You, whom have stumbled upon this most august tome of illumination, must find yourself in a dank, dark dungeon from where many have ventured, but none returned. It is here, without a doubt, that you have recently rifled through my remains and picked up what amounts to my personal memoirs. As I'm likely dead, I won't likely take offense to this pilfering of my belongings, but I would appreciate it if you would haul my remains topside for a proper interment.
-Preface of 'Planes, Gates, and Horse Carriages' the Travels of Dr. Elias Manshack
I had recently left from my studies with the enlightened monks of the Hanamiyaku monks, in the far eastern lands of Kosaku, where they had instilled in this humble vessel a rigid discipline and an even greater sense of personal balance. I was doubly blessed then, when I attended their annual festival to honor the rice goddess, Inari. This would begin the start of my troubles and lead me to the ever terrifying realm I now find myself in. For on the night of the festival, when all in attendance would celebrate and attend the shrine of the rice goddess, she manifested, and for reason yet inexplicable to your humble author, took a shine to one foreign scholar.
I had never had the pleasure of being romanced by a deity in the past, and for the rest of my days (which, most likely won't be very many more at all.) I will scratch my head in wonder as to what possessed a deity of the notoriously xenophobic people of Kosaku into a mortal romance. I had no intention of spurning the deity, I am not so rude I will not entertain the notions of my hosts, and I found Inari a delightful companion.
Little did I realize that another ceremony was only a few months later, to offer the goddess a mortal husband for a time. The logic behind this escapes me, but again, who am I to judge others? When I was not among the contestants, all Kosaku nobility of one sort or another, Inari was driven to such a rage that the rice fields immediately turned fallow. This had the effect of enraging my hosts, and I fled the town as fast as I could, I have never been a particularly fast runner, though ironically, I can thank my mentors at the monastery with the often painful physical regime they enforced. My flight would be halted by Inari herself, high among the mountains of the realm. Ever the eloquent charmer, I sincerely begged for my life and for such a superb specimen of deific glory to spare me any punishment she had in mind at that particular time. Looking back, Inari's forgiveness came entirely too easily, and I would find out why shortly.
I found myself cast into a fathomless void, only to awake in a sprawling city whose design was as incredible as it was painful. A plethora of architectural styles from a million different planes of existence and...perceptions jammed together to create an setting that induced vertigo that took not a short amount of time to overcome.
This was Sigil, the City of Doors, as I would later come to know it. I am no stranger to planar travel, I have read many texts on the subject at the University of Eldenshire, and attended a conference of scholars on a world known as Faerun, and consider myself thoroughly versed on the subject. Confident that this would be a mere jaunt and that I would find myself home in no time, it took the city only a few moments to completely disabuse me of any preconceptions I previously held.
Penniless, and having lost my surgeons' tools to some daemonic figure dressed in the rags of a beggar, I took employment from the keeper of a local tavern, whose errand sent me into the bowels of the city itself. It was here I learned another fact of Sigil, that when one dies, one doesn't necessarily die. I do not quite comprehend this fact, other than I did indeed die, only to wake up on a table in a mortuary with a rather morose fellow standing over me. Where I learned that the nature of death in this realm deals with a book, yet death is still death. He continued to insist that I was indeed dead at the moment, and no amount of logical debate would change his mind on the matter, we finally agreed to disagree and parted ways amicably. I returned to the dark underbelly of the city to finish my task as what coin I had managed to scrounge was confiscated by my run-in with the 'Dustmen'. It would be on this second jaunt that I would encounter three very wonderful individuals. Mark Ovilion, a young man of some arcane talent, and his companions Corina and Norick. Perhaps I will elaborate on our adventures further in another entry, I'll merely say that I could not ask for better companions when dealing with a rather rude, whistling stone head, hordes of marauding goblinoids, and one very foul tempered sorcerer. I'd point out that I am no limp wristed pacifistic scholar, and ego argues that I go on about how I courageously faced these dangers on the front line alongside my companions, but I'd like to think humility is my greatest virtue, and as such I spent most of the time running in terror or cowering under the influence of some beguiling cantrip. It is therefore prudent of me to admit that without the aid of these three veterans, no doubt that 'Dustman's blasted book would have my name scribed prominently on one of it's pages.
((Huge thanks to Marek, Cor, and Norick for making a guy feel welcome!))
To Sigil and...Well, Just Sigil.
