Chapter 2: Into the Cage

The portal spits you out on hard ground. The journey through has you feeling your insides float inside your body and the landing is hard on your flesh. Rolling and tumbling, you neutralize the momentum and try to get back on your feet. The ground is cobbled stone, but everything else about the scenery is just surreal. Tall and slender buildings clutter your vision, made of some dark stone in gothic architecture and jammed together like overgrown ivy. As your field of vision expands to take in the staggering metropolis, your brain begins to register something wrong. The horizon forward seems to be going upward. So does backward and sideways, as if you're on the inside of some spherical surface. Smog and rain-loaded clouds rest on the limit of your vision.



Streets around you are not that crowded, but almost everyone you see is a beggar dressed in tatters and begging for a coin. A few others, dressed in ragged cloaks, roam the streets in search of something to scavenge among discarded trash. Something tells you they are probably desperate and/or vicious enough to mug you if they get a chance. Quite the charming place.

There's no sign of the rat-men around. One building dominates the neighborhood though, rising above with the grace of a pregnant spider.



A man and a woman stand guard on the sides of the large double doors. Both wear a dull grey robe and what strikes you is how pale and wrinkled their skin looks for somebody their age. As you observe, a cart slowly rolls up to the entrance. It seems to be pulled by two men where horses should be, but upon closer inspection you realize their stumbling is that of the undead. Zombies, to be precise. Behind them, the cart is loaded with what seems to be corpses, stripped down to their underwear. The cart rolls past the guards and into the building, nobody batting an eyelash.

What do you do?

In his realization that he no longer knows how to return to the inn, Tarandar instinctively turns around to look for the portal that got him here, wherever "here" is. There's no sign of swirling smoke like he saw in the cellar, but what's worse, there's no sign of Chailin either. Instead, a young man walks up to the group.

He seems to be fresh out of adolescence and although he's wrapped in a fithy robe, he appears to be in much better state than most locals around. There's a strut to his walk, his back is not broken from tough times and there's a sparkle in his eye. He comes closer, but in a non-threatening way.

"Now that's a fresh sight for my sore eyes! You sure look like you don't belong in the Hive." Seeing Wickari's grip on the hilt of his half-drawn sword he pauses for a moment of awkward silence before he offers his hand for a handshake. "I'm Wimoo. Pronounced Wee-mo-o."

In offering his hand, his robes open slightly at the chest. Watchful eyes can see a little brooch pinned on his undergarment.

Tarandar shakes Wimoo's hand, then studies the man as he speaks to the others. The symbol on the pin doesn't remind him of anything, the only thing certain is Wimoo's mannerisms and body language do not match his clothing or this ragged neighbourhood.

Wickari's comment takes Wimoo aback, then Xana butts in. "Important? No no, quite the contrary. Dusties over there offer people The Contract you see, few coins in exchange for being allowed to raise their corpse after they're dead. Hive's swarming with the poor and the destitute, so most welcome the coin now and don't mind being raised as zombies to provide labor in the Mortuary once their life's over. Both sides win, least that's what the Dustmen'll tell you. To their eyes, they're doing the city a service picking up corpses. Well, they don't do it themselves actually, but they do pay for it and turn a blind eye when ragpickers deliver bodies stripped of all their posessions. Charming place, the Hive. So, how come you end up here?"

Wimoo takes in Tarandar's story, then scratches his chin. "Wonder why a cellar would have a portal leading anywhere, here out of all places even. Might have been a stray one. I've heard some portals change where they're located, or even where they lead to. Gotta be careful of it all when you're in the City of Doors."

Xana's question seems to wake Wimoo up from wherever his train of thought had him going inside his head. "Me? Not long enough apparently, I still have to experience the full wretchedness of the Hive, though I have already been mugged." Wimoo seems to say that last part with a bit of pride rather than anger or disappointment. "See, I'm a Sensate. Our group, the Society of Sensation, supports knowledge through experience. I'm pretty new, but I've spent most of my adolescent life partying around the city's alehouses. It's fun, but it gets real old real quick, you know? So now I'm slumming it out, looking for new experiences in a place different from what I'm used to. Which is why you caught my attention. Say, d'you need a tout? I've never been a tout. I could show you around town. I know most of the inns and we could also see the sights if you want to."

"Excellent!" Wimoo claps his hands in excitement. "Plenty of things to be done and problems to be solved means plenty of ways to make a living for skilled bodies such as yourselves. Worry not about income and lodgings, just relax and take it all in as we stroll the streets of Sigil."

Wimoo starts walking and you follow him across the narrow streets, minding the soot that seems to cover most walls. The neighborhood is probably the city's slums, as it's full of shanties and rickety shacks. There's no specific architecture, rather things seem to be build on top of older things using whatever materials were available at the time.

"Sigil's the official name, though many call it City of Doors" Wimoo begins. "That's cause it's brimming with portals that lead everywhere out to the Multiverse, which is why some assume it must be the center of the Multiverse. Even the air we breathe comes in through a portal to the Elemental Plane of Air. During the tour, you'll see all sorts of mortal races, plus fiends and celestials roaming the streets. They all got here through portals, or at least their parents did. Which of course begs the question, what keeps an army of fiends or a deity from coming in and overrunning the city? That would be Sigil's ruler, the Lady of Pain. I'll get to that, but for now suffice to say she's what keeps this place safe from all planar conquest. It's also why the usual term for this city is The Cage and its locals are called Cagers. It's a gilded cage, but a cage regardless. We met in one of its less glamorous parts, the Hive, but we'll soon be visiting more interesting locations."

Following Wimoo around, a peculiar sight catches your attention. Groups of two or three humanoids can be seen at times performing various tasks, whether removing vines from a wall, paving streets or repairing buildings. Thay are dressed in dark brown robes, their skin is tan yellow, their hair is white and they seem to have goat-like horns protruding from their foreheads. What's really unsettling though is they seem to be floating inches off the ground at all times.

"I'm getting ahead of myself" Wimoo pauses. "There's a lot to explain and it's easy to get carried away. I think touts are supposed to stop at times and ask if you have any questions. So, do you have any questions so far?"

The "floating worker" pauses and turns to face Wickari, his face placid and expressionless. Slowly, the air above its forehead and between its horns seems to condense and turn into steam as it forms a symbol. The symbol then twists and becomes another, then another. To Xana's eyes, it looks like these workers can create such minor illusions at will.

"These are the dabus, silent servants of the Lady" Wimoo points out to everyone as he comes closer and lays a hand on Wickari's shoulder. "It is said they understand every spoken language, but this is how they communicate. Not that they have much to say from what I hear, some speculate they are just mindless instruments of Her will. Oh and by the way, best if you do not speak her name that loud, or bother her servants. As us Cagers say, don't let her shadow fall on you. Or worship her. Come, I want to show you something."

Following Wimoo, you somehow escape the twisting, narrow alleys of the Hive and arrive at a clearing. Crumbling pillars and large chunks of marble litter the area, a testament to the glorious building that apparently used to stand here. Figures clad in grey and tan olive robes stand on various high spots of the rubble, preaching to passers by. "This is the Shattered Temple. It was once a temple to Aoskar, a Power some worshipped as a god of portals. Tricky portfolio to pick up in a place like this. Nobody knows what he did to incur the Lady's wrath, but she destroyed him, shattered his temple and mazed his faithful. These days it's haunted by the Athar, berks who preach that there's no such thing as true deities, only powerful beings unworthy of prayer. Bunch of priests whose faith was shattered as well when they glimpsed at the reality of the Planes, if you ask me."