The characters in this session were:
- Alabastor Quan, a gnome rogue-turned-warlock and failed circus ringmaster; wielder of a cursed dagger and member of the Ravenswing Thieves’ Guild.
- Armand Percival Reginald Francois Eustace de la Marche III, a suspiciously pale, apparently human noble and sorcerer, and certainly not a ghoul (how dare such a thing be suggested).
- Caulis, a homunculus warlock liberated from its master; has made a pact with certain Faerie Powers.
- Garvin Otherwise, a human rogue and burglar of the Ravenswing Thieves’ Guild, with a very, very peculiar past and a zoog pet, Lenore.
- An ancient and enigmatic Lengian cleric of the Mother of Spiders, name unknown. She wears bulky ecclesiastical garments covering an uncertain number of limbs and goes by “Sister.”
XP Awarded: 800 XP
Garvin Otherwise had taken a turn down a street in Hex, only to find himself walking down an uncannily familiar street, black clouds swirling overhead. Crimson banners fluttered in the carrion-scented breeze, indicating he was once more in the version of Hex ruled by the vampires of Erubescence, having come unstuck once again in the kaleidoscopic array of parallel universes that made up reality.
The thief shrugged, deciding to perfom some additional investigations while he remained in this world. He headed south to his familiar haunts of Corvid Commons, the Thieves’ Quarter of Hex, only to discover that much of the district was being levelled, straight avenues and orderly bouelvards and squares replacing the haphazard chaos that typified the district in his own reality. The Witching Hour Alehouse, however, remained; he entered and discovered the bartender, Mortimer Croak, behind the bar – though he could swear the grizzled old thief was missing the right eye, not the left…
“Hey Mortimer…” Garvin said.
“Hey there,” the bartender said. “Do I… know you?”
“Garvin Otherwise,” Garvin said, showing his Thief’s Mark, the secret Librarian glyph-tattoo worn by all Guild thieves in Hex. “I used to live here awhile back, before the vampires came in. Care to tell me a bit about things, after the takeover and all?”
“What, the Sanguine Lords have come down hard.” Mortimer gestured to the mostly-empty alehouse. “Hangings daily. The Night Queen’s law is absolute. Go by the Golem and you’ll see… bodies by the dozen.” He glanced around the bar carefully. “A lot of us thieves… we’ve sort of changed professions, so to speak.”
“Going legit…?”
Mortimer shook his head. “Joining the resistance.”
A noise at the door caused Garvin to turn, and when he looked the Witching Hour was suddenly full of regulars, carousing and haggling over stolen goods. He turned back to the bar.
“Ah, Garvin, didn’t see you there,” Mortimer said. “Must have been on my right side, eh? Well, what’ll it be?”
“Blackbeak Brew,” Garvin said, noting the eyepatch had again switched sides. He was home again… for the time being.
Meanwhile, in the Dreamers’ Quarter…
The Variegated Company stumbled through the portal and into Armand’s parlour, bedraggled and wounded, Alabastor’s corpse dragged through by Miri. Unbeknownst to most of them, Alabastor’s ghost – now in the possession of the Pneumanomicon, had followed them through.
“Did they say Penumbra?” Sister said, after closing the portal behind them. “As in, the Penumbra, the spectral city, that haunts its destroyers over the centuries?”
Sister shuddered. At eight hundred years old, she could remember the Patchwork War, the War of Shades, the Horripilation Wars – the massacres, the burned cities, the zombie hordes. Penumbra was the capitol of the Penumbral Empire, whose vast shadow lay across swathes of the south for centuries. Aggressively expansionist, the Empire was primarily human demographically, though many other species were enslaved or otherwise subjugated by it. Apart from its vast armies, the Empire’s power derived from its witch-priestesses, shadowbinders and necromancers. Enemies would find their own shadows attacking them or deserting to join enemy forces; shrouds of darkness would herald the arrival of Penumbral armies; Penumbral cavalry was known to ride tenebrous horses into battle. he city was finally destroyed in the Third Patchwork War by the allied forces of Hex, Erubescence, New Ulthar, and Teratopolis. Somehow, however, the city was not permanently destroyed, but rather passed into a spectral state, some say as the result of a final ritual on the part of the Imperatrix herself. Every time it was exoricsed, it would return to the deep Ethereal, only to manifest again, sometimes centuries later, to haunt another of its vanquishers. Over a hundred years past it had afflicted Erubescence, but the vampires had cast it back into shadow.
And now, it seemed, Penumbra had returned, this time to menace Hex.
“I think so,” Caulis said grimly. “It’s come back again.”
“It would explain why Silas seemed to ‘cut in and out’ when we listened in using Granny Midnight,” Armand said. “If he was possessed by a ghost, as those people were back int the Catacombs…”
“Then Granny would only ‘pick him up’ when he was speaking,” Caulis said. “If the ghost was speaking instead, it wouldn’t be his voice. He must be… unaware of his own possession, or something.”
The party had, for a moment, seemed to have forgotten Snuff, Valentina Nettlecrave’s taxidermy owl familiar.
“I will alert the rest of the Hexad Council at once,” the familiar chirped with the lich’s voice. “Did we acquire the Book of Ghosts?”
“It wasn’t even there!” Sister said.
Meanwhile, Alabastor’s ghost drifted down into his corpse, temporarily possessing the now-dead shell. With a monumenal gasp that spewed blood across Amrand’s carpet, the corpse sat up.
“MOTHER OF SPIDERS!” Sister said, starting backwards. “I thought you were dead, Alabastor.”
“Sorry,” Alabastor said, coughing more blood. “I think I am actually. I’m just possessing my body for the time being. I’ve got the Book of Ghosts. That is, my ghost-form does. It’s Ethereal.”
“Of course,” Valentina said through Snuff. “I will send for Melchior. Meanwhile, Silas is compromised, and must be removed from office at once. Meet me at the Hall of the Hexad Council as soon as possible.” Snuff flew from the window.
“So, Alabastor, you’re…” Caulis said.
“Dead,” Alabastor said. “Yeah. I realized the Book must be in the Ethereal. And if we didn’t get it quickly, those other ghosts would, the ones from Penumbra. I realized – all those spirits we saw down there, in the Catacombs, the Book of Ghosts was generating them, so I knew I’d come back like this.” He examined his dead limbs. “Is there a way I could… come back?”
“The phoenix-ash of Roost,” Armand said. “If you have a fortune to spend.”
“There are rumours of certain rituals,” Sister said. “Secret spells, miracles the Mother of Spiders grants her most loyal priestesses. Doubtless they have costs of their own – and who knows if the priestesses would agree to raise a gnome.”
“There are the resurrection pods below Hex, that we found in the Asylum of the Old City,” Caulis said. “But I think they’ve all been used recently – I’m not sure how long it takes them to recharge.”
As they talked, a shimmer appeared in the air in the middle of the parlour room, and suddenly the mechanical spider-like apparatus containng Master Melchior’s brain materialized in the middle of the room. It swivelled towards Alabastor.
“Aha! You have the Book of Ghosts!” the ancient archwizard said, his voice a mechanical croak. It extended a claw. “May I see it?”
Alabastor, still dazed, held out the Ethereal book, appearing to hold out an empty hand to the rest of the party. The eldritch lenses that were Melchior’s eyes focused, and a telekinetic spell plucked the tome from Alabastor’s fingers.
“Well done,” Melchior said, the book hovering before him. “Here is your payment, as promised.” A purse of coins was deposited from within the depths of the mechanical contraption. Before any of the rest of the Company could object, Melchior had teleported back to his study.
“Damn,” Armand said. “Well, there goes any hope of keeping the books from Melchior.”
“I’m sorry,” Alabastor said, shaking his head. “I didn’t think he’d just… disappear like that.” He stood up. “I still seem to be a ghost, even without the Book nearby. That’s good.”
“We need to get to the Hall of the Hexad Council,” Sister said. “We’ll worry about the book later.”
The party left Armand’s townhouse in the Dreamers’ Quarter and headed east into the middle of the city, towards the government district.
After threading their way through the black back-streets, the party entered the Hall of the Hexad Council, discovering the guardians had been rendered inert by some spell. They hurried on, into the maion hall.
Within the cavernous council chamber, a chaotic scene met them. Valentina Nettlecrave floated in the air, the illusion that gave her the semblance of a young girl flickering away, revealing something of the embalmed lich beneath; her skirts billowed as she levitated, counterspelling as Silas Thamiel, in the centre of the room, spat spells. Scorch marks and strange debris – patches of ice, a twisted metal chair floating in the air, a swarm of dead imps in a pool of demonic blood, an area of the floor transmuted to mud – spoke of the magical battle that had been waging in the chamber. Arabella Sickle, meanwhile, was chanting an Infernal prayer, calling on the Chthonic Gods to drive the spirit out of her lover, Silas – a diabolic exorcism. As the party watched, the Councillor’s body spasmed and twitched and something began to emerge – a spirit, translucent, raging, in the form of a woman clad in the Imperial regalia of Penumbra.
Sister acted fast, calling on the Mother of Spiders; webs shot from her sleeves, and a swarm or spectral arachnids flew forth, scuttling over the body of the Penumbral ghost and rapidly cocooning her in their ectoplasmic webbing. The spiders suspended the struggling wraith above the Council floor; Silas toppled, unconscious.
Arabella snapped her fingers, and a pair of demonic servitors manifested.
“Take that thing away,” she declared, pointing to the cocoon. “Put in one of the warded cells. We’ll interrogate it later.”
Valentina drifted to the floor. “Thank you, Sister,” she said. “That was… timely.”
“Happy to be of help,” Sister said.
A brief colloquy took place; it was decided that Silas would be sent to the Institute for the Magically Insane for the time being, to be examined carefully, his mind having been greatly strained by ghostly possession by the Penumbral spirit. In the meantime, the Council had grave business to attend to: the return of Penumbra posed an existential threat to Hex’s safety.
“As the city’s Inquisitor, Sister, you must extend your search not only to members of the Order of Icelus, but to any Penumbral spies that may be hiding in the city,” Valentina said. “Other spirits are certain to have infiltrated Hex… I may have some means of detecting them, but I must consult the Book of Ghosts, now that Melchior has secured it. For now, though, those of you who are still mortal are no doubt in need of rest. The Variegated Company has done a great service to this city, once again.”
Of course, not everyone in the Variegated Company was still mortal. The restless spirit of Alabastor Quan, unable to sleep and still possessing the shell of his body (magically preserved, now, with Armand’s assistance), wandered into the Feypark, in search of one of those intersections of leylines that frays the boundary betwixt material reality and Faerie, where verminous things crept – agents of Queen Mab, Alabastor’s fey patron.
“Hello there, Mister Quan,” a buzzing voice said, his pitch whining and yawing radically. “You’re looking a bit… peaky.”
The Duke of Bees – Queen Mab’s ambassador to Hex – stepped from the shadows of a twisted willow tree.
“You have died in the service of Queen Mab,” the Duke proclaimed. “Will you not take your place at her court?”
“I have things to do,” Alabastor said. “Unfinished business, as they say. I need a body. A permanent one.”
The Duke cocked his head, bees flitting from the holes therein. “You don’t like the one you have?” He scanned the park, his tawny eyes alighting on the slumbering figure of a homeless man. “Here’s one. Pop into that. What’s the problem.”
“No, I want this body back – but, you know, alive.”
“Hmm. Well. Queen Mab might have some remedy for your condition… but she will expect something in return.”
“I understand.”
“I believe you may recall a certain conversation you and I had aboard Genial Jack, at the little auction you put on.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, indeed. My request stands. Place a surviellance seed in the throne room of King Balor in Bezoar Croak.” He opened a hand, containing a black seed; this time, Alabastor took it.
“And in exchange, the Queen will give this body life again?”
“I’ll see what I can arrange,” the Duke said. “Now, I really must be off. There are strange things afoot tonight in Hex.” With that, he melted back into the shadows, leaving only a vague smell of honey. Alabastor tucked the seed into his waistcoat and started back for the city.
Exhausted, Caulis returned to its home, the former tower of its creator, the wizard Hargrym’s. Upon entering its study, the hmunculus perceived in the darkness a shadowy figure, seated in its creator’s chair. The figure twisted round, and Caulis could see that it was Hargrym himself, his spectral form wrapped in spiked chains, the barbs viciously piercing his skin, the iron links trailing off into thin air behind him. He muttered horribly to himself, and then something unseen pulled at his chains and he shrieked, his eyes bulging wide.
“Caulis,” he said. “My homunculus! How you have grown… I see you have taken up my mantle, continued my studies.”
“I’ve done my best,” Caulis said, uneasy. Did Hargyrm know of the part the homunculus had played in his death?
“I am here on the bidding of the Archdemon known as Moloch,” Hargrym intoned. Blood trickled from his face from the barbs. “He has sent me with a message. As my creation you are responsible for my debts. I died before I could repay Moloch, who furnished me with one of his Sanguineous Scriptures.”
The chains rattled.
“I see,” Caulis said. “I suppose I should have guessed I wouldn’t be rid of you so easily…” it muttered.
“Here is what you must do, or else end up as you see me now, joining your creator in damnation. As you know, six Archdemons have a contract with Hex: with Astaroth, Demogorgon, Lilith, Merihem, Belphegor, and Orobas. In exchange for their assistance, Hex sends them its damned souls.
“Hell is currently teetering on the brink of civil war. There are three factions, united around the infernal cities of Dis, Pandemonium, and Tartarus. Moloch fights for Dis, while the Six rally at Pandemonium. The dead of Hex swarm to their ranks.”
Caulis nodded. It was, of course, familiar with Infernal politics: those at Dis, including Moloch, wished to restore Hell to its ancient state, when the Kings of Hell ruled their various realms, and a a Sovereign, the Prince of Darkness, ruled over all; those at Pandemonium wished to maintain the current Commonwealth of Hell; while those shadows who stirred at Tartarus wished to return to the Elder Days when the primordial Titans of old bickered in endless anarchy.
“It is your job, dear Caulis, to alter this state of affairs,” Hargrym continued. “Beneath the Church of Belphegor here in Little Pandemonium, there is a machine, a device known as the Soul Conduit. Belphegor’s followers created this mechanism to divert souls from Hex to Belphegor’s domain; even now they are joined together to become part of his infernal war-engines. But, it would take but a small adjustment of the Soul Conduit to modify this flow of the damned, diverting their transmigration not to Pandemonium, but to unhallowed Dis and the realm of Moloch.”
Hargrym retched violently, and produced what looks like a punch-card for an Analytical Engine, inscribed with an eldritch program.
“All you must do, my creation, is place this card in the Soul Conduit in place of the one already there. Doubtless the sabotage will be discovered eventually. But in the meantime, the souls of the damned will surge to Moloch’s domain, while Belphegor’s will be deprived. The difference may be enough to sway some stygian battle soon to come.”
With that, the ghost dissipated back into the aether.
“Titania curse him…” Caulis said, picking up the punch-card. It would need some help with this job – help from those skilled in infiltration.
The next day, Caulis met up with some of its companions – Garvin, Sister, Armand, and Alabastor – and explained its encounter with its creator’s spirit. Together, the group formed a plan to sneak into the Church of Belphegor, and swap out the punch-card.
Sister, ever the theologian, described more of Belphegor and his worship. Belphegor was one of the six Archdemons Hex had made a formal contract with, consigning one sixth of their damned souls to his care in exchange for his patronage, along with Astaroth, Demogorgon, Lilith, Merihem, and Orobas. He was the demon of invention, wealth, and the virtue of sloth: by definition, machines save labour, allowing the inventor to produce goods and money without actively engaging in work. Belphegor was honoured alongside the other Chthonic Gods at the Infernal Basilica, but also had a separate church in his name. Portions of the temple were open to the public, who were free to use its many marvelous inventions, provided they donate to the Church.
The Church of Belphegor had an intense rivalry with the Cult of the Magistra, whose clergy are also skilled with machines and mathematics. Though the two religions had many superficial similarities, their ethics and approach to technology were very different. The Magistra’s Cult emphasized reason, rationality, and the divine order inherent in the universe, which they held to be a kind of grand simulation programmed by the Magistra herself, the clockwinder-goddess. In contrast, Belphegor was a deity of undisciplined creation and transgression, holding that Nature itself should be forcibly converted from organic into mechanical forms.
The group began by casing the Church, heading north across the Bridge of Sins. They found the Church at the border of Mainspring, Caulchurch, and Little Pandemonium, on the corner of Brimstone Avenue and the Street of Tongues; it rose from a wreath of pungent industrial smoke, the staring brass visage of the Archdemon peering through the miasma of smog belched forth from the chimneys sprouting from the temple’s roof. Even from outside, the sound of whirring clockwork, grinding gears, and bubbling liquid was audible, alongside the mechanical drone of infernal hymns. Crimson light flickered through the windows of the building and illuminated the dome of iron and glass at its centre.
Garvin entered the Church discretely – not actively concealing himself, but drawing as little attention to himself as possible. Past a small atrium opened the nave of the Church, running like an iron throat from the visage of Belphegor to the round dome over the chancel. Priests of Belphegor were evident here and there, some drifting on levitating metal discs, others scuttling on mechanical arachnoid chairs. Their bodies were swathed in the red robes of the order; what little protruded, however, seemed as much machine as living tissue, for the clockborg flamines augmented their bodies with mechanical substitutions as they rose in the clergy’s ranks. Wax-cylinder machines croaked a constant prayer to the Archdemon of invention. Two transepts ran the length of the nave; each semitransept contained one of the ingenious machines of Belphegor’s priesthood. These four devices were accessible to the public by monetary donation. Garvin spent some time examining these: a gigantic clockwork baboon money-changer, which swapped Hexian guineas for pieces-of-bone and vice versa for a small payment of blood; a two-headed hellhound made of bronze which would whisper the current market value of any commodity from one head when said commodity was placed in the mouth of the other; an enigmatic bronze serpent capable of refining and improving objects; and some kind of duplication machine in the form of a bronze elephant-dragon, capable of replicating an object provided it and its exact value in coins were placed in the open maw of the machine.
The chancel of the Church of Belphegor occupied the space beneath a dome of tinted glass, smudged with soot from the smoking machines below. An altar was set before a massive furnace that filled the air with heat and smoke; the furnace was cast in the shape of an open mouth. A huge chimney ran from the furnace to the ceiling and out into the open air. Petitioners of Belphegor prayed before the altar and cast sacrifices into the furnace: specifically, things which were broken or failed or malformed, from rust-eaten spoons to defective toys. Adjacent to the altar was a great iron door, with a demonic head for a lock.
Presiding over the congregation was a clicking, sibilant thing that might once have been a man, but now resembled something between a clockwork cockroach and an oversized doll. It scuttled on mechanized legs, a humanoid torso emerging from where its beetle-half’s head would be; though a glimpse of flesh at the neck and hands confirmed the thing iwas still partially organic, the buzzing servos and hissing steam-valves that comprised its abdomen suggested most of its organs have been replaced with mechanical alternatives. The High Priest led a prayer in the Infernal tongue:
“Assembled petitioners of Belphegor, give thanks to the Father of Invention, Lord of the Gap and Minister of Toil. For he has given us the means to prosper without drudgery, to flourish without sacrifice, to cheat miserly mother nature of her treasures, jealously hoarded against her own children.”
The priest proceeded to sermonize, providing an eschatological vision of a world to come, a world of beautiful machines, efficient and perfect, which would replace all organic life. Here there would be no cruelty and no competition, and all would live a life of indolence and pleasure, nourished by the machines which granted them their every desire.
Meanwhile, outside, Alabastor had enacted his part of the plan. Now that he was a ghost, he could possess the bodies of the living. After luring an initiate of Belphegor out from the Church with Charm Person, Alabastor enacted his plan, flitting from his corpse into the body of Edwin, a young initiate of Belphegor with a mechanical arm. They placed Alabastor’s body in Armand’s parlour, via the Portal Chalk; they would be unable to use the chalk to escape the Church, since it did not function on ground specifically hallowed (or unhallowed) to a deity that was not the Antinomian.
To reach the lower level, the party would have to pass the iron door. A distraction was needed, so while Sister cast Past Without Trace to weave the party garments of shadow, Caulis’s psuedodragon familiar Eleyin served as a proxy for the homonculus, allowing it to cast Major Image, producing the illusion of smoke issuing from one of the machines. In the resulting commotion, amidst cries of “FIRE!” and panicked petitioners, the group entered the Inner Sanctum; the lock, they learned, was opened by forfeiting a small quantity of blood.
A spiral stair led down from the chancel to the Inner Sanctum. The anteroom of the sanctum was a round chamber, its walls adorned with magical murals depicting a world of trees and verdant hills being slowly harvested, cut up, processed, and replaced with a world of machines, endlessly. At the ceiling, a small clockwork device pivoted this way and that; within it, staring bulbously, was a humanoid eye, bloodshot and staring. This they slipped carefully past, walking to avoid its pivoting gaze and entering one of several doors.
The party entered an atrium, with a wall of shimmering force on the far side, and a curious mosaic on the floor:
After some experimentation, the party solved the puzzle, bypassing the wall of force by walking over tiles that added up to 7: 3+4-2+2. Within the room beytond, tubes from above snaked up to the nave; these deposited coins into a literal pit of money visible below, the door leading to a balcony overlooking this gleaming hoard. Another security camera looked on from above, ensuring that no one could steal from the hoard.
“Hmm, tempting, but not what we’re looking for,” Garvin said.
The party returned to the atrium and eyed a control panel by the door, appearing to show five different positions with a lever. Alabastor experimentally pulled the lever down to “five.”
Suddenly, the entire room shifted, as elaborate clockwork began grinding away behind the walls. With a shudder, the entire complex began to shift, the Inner Sanctum’s rooms rearranging themselves so that the room itself was relocated to the fifth floor. Other markings on the control panel seemed to indicate the location of different rooms, but without knowing the system of numbers marking which room as which, the party didn’t know where the Soul Conduit was located.
“Belphegor’s the demon of Sloth…” Sister said. “His initiates must resent having to walk around. So instead the rooms move.”
“It must have been hell to design,” Alabastor said, through Edwin’s lips. “Not to mention stupidly expensive to build. And there must be a ton of empty, wasted space all around this place, so that the rooms can swap places without colliding with one another… they really are lazy.”
The party proceeded to explore more of the complex, playing with the levers and creeping carefully
Heat blased them upon entering a vast chamber of iron and stone, an industrial foundry filled with cauldrons of molten metal, poured by a host of scuttling half-clockwork demons into intricate moulds to form machine-parts. The twelve demons are directed by two initiates of Belphegor armed with mechanized prods like pitchforks that periodically zapped the creatures with magical energy. Alabastor, in Edwin’s body, spoke to them briefly and managed to glean a few details of the other rooms, but given the constant movement of chambers, the Sanctum had no “layout” as such. Just off the foundry they found a foreman’s office containing records of different parts being produced, records of the various initiates of Belphegor, several spare unholy symbol of Belphegor, a foreman’s black and crimson robe, and an extra copy of the Hammer Key. The robe was donned by Sister, and the party helped themselves to the other items.
Two doors led form the foundry, one admitting them to a massive factory churning with activity beneath the streets; conveyer belts of parts deposited gears, springs, and other components into large cauldrons. Creatures like misshapen lumps of flesh, riddled with whirring machines, then assembled these components, though the devices they were producing were inscrutable – possibly themselves components of some even larger machine. An initiate of Belphegor presided over the assembly line from a catwalk above.
The party continued exploring, passing through room after room, sometimes changing levels with the control panel, and managed to acquire additional robes from a supply closet, disguising the party further. They found a chamber where a series of long metal slabs were arrayed; upon several, sleeping forms were evident, hooked up to elaborate machines directed by several priests of Belphegor. The priests used the intricate clockwork scalpels and automaton arms to replace the body parts of those on the slabs before them: limbs were sawn off and replaced with metal ones; viscera were gutted and replaced with churning gears and pumps; eyes were popped out and replaced with clicking mechanical lenses. In another room, a machine took the form of a sinister chair with a headrest, surrounded by a madness of cogs and pistons, all currently still. Shelves around the edges of the room contained numerous scrolls, each bearing what looked to be a prophecy. They read several:
“The Bat and the Bear will soon consume one another.”
“The Voices of the Dead will freeze the Six-Sided City.”
“The Dreams of the God-Fish are caused by the Nightmare-Spider and the Vengeful Ghost.”
“Mooncalf Valley will flood when the Mountain snores.”
“The Vagrant will triumph.”
“Beware the Witch of the Iron Wood.”
“Interesting,” Sister said. “I wonder how accurate they are?”
“Dreams of the God-Fish,” Garvin said. “Sounds like Jack to me. The Nightmare Spider – that could be the Order of Icelus…”
“…and the Vengeful Ghost is Penumbra!” Caulis said. The prophecies, it seemed, were reasonably accurate. The party snatched several more for perusal later.
Another room was occupied by a vast machine that looked a bity like a printing press and a bit like a gigantic bronze lamprey. A large stack of books sat on a table near the lamprey’s maw, and another at its tail, past a series of mechanical arms. Sister perused some of the books at the tail end.
“They’re all in Infernal,” she said.
Experimentally, Caulis placed one of the books into the maw. The machine grumbled to life, devouring the book, digesting it, and then excreting in the form of pages which were then bound by the arms. The text had been translated into Infernal; the original was lost.
A machine that looked a bit like a sausage maker crossed with a gigantic bronze snail filled the next chamber; a mechanical lift led up to the top of the machine, where an initiate of Belphegor periodically dumped a crateful of bodies parts into the snail’s radula. A second initiate pulled a lever, and the machine whirred, grinding up the bones and flesh deposited into it and then extruding a fleshy mixture from the snail’s underside, which formed themselves into the shape of a servitor-demon. Mechanical arms then augmented the creature with clockwork parts.
In yet another chamber, a three-dimensional map of Hell filled the floor; the door led onto to a mechanized balcony with a small control panel. Garvin climbed up, discovering a slot in the control panel for a program card. Hundreds of other cards would be found throughout the room on shelves, each with an Infernal symbol. Armand translated, and the party realized the cards changed the map, each programmed with a different city; the illusion on the floor shifted as the card was changed.
“There’s one here for Penumbra,” Armand said, taking out a punch-card. Tentatively, Garvin inserted the card.
Instantly the illusory map rearranged itself, transforming to present a craggy mountain which everyone recognized as Mount Shudder, the grim western peak outside of Hex. Perched on its slopes was the spectral form of a metropolis, seeping up from a crack in the cliffs like a strange infection, wraith-like architecture spilling from the chasm and across the slope.
“Penumbra is on Mount Shudder,” Sister said. “Of course… the mountain is seething with necromantic energy. We need to tell the Hexad Council.”
“I still need to reprogram this Soul Conduit,” Caulis said. “Come on, let’s finish up and get out of here.
The party continued their explorations, discovering an electric sigil buzzing with energy, inscribed on a dais on the floor. To one side was an analytic engine and a library of punch cards.
“A teleportation symbol,” Armand said. “Should make for a swift escape, if we need it.”
The next chamber revealed yet another mathematical puzzle:
This, too, the party circumvented this puzzle, tracing a route across the tiles: 2 x 9 – 7 – 5 x 1 =6. Garvin crept through into the chamber beyond, Caulis having given him the program card.
Something stirred in the hot gloom. There was a smell of ozone and brimstone and metal. Greenish light flickered and there was a muted scream, and a sound of whirring machinery, a sucking organic squelch – a soul, directed by the machine to Belphegor’s domain. The machine that filled the room was made of flesh and bronze and adamant, a chaotic sprawl of gears and pistons: the Soul Conduit. Intermeshed into this abominable mechanism are humanoid bodies, their faces masked. They made constant adjustments to the machine, turning dials and knobs, pulling levers, and otherwise tending to the thrumming, gyrating monster of metal: the ultimate fusion of workers with the means of production.
Garvin approached the Soul Conduit, scanning its myriad dials and knobs, and located the program card slot. Crouched to avoid the gaze of the many workers integrated into the machine, he stealthily removed the card, replacing it with the one Caulis had given him.
As he turned to leave, one of the masked figures twisted to look at him; with a start Garvin recognized him as none other than Sprigley Gilette, retired member of the Variegated Company, former adventuring companion and, in the aftermath of his mental trauma in the Librarian Asylum below Mainspring, a Chthonic Cultist. The group had witnessed Sprigley’s conversion and gradual self-augmentation with a certain trepidation, but Garvin had never expected to find him so thoroughly… integrated.
“Is that you, Garvin?” Sprigley asked. “What are you doing down here?”
“Oh! Ah, Sprigley. I’m, ah, a new initiate to the Order of Belphegor. Just getting the tour, you know?”
“This area isn’t usually permitted for neophytes,” Sprigley said.
“Well, I’d better leave then, I suppose! Ah, good seeing you, old friend!” He slipped out of the chamber as swiftly as possible.
Garvin returned to his party members and the group input the coordinates for the teleport room. They began moving, but moments later, an alarmed blared and the elevator ground to a halt.
“Shit,” Garvin said. “We’re made. Let’s get out of here!”
A mad scramble ensued, the alarms blaring, as the group opened the door and climbed out of the elevator into the central cylindrical shaft around which the structure’s rooms were arrayed. Near the top, they could see figures in an open door, pointing madly; one fired a weapon, and a bullet ricocheted off the metal walls. Employing a rope and Garvin’s wall-walking boots, along with Fly spells, the party made their way up the cylinder to an open doorway and ducked inside, making their way to the teleportation chamber. They input the punchcard for Fiend’s College – one of several potential destinations – and stepped inside – but only Alabastor was teleported correctly; the other party members found themselves instead teleported into a cramped cell.
“Damn it!” Sister swore. Garvin, fortunately, was already picking the lock; he emerged in a room whose walls were covered with mirrors, each one showing not a reflection but a view of some part of the Church: clearly the viewpoints of the clockwrok securirty devices. Garvin quickly dispatched the acolyte tending the controls and glanced quickly at the cameras, which revealed utter bedlam as initiates of Belphegor scrambled to find the intruders. Manning the security devices, Garvin was able to open the other holding cells and re-start the elevators, allowing them to return to the teleportation chamber; before they did they looted a nearby arsenal, discovering a series of rust bombs and mysterious clockwork scarabs.
“Why did Alabastor get out and not us?!” Caulis asked.
“There must be a condition,” Armand reasoned. “A symbol of some kind which the teleporter reads, and activates properly only if supplied. Like a password…”
“Like an unholy symbol of Belphegor?” Sister said. “He was possessing Edwin, so he was wearing one.”
“Worth a shot,” Garvin said, as heavy footfalls sounded overhead, Belphegorites still searching madly for intruders.
They donned stolen unholy symbols, stepped into the teleporter pad…
…and emerged in the vestibule of Fiend’s College, Alabastor waiting for them nervously.
“Close call,” Garvin said.
“But we fulfilled the contract,” Caulis noted. “Hargrym’s shade will be appeased.”
Illustration by 
“Snuff.” Illustration by 
“Abjectus.” Illustration by 
“Vermihydra.” Illustration by 
“The Corpsenurse.” Illustration by 
They announced themselves at the gates of the Council to the gigantic golems that stood guard, insisting that their business was both pressing and secret. After a bit of persuasion – assisted by Alabastor’s silver tongue – the guards relented, and the group entered the Hexad Council chamber, interrupting what seemed an intense argument over repairs to the docklands following the small tidal waves caused by Genial Jack’s nightmares.
“If a conspiracy is afoot, it may well be that some foreign power is behind it. Hex has many enemies. It may be wise to dispatch the Warders to begin seeking them out. Perhaps a Committee for Hexian Security should be formed, to defend us against these insidious forces.”
“I must admit to having my doubts as to your capabilities. But it seems as if disaster has been neatly averted, with the blessing of the Navigators. This Council’s trust in you was not misplaced. I am disturbed, however, by your description of this Lengian, a worshipper of Icelus. Hex values freedom of belief, but the powers of this order openly violate another freedom – freedom from psychic violation. The mind is sacrosanct.”
“I agree with my colleagues that these reports are disturbing, and I share their concern for the city’s well-being. However, I am concerned that if we involve the Warders directly in further investigations, the conspirators may be alerted and slip free before we can find them. I suggest we consult with the Institute of Omens, and the Soothsayers of Saint Monstrum’s Cathedral. They may be able to use divination to produce some clue as to the identity of the conspirators. In the meantime, I suggest we entrust the Variegated Company with further inquiries, and grant them acting Special Investigator status, reporting strictly to this Council.”
Barnabas – plump, intelligent, appraising – fidgeted in his seat.
“The Night Queen has always seen Genial Jack as an equal,” Parthenia put in. “Unless her thinking has altered in some fundamental way, I cannot imagine her wishing him ill.”
“Yes, this ritual!” Valentina said, having been silent the whole meeting. “Where did you find it?”
“I’ll send Eleyin to take a closer look,” Caulis said, sending the psuedodragon familiar to spy on the strange pair. One was a short, fat figure, in a black frock coat with a huge slouch hat shadowing their features, the other, tall and thin, a grey gown swathing her skeletal frame. The little figure walked with a walking stick topped by a cat’s skull. The homunculus reported back what it had seen through the familiar’s eyes.
“Why, Monsieur Gobble, we catch them in a trap,” Slake declared. Her grin began to widen, and suddenly proboscii juddered from her palms like obscene knives, a pair of mosquito wings sprouting from her back. Monsieur Gobble doffed his cap, revealing a grotesque second mouth gaping at the top of his skull, an obscene tongue tasting the air, scenting for prey…
Battle was joined, vicious and swift. Spells flew, Miri firing with two wands, Caulis and Alabastor slinging blasts of puissance, the homunculus entangling the newly spawned imps with magical vines, the gnome distracting Gobble with illusions. Comet wove through the carnage, blood spattering his magical hammer, while Armand and Sister cast from the sidelines and Garvin, flitting magically to a high balcony, continued to snipe with his crossbow.
“Special Investigators.” Illustration by 
Comet tried his hand at several cage-fights, winning several and surprising the crowd greatly; Sister won a round of Leper’s Dice, coming away with an extra pincered limb, won from a karkinoi gambler. The group then turned to the exciting shark-races, held in tubes of sea-water winding through the Coils. They placed bets on sharks like Gnasher, Beauty Queen, Mister Smush, Blue Lightning, Bloodlord, and Her Eminence – as well as a mysterious shark, “Carl,” entered by Yam, in fact a subtle illusion the mischievous gnome wizard was conjuring. Bets made, a tiny automated submersible was placed in the tube, leaking blood; the sharks, gnashing their teeth, were off. Yam’s illusory shark won the race handily, earning the gnome an impressive number of dubloons, Jackburg’s currency. The race-attendants began inspecting this mysterious new shark, but the party was saved by a sudden tremor, the “ground shaking,” glasses shattering, cards and chips flying from tables. It was as if all of Jack were quaking, an a monstrous groan was audible, the whale himself crying out in the night.
his twisted left arm, and his slug-like lower body, mutations caused by the alchemical poisons Hex introduced to the water of that city during one of its many wars – sold a variety of salves and oils, including medicinal tinctures; Yam purchased some “salve of sentience,” which animated any object it was rubbed upon, like furniture polish.
Miri, the Sage, recognized the memory instantly – the Great Fire of Inner Jackburg, a conflagration caused by the release of a clutch of wyrmlings, accidentally hatched in the marketplace. The wyrmlings were eventually charmed by a group of visiting enchanters from Tetractys, but the death toll was in the hundreds. She quickly explained this to the party, even as swooping shapes flitted through the fire and smoke – the wyrmlings, recreated in Jack’s dream, spreading fire everywhere.
The party leapt into action, Sister flapping her wings and taking to the air in search of the assassin firing at the enchanters. The wyrmlings hurled fire, scorching Miri, who counterattacked with magic missiles. Yam, as the Demiurge, manifested a chain around one of the wyrmlings as it swept by, andmanaged to subdue it; Caulis cast a spell to charm one of the beasts, while Alabastor used a phantasmal force to subdue another.
They touched down on Chelicerae street and hurried to door 13; Alabastor picked the lock, then ducked a poisoned crossbow-bolt rigged to hit whoever opened the door.
Captain John “Deathtail” Winters, one of the auctioneers, hissed. “That den of horrors?” the ratfolk Captain chirped. “An ill-favouered labyrinth, infested with scum of the vilest sort.”
Entering the pyloric stomach, the air changed, becoming colder, sharper. The smell of ancient dust and a strong waft of stomach acid rose to meet the party. The district was built atop and around a series of pallid stone monoliths that loomed like many-eyes ghosts staring up from below, twisting ramps and walkways linking them. The newer structures accreted to these cyclopean towers were made from the same flotsam and jetsam as the rest of Inner Jackburg, but here something about their construction was different, the angles subtly off, the bridges too crooked, the doors and windows askew. Therewere snarls of shantytown that the adventurers’ eyes slide off, making them dizzy.
A cluster of scaly, serpentine creatures like monstrous eels blocked the alley’s exit, their puckered mouths drooling, piscine eyes wide and hungry.
Captain Deathtail. Illustration by Caulis’ player, 
Sister’s Strike. Illustration by Caulis’ player, 
Ice Shark. Illustration by Caulis’ player, 
Chef’s Special. Illustration by Caulis’ player, 
The party spoke to the owner, Captain and Curator Nodus VIII, a polypoid himself – dapper, debonair, and exquisitely mannered, eighth of his line, some fifteen-hundred years old, with the finest taste on the high seas After Sister casually dropped Parthenia Quell’s name and they showed the Captain a sample of the goods they intended to auction, he gladly put on an auction for the adventurers in the Auction Hall. This was a glorious hall on the bottom of the boat, where the floor had been partially replaced with panes of reinforced glass, allowing attendants to look down at the vertiginous layers of Jackburg below – the teeming bustle of the Borborygmus Bazaar, and below the glass domes and swaying seaweed forests of the Gutgardens.
Comet, meanwhile, was conversing with none other than Pieter “Wormbeard” Sluk: a hulking, amorphous creature with a body seemingly made out of semi-solid sludge that squelched through the room, although thankfully he did not leave a trail of slime – the mud seemed to be part of his body. A huge beard of fat, writhing earthworms the size of a forearm wriggled on his massive chin.