a tail.
“So we get to visit yes? You’re looking off into space like you’re deep in thought. So what’s the answer then?” Nisha beamed a smile, “You don’t get to say anything but yes.”
“How chaotic of you.”
Nisha stuck out her tongue.
“But yes, you get to visit my family.” Tristol leaned over and planted a kiss that was swiftly returned with a hug and a much deeper kiss initiated by a very happy tiefling.
“And we get to bring everyone else along yes?” Nisha’s tail pointed in the vague directions of their companions’ rooms in the Portal Jammer.
“If you’d like we can certainly invite them.” Tristol shrugged. “The Jammer can run itself with the hired staff left to their own devices for a while without us.”
“It’ll be fun!” Nisha beamed and gently bounced up and down on the bed before standing up and actually jumping around, hooves on the mattress with delight.
“It’ll also…” Tristol moved out of the way lest he be trampled by his ecstatic partner, “It’ll also make my mom less likely to say something stupid and offensive if she has to worry about other people than just the two of us.”
“Your mom’s an illusionist right?” Nisha continued to jump around on the bed.
“Yeah that’s right.” Tristol rolled his eyes. “She practices the worst kind of magic that I can think of. She’s overly involved where she shouldn’t be in every way imaginable. I came to Sigil mostly to get away from her meddling and trying to set me up for an arranged marriage with someone ‘proper’ with ‘proper magical lineage’ from a ‘proper family’.”
“I’m proper.” Nisha deadpanned before breaking into a wry grin and tackling Tristol, looking down from atop him before licking the end of his nose. “Just not very proper right now. Not at all right now actually. Let’s see if you can make me babble in scramblespeak before the end of the evening hmm?”
Tristol smiled, giggled, and licked her nose, motioning with one free hand to magically lock the door given that they’d be rather occupied for some time. They could wait to invite the others to Halruaa, at least until Nisha had all her improper out of her system, or something like that.
****
The skies over northwest Faerun shone brightly with light of a noonday sun, warming the hungry deciduous leaves of the great wilderness expanse of the High Forest. Despite the forest’s natural, pristine beauty unmarred by the presence of cities and the destruction of nature’s untouched design that came with human occupation everywhere else across Toril’s face, there was nothing natural about that specific portion of the forest itself known only as the Dire Wood.
A low, cold mist clung to the ground, clutching at the soil as if terrified of being touched by the creatures that wandered there. Shambling alone or more frequently in packs, the withered forms of the undead aimlessly wandered the cursed, forsaken stretch of land, there to prey upon any living creature foolish enough to find themselves there but soon to join their number.
A trio of zombies suddenly looked up at the sky and a sudden object burning in the sky distinct from the sun. In a flash of magical energies a flame-rimmed portal erupted a thousand feet above, ejecting a whirling, tumbling form into the open air. The undead could only watch hungrily without concern for their own safety as the falling figure whipped around in the air to face the portal from whence she’d come. The arcanaloth that was not twitched her back, sprouting tendrils and pseudopods of flesh that rapidly grew and formed themselves into a pair of draconic wings to desperately slow her fall now that she hung in the grip of Toril’s gravity well rather than the black, starless void between the 1st and 2nd mounts of Gehenna.
“You will not find me! You will not catch me! Fools! Fools all of you! Betrayers! Betrayers all!”
Taba’s eyes burned violet with intensity hotter than Toril’s parent star as she wove her arms and spat arcane words from mouths newly formed for that purpose alone on her arms and the side of her jackal’s head.
“Suffer and die in the shadow of Khalas ignorant slaves of the Usurper!” Taba screamed and cackled even as she plummeted from the sky, her wings essentially an afterthought compared to the hurried words to close her gate, detonate the latent energies coiled around its opposite face and then the next layers of spells to obfuscate her location from the coming prying eyes of any of her surviving pursuers.
The altraloth never stopped laughing, taunting, and profaning the Oinoloth before she met the tree line, slamming into the petrified corpses of a dozen ancient oaks in a concussive shower of splintering stone and her own metamorphic flesh and blood.
Alone at the bottom of a crater of her own making, Taba’s blood and splattered viscera took upon a life of its own, flowing, wriggling, or sprouting legs to crawl back to her body there to reform as she shed her arcanaloth’s visage to that of a brown-skinned elf. She lay there for several long minutes before flowing to her feet in defiance of gravity and clambering up to the ground level above.
Forty or fifty zombies and skeletons crowded around the point of her arrival there to hungrily await her ascent, even as she casually scoffed at the equal number laid low by the impact of her arrival, skewered and pinned to the ground by splinters of rock the size of a man’s arm or torn in half from her nearly terminal velocity impact.
Ignorant of her nature and uncaring of the threat to themselves that the archfiend represented, the pack of undead corpses swarmed and attacked. Taba of course simply rolled her eyes, forming a few dozen extra peppered across her flesh to emphasize her feelings on the matter even as she shifted her infinitely metamorphic body. Within seconds she’d assumed the form of a fang dragon, easily of great wyrm stature, casually decimating the undead by simply wading through them, trampling them underfoot, and doing the same to the forest itself as she traversed towards her intended goal still a mile or two out.
The nature of the Dire Wood itself remained puissant enough all that time after its formative event to despoil the altraloth’s spells and divert her course. Normally the undead would have stopped any creatures attempting to physically travel to the cursed forest’s heart, but Taba cared not, eventually forming a second head and neck to crane back and exhale of torrent of lightning and acid, largely ending any further pursuit as she traversed the remaining distance.
“We share something in common…” Taba sneered as she stepped out from the broken tree line of petrified, black oaks, trampling her claws into the soft, blood-red soil as she emerged into a clearing at the forest’s heart, “As much as it pains me to speak such of mewling soul filth such as yourself.”
Shaking her head, Taba flexed a wing to sever the petrified trunk of an ancient tree and reduce yet another of the forest’s shambling corpses into pulp. Flicking the gore from her body, the altraloth looked up at the massive stone butte rising up from the ruins of the ancient Netherese settlement of Karse, so named for the frozen stone form of the archmage Karsus, ‘The Accidental God’.
“You at least had ambition.”
*****
