Let’s check back in with our vicarious vicar, Father Jack.
It looks like he’s back in the Hill Cantons. Yes, that’s certainly the odour of
Marlankh, and we can see the familiar skyline of off-whitewashed buildings,
domed towers, and squatting there in the middle of it all like a great stone
toad is the big square Tomb of the City Gods.
Marlankh has been a bit of a puzzle for our foraying friar.
Little more than a month ago, during that dark time he ‘remembers’ as ‘The Dry
Days,’ Jack was quite shocked to discover he wasn’t in Wessex any longer. He
had only recently awoken sober in the Blue Rabbit, walked outside, and uttered “oh
hell, I’m still at that feckin’ abbey on the arse end of Cornwall,” when he was
whisked away by the vagaries of interdimensional instability. Although he had
already been to the Hill Cantons multiple times, this was the first time he
realised it wasn’t south-western Britain. He quickly came to the only
reasonable conclusion. He was in Hell.
The Dry Days are past now, of course, as fleeting wealth
always seems to find a way back into Jack’s pockets, but their influence has
had a lasting effect on the Father’s perception. He knows now that he isn’t
merely waking from another delirium, but has rather staggered through a gap in
the world he knows into Hades. And this Hades, unsurprisingly, is populated
with people he knows! Here is The Clown, The Dandy, and Warlock Spiderman. Not only are they in Hell, but worse, he
suspects them all of being French. And here too is one of the natives of this
City of Purgatory, the irrepressible Marzipan.
It doesn’t take many drinks in The Flaming Goat to
understand that mischief is afoot. Marzipan has unwittingly found himself bound
in matrimony to one of Marlankh’s other hellish denizens. Such unwelcome bonds
are not easily broken in the Netherworld, so the logical course of action
becomes immediately clear. Kidnap her and demand ransom from her wealthy
father. Jack is sure it made sense at the time, and anyway, what of it? One
path is as good as another when dealing with these Godless heathens of The Pit.
In hushed and soundly intoxicated tones, a plan begins to
coalesce in the smoke filled air of a back corner. The plan grows like a stubborn,
deep-rooted vine. The plan is detailed. The plan is complex. The plan is
completely over Father Jack’s head.
Even in the Bowels of Hell convention returns, and Jack spends
the next three days in accustomed fashion, alternately drinking and sleeping in
a hearthside chair at The Flaming Goat. Are those his erstwhile comrades at a
table nearby? Why yes, there’s Warlock Spiderman chatting up a woman! This must
be the She-Devil of Marzipan. And her sisters! With an expectoration of “girls!,”
Jack privately vows to pay more attention to the plan next time.
Hopefully the next plan hasn’t begun yet, because the next
thing our vague vicar recalls is standing in front of an illusory merchant
shop. Dandy Smallberries is doing his best to entice the She-Devil of Marzipan
to come inside. Seeking an antidote for her reluctance, Jack offers a bit of
the odd white powder he found in that subterranean laboratory in Outland. The
land of imprisonment and broken dreams. Curious, the She-Devil samples a bit of
the powder and is suitably enthralled. Entering the phantasmal doorway, her and
her brutish guardsman are both put solidly into slumber by the arcane doings of
Warlock Spiderman. A quick examination reveals demonic horns upon her retainer,
just as Father Jack knew it would. Thankfully, the brutish devil is dispatched
with haste.
 |
| updated map! |
While trying his best to see into the sisters’ window, Jack witnesses
the delivery of a note detailing a best reasonable course for the She-Devil’s
father. A sum of twelve thousand coins of some kind is recalled in some relation
to this. When next the man leaves his home, Jack, with his faithful torchbearer
Girly and the Clown’s man Ool, decides it best to follow. The man, a local
guildmaster, travels through Marlankh to a Gypsy Square, and from there mounts
the stairs of an old tenement. Could this be a den of assassins? Anything is
possible in this festering pit of Purgatory.
After a time, the guildmaster returns to his home, fuming
with anger. Not long after, we see him again making his way through the city to
the ramshackle tenement, and back up the stairs for another sheltered
assignation. Ah yes, more capital was required before the unknown congregation
would provide the service he was looking for. But what service? A rescue? A
mystic insight? A night of knives? Whatever it might be, it’s clearly not a
banking institution. That’s not just vodka Jack smells, it’s the pungent odour
of trouble.
Wisely drinking a bit more to further confound his path, our
furtive father makes another set of travels between Uptown Guildhouse and
Gypsysquare Tenement. A stream of armed toughs and ruffians go to and fro from
the upper floor of the rundown walkup. Assassins it is. Watching their backs,
the trio heads for the Warlock’s newly purchased slum-hold where the She-Devil
is bagged. Seeing that none of the thugs are watching the place, Father Jack
enters and gives a quick sermon on the dangers of coveting, and the healthful
benefits of avoiding wrath. Incidentally, that town about thirty miles north is
rumoured to be nice this time of year.
Here is Father Jack now, resting by a campfire miles North
of Marlankh, that city on the Edge of Perdition. Warlock Spiderman pines for
his lost love, Marzipan’s succubus. Perhaps Jack will cheer him with a soothing
homily. The poor man-thing has fallen for the creature. He laments that he
might never get the chance to “fill her up with his spider babies.” Perhaps
Jack won’t cheer him with a soothing homily.
With a quick prayer that he might again wake up “at the arse
end of Cornwall,” he takes a final drink and goes to sleep.
The Clown – Taurus Hell’s Heart by Cole Long
The Dandy – Meriwether Chambliss by Jeremy Duncan
Warlock Spiderman – Philip the Bloody by Evan Elkins
Marzipan – Manzafrain the Mountebank by Robert Parker
All others by Chris Kutalik
No comments:
Post a Comment