Lady's Grace, cutters!

 

“They say they are dead. But they certainly have their finger on the pulse of the Cage."

author of The Factol's Manifesto about the Dustmen

 

 

 

First Void Day of Retributus, 126 HR

Three days after the meeting with Sarin, they stood in a narrow alley not far from the Mortuary, ready for their covert mission. As promised, the Harmonium's factol had equipped them with Dustmen faction badges and the same simple gray robes the Dead usually wore when working in the Mortuary. So Naghûl, Jana, Lereia and Sgillin stood close to the wall of the house in almost identical garb, sheltering under the projecting roof from the light drizzle that was just beginning to fall. They were still waiting for Kiyoshi, who was to join them from the Barracks with a fold-out stretcher. A stretcher because they had decided to disguise one of them as a corpse and carry him under a sheet. With a dead body, they hoped, they would be more likely to be shown the way to the portal to the Plane of Fire. Kiyoshi had agreed to take on the role of the corpse. Perhaps, Naghûl thought, this was not inconvenient for him. Although Sarin had explained to him the meaning of undercover investigations, the young man didn't really seem happy about it. As a dead man, he at least had the advantage that he didn't have to say anything - and therefore didn't have to lie.

"Do we have a plan?" Sgillin asked, rather lightly, as if he wouldn't mind if the question was answered in the negative.

"Not in a long time," Naghûl replied with a sigh.

"But we should have one," Jana interjected. "Plans are good." She sounded more like she was trying to convince herself.

Lereia frowned a little at this exchange of words. "We'll have to use an excuse to ask our way to the portal, won't we?"

Sgillin nodded curtly. "All right, it'll be fine."

Jana sighed. "We should at least discuss how we actually want to proceed."

"So, one more time," Lereia said a little tensely. "The goal is to go through the portal and find out what's behind it and what's being done there. At least that was Sarin's instruction. But first we need to know where it is."

"I'm a little worried about that," Jana murmured. "What if Eliath and the others weren't thrown into the portal at all? What if it really does lead to a crematorium on the Plane of Fire?"

"Then we'll realize it and go back," Sgillin said unconcernedly.

"So, we really want to go through?" the sorceress asked. "Where do you think the portal leads?"

"No idea," the half-elf replied with a sigh. "That's why we want to pass it. Does anyone have any ideas on the most inconspicuous way to ask for the portal?"

"I'm at a bit at a loss ..." Lereia admitted. "If all the Dustmen know about it, we'll immediately make ourselves suspicious by asking."

"We could charm one of them," Jana suggested.

Naghûl swayed his head. "I can't cast that sort of magic. Can you?"

"Not very well," Jana explained with a sigh. "I can try, but please don't expect it to work."

"Will they notice if it fails?" Lereia asked worriedly.

The sorceress shrugged her shoulders at the question. "If they find out I've been casting a spell, I'm sure they will."

Naghûl shook his head gently. "Then we'd better try it with words."

Meanwhile, Sgillin had taken the badge that Factol Sarin had given them out of his pocket: a thin slice of bone with the symbol of the Dustmen carved into it. He turned it in his hands thoughtfully. "Do you actually know what our insignia say?"

Lereia raised her brows. "That we belong to the faction?"

Sgillin nodded and pocketed it again. "Then we could just say that we're new members and want to take a look at the crematorium."

Naghûl lifted his shoulders. "I don't have a better idea."

"Will work out all right," the half-elf agreed.

Since there was no better plan and nothing else to say, they waited in silence for a while. Kiyoshi would surely be there any moment with the stretcher, then they could try to get into the Mortuary. While they waited, Naghûl noticed that Lereia looked over several times at a dark-haired man in a long, red coat. Then she cleared her throat and muffled her voice.

"That man over there is most likely a vampire," she whispered. "He smells undead, at least. And ... I can detect a signature on him. Onyx and ash. When it didn't work on Zamakis, I thought it was because of her undead nature. But maybe we should consider the possibility that she is one of us after all."

Sgillin raised his eyebrows in interest. "My, my."

Jana glanced over her shoulder at the vampire, looked back hastily and shuddered visibly.

"I just wanted to note ..." Lereia added. "Without knowing how reliable my ability is."

Naghûl nodded. "Good to know."

At that moment, a ragged boy of perhaps seven or eight years approached them. He held a dead rat in his hand and plucked the tiefling by the sleeve. "Here, will you bury this one too?" he asked hopefully, holding the dead rodent out to Naghûl.

The Sensate had to stifle a grin. "No, child," he replied.

"Too bad," the boy said, disappointed. "I'm still too young to collect real deaders. But I'll give you the rat for a green one!"

Jana smiled briefly. "Sure, give it to me." She took the rat that the boy put into her hand and gave the child a few copper coins and some blueberries wrapped in a cloth.

"Wow, thanks!" the boy exclaimed. "May the Lady spare you!"

He jumped away enthusiastically and Naghûl looked after him with a mixture of pity at his life in the Hive and joy because of his childlike light-heartedness that allowed him to be happy even here. Then Kiyoshi approached, the only one not dressed in one of the gray robes, but in simple, even shabby clothes in which he could easily pass for a Hive dweller. He carried a fold-out stretcher under his arm, which he and Lereia quickly unfolded while Sgillin made sure that no one was watching them. Then Kiyoshi lay down on the stretcher as discussed and they covered him with a stained cloth that was frayed at the edges. Sgillin went to the head end, Naghûl to the foot end, and together they lifted the seemingly dead soldier. Fortunately, the tiefling thought to himself, Kiyoshi was quite small and therefore not particularly heavy, so that he and Sgillin, neither of them blessed with particular physical strength, could carry him quite well. And luckily, they didn't have to go far to reach the entrance of the Mortuary.

Lereia took a deep breath and one last look back at them. "Shall we?"

The others nodded and they set off: Jana in front, then Sgillin and Naghûl with Kiyoshi on the stretcher, while Lereia walked alongside the bier. Once at the entrance, Jana briefly looked back and forth between the two guards, a human man and a skeleton. She opted for the living version.

"Hello ..." she began, but immediately interrupted herself. "Um, well, Lady's Grace."

The guard looked at Jana blankly. "Ashes to ashes."

"Dust to dust," Lereia replied, apparently almost reflexively by now.

Jana cleared her throat briefly. "Excuse me. We've only just arrived and are supposed to familiarize ourselves with the facility. Where do we have to register?"

"Facility?" The man raised a brow. "Oh, the Mortuary. Ask inside, I'm not in charge of that."

The sorceress nodded. "Thank you. Ashes to ashes."

She waited a moment, but since the guard apparently had nothing to say about Kiyoshi lying on the bier, she entered the Mortuary slowly and at a grave pace. The others followed and were now standing in the entrance hall of the Dustmen's headquarters for the third time in just a few days. Three times too many, if Naghûl had his way. Lereia also felt visibly unwell again and was only breathing shallowly through her mouth. Yes, the typical smell of the Mortuary, which fortunately did not bother Naghûl too much, but which was certainly a test for the tigress' good sense of smell.

Jana looked around, visibly at a loss, and mumbled. "Where do we ask?"

But then she took a closer look at one of the Dustmen present, nodded to herself and headed towards him with determination. Naghûl and Sgillin followed with the stretcher, while Lereia kept a little further back.

"Ashes to ashes," Jana greeted the man, an elder tiefling.

"Dust to dust," he replied calmly.

"We're new," the sorceress explained as evenly as she could. "We are to familiarize ourselves with the fac ... the Mortuary."

The Dustman eyed her, but it was hard to tell his thoughts. "New, I see. From where?"

"From the Prime Material," Jana replied promptly. "Have you ever heard of Port Solis?"

"From the Prime?" The tiefling now raised a brow in mild astonishment. "Since when do we have branches on the Prime?"

"We haven't," Jana replied quickly. "There was a war there and we had to flee. That's why we came to Sigil."

"Refugees from the Prime?" The Dustman scrutinized her with undiminished attention. "And you immediately decided to seek the True Death here in Sigil?"

Jana took a deep breath and cleared her throat briefly, probably to gain a little time and not get tangled up in her story. "We've been here for a while," she then explained. "I've been in Sigil for almost three cycles."

The older man didn't sound dismissive, but extremely matter-of-fact and didn't seem to be fazed by anything. "I see. And the others shorter? Or longer?"

"I don't know exactly ..." His questions seemed to unsettle Jana and she became a little restless and fidgety.

"What's wrong?" the tiefling asked promptly.

The sorceress lowered her eyes. "I know I ... I should control myself better. But this is all still so new and ... unfamiliar. I still have ... a long way to go to find True Death, I'm afraid."

"I fear that too," the Dustman replied seriously. "A very long one."

Naghûl did not envy Jana her current task. The conversation with the Dead also made him uneasy, even though he didn't have to conduct it.

The sorceress took a deep breath. "We ... well, we're supposed to start at the portal to the Plane of Fire, at least that's what the letter from ... our factotum told us. Can you tell us where we can find it?"

"Your factotum, who is in charge of you, seems to be very confused," the old tiefling remarked with a hint of disapproval. "He probably has a long way to go, too." He shook his head very gently and sighed so softly that it was barely audible. "Let me summarize: You come from the Prime, have been in the Cage for a few years, then joined our faction, but are still clueless about what goes on in the Mortuary. You need a briefing ... Did I get that right?"

"Yes," Jana replied quietly.

The Dustman nodded, almost seeming to show a tiny trace of relief that he didn't have to deal with the strange newcomers any further. "Perhaps Dhall can help you. A githzerai. On the upper floor."

He pointed to the spiral staircase in the corner behind him and Jana bowed her head in thanks, then moved purposefully towards that very staircase. Naghûl sighed, realizing that he and Sgillin would now have to maneuver Kiyoshi, still resting on the stretcher, up the rather narrow staircase. He struggled to suppress his quiet cursing as they made their awkward way up the stairs. Lereia held Kiyoshi by the shoulders so that he didn't slip off the inclined bier. When they finally reached the upper floor, Jana stopped for a moment and looked around to get her bearings. The stench of death was stronger here, but so was the smell of embalming oil and disinfectant. Everything was quiet, almost deathly still, except for the rattling of the skeletons' bones and soft, metallic noises from the room in front of them. Jana turned to a woman standing nearby, an ash genasi by the look of her. Naghûl had to smile a little at the irony, or perhaps the accuracy of her choice of faction.

"Ashes to ashes," Jana addressed her. "Excuse me, but where can we find Dhall?"

The woman frowned. "I suppose you're new?"

Jana just nodded, and fortunately the genasi didn't seem to take offense at newcomers. "Wrong staircase," she explained, and Naghûl conked out a little inside. "You can go through the embalming chambers and corridors here, but it's shorter if you go back down the stairs and take the opposite one."

Jana caught Sgillin's brief sideways glance and seemed to understand. "And the longer way?" she asked matter-of-factly. "Which way is that? We're supposed to look around here and familiarize ourselves with the procedures."

The woman nodded dispassionately. "Go through the door here. The in-depth embalming technique is being taught in there. Perhaps someone there can show you the way."

"Thank you," the sorceress replied. "Do you know if we will also pass the portal to the Plane of Fire?"

"No, not here," the genasi replied.

Jana bowed her head slightly. "Ashes to ashes," she said goodbye and turned to the others. "Embalming sounds like something you shouldn't miss out on if you want to start here ..."

Then she walked on, into the next room that the genasi had just pointed out to her. Naghûl's relief at not having to take the stretcher down the stairs again and then up another one quickly evaporated when he noticed Lereia jerk to a halt beside him - alarmed and startled, it seemed. He gave her a questioning look and she nodded slightly into the room. There was a large stone table with a corpse lying on it. A sliced corpse with two women standing next to it: One a tiefling with light gray skin, horns and a tail, the other apparently an elf, elegantly dressed in dark blue brocade, her raven-black hair pinned up artfully. The elf seemed to teach the other woman something.

"In some cultures, it is important to keep the internal organs separate and to preserve them," she explained.

"Zamakis," Lereia whispered to Naghûl as quietly as possible.

The tiefling felt his heart sink. The vampire that Lereia, Sgillin and Kiyoshi had spoken to recently to search Toranna's office. She had never seen him or Jana, and Kiyoshi was under the sheet on the stretcher. But Lereia and Sgillin ... Besides, vampires had a very good sense of smell. What if she recognized just one of the three? At least Sgillin and Lereia had the presence of mind to pull their hoods so low over their foreheads that their faces were barely recognizable. The tiefling woman stood bent over the cut-open corpse and listened attentively, and Zamakis also seemed to be completely focused on the deceased at the moment. Perhaps they could leave the room again quickly without really being noticed. Better two more spiral staircases than a vampire, that much was certain. They were just carefully turning the stretcher around when Zamakis paused and raised her head. She drew in her breath quietly, then slowly turned around. They had almost reached at the door again when the adlate's voice stopped them.

"You."

They all stood still almost simultaneously, not moving an inch for a few seconds. Then Naghûl slowly turned his head towards her. "Ashes to ashes," he said as calmly as he could.

Zamakis looked first at Lereia, but then at the whole group. If she was suspicious and suspected anything, at least she didn't let it show. "Who are you?"

"Tesh," the tiefling replied, using part of his last name, as he sometimes did when he didn't want to give his real name. "Newcomer."

"So." There was almost nothing to be inferred from her expression, but her gaze was as alert as a predator's. Then she turned to Lereia. "And who are you?"

"Mahla," Lereia answered quick-wittedly, but not suspiciously swiftly. "Just as new."

The vampire's gaze sharpened a little. "Have we met before? Just briefly, perhaps?"

"That's quite possible," Lereia replied politely. "I've been in Sigil for a cycle now."

Zamakis nodded slowly. "I understand. You say you are new. Where are you headed?"

"To Dhall," Lereia responded. "We were told he might be able to brief us."

"Possibly." Zamakis clearly radiated the attractive but cold beauty of vampires, a mixture of fascination and shudders. Naghûl would have been thrilled had they not found themselves in such a dicey situation. "Very well." She eyed the group for a while longer.

"Good luck then. If you want to work in the field of corpse preservation later, contact me."

Lereia nodded. "That's good to know. You are?"

"Zamakis," the adlate replied. "Factotum of the Second Circle."

Then she returned to the stone table and continued working, but Naghûl could almost feel her gaze on his neck as they left the room. They walked through the door at a normal pace, not in too much of a hurry, and only stopped when they had put another room between them and Zamakis.

Jana took a deep breath. "That was close," she said quietly. "Do you think she ..."

But she interrupted herself when she realized that they were not alone in the room. A little further back, at a desk cluttered with parchments and books, sat an old githzerai. He had snow-white hair and looked so emaciated that the mere sight of him was painful. In his hand he held a quill, which was scratching busily and incessantly over one of the parchments. Shouldn't Dhall, whom they were looking for, be a githzerai? The tiefling nodded slightly, and so they moved slowly toward the desk. When he heard them approaching, the gith looked up from bleary eyes.

"Ashes to ashes," Jana greeted. "Are you Dhall?"

"I am," the old man replied in a hoarse voice.

"We're new," the sorceress began her story once again. "We were told you could explain the structure of the Mortuary to us? We're having a bit of trouble finding our way around."

"Take all the time you need to settle in," Dhall replied in a low, raspy voice. "Death is patient."

"Yes, it certainly is," Jana agreed. "Can ... you show us the way to the portal to the Plane of Fire? That's where we're supposed to work."

The old githzerai coughed heavily, his chest rattling. The spasm shook him for a while before he answered. "It's under the dome."

"Under the dome, of course." Jana nodded. "What's the best way to get there, from here?" Dhall pointed straight ahead at the door. "Up the spiral staircase in the next room," he explained hoarsely, and Naghûl sighed inwardly.

"Thank you." Jana bowed her head. "Ashes to ashes."

"Dust to dust," Dhall greeted with a cough and then bent low over his parchments again.

After another awkward spiral staircase maneuver and suppressed curses from Sgillin and Naghûl, they reached the top floor of the Mortuary, the dome. Here, all that stretched above them was the large semicircular vault that gave the Mortuary its characteristic appearance from the outside and was crowned by sixteen mighty metal wings. Once again, Jana picked out one of the Dustmen who worked here, this time a somewhat tired-looking half-orc.

"Ashes to ashes," she greeted him. "We're to report to … uhm, to report here in the dome."

"Dust to dust," the half-orc replied dispassionately. "Hereby, you have done so."

"Excellent," Jana replied soberly. "Where can we find the portal to the Plane of Fire?"

Instead of answering, the Dustman simply pointed behind him. There, at one end of the round room, they saw a large, stone archway. Carved into its apex was the symbol that stood for the Plane of Fire in multiversal cosmology. Naghûl felt a sense of relief that their odyssey through the Mortuary seemed to be coming to an end.

"Thank you." Jana nodded. "Is there anything we need to know about it? We're supposed to start to work here soon."

The half-orc lifted his shoulders. "Most of the portals to the Elemental Planes are up here. All bodies that are to be cremated or cannot be assigned go to the Plane of Fire."

"And what is on the other side?"

The Dustman frowned. "Well, the fire."

Jana paused for a moment, but Lereia came to her aid. "Do we take the bodies over there ourselves?" she asked. "Or do we just send them through?"

"There's only fire over there," the half-orc replied. "Of course we just send them through."

Lereia nodded. "I see. We have an unidentified corpse here. This is our first one to send into the fire, but we haven't gotten portal keys yet."

The Dustman nodded slightly and, to Naghûl's relief, did not seem to suspect anything. "Ah, yes. Well then."

He rummaged in a belt pouch, pulled out a small bag and handed it to Lereia. The young woman nodded her thanks and took the little sack. Then they moved away from the half-orc, who continued his conversation with another faction member. Lereia opened the pouch and let the others take a quick look. There were about twenty red glass beads inside. They looked around to make sure no one could hear them. But there weren't many Dustmen in the dome, and none of them were standing near them, so they were reasonably unobserved.

"We need something fireproof," Sgillin muttered.

"Do you really think there's fire behind it?", Jana asked doubtfully.

"I don't know," the half-elf replied. "But I don't want to find out unprepared."

"Don't worry," Naghûl reassured him. "I'll protect us with the spell Planar Tolerance. I’m pretty sure that there’s fire behind it, but I'll try to analyze the portal to be on the safe side."

Jana was still frowning. "Yeah, but how ..." Then she nodded understandingly. "Ah, Eliath must have been under a spell when he was sent through, too. But surely someone was waiting for him on the other side to receive him? What if they’re still there? We should at least prepare for a fight, shouldn't we?"

This fear was not entirely far-fetched, but for the moment the portal analysis still had priority for Naghûl. He handed his end of the stretcher to Jana, took out a magnifying glass and a small mirror and held the mirror with his left hand so that the portal was reflected in it. Then he took the magnifying glass with his other hand and looked into the mirror.

Jana watched him with interest, but still seemed a little uneasy. "Please hurry," she asked. "This waiting is making me nervous. What if Zamakis sees us here? I think she's figured us out. She must have noticed something about us."

Lereia nodded. "I think she might have recognized my scent. Or my walk, I don't know ... I hope it just seemed familiar and she couldn't attribute it clearly."

"Or maybe she has a gift that we don't even know about," Jana suggested.

Naghûl turned the mirror in different directions and walked up and down the archway once, still completely focused on the spell. Then he nodded in satisfaction. "A stable two-way portal that leads to the Plane of Fire. The key is a red glass bead that is consumed." He pointed to the small bag Lereia was holding, and she nodded. "Of course, there could be another secret portal to the Plane of Fire. But we won't find it in a hurry. It's probably the big one here.”

Sgillin looked seriously at the large, stone archway. "So, Plane of Fire then?"

"I think that’s the best option for now," Lereia said. "If there is nothing there, we can still try to find a possible secret portal."

Naghûl nodded and took from his pouch for spell components a red flame blossom from the Plane of Fire. Then he beckoned the others closer. Lereia took out eight glass beads and gave two to everyone except the seemingly dead Kiyoshi. Then Naghûl began to speak the magical formula to cast Planar Tolerance of Fire on the group. Fortunately, not only was it quite empty in the dome, no one was really paying attention to them either. The tiefling held the red glass bead into the archway and the portal promptly opened. He took a deep breath and then stepped through.

 

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 Kiyoshi was the corpse because his player could not play this evening.

 played May 12, 2012