Al-ash’s solo
Al-Ash first went to the Seven Corners and told Old Udley, the pharmacist who’d bid them deal with Murder the spriggan, that Murder had been dealt with. Old Udley, a crotchety and senile dwarf, did not believe Al-Ash, and insisted on seeing the big hairy man’s severed head or something. Al-Ash mulled this over, and then went to see Dudley Swanson, Carpenter-at-Law, a woodworker in the Seven Corners. She commanded him build her a pine box, six feet by three feet by two feet, and he said he’d get right to work on it. On her way home she was accosted by a street urchin, filthy and goblinoid, who begged for her help: he and his friends had discovered a gate and one of them was lost in the dark. Al-Ash pushed the little boy away, went home, and slept.
In the morning she returned to the Carpenter-at-Law to collect the box and just outside its doors found herself ambushed by a peculiar insectile man, mantis-like. It was wearing a leather vest and wielding a hammer, but it attacked her with spells and called to her in some strange clicking language. Al-Ash used her natural spell resistance and some defensive magic to protect herself, and sent her familiar to Effers, the alehouse which is the Seven Corners base of operations for Queen Abby’s Mob. While waiting for rescuers, she and the mantis-man meleed, each out of spells and mostly unable to injure the other. Eventually Al-Ash’s pick dug into the mantis-man’s flesh, and it gave up and scurried away.
Once the reinforcements arrived, Al-Ash had them carry off the faux-coffin and herself spent a few minutes questioning a local greengrocer who, it was revealed, had been accosted by the mantis-man herself. It had tried to buy some onions, but didn’t have and proper money, instead offering little chitin bars. Al-Ash took one of the bars left behind by the mantis-man.
Outside Effers, to a crowd of interested onlookers, Al-Ash declared the threat of Murder over, and “enlarged” its wee corpse into a nice big hairy dead man, which (after everyone saw it) she burned in the coffin, in a big bonfire in the street. Old Udley was therefore satisfied. Huckey, the massive and slow-witted barkeep of Effers, told Al-Ash that a street urchin had come to the bar with a crowbar and pried out some of the quartz crystals from the building’s foundation, which was odd because they were largely worthless. Al-Ash told him to let her know if the kid came back.
Al-Ash then took a cab to the Hall of Records, where she bought a membership and spent a few hours researching the chitin tokens and the mantis-man. She found no record of mantis-people matching the assailant’s description, but the chitin tokens were used as currency on Duncan’s World. Duncan Pathfinder, noted planar explorer, discovered this particular grimy Prime world and named it after himself. Actually, he named many things after himself, but since most of them already had names they didn’t stick. Duncan’s World is a muddy plain, flat and drab, rising out of an equally drab muddy sea; its inhabitants exclusively humans and gnomes. Mineral-poor and resource-poor, the inhabitants of Duncan’s World subsist off herding giant insects, pieces of which they use for everything. Duncan’s World currency is worthless offworld. The only interesting thing about Duncan’s World is that its human and gnomic inhabitants are able to interbreed: a human father and gnome mother may have children, who are not “half-gnomes,” but instead half are human, half gnome just as half are male, half female. No mention of mantises at all.
In the afternoon Al-Ash returned to the Compleat Orthodoxy, to report on a job well done, and was informed that Honest Avery, the doppleganger bandleader, had been arrested on charges of Possession with Intent.
Al-Ash reviewed her knowledge of Sigil law. There are three sorts of law: The Lady’s Laws, which are the exclusive purview of The Lady of Pain, the rules of different power groups, which hold dominion in their own neighborhoods, and the laws of the Triad of Law, an alliance of three factions. The Triad consists of the Harmonium, who patrol the city intermittently looking for drunks, pickpockets, domestic violence, et cetera; the Fraternity of Order, who run the Courthouse and serve as attorneys and judges; and the Mercykillers, who operate the Prison. They are the de facto civic authorities in the judicial system, operating mainly because none of the other factions especially care to stop them. Honest Avery went peaceably with the arresting officers, so as not to provoke a war between the Harmonium and Queen Abby’s Mob.
The crime of Possession with Intent is an unusual one: the perpetrator is one possessed by an external entity, an evil spirit, which after possessing the host enacts a series of brutal crimes. After possessing a host once, future possessions are made much easier, so the very act of being possessed is a crime. The charge sounded trumped-up to Al-Ash, who knew that there were very, very few indisputable, inarguably legitimate cases of Possession with Intent.
As Honest Avery’s attorney, Al-Ash took a cab to the Courthouse and found that the wheels of justice turn swiftly. Honest Avery’s arraignment had occurred the night before, and its trial would be that evening. The evidence was the usual: spoken testimony of one of the three arresting Harmonium officers, written statements by the other two, and expert testimony from a Harmonium wizard declaring that Honest Avery detected as evil.
The judge in the case, Justice Bartleby, a wide-mouthed, goggle-eyed, moist gentleman with a huge wig: Al-Ash knew him. He wasn’t nakedly on the take, but he didn’t care so much for evidence as drama. Whichever side proffered the better narrative would win the case.
Al-Ash reviewed the written statements closely, and compared them during the trial to the spoken testimony. At or about three hours after lamplighting (or three hours before lampdousing, according to Constable Jeefer) the three Harmonium officers were walking down Brewery Lane (or Brewery Street, according to Constable Ordo) when they came across an individual matching Honest Avery’s description, urinating drunkenly against a wall and singing in a cracked voice. They investigated, and Honest Avery ran away. They chased, and observed a translucent blue spirit leaving his body, clear evidence of possession. Honest Avery evaded them, but they recognized him and arrested him the next evening at his place of business, the Compleat Orthodoxy.
Al-Ash pointed out the discrepancies in the stories, and also observed that Honest Avery was performing in the Compleat Orthodoxy at three hours after lamplighting. Furthermore, the face they claimed to recognize was Honest Avery’s working face, which he never used when not performing. Clearly, she said, what we had was a case of three Harmonium rogues with a grudge against the QAM, framing an innocent musician.
The prosecuting attorney objected to this idle speculation and asserted that it was a matter of Honest Avery flouting the laws of the Triad, and so on, and they argued for a good bit before Justice Bartleby weighed in his decision and declared that there was a reasonable doubt in his mind, and Honest Avery could go free.
The next day, Al-Ash went back to the Seven Corners and questioned Blind Rhea, the QAM’s actuary for the neighborhood — the woman who took the money the enforcers brought in, tallied it, and sent it on the Compleat Orthodoxy — about the mantis-man. Apparently it had come into Effers and tried to get a drink, but when its money was refused left quietly. Also, the kid with the crowbar had come back and pried out more quartz and been shooed off.
“If he comes back again,” Al-Ash said, curiosity piqued, “hold him here.”
The kid did come back, and Al-Ash got a messenger gargoyle visiting her apartment in the Clerk’s Ward telling her so. She took a cab back to Effers, and found the kid in a back room. She “charmed” him, and quickly extracted information from him:
* His name is Gunnie.
* A few days ago, he and his gang (of preteens) were carrying quartz rocks through an alley when they passed through a gate to somewhere dark.
* They got back out again, eventually; it’s a two-way gate.
* Returning with torches, they found the gate leads to a room.
* In the room is a monster that eats rocks. A big green beetle the size of an orc.
* Also treasure.
* The gang is going to tame the monster and get it to guard the treasure and make the room their hidden base.
* Does Al-Ash want to see?
Al-Ash gets Gunnie to show her the gate, then accepts his offer to meet the monster, but defers it until tomorrow. Gunnie, still “charmed,” agrees. Once he’s gone, Al-Ash takes a cab back to the Hall of Records and looks through the zoology sections. Zoology isn’t her field, but after a bit of scraping she’s able to determine that the creature is probably a folugub, sort of the psionic equivalent of a rust monster, eats crystals. They’re extremely long lived, and can go for very long periods without food, but cannot normally be trained except from birth.
Armed with this knowledge, Al-Ash took a cab from the Hall of Records back to the Seven Corners and bought a barrel of quartz crystals from a mason, for cheap. She loaded up her Very Small Bag of Stasis Holding (obtained from Anya Bukarov) with these crystals, went to Gunnie’s gate, and, holding a crystal, stepped through.
Immediately she was plunged into darkness. Something pulled the crystal from her hand. She cast “light” on a piece of jewelry, and found that she was in some kind of disused basement or abandoned storeroom — hewn walls, post-and-beam ceiling. The scent indicated she was still somewhere in Sigil, probably still in the Seven Corners. And she shared the space with a big folugub, which had quickly swallowed the crystal she’d carried and was rooting around. She pulled another from her bag and threw it into a far corner, keeping the folugub occupied for a few minutes. Around a corner, she found a small pile: the treasure Gunnie mentioned.
* Knapsack containing quite a bit of silver, easily over 2100 coins
* Also an oak scroll case with turquoise and silver inlays, engraved “Moonmoth Festival, Year of the Cuttlefish, Fort Necessity” containing a divine scroll: sound burst, cure moderate wounds, inflict moderate wounds, 3rd level caster; and another divine scroll: magic fang, detect evil, magic weapon, 1st level caster;
* potion of hide from undead, potion of aid in the bottom of the knapsack
* An attaché case containing 180 gold coins in excellent condition, minted four hundred years ago by Tiamat’s Trust. The coins have appreciated slightly in value and are now worth 200 gp.
* A chest of fifty pounds of helt, an exotic narcotic capable of affecting only sentient spiders
Al-Ash emptied out her bag except for three of the crystals, filled it up with the treasure, and while the folgub was still eating, escaped through the gate holding one of the crystals.
She had everything appraised and approached a few pharmaceuticals dealers about the helt. One, a mercane, offered her 500 gp for the chest, but was trying to cheat her. The other, an obese orc, apologized for any perceived slight to the QAM, but could not offer more than 2,500 gp. He estimated that the right buyer — one in a community of sentient spiders — would pay more than three times that. He also intimated that such a community, the Mellorn in the Outlands, would soon be holding their once-every-seven-years trade fair; perhaps Al-Ash should attend cough cough adventure hook cough cough.