Pizazz's Ravenloft and Beyond

Mordekai makes eye contact with the landlord, gestures to Laffa and discreetly shakes his head. 

"Laffa, did you ever wonder if your powers didn't return to you because you're constantly just too intoxicated to remember them? You're not going to have ready access to the drink from here onwards, perhaps the sooner you get it out of your system, the better. And the more help you will be to us all."

Laffa's turns instantly angry and jabs his finger towards Mordekai, "YOU AREN'T MY KEEPER. If that's the arrangement you think you made, then chop me down now!  Otherwise leave me my drink and my business, and I'll see if I can help you save your little friend from a nasty fate like mine!!"  He stomps over to the bar. There's an uncomfortable exchange with eyes cast towards Mordekai, before a bottle full of brown liquid is passed over to Laffa. 

Mordekai resists the urge to comment about his point being proved, or even about trying to help Laffa overcome more than just the one problem. Instead, Mordekai who usually has a smile or a reply for everything, watches stoic and unflinching as Laffa erupts in his face and storms off. 

Meepo looks at the amulet, then shrugs and stuffs it back into his tunic. "Meepo ready go portal." he says then.

"Not sure I trust the Sad Wizard's portal...  Perhaps we should use what we know," Ketch suggests.

"He is going with us there. If you are suspicious, we can let him go first." Laffa was arguing about the bottle on the road and Lionel spoke freely. "As of "our portal" - I assume you mean shifting from our place in the cave. But that would mean bringing Laffa there too. Do we want it? Official portal might be a lesser evil." The paladin did not worry much about Laffa's addiction - between a paladin and a cleric it should not have made a real problem - and truly believed the portal is safe. Well, safe-er than untested jump into unknown.

"He's talking two portals... Only said the second was known and has fees, never said official about the first one that I recall," ketch says with a shrug.  "But if you trust him then so be it."

With Ketch eyeing Laffa suspiciously, and Ulthan and his cat tagging a long at a distance, you emerge from the Yawning Rat and follow Laffa. Etain shrugs nearby and makes a "should I stay or should I go now?" sorta motion, then decided to follow at a distance anyway.

Either way, Laffa leads you through the narrow streets, a drizzle coming out of the strange sky and coating everything. Hair is soon plastered to heads and shoulders are damp as you arrive at a five story building pressed against others that almost leans over the street to touch the buildings on the other side. The place looks very run down. Laffa pushes open the door and walks in to a narrow hallway with several doors in it, and a stairway up. He trudges up the stairway until he gets to the third floor and goes to a door with 32 on it. He opens the unlocked door and walks in, leaving it open.  This appears to be his home. It smells funny, like...old sweat, and there are clothes and garbage and empty bottles all over the floor, stains on the only padded bench he has. His bed is disheveled and covered in clothes, the sheets stained a gradient of yellow towards the middle dent where his body clearly spends most of its time. The place is filthy and disgusting. He stands about with a sigh, and then goes into a closet, pulling out an old tattered backpack, and begins shoving clothes into it. He grabs a warm looking jacket. As Ketch looks at the state of the place, his suspicion wanes somewhat. This guy doesn't seem 'with it' enough to pull one over on them. 

He goes into his kitchen and dumps one half-empty bottle into the bag, and from a drawer pulls out a dagger that's rusted along it's side. He jams it into the bag as well, along with the full bottle he got from the bar, but not before taking a swig and angrily looking back towards Mordekai. 

That done, he kicks some trash out of his way, stumbling a bit, then leaves the apartment. 

Back out in the city he heads towards the market district. He leads you along familiar roads and then into the maze that is the grand bazaar. After fifteen minutes of winding your way about, he descends down some stairs into a sub-alley between numerous buildings. It dead ends at a large tunnel that looks like it leads into sewers. A rusted iron grate bars the way. A half-demon with wings and a tail, wrapped in a rain jacket looks glumly at the lot of you.  Etain leans against the mouth of the alley casually pretending not to pay attention.  

Laffa makes a head nod, and says, "We wanna go to Ranais." 

The tiefling responds by holding out his hand, "25 gold per person. So...150 gold."

Laffa points to Mordekai, "They're payin."

Ketch pays out of the Party Funds, happy to just be out of that apartment.  He had considered dropping a lit torch but then worried about the other residents.  Not those of the building, the ones even further away.  The one building burning down, in his mind, would have scent packs of human vermin skittering out to infest scores and scores of new places with their presence...

Ketch pays the Tiefling. He pulls a bit of hair out of a small pouch, and says "Gyeth toornmosta sta kay tie tie."  The tunnel mouth fills with sparkling blue light. 

Laffa heads through. With a last glance back at Etain, who gives the group a smile and a wave and mouths "have a nice trip", the group steps through the portal. 

The crunch of stone and bits of bone issue from beneath your feet as you emerge from a black hole of darkness. It's daytime here and you look around at the ruins of a long lost civilization. Well, perhaps not that long lost. The crumbling remains of scorched buildings, rubble covers everything. The sky is azure and a dim overly large white sun fills a portion of the sky. For as far as you can see, the rubble of a destroyed city stretch out in every direction. The strangest part is that there appears to be nothing living. No bugs, no rats, trees or bushes. Not even bits of weeds poke out of the detritus around you. 

A well trodden path with wagon wheel grooves stretch away. The remains of a building nearby has a roughly built wooden roof on it and appears to have been converted to a warehouse, though nobody seems to be there at the moment. This place is clearly well traveled.  The air is warm and overly thick and you feel sluggish as you begin to walk after Laffa who leads you down the path. 

Laffa mutters loud enough for you all to hear as you proceed, "Crux is on the world tree, which leads to many places easily. It's a simple enough matter for trading houses to setup shop there and deliver goods all over the multi-verse. That includes Sigil, though it requires an extra step of comin through this hell hole." 

The wind blows dust through the air that sticks in your eyes as you travel the barren city ruins. Expecting to see a bird, or a bug, or something moving, you're disappointed to see nothing at all but the odd bit of rag tumbling in the wind. 

"It's a four hour walk to the portal to crux. The undead that reside here usually don't cause problems."

Quinn scrambles against Mordekai, "This place is dead. Truly dead. All lies have been erased. I don't like it."

Any specials actions or pattern while walking? 

Ulthan looks around uncomfortably in bewilderment "hrmpfh why no plants why no bugs hrmpfh". He looks at shadows and the like looking for any sign of any life other than barren rock. He pats the cat, "hrmpfh not staying here hrmpfh". He'd be roughly in the middle somewhere in this case close to the group, not scouting ahead or the like.

Judging by the way all buildings were packed here, the city authorities would not mind a bit of wildfire accident to clean up the space in every meaning of the word. But Lionel did not judge. He let Laffa get through the portal first but made sure he was next behind - just in case the appearance was deceiving. 

As expected, the path was safe, though far from pleasant. Lionel continued to watch Laffa, occasionally (at a sign of some particularly suspicious ruins checking it with his divine senses for the presence of "non-problematic undead" - an oxymoron in his books).

Ketch will walk a little away from the others, a firm believer in distance when possible.  Otherwise just trying to keep a wary eye out despite the seeming lack of anything to keep an eye on.

The group trudges across the landscape, rocks and fragments of bone crunching under foot as you cross the land of desolation. Whatever happened here destroyed all life....abruptly and violently. The signs of that violence and destruction are everywhere. 

You wind your way through the city that seems to go on, and on, larger than any other city you've ever been in. Four hours of walking taking you miles and miles. You come up upon a slight rise and glance down beneath you onto yet more ruined city. You've noticed there is also chitin plates amongst the bones as you walk, an indication that some large insect creatures must have lived here. 

Laffa looks down, pointing to a spot maybe 1000 feet away down a hill. In the center of the town you can see the faint sparkle of a tiny pool of light, glimmering blue and green against the drab destroyed surroundings.  "There's the portal. The portals to the world tree don't require keys, or passwords. They're just always there, open and waiting. I've heard tell they move sometimes, but not very often." 

A chill wind blows from behind and a faint scent of sometime acidic is on the wind. Your hairs stand on end and you suddenly feel a chill of something else. Something....malevolent. 

Laffa looks behind you to the direction you came from, and a look of pure terror grows on his face. Then....he turns and runs... sprinting top speed down the hill towards the town square with the portal. You look behind and hovering through the air, you see six massive dark clouds in the shape of elongated people. They have long twisted smokey horns protruding from their heads, and overly long limbs, their legs look like perhaps the legs of a satyr.  Though their bodies are made of black smoke. They must be about 30 feet tall each and about 50 feet away from each other in a rough line across the sky as they fly towards you. They are about 500 feet behind you and about 100 feet in the air.  

Laffa screams, "Ruuuuuuuuunnnn" as he sprints away. 

Roll initiative, let me know what your first action is. 

Mordekai initiative: 18

Mordekai casts Darkness on himself and sets off (30ft) after Laffa to the portal. He calls to the others "Feel free to huddle around me or not! We may not be very hidden, and you will be relying on me to see for you, but it may be better than nothing."

To Quinn, he whispers "Is that better? We make our own lies."

Lionel's initiative: 21

The paladin did not run. He was not going to linger here either, of course (the dead world around was a good incentive not to do it). Instead, he used the helmet to transport the party straight to the well visible portal, let others get through, and then stepped there too.

...or that works, too. Given that Lionel does that ahead of Mordekai's initiative, Mordekai will refrain from casting Darkness.

Meepo initiative: 23

With Lionel teleporting the party to their destination, Meepo would simply make sure everyone arrived and then go through the portal with the others.

Ketch initiative:  11

Ketch turns and readies his shield and axe for battle.  Assuming he is teleported by Lionel, Ketch will curse colorfully but then sigh and say "Fine, fine..." 

Ulthan doesn't go that fast so seems like a good thing to grab hold of the cat to teleport out. 20