Session 14: Your Path is Mine

General Summary

As requested by Pharod, the Ka-Tet seek to Find where Annah found TNO's Body, with her help. This leads them to a painted door, which leads through the lair of the Starved Dogs Barking. They sneak into the building but encounter a group of the thugs coming the other way.
The band of foes is quickly dispatched, and the party continues out of the back door. As they do so they swoon with a vision of Pharod being attacked by wraith like creatures. They are unsure of what this may mean, but Esme of the Flowers is left with a pressure in her head.
Annah takes the party to the ‘Alley of Lingering Sighs’ which rings with the sounds of hammering. The source of the hammering is a Dabus and as the party passes it, Esmae of the Flowers feels the pressure in her head decrease. He projects to her an image of the Lady of Pain.
At the end of the alley are a pair of double doors, which Annah opens and then states that this is where she found TNO’s corpse. She points to a place on the ground.
Then another Sigil surprise. What had appeared to be an ordinary, unremarkable bricked wall nearby, now throbbed and pulsated with movement. The wall expanded with curious elasticity, heaving outward as if some unseen force were trying to push its way through the barrier from the other side. Slowly, the undulating mass began to settle, its curves becoming more and more pronounced, and the party found themselves at eye-level with the stony caricature of a human face, and states “greetings Restless One, you have returned". The face emanates great power and great pain. TNO feels it is like a powerful spirit of the Alleyway
They then see from TNO's perspective an event in the alley with him being attacked by shadows, being overwhelmed and killed. The Ka-Tet is then washed over by an image of Annah finding TNO, searching him and pocketing some items. Esmae’s head experiences a further increase in pressure, and the others start to feel it also.
The voice of the Alley rang in ears, scattering the images from party's minds and returning them back to the present.
“ DESTROYED. AS SOON I SHALL BE. I CANNOT DELAY DIVISION MUCH LONGER. PRESSURE BUILDS. SOON STONES WILL CRUMBLE AND THE FLOATING ONES WILL REPAIR ME TO DESTRUCTION.”
“You’re dying?”, TNO asks.
“PRESSURE IS TOO MUCH. TOO MANY PLACES FOLDED INSIDE. NOT ENOUGH SPACE. MUST DIVIDE.”
Annah interposed, “Uh, it must be in the ‘way.’ ” “What are you talking about?” “I think it’s pregnant,” Annah replied. Morte joined in, “Freaky. So where are we technically standing right now?” “I really don’t want to know the answer to that, Morte.”
The voice continued speaking, ignoring the companions.“HELP ME TO DIVIDE. BRANCH OUT. EXPAND. NEW APERTURES WILL OPEN. YOU MAY USE THEM TO TRAVEL TO THE Lower Ward.”
“What do you need to divide?”
“THE FLOATING ONE IS UPON ME. REPAIRING. IT PREVENTS ME FROM DIVIDING. I UNDO ITS REPAIRS. BUT IT RETURNS AGAIN AND AGAIN. REPAIRS ANEW. MUST REMOVE FLOATING ONE.”
TNO wasn’t sure he liked the implication of its words.“You want me to kill the dabus in the Alley?”
“REMOVE IT. ONLY THEN CAN I DIVIDE".
We need to make the Dabus leave without angering the Lady.
We head back to a house near a house that was being repaired by a Dabus, and inside is a dead Dabus. When Stones-Bones-Tell is used on the Dabus corpse, an image forms showing the Dabus being trapped inside the room upon entering, eventually starving to death.
Exiting the building the party informed the labouring Dabus of the corpse, and it rushes in to investigate, thus becoming trapped itself.
Returning to the head at the end of the alley, it asks that we undo the repair work recently done by the Dabus in the alleyway. Eilana does so.
Annah, having done as was asked of her, says she is going back to check on her father. She still had the Bronze Sphere, and the party wondered if she was going to steal it. When challenged, she gave it to them and also gave them a note warning of shadows. It is possible that TNO was the author. ( Note found in the Alley of Lingering Sighs )
The Ka-Tet accompany Annah back to her father's Court, but find him dead.
“Da! What happened? Who did this to yeh?!” Annah cried out upon seeing the body.
TNO took her aside, and asked her, “Annah, do you know how Pharod died?”
“I...” She shook her head. “I donnae. No one with half-a-mind would —Pharod got a long shadow, he does. Yeh cross him, an’ yeh end up getting th’ stick, yeh will.”
“You don’t have to accompany us anymore, Annah. If you need to stay with the Buried Village, we —”
“Nay...” Annah interrupted TNO. “I don’t need tae be in the Village —an’ I was wonderin’ what I'd do if Pharod got penned in the dead-book, I was.” She snorted. “Oh, well; he’s probably mounting someone’s wall in the hells, he is.”
“But... he’s your father. Don’t y—”
“Not me real Da, he wasn’t.” Her eyes took on a hard look. “He was greedy, an’ he was stupid, an’ he was selfish, an’ he was weak.” She frowned. “An’ now ‘ee’s dead. And that’s all.”
TNO asked about something else that had puzzled me. “Annah, when Pharod went to return the tribute he took from my body, he vanished for a while, then came back —but he never left Ill-Wind Court. Do you know where he went?”
“Oh, aye —tae hear tell, ol’ stutter-crutch had got a stash pit somewhere close tae him. It’s the only reason I can see why he'd set up kip in that filthy, drafty hall, it is. Nothing but stink and shadows.”
“Really? And that’s where he puts the tribute he gets? But where would he keep it all? If he’s been at the Village for as long as he says, he would have amassed quite a collection.”
“Well...” Annah was silent for a moment. “I know he’s never left his hall to get his tribute when he needed it.”
“He wouldn’t want to walk far with that lame leg of his, though.”
“Aye, that’s true —but only if yeh don’t watch him careful. He isn’t lame, though he puts on a fair show about bein’ weak in the leg.”
“So why does he carry that crutch?”
“I donnae.” She nodded at me. “Yeh might as well ask why yeh have bones running around your waist, yeh do.”
“So that crutch of his... could be a portal key?”
Annah frowned in thought for a moment, then slowly nodded her head. “Aye... there’s a thought.” She shrugged. “I wouldn’t know how yeh'd use it, though. Maybe yeh just need tae have it".
In one corner of the Court, Esmae discovered that the crutch triggered a portal. The party passed through, into Pharod’s vault, and was staggered by what they saw. The vault was huge. There were not just a few books. There were shelf upon shelf of volumes, in an order which Pharod had taken with him to his grave. Piles of rubbish, assorted junk. Pharod must have had help creating this storage space... they thought they knew what had been the fate of his helpers when he was done.
The party searched until late in the night, although they could cover only a tiny portion of what was there. They did find a couple of magical books. One explodes issuing lightning damage, and another charms Arvid and TNO into both wanting a gem that fell from its pages. A fight ensues. TNO breaks the charm with Submerge the Will, but Arvid remains bound. Eilana grapples Arvid but he misty steps away, vanishing into the darkness of the Buried village.
The party found mundane treasures, but nothing that shed light on TNO's past.

While Morte and Dak'kon were searching elsewhere, TNO took the opportunity to talk to Annah some more. She looked at him questioningly when he indicated he wanted to speak to her.
“Aye? What is it yeh want then?”
He asked her to tell him about herself - “Aye, now what yeh be wanting to know about me for? Are yeh jest bored? It’s not some grand tale, it isn’t, so if yeh’re expecting some epic, yeh'd best go rattle yer bone-box at someone else, jig?”
He encouraged her to tell him about her background, which she took to mean her tail. “I seen the way yeh look at me tail —if it'll keep yer eyes to yerself, then I'll tell yeh where it came from: it’s a blessing from me Grand Da... or me Grand Ma, whichever O’ them was the fiend. I'm a Tiefling, so I am, with just enough of the demon blood in me to sprout this tail outta me back. That blood trickled its way from me Grand Ma n’ Grand Da to me... after passing through me own Ma an Da, whoever they were.”
He asked her to tell me more of Pharod. “Ol’ stutter-crutch? He’s me Da... well, not me real Da. He found me when I was a wee girl...” Annah shrugged. “ ‘Ee needed a Collector to crawl inta places the rest of his fat gullies couldn’t squirm, so he took me under his crutch.”
She continues, “Don’t get him wrong by thinkin’ he had a kind bone in his body... he wasn’t shedding no tear for me bein’ an orphan —he just needed someone to help him scarp deaders off the streets of The Hive, an’ I'm small enough so I can get inta places his other boys can’t. Plus, most of the gullies in his pack are wee boys with the fear in ‘em, so I end up finding most of the deaders in places they’re too a-scared to look. The Dusties pay a nice bit of coppers for the deaders I bring ‘em, and Pharod don’t take so much off the top that it leaves me a beggar, so he’s not so bad, I s'pose.”
“Been at the Village longer than I. Came there a stone’s age ago, maybe even found the place, some o’ the villagers say.” Annah frowned. “Pharod’s a shrewd one, he is. Has a way of squeezin’ more outta copper than most, an’ he never was at a lack for jink.”
He asked, “Was he searching for that bronze sphere all that time?”
“I s'pose.” Annah shrugged again. “I don’t know why he was all a-fire tae get it, I don’t. I could smell it as soon as yeh brought it to him.” She wrinkled her nose. “Foul custard smell it had. Still... it must have been something right valuable for him tae carry on about it like he did —almost a half-score o’ Collectors got penned in the dead-book tryin’ tae fetch it.”
TNO knew the reason why he searched for it. “I think he was searching for it because he thought it would save his life.”
She blinked, asking what he meant. “Pharod didn’t lead a good life, I gather —he was once a ‘Guvner’ in one of the Upper Wards. He apparently used his position to lie, cheat, and hurt others in the process —so much so he was destined to go to the hells when he died. He thought the bronze sphere would save him somehow —so much so he threw away his title, his wealth, and his position to try and find it.”
“Really?” She went silent for a moment, then shook her head. “No accountin’ for Pharod’s foolishness, there isn’t. A trinket won’t save yeh from fate’s hand. If the stains on yer soul are black enough, no amount o’ washing will get ‘em out.” She paused. “Still, if he thought it could save him, maybe it was important somehow... or at least worth a bit o’ jink.”
TNO considered her, and murmured half to himself an observation. “I didn’t think you and him looked much alike, anyway.”
Annah’s eyes narrowed, and her tail began to lash back and forth. “And what do yeh mean by that, then?”
He stumbled in replying. “I meant that he doesn’t look much like a tiefling.”
“Aye, he doesn’t... and if yeh knew one thing about tieflings other than what yeh'd heard from any half-grinnin’ Hiver on the street, yeh'd have the sense to know that none of us tieflings look a-like, jig?” She shook her head. “No hope for yeh, that’s for dead-sure.”
“I didn’t mean that as an insult. You both look so different. I mean Pharod's... so... Pharod, and you’re not.”
“Oh, now what coulda tipped yeh off to that? My hair? My skin? I can’t think of anything else...” Annah slapped herself lightly on the forehead, then sneered sarcastically. “Maybe it was the tail? Oh, aye, that might have been it! Yer so much sharper than I am, yeh are. A real gem.”
“I meant it’s hard to see any resemblance between that ugly, stooped, greedy, smelly gutter-troll and you.”
Annah’s face flushed a deep red. “Oh, is that so? And how do yeh see that?”
TNO told her the full truth, which he only knew as true as he said it. “I mean, have you ever looked at yourself? Aside from the way you carry yourself, you’re confident, sensible, and graceful. And that doesn’t even take into account your obvious good looks: you have that rich, fire-red hair, those sharp green eyes, and that striking profile.”
Annah just stared at him. He wondered what her reaction indicated. “So that’s all I meant when I said you and Pharod look nothing alike.”
Annah nodded, still staring at me. She didn’t even blink. “Are you listening to me?”
Annah suddenly leaned in, and she bit TNO sharply on the neck, giving a soft hiss. Rather than pulling back, she pressed closely into him and whispered into his ear. “D'yeh fancy yer chances?” Her tail began to lash slowly back and forth, but the rhythm was more hypnotic than angry.
TNO could sense Annah’s heart beating fast in her chest, and the color rising into her cheeks. He suddenly became conscious of the fact that Annah’s skin was smooth, soft.
“I want tae tell yeh something, an’ yeh can’t poke fun at me.”
“All right...” he replied.
“Do yeh know I like the way yeh smell? Oh, aye —it drives me barmier than a Chaosman, it does.” She sniffed up the side of his cheek, and she gave a low, eager hiss. “I see the way yeh look at me, and I like it. Yeh've got hungry eyes, yeh do. It makes me a-fire.” “I want tae bite yeh, soft-like around the neck...” She teased the side of his neck with her teeth, never breaking skin, and with every whisper, TNO could feel her breath along his ear. Her hand slid up around the back of his neck, and tightened, and he could feel her nails digging into his skin. “I want ta drag me nails along the back of yer neck, and force yeh to kiss me.”
“Do yeh know I can smell yeh from fifty paces, that smell of fermaldyhe pouring offa yeh like one of them dustie shamblers. Maybe if yeh cleaned yerself up some, yeh'd be a right prize.” Her eyes flashed. “I'd make passion with yeh so hard yeh'd be knocked off the spire.” She stepped back, her tail flicking lightly against my leg, then gave me a hard stare. “So... d'yeh fancy me?”
TNO didn’t reply, but grabbed Annah, and before she could squirm free, and bit her lightly on the neck. As his teeth touched the skin, Annah hissed loudly, clawing like a cat, and tore away from him.
“I was only teasin' yeh, yeh scarred vampire! L-l-leave off!” Despite her protestations, however, her face was flushed, and she was breathing heavily. “An’ watch yer mitts next time!” She crossed her arms. “Yeh makin’ me red, yeh are!”
TNO stepped back a little as well. Now that he had a moment to think, he worried that he might be taking advantage of her. I wondered how much of her reaction was due to Pharod’s death, who despite her words one could tell she had cared for very much
Unnoticed, Morte had returned, and for once TNO was grateful for his barbed wit, which got him out of what had suddenly turned awkward.
Morte made one of his usual mordant observations. “I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don’t mind me —just sitting here, floating and watching, that’s me".
Annah said, “Stop starin’ at me, yeh pikin’ skull.”

Session end

Cant Dictionary

Report Date

08 Jan 2024

• Quests - Sigil
  • Find The Nameless One's Journal
  • Help Reekwind
  • Ignis - Return him to life
  • Unlock the Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon
  • Obtain Decanter's Password
• Completed Quests - Sigil
  • Find Pharod
  • Find and Bring Pharod to Justice
  • Help Ingress
  • Kill Starved Dogs Barking
  • Find Craddock
  • Clear the Mausoleum
  • Purchase the Eye
  • Free Angyar from the Dustman Contract
  • Iron Nall's Secret
  • Free Esmae from Moridors box
  • Find Former Drunk Companion of TNO
  • Find Eliath
  • Who is Killing the Barmys
  • Return the Prayer Beads to Porphiron
  • Convince Nestor to Leave
  • Find Pharod's source of bodies
  • Find Amarysse
  • Learn Magic
  • Return his Name
  • Retrieve Knife
  • Find Necklace
  • Kill Rotten William
  • Kill or Drive off Blackrose
  • Bring His Body to the Surface
  • Retrieve Bronze Sphere
  • Obtain the Decanter from Drowned Nations
  • Discover where Annah found The Nameless One