Lost Lab of Kwalish

After a restful night in creaking beds lined with dirty sheets, you wake to the aroma of gray grub steaks searing to perfection in a large skillet in the kitchen.

Assuming you choose to head over to Zadara's early, you find a building much as described by the gith the night before.  A pair of fallen sword archons, who Gearbox informs you are her guards Kubriel and Gog, stand at her massive wooden front door. Kubriel greets you, "Good morrow. State your names and your business with the Golden Lord."

Quote from Shonisaurus >>

Huarache will cast Identify on that before he long rests. The holy symbol for a portal god is bound to have some kind of conjuration magic or something.

 Nah, its just a cheap trinket, at least as far as magic is concerned

After a good night's sleep in a loose bed, and a filling breakfast, surprisingly not too much of hang-over after the cheap ale. 

"Good morning," she says, "we are adventurers from Toril and we've been tasked to find Kwalish. We actually, came through a portal of his and found ourselves in Sigil. We've been asking around and this gith lady, Pnorr, told us about this portal at the The Styx Oarsman(?) linking to Kwalish, that we would need Zadara's help to activate. Would we be able to meet her today?" Omiy asks while peeking behind the guards, hoping to get a glimpse of what's inside.

Leann stands with the others, waiting to see what the guards have to say.

"Wait here." he says, and flies up through a small arched window above the enormous doors, leaving Gog to guard the door.

Gog asks, "Pnorr, huh?  I haven't heard that one before.  Did she give you anything?"

"She gave us this symbol of Portal God. For good luck." Omiy shrugs and shows the guard the little symbol in front of her chest.

"Don't let anyone see you with those! Theyre utterly forbidden! Why would anyone entrust a bunch of Clueless like you lot to ... Actually, nobody would ever suspect that the Golden Lords would entrust you lot with anything. Even if you told them as much.  When you can't find anyone you can trust completely, find someone beyond belief." Gog muses.

As you hide your holy symbols, (hopefully) Kubriel pops his head out of the high window. "You have ten minutes." he announces, a moment later, a loud clank and a thud resonate from the opposite side kf the huge doors, which begin to swing inward, slowly until Gog gives a push from the outside, speeding them up quite a bit.  When thwy are fully open, he turns to you and nods, "Well, go ahead in."

The main entrance hall is enormous, at least 50ft high with marble columns and polished granite floor, each cornice, and molding beset with gold filigree.  "Come in travelers, a delicate feminine voice booms from a room to your left, the door open wide.  Within the study, a 25ft tall titan sits behind an enormous desk, huge filing cabinets and shelves filled with books sit behind her.  on the wall opposite her is mounted an 8ft long greatclub.  "Greetings.  I have heard much about you, but I want to hear from you, what are you looking for and what do you think you know about why you have been sent here?" the titan asks.

Leann stands off to one side, looking to her companions to do the speaking. She is not certain what they are doing here, and hopes the others know what they are doing.

Omiy walks into the room with her companions, immediately in awe of the grandeur of the scene and decorations. She tilts her head to look at the giant sitting upright, the source of the solemn voice, and blushes a little. “Thank you for taking the time to meet us, I believe you’ve heard we are adventures from Toril, we’ve been tasked to find Kwalish. Well I don’t the contract particularly well because I joined the group half way - actually, I ran into the group while chasing after a missing cat - ” She points to Flappy who’s sitting on her shoulder, “ - I decided to help because I’ve always heard my father talk about Kwalish when I was little, he was a mighty mage, apparently - alright, so we arrived at the crystal city that’s been flooded with ooze, and we found these baubles that were portals constructed by Kwalish a long time ago. So we hopped into one portal that led us to fight a bunch of faceless evil monks, then we hopped into another one - this one - which had led us here, in Sigil. We’ve been asking around about Kwalish, we were at Timeskeep - ” She points to the emblem on her armour, “- well we somehow joined the guild. And this merchant, Estavan, told us to look for a gith who makes maps, and that gith told us about a certain portal that Kwalish may have stepped through, but we would require your help to activate it. That’s why we’re here.”

As the titan listens to the group recount their travels in Sigil, she sits completely still, giving no indication of how she perceoives the facts of the story they spin. At the mention of Shemaska the Marauder, she opines, "That wolf carves up pieces of Sigil as if she owned the whole lamb." When they reach the point in their story at which they meet the gith, Zadara corrects with zeal, "You mean Djhek'nlarr. Thats the name most know her by, though it too could be an alias. For all I know Pnorr could be her real name, last week it was Djhek'rackir, the week before, Djhek'faa. Many secrets have I uncovered, but that one has a few bits worth my time. Her game is to make others complicit in er crimes to better extort them, following them somehow to the mazes the Lady sends them when their crimes are uncovered. She often starts by giving them a symbol of the would be usurper God Aoskar - the brandishing of which will see a Berk two years hard labor. She is what the githyanki call a hr'a'cknir, one gifted with the ability to sense psychic energy flowing through the astral plane. Though her purposes and my own are not one and the same, we do have at least one common goal, one that you also seem to share."

She leans across her desk, her fingertips templed as her bright blue eyes peer into the depth beyond your faces and recounts waht she knows of your quest, "Many years ago, there was a being who came to Sigil, it wrought havoc across the planes, using the city's many portals to roam as it pleased, until a group of dedicated powers within the cage caught him in a blink. Estavan is said to be among their number, but I believe he merely inherited the responsibility of keeping this threat at bay. Kwalish, on the other hand, the dark of that seems to be that he alone followed the creature through the portal, for reasons known only to him. If I had to wager, I would say he thought he could study the thing in the hopes of uncovering some ultimate secret to the planes. In any event, neither he nor the creature have been seen since." At this, the titan stands, the tiny white gems adorning her midnight blue velvet gown shimmering as she moves. She reaches within a drawer of the cabinet to her left, and holds out to you, in her dark brown hand a three foot long cylinder of transparent crystal, within which shifts a small quantity of quicksilver. "If you are looking for Kwalish, you will need this. The creature of which I speak is called, by those who know the music, a Mercurial. He comes from a place where reality operates in a fashion unlike any you have ever known. This metal in this rod will shit toward such a creature when one is near enough to detect. You know where to find the portal, but to open it, you must follow these instructions." The titan gestures to a scroll wrapped around the crystal rod, tied with what looks like ordinary twine, affixed with a wax seal. "I trust you lot fancy you'll be alright at the Oarsman?" she adds, more a statement than a question. "Let me know if there is anything I can furnish you with to further aid you in this endeavor."

"Gee, that slippery gith..." Omiy mutters, crossing her arms in front of her chest and listening to Zadara's narrative.

"We appreciate your help," Omiy says, she pulls the crystal cylinder from the titan's palm. She stands the rod next to her, supports it with her hand, and unwraps the scroll to give it a quick read, before she hands it to others to study, "This being you speak of, Mercurial, it is still roaming between the planes? What kind of creature is it - any weakness, if we were to encounter it?"

"At the moment, we were able to trap it.  The thing is, it has a way of making in others' skins.  Hurting the just seems to do nothing to the mercurial."

Omiy crunches up her face at the description of the creature crawling under people's skins, she shrugs and turns to her companions waiting for their questions. "Anything else?"

Oox: to reiterate, the mercurial has a means of walking in the skins of others. Any harm done to them is not suffered by the creature.

Looking over the group, Zadara's eyes fall on the paladin and linger for a moment, then she turns to Gearbox and says, "Would you please escort them by way of the CTC. You'll find you have a line of credit in my name. I'll send a streaker at once." She oayses for a moment, straining to mask the distress she feels. "Please let them know what they're in for." she adds, then turns and walks down the hall. Her guards show yiu to the door.

As the sword archons close the doors to the Titans palace behind you you may notice a small bird flying out through the arched window above said doors.

As you walk towards the Great Bazaar, Gearbox fills you in on some details: "The Oarsman has a lower planes only policy. It caters mostly to fiends, but the rule isnt set in stone. Apperently, Zadara thinks it might be wise to come prepared fir trouble. She sent us to an armorer of high repute."

When you arrive at a stall lined with swords knives and orher sharp and pointy metal onjects, a Bladeling greets you, "Ah, there we are.  Zadara sent word.  She told me you were welcome to choose from the provate selection!"  Pulling a box from behind rhe counter, he opens two locks and lifts the lid. Inside the velvet-lined chest lie a snub-nosed revolver, a carbine breech-loading rifle and a matching pair of six-shooters the grips inlayed with ivory.

"It's gonna be dangerous?" Omiy asks Gearbox while they are walking down the road, she raises her eyebrow and smirks, "you can never be over-prepared, that's true. It's nice of her to be so generous."

She steps in and stands in the armory, with all kinds of weapons and equipment surrounded her, she widens her eyes at the view of the firearms laying inside the chest. She leans over to get a better look, "so here they were hiding - !" She picks up the revolver and weighs it in her hand, the thick black metal in her hand was quite a bit lighter than the swords she is usually acquainted with, but not without a sturdy feel. She fiddles it around, looking into the barrels, trying to figure out how it works. "So uh," she starts, rubbing her nose with some awkwardness, "what would you recommend for someone who, say, doesn't have a particularly good aim?"

Leann has no use for firearms, so just stands back as the others pick their weapons.

Huarache surreptiously casts Detect Magic to see what sort of magic is within the room, then while concentrating on that, walks up to Omiy. "At risk of insulting myself, a blunderbuss or pepperbox is good if you aren't particularly concerned with precision. If you want to train for precision with a single-handed weapon, go for a pistol or a revolver."

“Please don’t fool around with firearms.” Hondo tells Omiy. You can tell that he is deeply concerned. He looks around at the armory. 

"Have you used them before?" Omiy pokes Hondo to hand him the revolver, and excitedly encourages him, "show me."