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The dustman sighs.
“And?”
“There was an attack made on your hall this morning. Villains was snuck in on a body wagon. Beat the gatekeeper to within an inch of his life and maybe kill’t another. Whole yard of the place in a state when I left it. ‘Who's done it?’ they all ask. ‘Two collectors. Men with a cart. Both wearing caps.’ is all anyone knows about them's brung in the thieves."
"Gate man isn’t fit to talk. It’s thought that the villains were from the Hive, and that you or yours here might recognize them, on account of speaking with the public. What do you know?”
He reacts to the news with a considerable degree of agitation.
“An attack? Why didn’t you start with that? How should I know? Briggs back at the Mortuary would know. He has worked the front gate on occasion. He’s known for dealing with commoners. Ask him, or Eckhert.”
"Hey!" He lowers the pitch of his voice.
"You think Traff’d send me here, Briggs knows? Your whole mortuary’s in a row and first thing your abbot does is send for me. He wants that any of the collectors that might have done it be found and brought in for questions, and done so today. That's what I'm t’be paid for.”
“Hmph. Barring that, Traff also wants the name and origins of anyone who’s hauled in corpses before.”
The Nameless One frowns.
“‘Ask the skull.’ That’s what they already told me. Skull was taken in the attack. Seems nobody knows the chant without it. What collectors do you remember?”
He widens his eyes at that news.
“Not any that have passed by here recently.”
The dustman is quiet for some time.
“There’s a fat brown man who dresses like a Fated. Might be from Clapper. Never spoke to him. A woman… want to say from Ragpicker’s. Kind of half a harlot and half a basher. Can’t recall her name.”
“Then there is the one in Flint Court, Grundsley or Langley or some such, but I don’t think he’s your catch. He’d be the most regular of any collectors working The Hive. Tobacco merchant. Known to keep a ripe pile of dead waifs and drunkards in his yard, or so they say. Doesn’t figure he’d plan to do any thieving.”
He adds almost as an afterthought. “But don’t put him in the book. Don’t off him. He’s been useful to us before.”
If the dustman watches him carefully, he’ll find that The Nameless One turns in the wrong direction to be headed for Flint Court.
Outside, he walks a hundred yards or so to a place outside of the flow of traffic to orient himself. He has only a few memories of the Hive, but he does remember much of Morte’s words.
Flint Court. Is there any place nearby he can stand outside of vision of passersby?
There’s actually quite a bit of foot traffic here. It’s one of the wider streets, and there are even an occasional coach or cart being pulled by four legged creatures, despite Sigil’s famously deadly environment for beasts of burden and pets.
On one side of the street is a squat building of mud bricks that presents a rectangular alcove, falling back from the street. It's maybe twice the size of a family dinner table. The footprint of the recess is partially occupied with a large, vertical, cast-iron pipe, as thick as an adult pine tree, that rises up to the second story and then makes an abrupt elbow joint to hook into the building. It must be part of Sigil’s inner architecture.
Sure. He’s not going to skulk behind the tube like some schoolboy playing spies but he will stand in the alcove for a moment.
That encounter went better than he had hoped. The tobacconist is a strong lead, and one corroborated separately by both Morte and the dustman.
So, calling up the mental image of Morte’s map: Flint Court is basically east and maybe a bit north of the mortuary, so… that should place it some miles north west of the Factry district, approximately. Morte said they were what, three or four miles from the tower, and he already walked about one mile.
To get to Flint Court he is going to go east… which is the direction going out the far end of the dustman’s square. He needs to go somewhere between zero and three miles further east, and If he meets the ditch he’ll know he’s about on the right longitude line. He doesn’t know how to recognize Sighs, but it sounds dismal.
When he sees the streets clean up a bit, or maybe if he starts to see houses of industry or foundry chimneys, then he’ll turn left, and then after fifteen minutes walking he should begin making inquiries for Flint Court. Once he’s there he’ll hang around stalls or public houses asking for tobacconists till he confirms he’s got the one with the big yard and the foul corpses stacked in it.
There's going to be a time limit, measured in hours at most, after which the dustmen as a whole will have a full description of his face, body, and tattoos. It would be surprising if the dustman in the pavilion were not troubled enough about their conversation to follow up, even if he is the sole member of his order manning that post. And it's likely the real abbot Traff's response to the breakout will involve messengers being sent to all dustmen in the Hive.
An old woman pushing a cart stacked high with filthy garments has approached and set up shop in front of him, blocking one of the two paths of egress from the alcove. The other exit is around the opposite side of the tube.
Amusing.
First and foremost, this is a mission to find the journal. But if he fails in that while still finding the tobacconist, there may be other information he can glean.
He should take a moment and think about this logically. Given his five scenarios, what should he expect to see if each is true?
- Option a) He hears from the locals that a portal went wrong and suddenly opened upon an active theater of the Blood War. Powerful spell casters poured out. Mind flayers were seen. A gelatinous monstrosity sent by the outer gods of chaos struck a hundred Hivedwellers insane with its terrible musical piping
- Option b) Witnesses describe a singular explosion or flash neither preceded nor followed by sounds of any altercation. He discovers signs of booby traps and carefully laid fishing wire where his body was found. The remains of a complicated machine decorated in strange characters lies in a ruin within an alley
- Option c) Whatever he encounters will provide a surprisingly strong clue to do an exact thing, be at a precise place at a precise time, or to draw a very particular conclusion with high certainty (He'll have to check in on this one after the fact)
- Option d) - Mundane local street bloods empowered by some artifact or magical spell boast in a local bar of having killed a gray skinned wizard and made away with a hefty bounty. His journal is found in the keeping of the tobacconist, who found it by chance and plans to pawn it
- Option e) - He witnesses any event that is bizarre, intricate, and connected with his own person. Maybe the spot his body was found has an immaculately clean doll house stuffed with moldy cheese. An enchantment spell plays fiddle music and shouts 'swing your partner to the Styx' over and over again. A brigade of halfling sling archers salutes him as "The Gray Spectre"