Cross-traders
by Tori L. Corday AKA Sri'alys the Indep
The recognizable characters appearing in this story are © R.A. Salvatore, Elaine Cunningham and WotC: Forgotten Realms, all rights reserved. They are used without permission and for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being made by the author for writing this story. No infringement upon nor challenge to the rights of the copyright holders is intended; nor should any be inferred. Blah, blah, blah.
PART ONE
***
It was a lovely day to be a cross-dimensional trader in Faerûn. Siobhan took the stairs two at a time as she made her way to the top of Jarlaxle's tower, a Swiss Army rucksack slung over her shoulders filled with all sorts of electronic gadgets and about thirty pounds of batteries in a satchel. She didn't see Entreri until she almost ran into him on the winding stairs, though he was making no particular effort to be stealthy.
"Where are you going with those?" the assassin demanded, noting her overstuffed backpack.
Siobhan valiantly resisted the urge to be snippy. There was only one place to go when a person got to the top of the stairs, after all.
"To Jarlaxle," she said simply, waiting for him to pass so that she could get by with her bulky load.
"I don't think so," Entreri said, confiscating the bag before she could react. He rifled through its contents—a couple of Discmans, flashlights, laptops, digital watches, cameras, an Interactive Palm Kitty named Guen ("That's Jarlaxle's, not mine," Siobhan protested), a titanium crowbar ("You never know")—and the entire stock of Duracells from her eighty-year- old neighbor's basement bunker, now in neglect after the dawn of the millennium had failed to bring about the Eschaton.
"Is there a problem?" she asked as Entreri took the satchel full of batteries and gave the rest back to her.
"There was a problem," he corrected. "Jarlaxle gets two Ds and four double- As each tenday. No more." He started down the stairs again.
"You're rationing him?" Siobhan asked, incredulous.
Entreri stopped and turned, then remarked casually, "If Jarlaxle plays that wretched 'Dancing Queen' song one more time, I will rip off his head with my bare hands and tap dance on his cerebral cortex."
Siobhan raised an eyebrow. "You've been watching the Learning Channel, haven't you?" she said, impressed.
***
"I'm not sure this is such a good idea," Siobhan told Jarlaxle later, as the mercenary was playing with his new toys.
Jarlaxle was busy furiously pushing the keys on his laptop. "This Quake II game is neat, but it does get a bit repetitive. Do you think you could get me a nuclear warhead next time?"
"Um...no. Look, I've been thinking—"
"Not even a small one? I'll be careful with it. I'll only use it when I feel it is truly justified in expressing my ire toward certain city officials who have invoked my wrath."
"I don't think so," said Siobhan. "What I was saying was, I think this covert enterprise you're starting is an excellent opportunity for me to expand my horizons in business, marketing and sales, but I don't think it's one I want to pursue."
"I thought you were enjoying Waterdeep," Jarlaxle said, shutting off the laptop. "Did I do something to offend you? If so, I apologize most profusely." He swept off his hat with a graceful bow.
Siobhan blushed. "Besides owning a pastel blue leisure suit? No, of course not. I'm just imagining the backlash I'm going to get on message boards all over the Internet for sowing the seeds of destruction in Faerûn. Christ, it was bad enough when Salvatore introduced the cannon in Passage to Dawn; he had people ranting, raving and virtually frothing at the mouth for _years_. There are many evils in my world, not the least of which are nuclear weapons, Spam, and disco. I don't want to be responsible for exporting any of them here.
"Speaking of evil," she continued, "Artemis expressed an almost pathological hatred for a particular song you like to play."
Jarlaxle nodded and smirked. "'Dancing Queen,'" he supplied. "I play that just to annoy him."
"Yes, well, your scheme is unfolding quite nicely. He's in a foul mood, staring daggers at people, namely me, and threatening to dismember you if you play it again."
"Artemis hasn't killed anybody in close to two weeks, not since that unfortunate incident at the Laundromat. That makes him tense, and puts him in a bad mood," Jarlaxle explained. "I'm just trying to put him over the edge so he'll go out and engage some deserving person in...ah...dishonorable combat. That will help relieve his tension, and give him a much sunnier disposition, to the benefit of us all."
Frowning, Siobhan unpacked the electronic devices from her sack and began sorting them into neat piles by the wall, next the stack of gaming products she'd brought to show Jarlaxle. "That plan raises some interesting moral issues," she said slowly. "Although there may be a few normative theories of ethics that would condone such an act, I can't help feeling that it's just _slightly_ on the dodgy side."
"I already factored in your objections," Jarlaxle returned, grinning broadly as he spun his hat in his hands. "Do you not trust me to devise a plan that will make everyone happy?" He turned to face the wall, drawing a wand from his belt, and pointed it at the bleak, windowless stone. Issuing a verbal command to the device, Jarlaxle opened a hole in the wall from which he gazed out toward the city of Waterdeep, sprawled upon the coast like a crazy quilt of dark rooftops and glittering spires.
"Jarlaxle the utilitarian?" Siobhan scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"Out there, within those city walls, is a cleric of Bane who will be Entreri's victim this night," he said, gesturing toward the window. Siobhan stepped over to his side and stared into the distance at the hills rolling out beneath them, ending, where Waterdeep began, at the sea.
"A cleric of Bane, you say?" Siobhan repeated dubiously.
"One of the Tyrant's black sheep," Jarlaxle confirmed. "Who, like all priests of that order, is a deviant and a nefarious predator of children."
Siobhan made a disgusted face and turned away, letting Jarlaxle close the window with another point and "click" of his wand.
"Does my plan still displease you?" he asked.
"I can live with it," Siobhan conceded.
"Good," said Jarlaxle brusquely, rubbing his slender hands together. "Now, where _is_ that ABBA CD, anyway?"
"Right here," said a voice from outside the doorway, and both Siobhan and Jarlaxle turned to see the silent Entreri emerge from the stairwell, flinging the CD toward the mercenary's throat as if it were a Frisbee.
Siobhan instinctively leapt out and intercepted it with practiced ease, flinching when she felt a keen edge bite into her fingers. "What the hell?" she muttered as she shook the pain out of her bleeding hand and examined the outer rim of the CD, which had been ground all the way around to a fine, razor edge.
"I believe you were looking for that?" Entreri remarked with casual maliciousness before stalking back down the stairs without another word.
***
Entreri made his way through the crowded streets of Waterdeep with the satchel of gadgets he had been sent to deliver, his mind full of murderous thoughts. He wasn't truly angry at Jarlaxle, even though it was obvious to him that the whole situation was a set-up. He just felt like killing somebody.
In a wealthier section of the city, but beyond the domains of its ruling families, Entreri found what he was looking for: a rambling stone house set back from the street, covered in thorny vines and sporting an architectural nightmare of a facade on its western side. He had to climb up a narrow set of stairs to get to the front door, which huddled under an awning built to look like a leering gargoyle poised to pounce on unwelcome visitors.
Entreri raised the doorknocker—a grinning skull, how imaginative—and proceeded to tap out the proper sequence, as Jarlaxle had instructed him. A few moments later, the skull's eyes flamed red and the door swung silently open.
It was dark inside the house, but Entreri's eyes adjusted quickly to the low light conditions. He could see the shape of a person—a very short person—standing before him.
"I have come to see Dreadmaster Goerik," Entreri said, keeping a hand close to the hilt of his dagger.
His silent companion reached into his cloak and drew forth a glowing stone that illuminated the entranceway. Entreri could see now that he was a halfling, taking in the telltale hairy bare feet, tulip ears, and mop of curly brown locks. He also noticed scars on the halfling's cheeks, and as the little fellow gestured for him to follow, Entreri realized his tongue had been cut out.
The halfling led him through a darkened corridor, lighting the way with his stone. Before them stretched a thick, patterned rug, the sight of which, in the home of a magic-user, always made the assassin uneasy. His suspicions were confirmed as he examined the halfling's deft steps: he wasn't walking quite in a straight line. Instead, he very purposely moved off his course by a couple of inches, the dance of his steps completing a subtle cyclical maneuver. Entreri fell into step exactly two cycles behind the halfling and scrutinized him for any changes in the pattern, copying his movements perfectly.
When Entreri reached the other side of the rug without having blown himself up by stepping on the hidden glyphs, the halfling turned to him with a surprised, though not displeased, look on his face. Entreri guessed that his master would be less happy to deal with the assassin than with his corpse. He smirked. Happiness was overrated, anyway.
The halfling took Entreri through another set of twists and turns, ultimately failing to assassinate him. At last they reached a tubular corridor at the end of which was a great circular, wooden door. As he expected, the hallway was lined with pressure plates, arranged at disappointingly regular intervals along the floor. Entreri avoided them easily.
When they came to the door, it opened inwards of its own accord, spilling a thin, sickly light into the corridor. Entreri followed the halfling into Dreadmaster Goerik's meeting chamber.
He had met a few priests of the Black Hand before, and their aesthetic tastes tended to run in either one of two directions: some kept their altars and private apartments with intimidating austerity, while others favored the gaudy accoutrements of death and destruction: zombie slaves at their beck and call, fiendish-looking tapestries and sinister lighting effects. Goerik was clearly one of the latter group, Entreri was not at all surprised to find.
"So, you have found me. Congratulations," the priest said in a whining, nasal tone.
Goerik squinted at him from behind a gorgon bone desk and pushed his little round glasses up his nose. He was skinny-limbed and balding, with a double chin and a paunch that concealed his belt. He was the most innocuous looking man Entreri had ever seen. The assassin moved into the room, studying him warily.
"Your halfling servant was an able guide," Entreri said innocently, as if he hadn't even noticed the death traps in the corridor.
"Indeed," Dreadmaster Goerik replied. He paused, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Marta! Saska!" he suddenly called, summoning two scantily-clad blond women from an adjoining room. "What's the matter with you mindless doxies? It's time for my hourly footbath."
Entreri disgustedly watched the women kneel down with a pan of water and wash the man's toe fungus. Perhaps to some, such a display indicated power, but the assassin rankled at the thought of being waited on like a helpless cripple. To rely upon servants to maintain one's personal hygiene was degrading, and beneath contempt.
The priest settled back in his chair with a satisfied air, folding his plump hands on the desk. "You have appropriated the devices from the Gondsmen?" he asked, eyeing Entreri's satchel. Not innocuous, the assassin corrected himself. Like a spider: bulbous in the middle and full of venom. Entreri hated spiders.
"I have," he replied, pulling a cheap digital watch out of the bag and handing it over. As Goerik was looking down at the unusual device, Entreri drew a revolver and at point-blank range, unloaded it into the priest's head.
He didn't quite get the reaction he was hoping for. Goerik leapt to his feet, quite unharmed, while the bodies of his serving girls slumped to the floor behind the desk in a fast-spreading pool of blood. Entreri cursed inwardly at himself. He'd heard of priests using spells to absorb injury for their comrades; he should have expected some inversion of it from a slimy Banite cleric.
Nevertheless, Goerik was clearly frightened, and running as fast as his skinny legs could carry him. He skittered past the stunned halfling, through the circular door where Entreri had entered.
He heard a low humming noise in the corridor as he entered. He stepped to his left and paused to listen. It was a good thing, because a sheet of metal came springing out of the wall from the right, stopping about a foot from the other side. Entreri moved around it cautiously, noting the fine blade on its edge that had come within inches of messily bisecting him.
He suspected that these traps were magical in nature, and that, like the pressure plates, there was a way around them. Since the Time of Troubles, it had become common for a wizard of cleric to add a "back door" to their last line of defense, a loophole that only they knew how to exploit. The fact that he remained in one piece seemed to confirm it.
Entreri smiled to himself. The magical fields that sprang the traps likely cross-cut the entire corridor, and thus, couldn't be avoided. But he had an idea about where the slamming plates might come from.
He moved to the right this time and hedged forward as another plate shot out, stopping and missing him by inches. Then he dove to the floor in the center of the passage, shooting underneath two circular blades that sprang out from each side of the wall. Then it was right, center, right, left, in a perfect echo of the steps that had avoided the glyphs on the rug.
"Too predictable," Entreri said, drawing his sword and dagger as he came out of the corridor unscathed.
He heard chanting behind him and to his left, and he spun around to see Goerik step out of an alcove, reaching for him with a darkened hand. Entreri was experienced enough with spellcasters to recognize a life- draining touch when he saw one, so he came forward with his dagger leading, past the cleric's defenses and straight toward his heart.
Goerik reflexively brought his arm up to block. Entreri responded by changing the angle of his strike, not to stab, but to slash. The powerful weapon drove through flesh and bone with an insatiable hunger, hacking the priest's hand off at the wrist. As the blackened appendage fell to the floor, the priest howled in pain and took off again, clutching the bloody stump. Entreri snatched the hand and followed him up a staircase, into a room with a large mirror standing prominently in the center.
Goerik ran straight into it, disappearing as it swallowed him up. Entreri followed him through, confident as usual.
by Tori L. Corday AKA Sri'alys the Indep
The recognizable characters appearing in this story are © R.A. Salvatore, Elaine Cunningham and WotC: Forgotten Realms, all rights reserved. They are used without permission and for entertainment purposes only. No profit is being made by the author for writing this story. No infringement upon nor challenge to the rights of the copyright holders is intended; nor should any be inferred. Blah, blah, blah.
PART ONE
***
It was a lovely day to be a cross-dimensional trader in Faerûn. Siobhan took the stairs two at a time as she made her way to the top of Jarlaxle's tower, a Swiss Army rucksack slung over her shoulders filled with all sorts of electronic gadgets and about thirty pounds of batteries in a satchel. She didn't see Entreri until she almost ran into him on the winding stairs, though he was making no particular effort to be stealthy.
"Where are you going with those?" the assassin demanded, noting her overstuffed backpack.
Siobhan valiantly resisted the urge to be snippy. There was only one place to go when a person got to the top of the stairs, after all.
"To Jarlaxle," she said simply, waiting for him to pass so that she could get by with her bulky load.
"I don't think so," Entreri said, confiscating the bag before she could react. He rifled through its contents—a couple of Discmans, flashlights, laptops, digital watches, cameras, an Interactive Palm Kitty named Guen ("That's Jarlaxle's, not mine," Siobhan protested), a titanium crowbar ("You never know")—and the entire stock of Duracells from her eighty-year- old neighbor's basement bunker, now in neglect after the dawn of the millennium had failed to bring about the Eschaton.
"Is there a problem?" she asked as Entreri took the satchel full of batteries and gave the rest back to her.
"There was a problem," he corrected. "Jarlaxle gets two Ds and four double- As each tenday. No more." He started down the stairs again.
"You're rationing him?" Siobhan asked, incredulous.
Entreri stopped and turned, then remarked casually, "If Jarlaxle plays that wretched 'Dancing Queen' song one more time, I will rip off his head with my bare hands and tap dance on his cerebral cortex."
Siobhan raised an eyebrow. "You've been watching the Learning Channel, haven't you?" she said, impressed.
***
"I'm not sure this is such a good idea," Siobhan told Jarlaxle later, as the mercenary was playing with his new toys.
Jarlaxle was busy furiously pushing the keys on his laptop. "This Quake II game is neat, but it does get a bit repetitive. Do you think you could get me a nuclear warhead next time?"
"Um...no. Look, I've been thinking—"
"Not even a small one? I'll be careful with it. I'll only use it when I feel it is truly justified in expressing my ire toward certain city officials who have invoked my wrath."
"I don't think so," said Siobhan. "What I was saying was, I think this covert enterprise you're starting is an excellent opportunity for me to expand my horizons in business, marketing and sales, but I don't think it's one I want to pursue."
"I thought you were enjoying Waterdeep," Jarlaxle said, shutting off the laptop. "Did I do something to offend you? If so, I apologize most profusely." He swept off his hat with a graceful bow.
Siobhan blushed. "Besides owning a pastel blue leisure suit? No, of course not. I'm just imagining the backlash I'm going to get on message boards all over the Internet for sowing the seeds of destruction in Faerûn. Christ, it was bad enough when Salvatore introduced the cannon in Passage to Dawn; he had people ranting, raving and virtually frothing at the mouth for _years_. There are many evils in my world, not the least of which are nuclear weapons, Spam, and disco. I don't want to be responsible for exporting any of them here.
"Speaking of evil," she continued, "Artemis expressed an almost pathological hatred for a particular song you like to play."
Jarlaxle nodded and smirked. "'Dancing Queen,'" he supplied. "I play that just to annoy him."
"Yes, well, your scheme is unfolding quite nicely. He's in a foul mood, staring daggers at people, namely me, and threatening to dismember you if you play it again."
"Artemis hasn't killed anybody in close to two weeks, not since that unfortunate incident at the Laundromat. That makes him tense, and puts him in a bad mood," Jarlaxle explained. "I'm just trying to put him over the edge so he'll go out and engage some deserving person in...ah...dishonorable combat. That will help relieve his tension, and give him a much sunnier disposition, to the benefit of us all."
Frowning, Siobhan unpacked the electronic devices from her sack and began sorting them into neat piles by the wall, next the stack of gaming products she'd brought to show Jarlaxle. "That plan raises some interesting moral issues," she said slowly. "Although there may be a few normative theories of ethics that would condone such an act, I can't help feeling that it's just _slightly_ on the dodgy side."
"I already factored in your objections," Jarlaxle returned, grinning broadly as he spun his hat in his hands. "Do you not trust me to devise a plan that will make everyone happy?" He turned to face the wall, drawing a wand from his belt, and pointed it at the bleak, windowless stone. Issuing a verbal command to the device, Jarlaxle opened a hole in the wall from which he gazed out toward the city of Waterdeep, sprawled upon the coast like a crazy quilt of dark rooftops and glittering spires.
"Jarlaxle the utilitarian?" Siobhan scoffed, rolling her eyes.
"Out there, within those city walls, is a cleric of Bane who will be Entreri's victim this night," he said, gesturing toward the window. Siobhan stepped over to his side and stared into the distance at the hills rolling out beneath them, ending, where Waterdeep began, at the sea.
"A cleric of Bane, you say?" Siobhan repeated dubiously.
"One of the Tyrant's black sheep," Jarlaxle confirmed. "Who, like all priests of that order, is a deviant and a nefarious predator of children."
Siobhan made a disgusted face and turned away, letting Jarlaxle close the window with another point and "click" of his wand.
"Does my plan still displease you?" he asked.
"I can live with it," Siobhan conceded.
"Good," said Jarlaxle brusquely, rubbing his slender hands together. "Now, where _is_ that ABBA CD, anyway?"
"Right here," said a voice from outside the doorway, and both Siobhan and Jarlaxle turned to see the silent Entreri emerge from the stairwell, flinging the CD toward the mercenary's throat as if it were a Frisbee.
Siobhan instinctively leapt out and intercepted it with practiced ease, flinching when she felt a keen edge bite into her fingers. "What the hell?" she muttered as she shook the pain out of her bleeding hand and examined the outer rim of the CD, which had been ground all the way around to a fine, razor edge.
"I believe you were looking for that?" Entreri remarked with casual maliciousness before stalking back down the stairs without another word.
***
Entreri made his way through the crowded streets of Waterdeep with the satchel of gadgets he had been sent to deliver, his mind full of murderous thoughts. He wasn't truly angry at Jarlaxle, even though it was obvious to him that the whole situation was a set-up. He just felt like killing somebody.
In a wealthier section of the city, but beyond the domains of its ruling families, Entreri found what he was looking for: a rambling stone house set back from the street, covered in thorny vines and sporting an architectural nightmare of a facade on its western side. He had to climb up a narrow set of stairs to get to the front door, which huddled under an awning built to look like a leering gargoyle poised to pounce on unwelcome visitors.
Entreri raised the doorknocker—a grinning skull, how imaginative—and proceeded to tap out the proper sequence, as Jarlaxle had instructed him. A few moments later, the skull's eyes flamed red and the door swung silently open.
It was dark inside the house, but Entreri's eyes adjusted quickly to the low light conditions. He could see the shape of a person—a very short person—standing before him.
"I have come to see Dreadmaster Goerik," Entreri said, keeping a hand close to the hilt of his dagger.
His silent companion reached into his cloak and drew forth a glowing stone that illuminated the entranceway. Entreri could see now that he was a halfling, taking in the telltale hairy bare feet, tulip ears, and mop of curly brown locks. He also noticed scars on the halfling's cheeks, and as the little fellow gestured for him to follow, Entreri realized his tongue had been cut out.
The halfling led him through a darkened corridor, lighting the way with his stone. Before them stretched a thick, patterned rug, the sight of which, in the home of a magic-user, always made the assassin uneasy. His suspicions were confirmed as he examined the halfling's deft steps: he wasn't walking quite in a straight line. Instead, he very purposely moved off his course by a couple of inches, the dance of his steps completing a subtle cyclical maneuver. Entreri fell into step exactly two cycles behind the halfling and scrutinized him for any changes in the pattern, copying his movements perfectly.
When Entreri reached the other side of the rug without having blown himself up by stepping on the hidden glyphs, the halfling turned to him with a surprised, though not displeased, look on his face. Entreri guessed that his master would be less happy to deal with the assassin than with his corpse. He smirked. Happiness was overrated, anyway.
The halfling took Entreri through another set of twists and turns, ultimately failing to assassinate him. At last they reached a tubular corridor at the end of which was a great circular, wooden door. As he expected, the hallway was lined with pressure plates, arranged at disappointingly regular intervals along the floor. Entreri avoided them easily.
When they came to the door, it opened inwards of its own accord, spilling a thin, sickly light into the corridor. Entreri followed the halfling into Dreadmaster Goerik's meeting chamber.
He had met a few priests of the Black Hand before, and their aesthetic tastes tended to run in either one of two directions: some kept their altars and private apartments with intimidating austerity, while others favored the gaudy accoutrements of death and destruction: zombie slaves at their beck and call, fiendish-looking tapestries and sinister lighting effects. Goerik was clearly one of the latter group, Entreri was not at all surprised to find.
"So, you have found me. Congratulations," the priest said in a whining, nasal tone.
Goerik squinted at him from behind a gorgon bone desk and pushed his little round glasses up his nose. He was skinny-limbed and balding, with a double chin and a paunch that concealed his belt. He was the most innocuous looking man Entreri had ever seen. The assassin moved into the room, studying him warily.
"Your halfling servant was an able guide," Entreri said innocently, as if he hadn't even noticed the death traps in the corridor.
"Indeed," Dreadmaster Goerik replied. He paused, wiping his nose on his sleeve. "Marta! Saska!" he suddenly called, summoning two scantily-clad blond women from an adjoining room. "What's the matter with you mindless doxies? It's time for my hourly footbath."
Entreri disgustedly watched the women kneel down with a pan of water and wash the man's toe fungus. Perhaps to some, such a display indicated power, but the assassin rankled at the thought of being waited on like a helpless cripple. To rely upon servants to maintain one's personal hygiene was degrading, and beneath contempt.
The priest settled back in his chair with a satisfied air, folding his plump hands on the desk. "You have appropriated the devices from the Gondsmen?" he asked, eyeing Entreri's satchel. Not innocuous, the assassin corrected himself. Like a spider: bulbous in the middle and full of venom. Entreri hated spiders.
"I have," he replied, pulling a cheap digital watch out of the bag and handing it over. As Goerik was looking down at the unusual device, Entreri drew a revolver and at point-blank range, unloaded it into the priest's head.
He didn't quite get the reaction he was hoping for. Goerik leapt to his feet, quite unharmed, while the bodies of his serving girls slumped to the floor behind the desk in a fast-spreading pool of blood. Entreri cursed inwardly at himself. He'd heard of priests using spells to absorb injury for their comrades; he should have expected some inversion of it from a slimy Banite cleric.
Nevertheless, Goerik was clearly frightened, and running as fast as his skinny legs could carry him. He skittered past the stunned halfling, through the circular door where Entreri had entered.
He heard a low humming noise in the corridor as he entered. He stepped to his left and paused to listen. It was a good thing, because a sheet of metal came springing out of the wall from the right, stopping about a foot from the other side. Entreri moved around it cautiously, noting the fine blade on its edge that had come within inches of messily bisecting him.
He suspected that these traps were magical in nature, and that, like the pressure plates, there was a way around them. Since the Time of Troubles, it had become common for a wizard of cleric to add a "back door" to their last line of defense, a loophole that only they knew how to exploit. The fact that he remained in one piece seemed to confirm it.
Entreri smiled to himself. The magical fields that sprang the traps likely cross-cut the entire corridor, and thus, couldn't be avoided. But he had an idea about where the slamming plates might come from.
He moved to the right this time and hedged forward as another plate shot out, stopping and missing him by inches. Then he dove to the floor in the center of the passage, shooting underneath two circular blades that sprang out from each side of the wall. Then it was right, center, right, left, in a perfect echo of the steps that had avoided the glyphs on the rug.
"Too predictable," Entreri said, drawing his sword and dagger as he came out of the corridor unscathed.
He heard chanting behind him and to his left, and he spun around to see Goerik step out of an alcove, reaching for him with a darkened hand. Entreri was experienced enough with spellcasters to recognize a life- draining touch when he saw one, so he came forward with his dagger leading, past the cleric's defenses and straight toward his heart.
Goerik reflexively brought his arm up to block. Entreri responded by changing the angle of his strike, not to stab, but to slash. The powerful weapon drove through flesh and bone with an insatiable hunger, hacking the priest's hand off at the wrist. As the blackened appendage fell to the floor, the priest howled in pain and took off again, clutching the bloody stump. Entreri snatched the hand and followed him up a staircase, into a room with a large mirror standing prominently in the center.
Goerik ran straight into it, disappearing as it swallowed him up. Entreri followed him through, confident as usual.