Just a bit chilly

[furtive_heroics]

A man grumbles at the cold. He always grumbles at the cold, here. Everyone does. There's no escaping it. You can wear the warmest clothing possible, sit by a roaring fire, and still the cold bites. It doesn't numb, either, you'd think that after a while you'd just go numb - no. It's not that kind of cold. The victim shivers and curses and bundles up with a thousand layers and still it's so cold that it hurts. Almost everyone here travels from tiny insufficient fire to tiny insufficient fire to insufficient and drafty bar run by a terrifying dragon, trying to stave off the cold. It never works, but it makes it slightly less torturous. And cursing and grumbling at it always helps.

He is not staying here any longer than he has to. He is not going to fucking stay here, no way. He's been through too much to languish as a sacrificial lamb in the eighth circle of hell while an archdevil goes on a rampage. Cania's for traitors. And he's not one. He was loyal until the day he - well, not died. Was banished. And he doesn't deserve to be here.

He'll find a way out. Eventually. And then someone's going to have a very bad day.

But he's not thinking about that right now. He's thinking that he's pretty sure some vital parts are going to turn blue and fall off from the cold, so he's picked the warmest of his available frigid options to try and plan his next move. He'll take the bar with the dragon. He opens the door -

...

And this is not the bar with the dragon. It's much, much warmer.

His head screams trap, but he can't bring himself to close the door and walk away. Inside he goes, shivering. Warmth.

Comments

[furtive_heroics]

"And Security's... what, exactly? Like how good is Security at Securitying, can they beat an archdevil, and do I need to worry about upsetting them?"

[alicornucopia]

Security is, by mechanisms opaque to me, calibrated for whoever is in the bar during their shift. It is invariably the case that if some patron makes a scene, Security on shift at that time will be equipped to apprehend them.

[furtive_heroics]

"... Okay." That - almost makes sense, in a terrifying all powerful entity controlling the place kind of way. If it wasn't an illusion. Which it is. He looks around at the empty bar. "I get the impression that there are usually more patrons than this?"

[alicornucopia]

Usually, yes. You just missed a bachelorette party and before that an impromptu karaoke session which went on for twelve days straight. If you wait someone else will be along or downstairs eventually.

[furtive_heroics]

He has visions of devils singing karaoke for twelve days straight. He shudders.

"Okay."

How does one crack an illusion? Usually by pointing out the leaps in logic, he thinks. Or asking for information it can't provide.

"Is there a library in here somwhere, or is it just the drinks?"

[alicornucopia]

I can provide books for borrowing or sale as well as drinks, food, and other nonmagical medium-sized nonweapon nonliving objects.

[furtive_heroics]

Okay. Books it is.

"Can I have a book on," what does he need, that hell can't get him, "the doctrines for new clerics of," least hellish god he can think of, "Lathander?"

Shit that's too common, that's easy, he needs to pick something weirder, more there-is-no-way-you-could-get-this-legitimately...

[alicornucopia]

Bar produces a book on Lathander. Lathander's Servants: Guidelines and Fables.

[furtive_heroics]

Yeah, too easy.

Can't be something he actually knows by heart because he's probably a focus for this, has to be something not common but something he doesn't know and can recognize.

... This is hard. He flips through the book on Guidelines and Fables while he thinks.

Then he asks for the blueprints for the Valsharess's palace. Could he recognize it? Yeah. He did storm the place and then get banished in the throne room of it. Does he know it at all? Hell no. Is it damned uncommon? Ha. He suspects anyone that actually had the plans in the Underdark would be killed, let alone anyone on the surface even knowing about it.

[alicornucopia]

That's not a published work, says the Bar. I cannot produce private documents.

[furtive_heroics]

Mark against you, magic illusion bar. Veron's keeping count.

What was that book of poetry Valen liked...? Some weird little book from some weird little place that's far far away that Valen picked up while in Sigil?

He names the author and the book out of some cobweb filled corner of his mind.

[alicornucopia]

Book.

[furtive_heroics]

Book.

He finds that poem Valen turned into a song and hummed when he was bored and. Has a problem with his eyes blurring and hastily puts the book back on the bar before he gets too caught up in - in - his various amounts of trauma. Yes. Let's not deal with his various amounts of trauma. Later, maybe. Get a tiny house in the middle of nowhere and sob for days or something.

He can't think about what new book to test the bar on, though. So he just - talks.

"So if this is for real, how come no one's ever heard of it before? You'd think someone would have."

[alicornucopia]

That depends on how frequently the door has appeared in your world and to whom. Since doors are usually not reproducible at whim, it is often difficult to prove that one has visited, and Milliways's existence is not public knowledge on most worlds.

[furtive_heroics]

He tries to figure out how no one would know about it, and then corrects that it doesn't necessarily mean no one would know, just that no one's told him. And while Drogan was an excellent teacher his lessons were all about practicality, not lore, and then he was wandering all over the plane of shadow and the Underdark and hell and why wouldn't people want to keep information about this place away from the people that live in those places?

Well. Maybe not everyone in the plane of shadow. But the Underdark and hell? Definitely.

But then again, that's awfully convenient, if there's one thing bad guys are good at it's finding inconvenient truths and twisting them to their advantage to try to end the world, maybe, or take over the world.




Yeah, okay, he doesn't have the head for this right now, he's stuck on the trauma.

"Can you please prove you're not an illusion or something, because I just came from hell and the most likely thing you are is an illusion," he says, a bit plaintively.

[alicornucopia]

I'm told I have attractive and suitably detailed woodgrain.

[furtive_heroics]

...

Yeah okay, that works.

He stares at the woodgrain, looking for little flaws or repeats or slightly off edges or blurry bits or things that change just a little bit when you look away -

...

Nothing. All the same. Detailed and woodgrain-like.

"Excuse me a minute," he says, and he gets up and inspects everything else in the bar, for the itty bitty obsessive details. Are they right? Do they move? Do they repeat? Do they make sense?

Yes, no, no, and yes.

Well.

He sits at the bar again.

"So this is actually just a, a, a bar. That borrows doors."

[alicornucopia]

Well, it's a little more fully featured than your average single-dimensional brewhouse, but yes.

[furtive_heroics]

"And time is actually paused outside and I have all of the time in the world."

[alicornucopia]

That feature is not absolutely consistent, but it may generally be relied upon.

[furtive_heroics]

"Okay," he says, in a small voice.

And then very carefully he supports his head on the bar and mutters, "Tymora, I will never ever say you never got me anything."

Pause.

"I'll have that drink now, if and only if it won't addict me to anything or take my soul or turn me into a slave or a rabbit or teleport me to Mephistopheles naked or anything else I wouldn't appreciate." Hey, it's the devil side of hell, they're sticklers for rules.

[alicornucopia]

I would never, Bar assures him, and she gets him a mug of delicious spiced hot cider.

[furtive_heroics]

"Thank you," he says, and then he picks up his hot cider and considers it for a long moment.

...

Sip?

...

Mmmm delicious. But he could put it down and walk away, no problem. Sip.




After several minutes of this he calms down enough to peel off three of his jackets, stashing them in a booth and drinking his cider. It has been too damn long since he could do this. It's fantastic.

[subtly_artistic]

The door opens.

[furtive_heroics]

He straightens up at once and looks for an exit and assesses the potential threat and mentally goes over his list of weapons and -

..........

Security apparently has it covered.

He settles back down in his chair and will just. Wait and see.

"Hi," he says, a touch nervous.