<table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/2d/Lu.jpg)<br/><em>Lu </em></td><td><strong>Location:</strong> Tivvum's Antiquities, Market Ward, Sigil<br/><strong>Time:</strong> Mid-morning<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong> Alzeggra<br/><br/>Old Lu's hand snatched the stone from the air with a singular inspiration to move quickly. She made a sound in her throat, like the nervous urban birds of Sigil, and caressed the new bit of junk in gnarled fingers. For a moment she was lost in thought as the small areas of her hands that still retained sensitivity inspected the stone's smoothness and precise shape. But it was a recorder stone like any other, indistinguishable, and once it went into the box, there would be no outward sign that it was ever evidence in a murder or anything other than a bauble of colored glass. There had been something, though- a voice, when Alzeggra had touched it. It was gone now.<br/><br/>"A Dustman," Lu said finally, seeming entertained to make the pretty young drow wait for her end of the bargain. "She can tell you where the stones come from. Sparkling emerald skin, like a jewel, mrr." Lu pawed at the dark pebble in her hand as she described. "Daughter of a planetar, one of those trumpet-squirts. What do they like to be called? <em>Aasimar. </em>Her name is Qaida. Turns up in the Lower Ward taverns, but it's at the Mortuary where she stays, in the company of the dead. Only comes to visit old Lu 'cause I've got one foot in the grave." Another squeaking laugh, and Lu shuffled from the store room with her patient golem looming dotingly behind.<br/><br/>"If you want to meet her, there's an easy way. I'll tell you this, young lady, just because I'm being helpful. Cooperative." The stone in Lu's hand came up, and she licked it with a thin, pointed pink tongue like a turtle reaching for a piece of lettuce. "Sign a Contract. Earn yourself some jink by signing over your body post-mortem. Or don't, just tell 'em you want to. The money's good, so you might as well. Buy yourself some nice things, enjoy life, ehn't nobody in the Cage going to mourn us when we're gone anyhow." The new recorder stone rattled onto the counter with all her other recent acquisitions, and with a neat sift of her fingers, its uniqueness was lost. "Qaida's a Contract giver. A driven one. She'll sort you out."<br/><br/>"My employees, pah! All they do is buy, sell, and clean up messes." Slowly, Lu began to smile. "Although..." she said with the ham of an Elloweth actress, "Counter boy's been awful surly recently. Maybe you've got him running scared, hm? You're fixing to blow the lid off his whole operation." The old tiefling's broad smile could have fit on a much younger woman, the playful, mischievous, minxish creature Lu had been once, untold years ago. There was no clear consensus on how long it took a tiefling to get as old as Lu. "I tell them to put the magic stones in that box, and they do. That's all. Nothing suspicious."</td></tr></tbody></table><br/><hr/><br/><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/d/db/Qaida.jpg)<br/><em>Qaida</em></td><td><strong>Heart of Darkness</strong><br/><strong>Location:</strong> Mortuary, Hive Ward, Sigil<br/><strong>Time:</strong> Mid-morning<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong> Closed<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><em><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">I</span></em></span>n the catacombs beneath the streets, the sounds of Sigil's living tectonic shifts echoed forever in low gravely growls, tinny strums, and the sloshing of dirty water. A shadow could travel for miles invisibly, never knowing more than the light of the occasional bioluminescence, glowstone, or faraway lantern. And if a shadow could not be seen, if it was not anchored to a body, it could travel as swiftly as the wind. The catacombs spun by on its unerring passage, through unmapped and ever-changing mazes, until the shadow came to a gloomy candlelit shrine.<br/><br/>Colorless light shivered around each sickly white candle, enriching the black of the Dustman's robe and muting the normally dazzling, radiant green of her skin. It was a place of solemn quiet and reflection that the shadow peeked its head into. It was the shadow of a woman, long and elegant and unclothed, but it was not the shadow of the aasimar. A gleaming white skull, animate and hovering, floated close to its mistress as she watched the shadow creep shyly closer. The spines of great skeletal wings stretched from the shadow's slender back, made of darkness, cast by nothing. "Mimir," Qaida spoke, her voice slow, cold, monotone. "Begin recording." There was a sharp intake of breath, and the shadow flowed like surging water into her every unshielded orifice.</td></tr></tbody></table>