The Angel's Rest
(Site; Mt. Celestia/Mercuria)
written by Heiner de Wendt
Character. Even the pure-hearted of Mt. Celestia sometimes need to
remember there's a world beyond their beloved plane. With all their
immortal striving for perfection, with all their virtues and
working for the greater good, they sometimes got to be reminded
of the "normal" world out there.
Description. "The Angel's Rest" seems to be a normal inn at first
glance. It's got the size of a usual inn found on any typical Prime
world out there - at least, that is, from the outside. Those who
come inside the inn soon find out it seems to be near-infinite,
with ever more rooms, hallways and people around.
Fact is, the inn doesn't even really exist in Mercuria. If one
enters the building through any window, there's just an ancient,
dusty, empty tavern room to be found. The main door, though,
leads through a portal (the key is air from Mt. Celestia, so it's
always open) right into a similar inn in Sigil's market ward.
Interestingly, there is no entrance into the building in Sigil;
the inn completely relies on portals. Many hallways and doors
have further portals, leading to other places in Sigil (also
shut off from the rest of the city) or to places in the Prime
Material Plane. All those portals have weird keys that keep them
always open, and all except the one to Mt. Celestia are regularly shifting. So, guests never know where they end up when going
through the inn. But as the portals always lead into other
buildings that have been incorporated into the Angel's Rest inn,
it doesn't really matter, except maybe for Spell slingers.
Guests are mainly mortals from those many Prime worlds the
portals lead to. It seems a "secret circle" of people knowing
about this place has established, and they're constantly keeping
contact with other people visiting the inn. With very few
exceptions, these are people sharing at least some of the ideals
of Mt. Celestia, for that portal is the only one people always
find if they really search for it (except for their own home
portals, although they usually have to wait some time until the
particular portal shifts to their destination again). The innkeeper is a strange dwarf known only as Angelbeard. His
utterly white hair (including, of course, the long beard) has
made people suggest he's an aasimar, but Angelbeard only laughs
about such ideas. "Just a li'l old dwarf with a white beard",
he explains when asked.
Yet, Angelbeard knows many secrets about The Angel's Rest, for
sure. He always appears when someone's lost in his inn, and he
seems to have an instinct for how the portals change in his
inn. Even weirder, whenever a celestial enters his inn, Angelbeard
greets the planeborn with their name, even if he's never seen
them before.
If he finds the time and the celestials don't seem too uninterested,
the old dwarf loves to chat with the pure-hearted beings, learning
of the things that move the multiverse, but also telling the
celestials of important things he's heard. It's like he's made it
his personal task to point the celestials to where ever they're
needed, and he's responsible for many an aasimon's or archon's
quest on the Prime (and for many failed evil plans).
Something few people seem aware of is Angelbeard's extremely
long lifespan: The inn already exists since over a millennia,
yet the dwarf doesn't seem older than about four hundred years.
A few visitors have already suggested Angelbeard might be some
kind of demigod, but as he's also encountered in those parts of
The Angel's Rest which lie within Sigil, that's definitely not
possible. It's highly improbable, though, that he's really
"just a li'l old dwarf".
A few curious adventurers have already checked if the inn really
lies within Sigil at all, trying out spells to move through the
walls. Indeed, they ended up in Sigil's Market Ward, and it's
also possible to get into the inn with such spells. The inn is
protected from any teleportation powers, though, and as all of
it is covered in permanent "Protection from evil"-spells, few
non-good creatures have at all tried to enter. Those that did
soon encountered Angelbeard, who hurriedly cast a spell or two
and sent the invaders out of his inn.
His spell powers, of course, are center of many more rumours. As
a dwarf, he can't be a mage, so he must be some kind of priest.
Yet he doesn't admit he's worshipping any particular deity, nor
any kind of "great unknown" such as the Athar. As he says,
he just does what needs to be done.
The Chant. A few archons have recently speculated that Angelbeard
might be a fallen archon, who's taken the shape of a dwarf for
whatever reason. If so, this would explain many things: Why
he loves so much to talk to Celestials, why he wants to point
them to certain quests, where he's got his spell powers from, and
so on. Still, even deep investigations haven't resulted in
anything.
Maybe even more interesting is the dusty inn at the side of
Mt. Celestia: The ancient empty building has indeed a great
history. It once belonged to a group of mortal adventurers,
who had a powerful balor striving for Abyssal Lordhood as their
arch-enemy. They battled him many times, killed countless
servants of Evil, and rescued even more innocent souls. In the
end, their inn (which, back then, existed where Excelsior now
stands) was stormed by a whole army of fiends, and all in
the vicinity where slaughtered. Yet, with the help of the forces
of Mt. Celestia, the side of Good won in the end, and without
his army, it was just a matter of time until the balor was
also slain. The adventuring group died through this event, but
as their souls made the short trip to nearby Mt. Celestia, they
were "accompanied" by their inn, and chant has it they still
visit this place now and then in their current archon-shapes.
Another theory actually states that Angelbeard was part of
this adventuring group, and became a fallen archon when his
archon-comrades were killed in a later battle, but this might
be nothing but bardic poetry.