This little scene takes place a couple months prior to Chapter One of RnR. Our heroes have just taken up temporary residence in The Tankard Tree Inn of Saradush when Sarevok is called upon to aid Rana with a troublesome visitor.

Arachnophobia

A shrill, piercing scream that threatened to shatter the windows, along with his nerves, had Sarevok reacting instinctually. Drawing his sword, he rushed down the hallway of the inn, toward that unholy banshee cry, expecting to find the one emitting the godawful sound to be under attack at best, or being torn apart at worst.

Something barreled into him, slamming into his chest hard enough that he had to throw out a hand against the wall to steady himself. The something then proceeded to try and climb him, all the while pleading hysterically with him, the gods, and everything in between.

"Kill it! Kill it with fire! Oh my gods, oh my gods, KILL IT, PLEASE!"

When Ilyrana's bare foot slipped from its perch on his belt as she attempted to scale him to get atop his shoulders, to get away from whatever "it" was, and she kicked him in the groin trying to find purchase, he grabbed her around her middle and pried her off of him.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU-"

"KILL IT!" She screamed over him, loud enough that his ears started ringing, twisting out of his grip and ducking behind his sword arm, then shoving against him with surprising strength considering her size. "It's in there! Kill it, PLEASE!"

Her terrified pleas, and her persistent pushing, goaded him into moving forward against his will, toward her room that she'd come tearing out of, and it irritated him that her fear affected him this way. Even as he took a small amount of pleasure at seeing her this scared.

When he stood in her room, sword poised to kill the intruder, and saw nothing, his irritation turned into fury.

"What are you playing at, girl?! There's nothing in here!"

Ilyrana scrambled up onto her dresser just behind him.

"THERE!" She shrieked, making him flinch, and pointing over his shoulder toward her bed.

Atop the dingy sheets of the inn's bed sat a black and green spider. Its bulbous body was the size of his head, its eight spindly legs nearly as long as his arm. It sat unmoving, unperturbed by the reaction garnered by its presence, its mandibles clicking together gently as it cleaned them.

Sarevok briefly lost the ability of speech.

The young woman who'd faced him down after fighting off assassins, hobgoblins, Flaming Fist, and his inner circle was terrified of a spider. The same woman who was graced with Bhaal's avatar, the Slayer. The same woman who, just hours ago, had been detailing her plan to assault an immortal half-giant with confidence that bordered on arrogance. That same woman now crouched, trembling on a dresser after just enthusiastically recruiting him for pest control.

Him. The man who bribed her for a piece of her recently retrieved soul. Then proceeded to take half of it instead. Because he could. The same man that she now cowered behind, using him as her sword and shield against a harmless eight-legged foe that was probably the sole reason this ramshackle place wasn't infested with rats.

Slowly, he turned his head to look at her. She gazed back with owl-eyes that darted from him to the spider and back again with the same repetitiveness as the seconds ticking away on a clock.

"Please," she whispered softly, looking so pitiful that he almost, almost, felt sorry for her plight.

"Kill it yourself, or sweet talk a more chivalrous fool to do it for you. I did not claw my way out of Hell to squash bugs for you."

"I'll owe you a favor."

That gave him pause.

A dozen different questions he could finally have answers to flashed through his mind. Along with items of power they would inevitably acquire during this journey that he could request she give him as his due for this little task.

Releasing an annoyed sigh, he turned back to the creature and hefted his sword.

"Not on the bed!" She cried when he raised his weapon.

Grinding his teeth in frustration at the utter ridiculousness of this situation, he swatted at the thing with the flat of his blade, forcing it to skitter away, down the sheets and onto the floor. Swiftly, before it could wedge itself somewhere he'd have to wrangle it out of, he plunged his sword down through its back, impaling it.

Jerking his weapon out of the wood and its ichor-oozing body, he snatched up a discarded towel and used it to wipe the gore off the steel.

"Is it dead?" She whispered at his ear as she planted her hands on one of his shoulders and leaned over him to look, balancing with her feet on the dresser behind them.

Her recently washed hair, left loose, tumbled down his chest as she leaned further out to reassure herself the thing no longer moved. Her unique scent, jasmine and orchids, washed over him, and coupled with her sudden nearness, made him go still.

"Can you dispose of its corpse?" She asked, still whispering for some reason.

"Do I look like your maid?!" He demanded.

"Please?"

"It'll cost you another favor," he growled, wanting to be done with this, and away from her, despite the fact he hadn't moved, allowing her to perch on him like this.

"Fine. Whatever. I just don't wanna touch its gross body."

Shaking his head at the woman's willingness to indebt herself to him over something like this, he finally rolled his shoulder, signalling for her to get off him so he could carry out her request. When she pushed off to crouch back down on the dresser, he leaned down and pinched one of its legs between his thumb and forefinger. As he lifted it off the ground, its leg detached, the body plopping back down with a squelching sound. The sound of gagging could be heard behind him.

After picking it up by its body and tossing it out the open window of her bedroom, along with the discarded limb, he turned around to look at her, one eyebrow raised, silently asking her if she required anything further. In exchange for even more future favors, of course.

Almost too fast to follow, she dropped from the dresser and surged to the window, shutting and latching it smoothly in one movement. Standing on tiptoe, she gazed down to make sure the spider was now only a smear on the cobblestones below the two story establishment. After scanning the skies as well, as if suddenly afraid that Yaga-Shura's catapults were launching spiders instead of flaming boulders, she turned around to look at him.

Giving him a relieved, sheepish smile, the first genuine one she'd ever directed at him, he found himself growing even more annoyed than before by the sight of it. Or rather, the effect it had on him.

"Anything else?" He grumbled, looking away. "Or shall I check under your bed for more?"

She blinked at him, slow to realize he was teasing, almost as slow as he was to realize it, too.

"No. I mean, unless you want to. It won't earn you anymore favors though."

"Then I'm done here," he replied, brushing past her as he headed for the door.

"Thanks," she called after him a few seconds later. "I owe you one."

"You owe me two!" He corrected her over his shoulder. "And don't scream like that again unless you're dying!"