Epic Realms Recap: 2/13

After resting for several hours in the makeshift magical laboratory under the deserted tomb of Akonhorus I, our heroes prepared for their trip through the portal. Soren took the emerald skull inside which Aeric was entrapped, and each hero took one of the Sigil key coins. Drawing upon the power of Tempus, Rusk performed a godly feat of strength for a rather mundane purpose, and picked up the four 500-lb. pure adamantine hammers left behind by the Tomb Tappers. Gritting their teeth, they all walked into the wall...

...and emerged into a smoke-choked alleyway in a filthy, noisy city. Despite the crowdedness of the nearby streets no one appeared to have noticed their entrance. A bout of vertigo set in as the party noticed how warped the ground was: it seemed to slope upwards in every direction, steeper and steeper, until it actually turned upside-down above them and met, far above their heads. Stranger, buildings covered every inch of the visible surface, yet somehow failed to fall from the vertical or inverted walls; and creatures could be seen far above, like tiny ants, moving about on the ceiling.

And what creatures! Rusk, growling out a warning, grabbed his axe haft and started towards the exit of the alleyway, where he had spotted under a flickering gaslight a pair of mind flayers and a beholder! Fortunately (though the party hadn't yet realized how fortunate), Soren stopped him in a flash of insight, and approached the creatures himself. Pushing aside his fears, he interrupted their conversation by introducing himself by name. After a heart-stopping moment when the beholder turned its central eye on him and all of his various magic items stopped working at once, one of the mind flayers "spoke" with him quite calmly. Beads of sweat beginning to drip down his forehead, Soren returned to the group and reported that his suspicion had been correct: the monsters weren't combative at all.

A bizarre menagerie of creatures were passing by on the street, including many that the party didn't recognize at all. Walking, slithering, floating... the crowd was more than a little disconcerting. Finally the party spotted something recognizable: a pair of elven adventurers passed by, and our heroes caught a snippet of dialogue from the dark-skinned, halfling-like creature who led them carrying a lantern swinging atop a tall pole: "...yes, my Lord, and if you'll just come this way, you'll see the Great Chamber, where the Sigil magistrates..."

Deciding the best course of action was to find another of these diminutive guides, Soren climbed up the nearest lamppost and took a better look around. Spotting a large, well-lit structure a bit further up the "wall", the party set out to what for the sake of convenience I shall call the west.

In front of the huge black marble building, lined with an arched promenade and bearing the inscription "gymnasium" in its facade (which Rusk had to spell out to Soren, not having the word in his vocabulary), our heroes suddenly realized that Kwalu had gone missing. Before they could decide what (if anything) they could do about this, they were accosted by a young orc child, Jax, who had overheard them talking about how they could find a magic shop, and offered to guide them to the market for the mere pittance of 100 gold. Startled by the youngster's brashness, the party offered instead to buy him dinner, which the urchin greedily accepted. After warning them to keep their weapons sheathed or suffer the wrath of the mysterious Lady of Pain, and procuring for them the services of a wagon to carry their adamantium hammers, Jax led them to the Grand Bazaar, a large open space in which hundreds of colorful stalls and storefronts competed for attention, merchants crying out their wares into the throngs of creatures that circulated in and around them.

Jax led the party to a large workshop on the edge of the bazaar, run by a warforged artificer named Maker and his cohort kobold sorceror Meepo. Maker explained that he didn't keep anything in stock, but that he would be happy to take commissions for any sort of armor or weapon. Hearing Rusk's description of his ideal armor, Maker did a bit of computation and announced he'd take the job for "forty." After a bit of confusion the party learned that the medium of trade in Sigil is the astral diamond, one of which could be purchased at Shemesko's moneychanging shop for about 10,000 Faerûnian gold coins. Imagine Rusk's dismay when Soren computed what this would mean to their pocketbooks.

Fortunately, Rusk shrewdly offered the party's 2,000 pounds of adamantium to Maker. This was a windfall beyond imagining; it turned out that raw materials are extremely valuable on Sigil, which has no natural resources of its own and is only reachable by portal, and Maker traded them 500 astral diamonds for the rare metal.

There followed a wild shopping spree beyond description, with Silas bounding back to the party exclaiming his triumph in managing to spend one million gold pieces. Rusk and Soren were not far behind him.

Session ends, 11:45 PM.

Paul and Nate: let me know your status for session six on Feb. 27th. You each have 100 astral diamonds sitting in the party treasury to spend (assuming you manage to rejoin the party before your souls are devoured by insane ancient spirits or living nightmares, respectively). Between now and then we'll do some roleplaying by email to resolve your subplots, if necessary.