<table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/d/d8/Festhallexternal.jpg)</td><td><strong>Location:</strong> Civic Festhall, Sigil<br/><strong>Time:</strong> Mid-morning<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><em><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">T</span></em></span>he dirty Sigil rain cascaded down the textured granite walls of the Civic Festhall, washing away the previous day's grime from the thousand-foot buttressed edifice and painting a new grime of mineral and color. The fluted whistle of water running through the honeycombed sculptures of the wall foretold the weather for anyone with the patience and the know-how to really stop and listen. Today would be a stormy day, the piping satyr tune said. A good day to be within these opulent halls and a bad day to be wandering the City of Doors alone.<br/><br/>The success of the Civic Festhall was a testament to the decadence of Sigil. It was the Society of Sensation that ran the massive eyesore, its extensive Sensoriums with all their pleasures, its theaters of bizarre and macabre entertainment, its lecture halls dedicated to the more intellectual pursuits of sensory experience. It was the Sensoriums that drew visitors of every kind and supply the faction with a seemingly endless flow of coin. One need only step into one of the chambers with a magical recorder stone, and concentrate on the sensation she wished to retrieve from the Sensorium's vast libraries in order to live it, if only for a moment in time. Zero risk, pure reward- it's no wonder the Sensates do a brisk business.</td></tr></tbody></table><hr/><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/e/e8/Cuathadananin.jpg)<em>Cuatha Da'nanin</em><br/><br/>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/3/39/Doomguards.jpg)<em>Doomguards</em></td><td><strong>Suspicious Characters</strong><br/><strong>Location:</strong> Reception Hall, Civic Festhall, Sigil<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong> Open<br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><em><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">T</span></em></span>he audience chamber of a bygone tyrant was long since repurposed into a relaxed and airy reception hall for Sensate business. The tall, narrow, almost yonic entry stood open to visitors, with dozens already waiting in the marble-pillared corridor. Humbly seated at the throne, penning the business of visitors in achingly elegant script written by a golden-tanned hand, was the half-elf Cuatha Da'nanin, lover to Factol Erin Montgomery Darkflame. A calm and gentle woman, at peace with the hectic business around her, Cuatha could often be found receiving visitors with a pleasant smile and a kind word.<br/><br/>"Good day, and welcome to the Civic Festhall. What have you come to experience?" the half-elf's soft voice inquired of one visitor after another. She brought her teacup to her lips with fingers that were notched by a life of violence, with toned muscle that had not softened though her fighting days were a decade behind her. She was the temperance to Factol Darkflame's passion; they complemented each other, but they did not complete each other. There were many more lovers they were rumored to share, sometimes on Cuatha's part, sometimes on Erin's, and often simultaneously in the same bed.<br/><br/>The cloaks of three new visitors to the Festhall were still shedding the morning's rain as they moved through the pillars to bypass the pleasant receptionist. A tall, gaunt githzerai soldier was first to draw down the hood of his anonymous cloak and let the light glint off the tarnished Doomguard emblem over his breast. A lithe elven rogue followed suit, and their third, a witch in black with dark kohl-lined eyes, paced out her steps with a staff of carved dark wood.<br/>"It's just a maze of rooms," the rogue said to the others. "How are we supposed to find one Sensate's experience?"<br/>"You needn't find anything," said the witch. "The recorder stone will conjure whatever sensation you concentrate on."<br/>"So I hold the stone, and think about what a modron feels like?"<br/>"No," the githzerai answered. "Concentrate on what it feels like to <em>no longer be </em>a modron."</td></tr></tbody></table><hr/><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/7/7e/Goldenmorningradiance.jpg)<br/><em>Golden Morning Radiance</em></td><td><strong>Damsel In Distress</strong><br/><strong>Location:</strong> Sensate Sensoriums, Civic Festhall, Sigil<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong> Open<br/><em><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">A</span></span></em>n olive-skinned and almond-eyed woman was equally lost among the private Sensorium reserved for faction members. Though she was small of stature, she was not easy to overlook in the brightly colored traditional silks of some backwoods Prime Material world. A Clueless, that's what she was- a fresh face to the planes, and certainly no Sensate. The sound of footsteps through the halls had her ducking into an alcove and reeling in her decorative scarf, waiting for the voices to pass. Only once the sound had faded away did she press on, into those forbidden halls, and into the first unclaimed Sensorium she came to.<br/><br/>Her eyes went wide to behold the clean white room, unadorned and waiting to be filled with conjured sensation that would make the real world pale by comparison. The door began to close behind her, but in her distraction, it remained ajar, and her voice drifted out into the hall. "How does this work?" she wondered, her hands clasped to her heart, inspecting every featureless crevice. Finally, she fell to her knees and then to a prostrate bow, in a delicate state of reverence. "O great Sensate gods, I implore you," she began to pray. "I wish to experience the things I could never experience. Show me the world. I would like...the satisfaction of a life's work completed." Nothing happened. "Please, let me feel the warmth that rises off the sand of a beach." Still nothing.<br/><br/>With utmost care, she unfastened the modest jewelry from her neck, and laid it as a gift on the Sensorium floor. "Please," she said to the unfeeling chamber, "I don't have much time. Please." Much too soon, the footsteps out in the hall were returning. Out of the room she bolted like a flushed pheasant, not bothering to retrieve her agate necklace, running, afraid, confused. She would not last long without being discovered.</td></tr></tbody></table><hr/><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/20/Annalimug2.jpg)<br/><em>Factotum Annali Webspinner </em></td><td><strong>Carnival</strong><br/><strong>Location:</strong> Elloweth Theater, Civic Festhall, Sigil<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong> Open<br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><em>T</em></span></span>he little theater stage was lit only by skylight, with all the lapping waves of water across the panes casting surreal ripples of light and shadow across nervous performers. Every sound of set adjustment or prop dragged onto the stage echoed into the rows of empty seats, empty save for the aisle where one bariaur stood watching, a time sheet in her hands across her angora-furred lap, her mouth twisted to one side as she surveyed the day's applicants.<br/><br/>"Elloweth Theater is not high culture," she addressed the creatures on stage. "You can bring high culture if you like, but your audience is unlikely to appreciate it." Her immaculately groomed ewe-like body swayed slowly on four legs, in familiar territory, in command of the situation as she stood in judgement of the would-be singers, actors, illusionists, performers. "It's got to have pizzazz, it's got to have sex, it's got to appeal to berks on a primal level or it's not going to fly." The applicants seemed confident that their acts would, indeed, appeal. They always did. Annali's lashes fell heavy as she observed that surge of confidence that everyone <em>else </em>didn't have what it took. "There are two slots available. You've each got five minutes to amaze me. Let's start with- mm- you two, with the ribbons."<br/><br/>The bariaur watched as the state was cleared of all but the two sylph. A gentle whirlwind unfurled between them, streamers of diaphanous veils juggled from one to the other as they circled each other in aerial acrobatics. Porcelain skin contrasted against rich pastel colors, translucent and changing with light and temperature like a skittish chameleon, speckled with dazzling flecks of gold. "Interesting," Annali appraised with an inscrutable look over the rims of her spectacles.<br/><br/>Soon the dancers were fluttering soundlessly to the ground like seed pods twirled in the wind. Annali gave perfunctory applause, and smoothed her finely tailored jacket down. Then came the questions, each one like an unexpected cold splash, leaving the performers flustered. "Would you describe this dance as ironically trite?" A box was checked off. "Could we add some form of audience participation?" Another box was checked, this time with a <em>hmm </em>and a look of concern. "How do you feel about sharing the stage with another act?" And by this time, with the pen hovering to make its third strike, Annali found that anxious applicants would agree to almost anything. She smiled as she noted the sylphs' answer. Alone, they weren't seat fillers. But put it all together, make it a bewildering circus of sensory experience, and that would sell tickets. "Right. Thank you, ladies."<br/><br/>The stage was cleared again, in preparation for the next applicant. "Who's next?"</td></tr></tbody></table><hr/><strong>It Begins with a Body</strong><br/><strong>Location:</strong> Public Sensoriums, Civic Festhall, Sigil<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong> Open<br/><em><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">I</span></span></em>t was a little treat, once a week, to come to the Public Sensorium and experience something strange and dangerous. Sometimes it was Arcadia, or Elysium, and sometimes it was darker places than those. Nilasa entered the chamber reserved for her use and slipped her hands onto a fresh recorder stone, black and unsmudged by the fingerprints of a thousand touches. "I want to fly," she told the stone. As her eyes closed, the Sensorium chamber swarmed with palpable magic. She laughed giddily, her teeth raked across a ruby lip, lost in a dream only she was experiencing.<br/><br/>Her joy was unmistakable. Her breath swelled more than her frame could contain as she let the experience become as real as if she were truly there. Then, her smile began to fade. "I can't see. Make it lighter, please," she spoke to the stone. Nilasa frowned. "I can't-" Something imagined startled her, and she jumped, but her hands never left the stone. "What is that?" Her body became hunched and troubled, as though she were tiptoeing through a cobwebbed forest. Soft features twisted in fear. "No, I don't like this." Her hands jumped, still adhered to the stone, still with her eyes sealed, though tears were streaming down her cheeks. "Turn it off. <em>Turn it off." </em>The magic of the Sensorium changed. The bright and cheerful energy took a dark and yawning atmosphere. The hairs on Nilasa's head became weightless and drifting as her whole body trembled in terror.<br/><br/>Some minutes later, another found her there, and a shrill scream pierced the peace of the Public Sensorium. There was Nilasa, sprawled out on the chamber floor, stone dead without a wound on her body.<br/><div align="center">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/5/56/Deadsensate.jpg)</div></td></tr></tbody></table>