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It was a typically gray day in the Cage, and I  was at the pub Agony's Rest sipping something with fermented erinyes milk that  the owner, a weird creature everyone called Dis had concocted for me. In came a  gang of greybeards looking like Dustmen who had been asleep in the morgue too  long without bathing, wearing black, rumpled rags that still looked oddly  luxurious. None of them looked like they knew what a comb or bar of soap was;  yet, they had the arrogant air of Guvners or Takers and the stiff posture of  Harmonium officers. They were an odd lot, which made them fit right in here in  the City of Doors. They sat down together at a table, heaved piles of moldering  books and papers on the table in front of them, and started studying in silence.  It took me a few minutes to realize none them had yet blinked even once since  entering the pub. Dis seemed to know ahead of time what they wanted to drink,  and I saw him scurrying out of the chandelier he slept in across the ceiling to  the kitchen as soon as he noticed them.

A few minutes later he came scurrying back  across the ceiling with his tentacles bearing steaming crystal mugs of something  black and covered with steamed milk of unknown species. Each of the wierdlings  dropped jink and silently took a sip. After they had each had a few sips of  their drink, they started quietly discussing some book on arrest procedures. I  pegged them for Guvners at that point, and ordered some ghoulash and hellhound  bao from one of the serving wenches. I did not pay any attention to their  conversation, although it did seem to grow more contentious over time, and  the participants seemed to grow more twitchy and barmy.

After a while a young pup of a Harmonium guard  wandered into the pub, his spiked crimson armour polished to a high shine and  his face beaming with virtue and honour so brightly it made half the room  cringe. He sat at a table between mine and the graybeards', looked up at a  serving wench, and ordered a piece of fruit tart and a mug of milk. Powers, he  was in the wrong place…

The wench return with his order, he sipped the  milk and blanched. "What IS this?" he croaked. The serving wench looked at him  as if he was a rube, "What you ordered, milk. The owner gets a new consignment  of it every day. Today's is from an erinyes in Avernus." The boy cringed and  stuck out his chin, trying to be polite and brave, "Oh, alright, j-just, um,  wondering. T-thankyou." The girl rolled her eyes and headed to the kitchen,  while the Hardhead put on a brave face and took another sip, his face a map to  cluelessness. I watched bemusedly as always and sipped my milk, enjoying the way  it punished my throat and repudiated my bloodstream. The graybeards were getting  positively rowdy; arguing obtuse points of social theory, flapping their  boneboxes at high speed, now, and the Hardhead had started to take notice. I  could see him cringing as each opinion of the more liberal debaters was  announced and nodding his brainbox up and down in agreement with the one  graybeard whom was standing on the side of law and order. After a while he was  completely caught up in the debate, loudly chiming in to agree with each  pronouncement in favour of strict justice. It seemed to be egging on the old  barmy, because his rhetoric got increasingly extreme as the boy's enthusiasm  increased. Soon the crowd in the pub was watching the loud debate with interest,  and a few other patrons were chiming in on the sides of some of the other  debaters, though none as vocally as the boy.

I noticed the graybeard was losing grip of his  temper and giving angry looks at the young guard, but I don't think anyone else  noticed, certainly not the naive boy. The boy was cheering him with every point  he scored in the debate against his fellows, loudly declaring the graybeard a  genius, "YOU ARE SOOOO RIGHT! DEAD ON SIR!" With each cheer I could see the old  debater becoming more agitated, until he was shaking with anger as he argued  with his companions. Finally, the old man could not take it anymore. He bolted  out of his chair, turned around to look at the young Harmonium guard, and yelled  at the top of his voice, "BY THE LADY! WILL YOU STOP AGREEING WITH ME? I HATE IT  WHEN BERKS DO THAT! I AM TRYING TO BE CONTENTIOUS, AND YOU KEEP AGREEING WITH  EVERYTHING I SAY! CEASE AND DESIST! GO SEW YOUR MOUTH SHUT!"

The silence in the pub was deafening, and the  boy shrank inside his gleaming red armour. The crowd erupted in laughter and the  boy was humiliated, running out of the pub with tears in his eyes. Patrons threw  muffins and crescent rolls at him, pelting his spiky armour. A few baked goods  stuck on the spikes, making the boy look yet more foolish and caused berks on  the street to stop and stare. A fire genasi walked in the pub with a confused  look on his face, and no clothes on his  arse, just flickering flames. "Did anyone see a Hardhead with a muffin on his  bum?" he asked. The crowd let out another spasm of laughter and one of the  serving wenches lanned him to the chant.

About a week later, I saw the boy again in the  Gatehouse. His armour and clean shave were gone and he was dressed in a plain  brown tunic and breeches. He was serving soup to the barmies. I guess he was the  one who lost the debate…

Terms

• The Cage: Sigil, a city at the center of all the planes of existence, called  the City of Doors because it has portals to all locations in the Multiverse.
• Dustmen: a group that promotes a philosophy centered around pursuing True  Death, the release of the soul from the torment of existence.
• Guvners: members of a philosophical order devoted to the idea that all of  existence is governed by laws that can be discovered and exploited.
• Takers: a philosophical faction that believes one must strive to take what  one wants from the universe and be strong enough to keep it to show one is fated to have it.
• Harmonium: a militant group that operates as the police force in Sigil, they  believe that universal peace can be achieved by created a consensus of opinion,  by force if necessary.
• Hardhead: a pejorative term for members of the Harmonium.
• Greybeard: term for an old man, especially a scholar.
• Jink: money, especially coinage.
• Barmy: a crazy person, especially someone who has been overwhelmed by the  expanse of the Multiverse.
• Multiverse: the collection of all interconnected planes of existence.
• Powers: divine beings like gods and demi-gods.
• Genasi: a humanoid creature with elemental ancestors.
• Gatehouse: a facility in Sigil used to take  careof barmies and other indigents. An insane asylum.