…Sabal walked down the halls of the Yath'Abban, empty like the quiet hours in the sleeping cycle when few carried out their business. She stopped when she saw a soapstone and a bucket standing on the floor next to the altar in the chapel of Lloth, waiting for her like they had when she was a girl. She walked forward picked the soapstone up, studying the dark stains for a moment before kneeling down and starting to scrub. She was wearing her armor still, without a weapon, but it didn't impede her work. She wasn't alone for long.

"What are you doing?" a familiar voice asked, stern and cool in tone.

Sabal looked up and felt her heart jump up into her throat.

There, standing before her, was the familiar figure of her mentor. Xullae A'Daragon was most certainly dead, even in her current incarnation. Her body was covered in wounds inflicted by her student, her armor damaged, and her throat had been torn apart by a knife—Sabal's knife. But her speech came naturally, as if she was unwounded and alive. Her crimson eyes were not glassy now, and her ivory hair was swept up into a bun.

"Xullae!" The name jumped from her lips before she could think. Sabal had never been a demonstrative woman, but she leaped up and almost tackled her mentor to the floor, wrapping her arms around the older inquisitor. Sabal could feel her eyes burning. The guilt that came with seeing those wounds again was almost overwhelming, but she was grateful for the chance to see Xullae again, even if it was a dream. This had to be a dream. She knew better than anyone that her mentor was gone…she still remembered the rush of hot blood over her hands and those last, fleeting thoughts. "I—" She couldn't even think of the words.

Xullae gently pulled back, her crimson eyes focusing intently on her student's amber ones. "What are you doing, Sabal?"

"I don't understand," Sabal said. She was somewhat reassured by the way Xullae's hands stayed on her shoulders, but she was still confused by the question. "Do you mean the surface?"

"What are you doing?" Xullae repeated. This time, however, she clarified. "What are you doing with Alystin?"

"I love her," Sabal said, trying not to sound defensive. She wanted Xullae to approve, even a phantom and even after so many years.

"I know," Xullae said. She sat down on the steps and looked up at Sabal for a long moment before patting the stone steps by her side. "But what are you doing to protect her? Do you think you can simply appease the Abyss by giving it this map and that will solve everything?"

Sabal sat down. It had always been easier to talk like this, sitting next to Xullae but not looking into her eyes. The open scrutiny always made her self-conscious. One didn't keep secrets from an inquisitor. "I don't know. I don't want to anger Lloth, but I can't lose her either." She felt like a little girl again, trying to grasp the magnitude of a problem she didn't have the power to solve.

"You've seen glimpses of a future possible if the Abyss is allowed to claim Alystin. Hints of what might be," Xullae said. "As Yvonnel said, the Abyss will have its pound of flesh from her in its time. Unless…well, unless you take a different path. There's still light in Aly, and light attracts light. She could return to a power not so inclined to ill-use her. Such a thing requires aid."

Sabal was quiet for a long moment, considering this. She didn't want to see any of her dreams come anywhere near reality. "What can I do?" she said softly. "Lloth demands of me…and Aly won't leave me, even for her own good."

"Love is a sacrifice," Xullae said. "In any of its forms. The best that we can do is make it unflinchingly. I know you, Sabal. I raised you. I taught you. I told you duty was the beginning and end of all things, but it was a lie. You are old enough, wise enough, to know that now. It kept you alive, it kept you whole, but now you are at a place where duty is no longer your whole world. Alystin is. Sometimes we have to give up what we are for the sake of that which we hold dearer than all other things, whether that means playing the villain or the hero."

Sabal pulled her knees up to her chest the way she had when she was a girl, hugging them tightly. "She's worth it, Xullae," Sabal said softly.

Xullae sighed and turned her head, looking at her pupil with a sorrowful smile. "So were you."…

"Sabal," Alystin said gently, touching her lover's cheek.

Almost as if on command, those amber eyes fluttered open. It was still dark out, the moonlight painting the wall of their room. She could hear Storunn snoring like a sawmill still, with Camran following suit in a much quieter way. Nendir and Linnan looked asleep when she turned her head. "What's wrong, d'anthe?" Sabal asked. The uneasiness and conflicted emotions of her dream remained.

Alystin's answer was to brush a tear away from Sabal's eyes. "You were crying," the wizard said very quietly, her eyes worried.

Sabal sat up and rubbed at her eyes until the evidence was gone. Then she looked over at her lover. "Walk with me?" she asked softly. It was her way of saying that she wanted to talk without tipping off any of the others. It had been a tense night after their visit to Whelan, but everyone had eventually gone to sleep. They needed the time to rest and regroup before they went after Niall, just in case he had fiendish allies.

Sabal didn't want to agitate anyone by waking them up, nor did she want to have anyone eavesdrop on this conversation. She was alright with them knowing about her and Aly, but she wasn't alright with them knowing about Alystin's abyssal inclinations.

"Always," Aly said, rising to her feet.

She tangled her fingers with Sabal's once the wilder had donned her armor and walked with her out of the Dancing Cyclops. The light of false dawn was just beginning to break the eastern horizon, barely touching the sky above the city of Waterdeep. Sabal was quiet as they walked, something Alystin had become accustomed to long ago, when they were still friends. It was never easy to tell what she was thinking. Some part of Sabal always seemed to forget that not everyone could simply read her mind, though she was better about showing what she was thinking and feeling to Aly.

"Do you want to talk about it?" the wizard said quietly. She was still worried, but she was comforted by the familiar feeling of Sabal's gauntleted hand.

"I saw Xullae," Sabal said softly.

Aly understood. She knew the guilt was a weight that Sabal still carried around. The wizard had wrung the truth out of what happened that day from Ryld and Sabal had filled in the gaps as much as she could stand to. The beginning of an inquisitor's life of service was not a happy one. Alystin waited until they were in a narrow alley, out of the main view of the street, to wrap her arms around her lover. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," Sabal said. She rested her forehead against Aly's for a long moment. "I don't want anything to happen to you, ussta ssin. But I know that this, that the Abyss, it's going to hurt you if nothing changes."

"It was my decision to make a deal," Alystin said. "It's worth it. I have you."

"Would you do anything for me, Aly?" Sabal asked quietly.

"Of course I would, d'anthe," the wizard said. There was no question in her mind as to that.

Sabal took a deep breath. "Will you love me no matter what happens? No matter what I have to do to keep us safe?"

Alystin touched her lover's face with gentle fingertips. "Always, Sabal," she said. "You mean more to me than life. Whatever happens, I will always love you."

Sabal leaned in and kissed her. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but she couldn't find words to do them justice. She was not going to lose Aly to the Abyss, no matter what she had to do to prevent it. Someone someday would have to pay the piper, but it didn't have to be Aly. The wilder slipped her arms around her lover and held her close. "I love you too," she said, fragile words for a feeling that could stand alone and unbowed for ten thousand years.


It was evening by the time Alystin had refilled her spell components, Camran had prayed, and they'd found it. The Inn of the Dripping Dagger was a three-story building in the Trades Ward off the main street, comprised of a stone taproom and two wooden floors above of rented rooms. Its famous, seemingly haunted door kept its peace when they entered rather than muttering some menacing or cryptic phrase, which almost disappointed Camran. He'd heard a little bit about it when Linnan was detailing the lore of the place and had been curious to hear it speak. Meanwhile, Alystin paused to examine the carved stone griffins perched on the edges of the flat roof, but was quick to follow the others into the building. It was rowdier than the Cyclops, its patrons almost to a one mercenaries or adventurers. It was smoky and warm with a low ceiling to the common room, full of sturdy wooden tables and chairs. Even at strange hours, it was a full house. Adventurers were not known for being quiet when they had full purses after a successful job.

"We should ask the staff," Alystin said, breaking the uncomfortable quiet that had descended on the group. Linnan had done his best to ameliorate things by relating to Camran stories of Waterdeep, but everyone's minds lingered on Sabal's outburst at Nendir. The elf carefully kept his gaze away from Sabal lest it provoke her further, but he was walking with a stiff jaw and narrowed eyes that were sufficient evidence at least to Aly of his displeasure.

"And what are we going to do when we find him?" Camran asked in a low voice.

Alystin hesitated. "I don't know," she admitted, looking towards their hooded wilder. "As much as I know you don't like it, that's up to Sabal."

"Will she kill him?" Nendir said from his position on her left. He was keeping their wizard between him and Sabal.

"I don't know," Aly repeated, her eyes following Sabal and Linnan. She sat down at a table to watch and wait. She was confident in their ability to handle this…just not in their ability to handle it in an 'approved' fashion. Storunn sat down next to her, his expression grim. He wasn't exactly thrilled with their drow's attitude towards their current mission either.

Over at the counter, Sabal was just one more adventurer to everyone else's eyes. Her plain sword and muted armor weren't quite flashy enough, but she had that out-of-place look that characterized most people who made the roads their home. "Do you know where I can find Niall Lìosach?" she asked the innkeeper who was at the bar.

"He owe you money too?" Filiare was a middle-aged human man with dark, albeit greying hair and a thick mustache. He seemed a jovial man by nature and moved like an old fighter. Sabal guessed that he was a retired wandering sword himself.

Linnan hopped up onto a stool. "Nope," the halfling said. "Heard he could help us."

It was a story he and Sabal had agreed on. If someone was hoping to protect Niall from loansharks, this would be a way to circumvent them. Filiare studied them. "Man's in poor health these days. Dunno what help he could be," he said. He didn't sound cautious, but his eyes were measuring the intention of the pair. It was impossible to read Sabal with her hood and shrouding, however.

"Hey, they're looking for Niall!" someone else called. "Where is that waste of space these days?"

"Over at his corner table, covered in his own filth!" someone answered back.

Filiare shook his head. "Kids these days," he mumbled.

There was laughter and Sabal felt her muscles coil with tension in response to her unspoken irritation. She didn't like it when people helped themselves to her business.

One of the adventurers swaggered over. He was a musclebound human who stood well over six feet tall, but he looked young. Sabal wasn't great with human ages, but she would have guessed younger than Camran by a year or two—barely more than a boy, but old enough to think he was the most dangerous thing around. "If you're looking for help, you can do better than Niall," he said.

Linnan looked at Sabal a little uneasily. He wasn't certain how she was going to take this. He glanced over and saw the rest of their group tense as well. Aly looked like she had a spell readied, Nendir's hand was on his sword, Storunn's on his axe, and Camran was leaning forward slightly in preparation for a jump up to his feet. The rogue let his hand wander back to the back of his belt where a long dagger waited. It was a little more subtle to draw than his short sword.

"This is no place for children," Sabal said with her usual bluntness. While the shock was still working its way through the boy's body, she grabbed him by the throat and slammed him back into a chair so hard the wood cracked on impact. The force was half muscle and half psionic, and the result was a deathly quiet bar. The adventurer went white as a sheet. Anyone else? She asked it without using her voice, projecting out every inch of cold displeasure she felt. People shied away. Sabal had not been having a good time since they left Silverymoon and she was more than willing to inflict that on someone else if the opportunity arose.

"You can't—" the young man started to say, eyes still wide and white as he covered the forming bruises on his throat with one hand.

"Shut up!" one of his friends hissed, suddenly serious. The laughter in the room had died a harsh, sudden death.

Conversation picked up again, but with brittle and uneasy tones. The younger faces looked their way with gawking eyes and the older ones purposefully avoided doing so, staring down into their drinks. Sabal had demonstrated quite clearly that she was someone not to be trifled with.

A middle-aged man at a shadowy corner table beckoned to them, a haggard figure with a sallow face and sunken eyes. Sabal walked over, Linnan following faithfully on her heels. The others were watching from their table, Aly balanced on the edge of her seat with her lips pressed into a worried line. Camran and Nendir were still ready for action as well, though Storunn leaned back in his seat and started to drink again. "Have a seat," the man said roughly.

He was an unshaven, dark-haired human man probably in his forties, but he looked older. There was wear in his face, the kind that spoke of a man who looked like he'd had a good time in a bad way. Premature lines collected in his forehead and at the corners of his mouth, carved by years of hard living. His skin had a yellow-grey, death-like tint to it and his eyes were glassy. A puckered scar ran from the left corner of his mouth down his neck, a blow that should have killed him. There was something unsettling in his thousand-mile stare, at least to Linnan. Sabal didn't flinch. She knew that look too well to find it upsetting. "You're looking for me?" he said. It sounded like his throat had been sandpapered.

"Does the name Jaeger Holt mean anything to you, Niall?" Sabal said. Before he could speak, crude humor touching the corners of her mouth, she continued, "Beyond that he is the Ambassador of the Silver Marches and a very powerful man."

His jaw clicked shut and he gave her a thoughtful stare. "What's it worth to you?" Niall said, slouching back in his seat. He watched her with his dark, glassy eyes. They looked dead inside, as if the spirit had flown but the body continued in its own way.

Sabal was an expert at finding people's weak points. Her job was to pull them apart, break them down. Yvonnel had used her as an interrogation tool as well as an enforcer and hunter. She could tell that Niall would not be swayed by promises of coin or appeals to honor. He was a broken creature. He burned still, but only for two things. She leaned forward, resting her forearms on the table. "I will help you with Drustan Whelan," she said quietly. "We both know what you want."

Linnan could only describe the emotion on the man's face as hunger. A burning, desperate hunger for his poison. "I'll help you," Niall said. "But we can't talk here. Holt hires these boys all the time for fetching things."

"Linnan, stay here with the others," Sabal ordered as she rose to her feet. Niall shuddered up to his and limped after her.

"But—" he started to say. He didn't have a good feeling about Sabal and their new source being alone together. He wasn't sure who he was afraid for, Sabal or Niall, but he had a growing sense that this wouldn't end well.

Stay, Sabal ordered psionically. Linnan found that his feet suddenly didn't want to move. It was unnerving at best. Once he could move again, after she'd made it out of the door with Niall, Linnan went over to the others.

"He agreed to help us," the halfling reported solemnly. "Sabal said she'd help him with Drustan."

"And you let them go off alone? She'll kill him!" Camran said in a low voice, his eyes wide.

"I'm more worried about Sabal," Aly said. When they all looked at her, she sighed. "I will guarantee you that Niall is not a good man. Luhix is an abyssal drug, and the Abyss has a corrosive effect on even good people. It makes its users unpredictable and violent."

"However bad he thinks he is, I'll guarantee you that Sabal is worse," Nendir said with confidence.

"She's a woman, not a monster," Aly said abruptly, standing up. "I'm going to follow from a distance. I don't like the idea of Sabal not having reinforcements."

"Right behind you, Aly," Linnan said, drawing his knife to check the edge.

Storunn stood up reluctantly. "If ye think he's dangerous…" he said, letting it trail off.

Nendir was glaring at his halfling partner. "You're really agreeing to this?" he asked.

"Sabal's our friend," Linnan said. "She saved us in Gracklstugh."

"She's going to murder someone," Camran said bluntly. The human cleric looked serious and grim-faced.

"We don't know that," the thief argued. He sheathed his dagger. "We kill people all the time, Nendir, and I don't think this will be any different. I don't think Sabal will kill anyone who isn't trying to kill us. Sabal is a lot of things, but she's not the kind of person to cut down a helpless man."

Aly bit her lower lip. She knew Sabal better than anyone. However, she didn't say a word. Linnan could believe what he wanted to believe. He was right in a way: Sabal was a lot of things. One of those things was drow.

"We can be pretty damn sure," Nendir said. However, he wavered in the face of Linnan's conviction. "Fine. We'll follow."

Camran sighed. He wanted to refuse, but the rest of the group would need him if it turned into a fight. As much as he was angry with Sabal right now, he didn't want to take it out on them. "If she kills him, Aly, we'll have to do something," the cleric said quietly. "This is Waterdeep. She can't just murder people like it's the Underdark."

The look Alystin gave him was silent and unreadable.


Sabal walked down the waterfront with Niall. It had been a quiet walk as the sun set through the city to reach here where the waves lapped against the docks, neither one of them saying anything lest their words reach prying ears. Finally, Niall broke the silence. "I know about Holt and his devils. He used to hire me. They've been thick as thieves for a long time," he said, tucking his thumbs behind his belt as they came to a stop by one of the piers. "There's one he talks to all the time, through a scrying glass, named Moloch. Something powerful. I don't know what."

"What is this Moloch planning with Holt?" Sabal asked quietly, her pensive expression lost in the darkness of her hood.

Niall chuckled. "Hells if I know," he said. "Something that Holt didn't want anybody to know. He's a sly bastard, I'll give him that."

"Do you know who else he talks to?"

The sallow-faced man shook his head. "Bunch of nobles. I could pick them out of a crowd, but I don't know names."

Sabal knew she could look into his memories and find them, but she wasn't certain what else she would find as well. It would likely be nothing unexpected, but that didn't translate to pleasant. "I need you to go to Lady Alustriel in Silverymoon," Sabal said quietly. "And point them out to her."

Niall smiled humorlessly. "And be treated even more like scum? People like me don't talk to people like her. Besides, why make an enemy of Holt? He might need someone to do his dirty work and he at least pays."

"Is it really about money at this point?" the drowess said when she turned to face him. "No amount of coin will ever make your problems go away. Even if you had all the gold in the world, you'd be ever so slowly poisoning yourself and everyone around you. Luhix gives with one hand and takes away with both."

"It's all I have," Niall said. "You told me you would help with Drustan."

"And I am helping you," Sabal said. Her amber eyes were studying him thoughtfully. She hadn't gone for a weapon because she knew she wouldn't need one. Niall would be strong, maybe even inhumanly, but the drug had left his will sapped. She could feel his unguarded mind bleeding suffering into the world around it. What a miserable creature. Was it strange that she felt actual pity for him?

He was more use to her alive than dead, she told herself.

Niall started to fidget. She could see that the skin on the back of his left hand was red from where he'd been scratching it. "You don't understand," he said in a low voice. "Holt takes care of his people. I could be one of his people. I could have the coin, the respect—"

Sabal grabbed him by the wrist before he could draw his knife, her gauntleted grip tightening when she felt him preparing to lash out. "You will find," she said quietly, "that I am a no more desirable enemy than Holt. I'm offering you a choice, Niall. You can work for me, or you can go where all of Holt's men eventually go."

Niall laughed. "You're threatening me with death? Me?"

Sabal leaned in and whispered in his ear, "It's not a threat, Niall. It's a promise."

Something in those accented syllables seemed to reach him in his drug-deprived haze, chilling his blood just enough that he was listening. "So what would you want me to do?" Niall asked.

Sabal pulled out a small, adamantite drow promise token, one of her own. It had the glyph that had once been Xullae's on it. She only had two with her, but she'd showed them to Alustriel. It was a symbol that the noblewoman would recognize as not at all like anything Holt would have. "Take this to Lady Alustriel and tell her everything you know about Holt and Moloch. She will help you in a way that I can't. Oh, and Niall? I will know if you don't find her. Don't let anyone see you leave the city." She folded the promise token, along with something else, into his palm. "Off you go."

Niall turned and walked away, oblivious to the small group who had watched the exchange. He looked down at the contents of his hand. There was the glyphic token…and a ruby cabochon polished to a high shine. Perhaps working for the hooded woman wasn't going to be so unprofitable after all.

Once he was well and gone, Sabal turned her head sharply and glared into the shadows where familiar minds were waiting. They'd probably approve, she thought sourly. It was probably going to blow up in her face later, but that was future Sabal's problem. "I can see you," she said, irritated. The shadows were no cover to drow eyes, unlike Niall's. They wouldn't have been able to hear the conversation.

"You let him go?" Nendir said, surprised.

"Give it time. I might change my mind," Sabal said shortly, striding over. "Aly, Holt is working with a fiend named Moloch."

"I ran across that name in Alustriel's library doing some research," Alystin said, her grey eyes pensive. "A pit fiend, Sabal. And I think a duke at that."

The drowess wanted to spit a vile epithet at the universe at that revelation. Storunn didn't look pleased either. The others, however, seemed to not realize the danger that this entailed. "What's a pit fiend?" Camran asked. He wasn't familiar with demons and devils the way their wizard seemed to be.

"A very powerful breed of devil. Archfiends are elevated from the ranks of the dukes," Alystin explained. "We can't beat a creature like that in a straight fight. Not without Alustriel and probably ten other people at her level of power."

"What I would not give for the Yath'Abban," Sabal muttered in her native language, covering her eyes with one gauntleted hand as she tried to think. How in all Nine Hells were they supposed to handle that kind of power? Still, she and Aly had survived this far. She sighed. "Aly, what are the chances that we'll have to handle Moloch?"

"Incredibly low, if Holt is trying to maintain any level of secrecy," Alystin said, leaning on her staff. "Hiding an infernal duke would be quite the feat. However, we can expect Moloch to have granted fiendish boons to Holt…which would explain the change in him that Drustan described. That could mean any number of things in combat. We also still don't know how many cultists there are."

"Holt is our priority. Alustriel will have Niall as a resource to root out the rest once he's gone," Sabal said. "None of you are to tell Drustan what happened. He will find out, but by the time that happens, I aim for him to be in Silverymoon singing like a cavern breeze."

"Thank you, Sabal," Camran said softly. "You didn't have to let him go."

"I may live to regret it," Sabal said brusquely. "Let's just go back to the inn. Aly, could you contact Yvonnel by scrying?"

"Who's Yvonnel?" Nendir asked, puzzled.

"An ally of Sabal's," Alystin said. She looked at her lover. "Interference would be a problem, but I could probably pass her a brief message. You want to ask her for help, I take it?" The wizard couldn't help her reluctance.

"Tell her about Moloch, if you can," Sabal said. "I want someone prepared if something happens to us."

"Understood," the wizard said softly. She didn't trust or like Yvonnel, but she knew that the priestess would probably present a much more potent enemy for Moloch and Holt than anyone on the surface probably could. Even Alustriel had to dance around her neighbors to avoid war or conflict. Yvonnel had no such compunctions. Her reach was limited, but if she knew who and what she was facing, she would be able to marshal a considerable covert response.

Sabal nodded.

The city was quiet for the rest of the night.