<strong>Location:</strong>Tivvum's Antiquities, Market Ward, Sigil<br/><strong>Time:</strong>Mid-morning<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Perrin, Alzeggra<br/><br/>Boxes and bins of junk, littering the shelves, seeping from holes in containers, sorted by the tiny hands of industrious little mephits who moved through Tivvum's Antiquities with a sound like rattling beetles. There was a box of loose bones picked through by something with claws, leaving many specimens notched or ground into dust, but nothing was thrown away. It'd been gathering here for at least as long as old Lu had been alive, and who knew what treasures lay buried there? Certainly not a barmy old tiefling. A place like Tivvum's had an appeal to Hivers and anyone who liked to gamble their time for the possibility of an easy coin.<br/><br/>But that wasn't the type of customer in Tivvum's. Like the Asmodeus devotee, they were all looking for something in particular. The hired help at the counter needn't offer any sales pitch, no<em>new slaad tadpoles, in this week. </em>Those canny to the ways of Sigil would know Tivvum's as a purveyor of gate keys. Just as every enclosed space in the City of Doors was potentially a portal, every portal had a key, else life in Sigil would be utterly impossible. An example well-known to Sensates and Signers alike was the rearing nic'Epona statue that lay between the sister factions, where a portal between the columns of the beast's hindlegs required only a line from a certain poem and a precious stone clasped to the brow to spirit a blood away to Elysium, or Mount Celstia, or one of the Prime Material worlds.<br/><br/>A precious stone, perhaps, like a recorder stone stolen from a Sensorium.<br/><br/>There were many kinds of gemstones being sold at Tivvum's Antiquities, though the truly valuable ones like those needed to traverse the nic'Epona's thighs were not out in the open. A place that dealt with the riddles of the planar backroads attracted a clientele of smugglers, cultists, adventurers, and blighted clueless. And although the hired help was friendly enough to hear Perrin out, there was magic at work in its marble walls. There were hidden protections against theft.<br/><br/>The shop's protections against snooping, however, were very humble. The tightly-wound spiral stair that ascended the higher levels of the marble tower might be a headache for Perrin, with their tight conservation of space and saw tooth of iron-wrought steps. Impeding Alzeggra's way was nothing more than a velvet rope across the bottom with a sign politely imploring customers to<em>'Ask Fore Assistance.' </em>The showrooms above were empty of customers, but there was someone up there- a crackling, merry voice that might've belonged to Lu.<br/><hr/><strong>Location:</strong>Lifegiver's Workshop, Market Ward, Sigil<br/><strong>Time:</strong>Mid-morning<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Closed<br/><br/>It wasn't very far away that Talren's investigation had led him to an address just two blocks from the Great Bazaar.<em>Lifegiver </em>read the sign beside the front door of the two-story building, a wizard's workshop without windows to the streets of Sigil. There was dried mud scraped clean on the front step, and when Talren's hand came up to operate the brass knocker, the door swung inward on its hinges with a squeak, unlocked, unsecured.<br/><br/>In the darkness there were wooden faces and sprawled marionette limbs and strings. The light from outside glinted off the shapened planes of woodworking tools, and the bronze of a clockwork canary half-buried under an avalanche of ledgers, recipes, patterns, and sketches. Someone had been through here, and they had not left. There was a thump from upstairs as soon as Talren had set foot in the workshop. The sluggish drag of boots made the wood of the ceiling above groan. "Get up," came a woman's harsh voice, "get up, you dogs." Then there was a lot of movement, a lot of thumping and ringing metal. There were two or three, maybe four of them up there, waking like thugs late in the morning still in their armor. They were not Heiron Lifegiver. A door upstairs banged open with violent carelessness.<br/><br/>Talren knew enough to get out of there. He was not a hero. But he would, at least, have something substantial to share with Alzeggra when next they met.