CURST

Annah came into the room. She had finished wandering about Curst picking up local information. I thought to see a smile begin to form on her lips as she saw me in her room, but her eyes traveled to Dak'kon and a frown turned down her mouth instead. She brusquely told me what she had learned of Curst.

"Don't yeh trust anyone here. Yeh got me?" She then abruptly turned me out of her room.

I awoke the next day in the room I shared with Morte, who was already awake. This wasn't too surprising, since he seemed to need very little sleep. Seeing I was awake, he bobbed over in my direction, seemingly anxious to impart some advice.

"Chief, you watch your back here, OK? This place is filled with back-stabbers."

We assembled in the main room of the inn, for a meal. Grace addressed me, but she obviously meant her words for everyone.

"Curst is a prison town filled with betrayers in both words and deeds. We must take care, and watch each other."

I looked at Nordom, wondering if he had any advice to give me, but he wore his usual demeanor which made it hard to tell if he was taking any notice of his surroundings.

Last night I hadn't been interested in talking to anyone in the inn, but this morning I needed to gather some information about Curse. I entered the common room, and approached the man standing behind the bar. I saw a haggard, grim man. His coarse face was lined and weathered, and his eyes were red-rimmed. He straightened as he saw me.

"Welcome to the Traitor's Gate. I'm Tainted Barse, the innkeep."

"What kind of a name is that?" I was not in a good mood; Ravel had raised more questions than she had answered, I still didn't have a line on my enemy, and now Ravel was gone. If I fumbled my mission, no future incarnation would ever be able to ask her questions again. The innkeeper, meanwhile, hadn't taken my question well. He glared at me as he bit off an answer.

"Barse is my given name, berk. I got the Tainted later because of some former friends spreading baseless chant." He looked *very* angry. "What the hell do you want, anyway? You an adventurer or something?"

"Why? What's wrong?"

"What's wrong is that my daughter got herself kidnapped by slavers, and now the place is going to fall behind on its bills and I'm going to lose the place to one of those rich pikers in the first circle." He looked at me more closely. "You're the fellow asking about the deva, ain't you? Tell you what. You help me out, I'll help you."

"What do you know about the deva?" He smiled craftily as I asked my question.

"You're looking for him, ain't you? I can tell you that he's hidden far beneath the prison. I can tell you how to get there, too, apart from being arrested or trying to bribe your way in - which wouldn't work anyway."

"Go over there and talk to Marquez. He's the ex-Harmonium fellow. He knows about these slavers - and he holds the first part of the key that'll put you on the path of seein' the deva. There are five parts to the Key, but it ain't a physical key. When you've got the parts together, you come tell me - and it unlocks knowledge in my mind. 'Til then, though, it stays secret. You got to satisfy the keyholders."

I was willing to agree - for now. I didn't have a problem with rescuing his daughter, assuming he told the truth, and while I was looking about town I might stumble across another avenue to the deva. I asked what was going on in the town.

"What this place is, is a hotbed of rumors and innuendo. No one trusts no one. Y'don't do favors for someone without makin' sure they're in your debt. Everyone hates everyone else, and everyone's looking for a hold to get on everyone. Someone like you... you're a ripe target of opportunity for people, because you don't know the politics. And I guarantee you'll be sucked in."

"Heh. Troubles a-plenty, as always. First, they keep digging holes in the ground to make the prison bigger - and they discover this deva, wrapped up in a big obsidian bubble, chained to the floor. They take his sword and use its power to keep the criminals in their cages. They're busy debating what to do about the celestial, tearing their hair out trying to figure out how they can make a profit off its discovery and cross their 'friends'... and then the plague hits."

"The plague. Something that lays folks low. Makes people all ornery and bad-tempered - and too weak to do anything about it. The guards've closed off portions of the town, and they're all tight-wound. They'll take you into jail on the slightest pretext these days. I don't know how you got in to town, but you ain't getting out unless you find a portal."

I talked to Marquez, a burly blond man, who was a former Harmonium officer. He told me where to find the slavers, who were Harmonium members. His reasons for helping were outlined in a few sentences.

"I found out that the Harmonium - a group I'd believed in from the start - was buying people, kidnapping them, taking them against their will and ruining their lives. It was sucking the life out of people for daring to be different, and I couldn't take it anymore. The slavers you'll be fighting are old comrades of mine." He spat on the floor. "Berks. Liars. You can't trust anyone anymore."

The Harmonium slavers were not hard to find; evidently the town was so corrupt they had felt no need to hide their activities. We easily defeated them. The innkeepers daughter was freed, and I obtained the first part of the verbal key from Marquez when we returned to the Traitor's Gate. He told me the person to talk to for the second part of the key, named Kitla.

I talked to the tall, striking woman. She wanted me to settle the question of an inheritance between Crumplepunch the smith and Kester the distiller. She was willing to accept any resolution, even their deaths. I didn't see why that would be necessary, and agreed to her demand.

I talked to the two feuding men. Crumplepunch was poorly educated, and seemed glad to let an outsider settle the details of the inheritance. He gave me a crumpled sheet of vellum on which his father had written to him. Kester was more reluctant, but I managed to talk him into allowing me to mediate as well. He too had a document written by his father. The documents were poorly written, and unclear, but based on what I could puzzle out I split the inheritance between the two brothers. Crumplepunch was satisfied, but predictably Kester was not.

I returned to Kitla, who gave me the second part of the key, and pointed out the holder of the third part, one Nabat. He was friendly enough, and asked me to prevent a group of ruffians from roughing up Kyse, the caretaker of the town dump, and taking his money. When I asked why this was so important to him, he would only answer my question with another question.

"Does it really matter? What if I said he was my grandfather? What if I said I wanted revenge on the people who are going to try to attack him? What if I said that I wanted that money for myself? Does the motivation matter? You're getting what you want - the Key - and I'm getting something out of this for myself."

The dump was easy enough to find. I saw a scruffy old man who reeked of garbage. He seemed somehow more vital than most of the people of this town, more vibrant, as if he didn't quite belong here. He looked up at me as I approached, and straightened his back.

"Come to see Kyse? Heard stories of wisdom and righteousness? Examples to be set and lived by?" I asked who he was.

"I am Kyse, caretaker of the town's refuse. I tend to their garbage, and in metaphor I have seen a fair number of souls float this way as well. I am the voice that urges them to goodness - and I fear they ignore me." I then asked about the thugs who had threatened him.

"Wernet is the man, a leader of lice, a collector of sins. He tells me I have coin, that I should give it to him, but my wealth lies solely in my heart and my faith. I have told him this. I fear he does not believe. Go, convince him of this. Please. He stands in Inner Curst, on the southern side, near the wagons."

I tried talking to Wernet, but he, not surprisingly, refused to listen. I was forced instead to fight off the thugs Wernet sent to the dump. Kyse seemed stupefied that anyone in Curst would save his life, but I was glad to have helped him.

I returned to Nabat to get the third part of the key. Now that I had done his job, he was willing to admit that he wanted revenge on the gang that had threatened Kyse, and that he himself had started the rumors that Kyse was hiding a stash of gold.

I talked to the next key-holder, Dallan, a tall man with shoulder-length black hair and piercing blue eyes. He asked me to settle a… situation involving a city leader, a githyanki named An'izius, but he refused to say what outcome he preferred.

I found An'izius near the town's gate to Carceri, the prison plane. He requested I frame his enemy, a woman named Siabha. I talked to Siabha, to get her side of the story. She barely listened to what I said, immediately offering to double any money An'izius offered if I would double cross him.

I was disgusted by the double-dealing I had found in Curst, and told the captain of the city guard that both An'izius and Siabha were attempting to frame one another. He eagerly used my testimony to arrest the two, not from any sense of civic duty, but because it served to further schemes of his own.

When I returned to Dallan I considered asking why he was interested in An'izius, but I didn't bother. It was undoubtedly another design for personal gain. I was already heartily sick of Curst, and couldn't wait to leave it. I got his part of the key, and moved on to the last key-holder.

Dono Quisho was a red-haired woman, short and plump. Her request was simple. Use the scroll she gave me to summon the fiend Agril-Shanak to a pentagram, and then free it when it appeared. I resolved to follow her instructions exactly.

The pentagram was located in an old grain elevator. I used Dono Quisho's scroll to summon Agril-Shanak. Then I ordered my companions to attack the fiend. As we attacked, our feet scuffed out portions of the pentagram, which 'freed' it to leave the pentagram. Our attack, which had come as a surprise to the fiend, shortly freed it from its body as well. I doubted whether we had permanently destroyed it, but it wouldn't be bothering anyone for quite some time.

Dono Quisho was upset that I had killed the fiend, but her word never the less bound her to give me the fifth part of the key. I returned to Barse the innkeep again, telling him the five part key.

"Such place eternal justice had prepared for those rebellious...
Here their Prison ordained in utter darkness...
...their portion set...
As far removed from Gods and light of Heaven...
As from the Center thrice to the utmost pole. "

Barse opened his secret tunnel for us, and we went down it, under the streets of Curst.

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