Shadows over Sigil - The Eternal Boundary

In the Great Foundry

"Where's Zena?"

Factor Keldor, when he hears that a stray dog is roaming through the sheet-works

First Market Day of Retributus, 126 HR

It was almost anti-peak, but Ambar was still in the Foundry that day. Not in the entrance hall, but in the main hall of the Grand Forge itself, where work was still going on. It was not quite as busy as by day, but as the members of the Godsmen had different waking and sleeping hours like all the other inhabitants of Sigil, work was also carried out here at night. The factol's gaze wandered up to a huge steel girder, hanging from heavy chains. It was actually only part of a much larger beam ... a fraction of it. Because of the heat from the ovens and forges, Ambar had taken off his frock coat and vest, rolled up his sleeves and tied his shoulder-length hair back in the neck. Next to him stood his second-in-command, Ombidias, similarly casually dressed and with his arms folded. The voadkyn towered over him by almost three feet, and the bard could literally feel his gaze as he looked down at him.

Sighing, he rubbed the back of his neck. "Don't say it ..."

"Oh, but how I will say it," his longtime friend replied. "This project, my dear Ambar, is absolute madness. But not in a good way."

His deep voice was calm and even as always, but the factol could definitely hear that Ombidias was not enthusiastic. That well he knew the shaman after all these years. His disgruntlement was understandable, because Karan's idea of building seven steel spokes across the entire ring to make Sigil look like a giant wheel for the Surprise! of the Xaositects ... Of course it was madness, it was an idea of the Chaosmen's factol. But the factol of the Believers had accepted the order to have these spokes made in the Foundry, and Keldor and Ombidias were not the only ones who had thrown up their hands in disbelief. Basically, he could understand them, but his concerns were not as great as theirs. Namely because Karan would certainly never wait for such an ambitious and lengthy project to be completed. Surely, he would not stay on one thing from Retributus to Capricious.

"Ombidias, never mind," Ambar explained lightly. "I give it another two or three weeks. Then Karan will lose interest and the order will be off. Then we'll melt the thing down again."

The voadkyn shook his head. "Seriously? I mean, yes ... It's quite likely that this will happen. But then why did you take the job in the first place, huh?"

The bard put his head back and looked up at his deputy. "Because the Xaositects are the only faction in the Hive with whom we can at least have a neutral to relaxed relationship. An alliance might be going too far, but you know that neither Dustmen nor Bleakers qualify for that sort of thing. Because our philosophies are simply too fundamentally different."

Ombidias nodded. "Granted. Does that mean you're interested in good relations with our neighbors in the Hive?"

"Basically, yes," Ambar replied. "For the first time in a long while, the Xaositects have a factol who has been in office for more than a year - albeit intermittently, but you know what I mean. Amazingly, he gives the faction something like stability. And he steers the chaos in a rather pleasant direction. More towards creativity out of chaos , less destructive than they've often been in the past."

"There's something to that," the voadkyn admitted. "If you look at the painting on the Great Gymnasium ... Well, to summarize it: You're hoping for improved relations with at least one of the factions in the Hive, which we're directly adjacent to after all. And so you took on this crazy project for Karan in the hope that he'll soon lose interest and we'll never have to complete it. But positive vibes between our factions will remain."