View source for LongestRoad Getting to Sigil was fun

I honestly don't know how I got to Sigil.  For that matter, I don't know how I got to most of the places I wound up spending any time in.  One of the things I inherited from my parents is a tendancy to overindulge in mind altering substances.  Mostly I overdo it on alcohol, but from time to time I've been known to partake of other things as well.  I'm not sure which exactly I was on that night, but I think I'm getting ahead of myself.

I was in the port city of Garther, and had been for a couple of weeks.  I'd heard about Garther in one of the smaller towns I'd passed through.  I was more or less wandering aimlessly at that point.  I'd lie, cheat, and steal until I hit a big job, run from that town, find a tavern after I was sure I was in the clear, and indulge with all of my newfound wealth.  I'd have women, strong drinks, and food, usually in that order, which is probably why I had so little memory of how I got from place to place, and why things went as predictably as they did.  It was fun, but not terribly healthy.

Anyway, Garther drew my attention because it was the hub of most of the local commerce, so there was a lot of wealth floating around.  I was particularly interested because there were a couple of very newly wealthy merchants who had earned their money due as much to some recent luck as anything else.  I smelled an easy mark, and since, as usual, I found myself with very limited funds, it was time for me to make some money the best way I knew how.

Well, it started with a bit of reaserch into who these people were.  It's always easier to steal from someone you know.  Of the two, the young man named Risine seemed to be the better target.  The other merchant, Dansay, while only recently wealthy, was middle aged and somewhat world weary.  Risine by contrast was young and naieve.  And somewhat richer.  That never hurt in the choice.

So I spent my first week or two gathering some small resources and studying Risine.  Risine had some pretty boring habits for someone so rich.  He got up at pretty close to dawn every morning, walked to a local shop, had tea and breakfast, and then went for a walk down by his business interests.  He would survey his warehouses and ships, and when he was satisfied that everything was running well, he'd go to lunch at the same resturant *every day*.  He had the imagination and variety of a turnip.  After lunch, he'd go back to his villa, sun himself, swim in his pools, read for a little while, and take a nap.  His day went on like that.  It wasn't until late evening that he did anything even mildly interesting or different.

After dinner and a constitutional, Risine would take some form of entertainment.  I have to say he did have some exotic tastes for entertainment.  His preferred entertainment was generally one of the more inventive burlesque shows, after which he would usually escort one or more of the performers back to his house where they would continue with the "entertainement" all night.  Well, as interesting as his evening entertainements were, they weren't going to be much use to me in terms of robbing him blind.

I focused on his morning routine.  I knew that he had house guards, but that wasn't really an issue for me.  Most house guards will do their duty because they're paid to do so, and have very little particular personal loyalty, especially with as new an employer as Risine.  On the other hand, money can buy a lot of loyalty on its own.  Risine would be gone from shortly after dawn until just after lunch.  That was my window of opportunity.  I was also able, with a couple of bribes and some very fast talking, to find out exactly where Risine kept his house vault.  That would be locked up tight, but he would have plenty of other valuables sitting around where an enterprising thief could lay his hands on quite a lot.  That was my target, but anyone who remembered me would think I was after the vault.  A little misdirection never hurts when the hounds are on your tail.

Meanwhile, I also took some time to watch were Risine put his everyday valuables.  Those things he'd use regularly enough to not want to have to put them in the vault, but not necessarily every day.  There were a few places he kept such things, but most of them were in his bedroom and his dressing room.  This wasn't surprising, since that's where most people would keep such things.  There were small purses of coins, a some jewelry, and other such items.  None on their own was worth much, but if I could get a good sized collection, I'd walk away a reasonably rich man myself.

The next part of my plan required that I find a good place for breakfast where I could watch Risine show up for his breakfast.  That was more difficult than I had expected, and I wound up having breakfast in the same shop that Risine frequented.  That's when I found out why he ate at that particular place.  It was good.  The food was particularly good compared to most of the other places I'd eaten in while in Garther, and the waitresses were particularly comely.  It seems he had an eye for a particular waitress there as well, since he not only ate at the same shop every day, but insisted on the same table and waitress as well.

This made my job a little easier.  I'd get there a little before he would, eat my breakfast, and watch him when he arrived.  After a few days he came in looking particularly unadorned and with less money than I usually saw him carrying.  I hoped that this meant that he'd left all of his real finery at home, so while he was still eating, I left the coins to cover my meal on the table, and headed out.  This was about the same timing as usual, so it wouldn't arouse any suspicion.

I walked over to the house taking a somewhat circuitous route and began my initial foray into it.  Getting into the house was easier than I expected.  It was a one floor villa with rather large grounds up on the hillside overlooking the town, and the wall wasn't terribly high or at all defended.  It was more of a property marker than a defensive perimter.  I was up and over the wall and in some greenery without being spotted, and then got into the house itself through a guest room window.  It all seemed to be going eerily easily.  I snuck through the house without being noticed by any guards, and got to Risine's room.

From there it only got better.  I discovered that Risine not only kept a lot of loot in his room, but the lock on the jewelry box was easy to open, and he had a lot in it.  His dressing room also had an impressive collection of items, including a fairly full purse, and a bottle of very nice brandy that I decided I would take along as a celebratory addition.  In the end, I estimated that I took him for about ten thousand gold in a few minutes, and was able to sneak back out without being noticed.  I had a horse at my inn, paid out the balance, and left town.  I was a couple of miles outside of Garther before lunchtime, so I was pretty sure I was away free and clear.  I rode hard for the next couple of days, until I was pretty sure that nobody would be even close to my trail.

I took disused roads, game trails, and generally wended my way through the countryside until I came to a small but prosperous town.  It was either a logging town or a mining town, but I couldn't tell you which.  I sold my horse pretty quickly, and then went into the tavern and began celebrating.  Sure, I flaunted my newfound wealth a bit, and I only had to blood one man and buy one round of drinks before people realized that I wasn't an easy mark, and would be generous with my money if treated nicely.  Neither of the women I took to bed with me that night tried to steal from me, which was a nice change of pace, and both were entertaining.  From there the whole celebration becomes somewhat of a blur for me.  I know I drank quite a bit, and I seem to remember some rather entertaining powders being ingested, and at least one more woman who was extremely pleasant, but other than that, I don't know what happened between then and when I woke up in Sigil.

I woke up, as always seems to be the case, in a back alley, with a small amount of that stolen brandy, a purse with about 20 gold worth of coins, my standard gear, a set of womens undergarments, an odd taste in my mouth, and a rat industriously exploring my left ear.  I think the Rat is what woke me up.  After I shooed the rat away, I discovered that he was only interested in the peanutbutter that was in my ear.  I don't think I ever want to find out why I had peanutbutter in my ear, or how it got there.

I wandered blearily out of the alley, and stumbled into my new life in Sigil.  From there, well, the rest is basically history.  I'll say the rest of that brandy did help me deal with the taste in my mouth.