Hungry for knowledge?
Well, the Fraternity of Order has its libraries - fine, if a body's a Guvner. And the Fated have their underground archives — for Takers, of course. Seems just about every faction in the Cage has some kind of clearinghouse of collected wisdom, available only to berks who wear the right colors or sport the proper badge. But some cutters feel pure knowledge is a right owed to all but claimed by precious few.
The illusionist Kesto Brighteyes, a gnome with the vitality of a titan, makes up for the imbalance as best as he can. Driven to empower folks with knowledge, to bring the chant - and the dark - to every sod in Sigil, Brighteyes runs a bookshop in the Lower Ward called the Parted Veil. Found on Forgotten Lane, just a few blocks from the Athar's Shattered Temple, the shop's a place where any Cager — from a cross-trading peeler to a perfumed noble — can buy all manner of texts: histories, novels, dictionaries, maps, spellbooks, biographies, newspapers, and anything else a berk's likely to want. Need a tome chronicling the succession of factols of the Harmonium? How about a newly translated copy of that most rare text, The Book of Inverted Darkness? Maybe a body needs a reliable map of Acheron's cubes, a list of spell keys known to work in Asgard, or the latest casualty report from the Blood War.
The shop fills the ground floor of an unassuming, two-story building that huddles like an orphan between a pipeweed warehouse and a woodcarver's studio. Brighteyes lives in an apartment on the building's second floor. When he bought the place five years ago, he set two dozen round panes of crystal into the outer wall so the average sod on the street might pause and peer into the shop. Brighteyes also set up a small platform just outside the front door — a low, square block of stone surrounded by upended barrels — as a sort of pulpit for addressing the public. Naturally, he uses every trick he can to get folks into the shop; the sharp promotions of Harys Hatchis and in-store signings by famed novelist Jeena Ealy of Sensates fame always pull in a crowd.
Once inside, folks see that the place is more of a bookshop than they thought. The very walls and ground floor are built of books. To browse, a body's got to tread across the spines of row after row of hardbound volumes, one title after another passing under her feet. 'Course, it ain't easy for a browser to make her way through the shop, as the walls - just huge, well-packed piles of books, really - run and meet at odd angles, forming a literary labyrinth.
But Kesto Brighteyes has a way of putting new customers at ease. When a visitor enters, a magic mouth over the front door welcomes her with a short, inspirational message touting empowerment through knowledge (Brighteyes changes the message each day). Upon hearing the opening words of the cheery adage, the gnome pops up from whatever he's doing and rushes toward the entrance. After the harried greeting, the visitor is invariably left alone, as both the gnome and his voice vanish down a twisty aisle. Fact is, some say a Kesto Brighteyes sighting is a rare event in the Parted Veil, as he constantly pads, shuffles, and stumbles around the sprawling shop, carrying books from here to there and there to here, muttering to himself as he assembles mental checklists of Things to Do and Points to Remember. For a 298-year-old gnome, he's quite spry.
The benign bodak called Sir Cleve - silent, mouse-gray, and spindly — seems as settled as an earthberg. Once a paladin from a court on Krynn, Sir Cleve was slain in the Abyss while rescuing his kidnaped lord from the watery caves of Demogorgon. Although his body rose again as a bodak, he retained his mortal memories and consciousness and, repulsed by what he'd become, made his way to Sigil. He hoped to find a wizard who could restore his true form, and Kesto Brighteyes was glad to put him to work in the meantime.
Today, Sir Cleve's content organizing books and serving customers in the Parted Veil, having made peace with his "condition." Bloods who fear the bodak's death gaze avoid looking him in the face, but Sir Cleve's only used the deadly power once, and that was on a night hag who tried to burn the shop down. He's comfortable with who and what he is; if others aren't as open-minded, they can pike it.
~~
Kesto Brighteyes, Owner of The Parted Veil
Sir Cleve