"Xan?" murmured Arrow, trying not to draw attention from the others.

"…don't know why I didn't go home as soon as I escaped the Nashkel mines," the wizard sighed dully. "I mean they could hardly have said I hadn't tried to complete their cursed mission. I was captured, I was tortured, I died!"

"Yes Xan, I know," replied Arrow patiently, "And on the subject of dead wizards…"

They had finally retrieved the silly random objects that the dwarven guardians demanded, at which point their response had been to attack them. In fairness they were very apologetic about it. Durlag had not permitted them free-will so they were bound to carry out their ridiculous orders for all eternity. Once defeated they allowed them to pass, only to resume their posts ready for the next party to come along. Arrow was rapidly coming to the conclusion that this Durlag must have been a few eggs short of a hen coop, still at least they were making progress.

"And then, as if the whole business weren't bedevilled enough, you let a drow join the party," Xan carried on accusingly. The wizard would need to rest again soon. He was bedraggled, and a large gash from one of the dwarf guardians' axes was scabbing over on his pale face. The cold was starting to get the better of him too. He had buried his hands into his pockets and his nose was turning red.

"You know I'm not exactly thrilled that Viconia and Rasaad kissed either," said Arrow tersely, but quietly. They were bringing up the rear of the party as Rasaad and Montaron went on ahead to scan for and disable traps. Viconia and Jaheira were following close behind in case hasty healing was required. Khalid and Edwin lined up in the middle to deal with monsters attacking from in front and behind. "But the succubus's influence was pretty strong stuff. I was all over him too, remember?"

Xan shot the human a condescending glance. Arrow's idea of what constituted being 'all over' someone was amusingly vanilla. It was nothing short of miraculous that Rasaad noticed her at all with Viconia around. No wonder the ranger didn't seem too offended by the incident.

"We're clear!" called Jaheira. "Nothing down here but these diaries."

"'Islanne my w- wife I love you s- still, t'was just your form they made me k- k- kill,'" read Khalid. "Sounds like d- doppelgangers to m- me."

"If it's doppelgangers again do try not to shoot me this time," Viconia hollered up at Arrow. The last time they had encountered the shapeshifting creatures, the ranger had mistaken her for one and attacked. Despite also having a bad track record herself when it came to friendly-fire (she had once stabbed Khalid in the back) the drow had not forgiven her for it. Arrow noticed Xan's lip twitch as though he were about to smile, before he remembered that he was mad at Viconia.

"Onward to futility I suppose," he sighed. "Lone doppelgangers usually just lurk around waiting to trick passing meat. Something even more powerful must be co-ordinating them to take over the tower. Doubtless we will meet it shortly. We are all dead men."

"Well one of us is literally a dead man, and you've had him walking into the same wall for the past ten minutes!" hissed Arrow.

"What? Why didn't you say something?" snapped Xan, too distracted by how angry he was with Viconia to realise that she had been trying to. Arrow rolled her eyes at him. Xan focussed his energies and redirected Xzar to descend the stairs. This took all his concentration. Steps were difficult for the lurching corpse to navigate and Arrow had to discretely guide poor lumbering Xzar to the level below.

This new dungeon had an odd smell to it. While the first level of the basement had been dry and cold, the air in this one had a damp and almost sulphuric quality. There were four doors but only the one to the South was open. The party ventured cautiously, with Rasaad pointing out traps and Montaron disarming them with a constant stream of muttered threats.

Inside was the oddest art gallery any of the party had ever seen. Presumably the original had belonged to Durlag. There were a number of stout statues of dwarven warriors, their long beards braided into elaborate plaits and weapons clutched in their stone gloves. Paintings along the edge of the gallery had been slashed by long claws, but traces of their former beauty was still detectable. Covered in cobwebs in one corner was a marble statue of a young human with doe-like eyes playing a harp.

Yet the doppelgangers who had slashed the paintings had occupied this room and remade it in their own sinister image. They had added statues of themselves and of their natural allies. Ogres, a werewolf and demonic creatures. In the centre of the room was a rug and woven into it was the hunched figure of a doppelganger. Every so often its eyes darted to the statues of the harp player and the werewolf.

"The statues are clean," said Montaron at length. "I suppose I need to tell ye morons not to tread on the carpet with the moving eyes? It's a magical trap." He added with a cunning glint in his eye, "If ye untie Xzar I bet he could purge the dark magic for ye. Knows a thing or two about evil spells does Xzar."

"Or we could just not step on it," snapped Jaheira impatiently. "But we appreciate your helpful suggestion."

The party began to inspect the two statues for hidden switches, poking their fingers into every stone orifice, and wiggling the werewolf's teeth. It did not take them long to find that one of the harp-player's fingers could move to stroke the instrument's stone strings. With a strum of melody the Western door opened. The werewolf took them a little more prodding. In the end it was Jaheira with her knowledge of natural lore who discovered that you had to scratch behind its ears to open the door to the East.

They explored the East room first, carefully because the dust was irritating their lungs. The colours on the faded velvet bed and the marble-cut furniture suggested that this squalid pit had once been very grand indeed. A short dwarven skeleton lay with its skull resting on the pillow. It did not seem to have put up much of a fight. Perhaps it had died in its sleep.

In a chest at the foot of the bed, Xan found a smooth grey pebble with a glowing symbol etched into it. He recognized it as a dwarven runestone, usually used to control doors and bridges. A sort of magical key to unpickable locks. It probably controlled the door to the North. As soon as he laid hands on it, a dwarf appeared in the room with them. He strode up to Arrow, arms open wide, but there was a mocking smile on his face.

"Islanne my love, your hair is down," he said.

"Are you trying to be funny?" asked Arrow, nonplussed. She was not in the mood to be mocked about her involuntarily shaven head. Not while she was still trying to suppress the memory of Rasaad lip-locked with their cleric, running his fingers through her beautiful silver hair. She was trying so hard not to be angry. She had no right to be angry. Yet she caught herself hoping that the doppelgangers would morph into Rasaad and Viconia again just so that she could get to shoot them.

"Islanne, you smell ssso sweet. You smell of Thisss…"

"I smell of piss?" Arrow raised an eyebrow. "Huh. Well, whatever floats your boat I suppose."

She raised her bow casually and shot it in the eye. The creature stood no chance against such a large group of adventurers. The spellcasters had barely uttered a word of incantation before it's purple-grey blood was pooling around their feet.

The party left it where it fell and proceeded cautiously through the newly opened West door, leaving a squelching trail of bloody footprints. This chamber seemed to have once been a school room. Instruments, mining manuals and practise fighting dummies were strewn about. It was long abandoned by all but the most determined of spiders. As Viconia put the eight-legged dungeon creeps to death with unusual savagery even by her standards, Arrow picked up a little scrap of paper.

"Too young to fig-hut except to fall," she read, frowning.

"Fight," corrected Xan discretely.

"Fuernebol!" It was Durlag again. Arrow raised her bow. "Put down your weapon and play me something mournful would you?"

Arrow fired and struck the dwarf in the shoulder. She was getting tired and it was not one of her better shots. It seemed to do little but provoke the monster.

"Shoot your own father, would you?" hissed Durlag. "Sstupid boy!"

As the others cut down the doppelganger, Arrow froze. A narrow corridor led off of the school room, looping back to the room with the carpet. In it lay the pale remains of another skeleton. Even for a dwarf it was very small. She felt cold inside at the sight of it and sad. How frightened that poor little boy must have been. She wondered if he had screamed for his Daddy. It was a horrible injustice, this innocent life so needlessly cut short.

She stepped around the tiny corpse, respectfully making the sign of Ilmater as she did so. Yet as the others filed after her there was a sickening crunch and something in Arrow snapped.

"Seriously Viconia?" she hollered, rounding on the cleric. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"What am I supposed to have done now?" Viconia snapped back, tired, drained from casting multiple healing spells and equally angry.

"A child, a dead child, and you couldn't even be bothered to step around it? You are a sick cow, you know that, right?"

"I didn't see it in the dark!" replied Viconia crossly, "And why does it matter? It's not like I hurt it, it's dead!"

"Oh, here's fun," grinned Montaron, trying to catch Xzar's eye as they filed back into the carpeted room. Xzar didn't respond. Montaron shrugged but he had been disarming traps non-stop all day. He was too tired to care about his anti-social companion.

The party watched on helplessly as cleric and ranger got closer and increasingly up in each other's faces. They had not gone so far as to physically threaten each other yet, but both had their weapons in their hands.

"Please, do not blame Viconia for what happened earlier," Rasaad pleaded with Arrow, "It was my fault."

"Arrow has a point, stepping on dead children is a bit of a no-no on the surface," Xan tried to diffuse Viconia, "Let's just chalk it up to cultural differences and move on."

"This has nothing to do with you!" Arrow snarled at Rasaad.

"Oh, it blatantly does," purred Viconia, ignoring Xan. "I didn't see my male locking lips with you. I warned you, you should have nipped that sort of behaviour in the bud. Too late now!"

A nasty glint was showing in Arrow's eye. Viconia's own red eyes narrowed calculatingly. She had always taken it as a given that the ranger would never intentionally hurt her, but perhaps she had underestimated her. At this distance she could easily knock the bow from the ranger's hands before she even had chance to raise it, but she wanted to see what the girl would do. If she were willing to try to shoot a rival in cold blood, then perhaps she might be able to respect her after all.

She never found out. At that moment Montaron erupted in a howl of fury and outrage. They turned, followed his gaze and let out a collective groan. Xan had been so distracted by Arrow and Viconia's argument that he had not been paying careful enough attention to where he was directing Xzar. The dead necromancer had wandered onto the doppelganger rug, which was now consuming him feet first.

"How long must I weather this storm of incompetence?" muttered Edwin.

Montaron looked as though he would quite like to attack the lot of them, but since he was unarmed and Xzar was disappearing fast, (the woven doppelganger having reached his knees,) the thief lunged forward to pull him out.

This was a mistake. Preferring live meat, the doppelganger released Xzar who, without the benefit of his lower limbs, toppled stiffly onto the rug. It then latched its jaws around Montaron's feet and bit them off. The halfling howled in horror and agony. Blood poured from his ankles but as it hit the carpet instead of staining it, it became part of it. A growing pool of blood seemed to have been woven in as part of the picture, looking like it had always been there. Arrow sprang forward to help but found herself in Khalid's iron grip.

"D- don't step on the c- c- carpet!" he panted.

There was little they could do. Arrow later comforted herself that Viconia and Jaheira's rapid succession of healing spells probably eased Montaron's suffering in his final moments but they had no power to regrow severed limbs. Edwin and Xan immediately started casting enchantments aimed at disabling the curse or destroying the rug, but the tapestry was impervious to their efforts.

Without his feet, Montaron toppled over, just as Xzar had done and then there was no hope of escape. The doppelganger could reach all of him and tugged him fully into the tapestry. As it pulled, Montaron transformed from a man into a woven image, just like the doppelganger. First his calves, bottom and then stomach were merged into the fabric until only his upper torso and arms were poking out. He screamed and flailed frantically.

Rasaad had the sensible idea of rolling the tapestry up as far as Montaron and then pulling the thief out. This would have worked beautifully had the rug been less heavy or had the doppelganger not already had such a head start. By the time he had rolled up the rug sufficiently to be able to reach Montaron without treading on it, the halfling was reduced to a head, shoulders and a pair of arms. He pulled. So did the doppelganger, latching onto Montaron's abdomen with its razor sharp teeth and claws. It sliced and chomped down over and over, trying to bite him in half. The thief's head sagged. Blood loss and the crushing of his organs had finished him even with the attention of two healers. Knowing it was almost certainly futile, Rasaad flung himself backward, pulling with all his strength in one last-ditch attempt to free him.

There was a great ripping noise and Montaron's head, arms and shoulders tore away from the rest of him in an explosion of blood. Edwin screamed pitifully, and Khalid buried his face into Arrow's back, as she was hit with a crimson splatter. Monk and monster both lunged to grab Xzar, but Rasaad's hands were slippery red and he lost his grip. The doppelganger pulled the rest of the necromancer into the tapestry.

The party stood around the rug, drenched in blood and panting. For a moment nobody could bring themselves to say anything. Xan had backed up into the statue of the harp player. He was mouthing the word 'no' over and over. They stared in horrified fascination as the doppelganger munched silently on the woven remains of the Zhents, fixing them occasionally with malevolent eyes. There would be no trips to the temple this time. Xzar and Montaron were gone. Rasaad staggered forward and hastily rolled up the rest of the carpet. This seemed to snap the others out of it.

"Excellent work Xan!" declared Jaheira loftily. "You just cost us our thief!"

"You had one job, elf!" Edwin added, rounding on his fellow mage.

"There are certainly lessons to be learned from this," chimed in Rasaad, uncharacteristically harshly. They were used to his strength and strange tattoos, but he had got the worst of the blood explosion and dripping with it like this he looked positively demonic. "About not allowing ourselves to become distracted by personal issues!"

Xan's expression turned from traumatized to furious and he extracted himself from the statue. His cloak caught on the stonework and tore as he rose. This did nothing to improve his temper.

"Don't blame him, it was her fault!" bellowed Viconia, pointing a finger in Arrow's face. Without thinking, the ranger smacked it away, hard. With snake-like speed, the cleric seized Arrow by the neck and pinned her up against the wall. She choked, but with legs strengthened by long walking, she kicked the drow repeatedly until she was forced to let go. Both women looked ready for round two, but the rest of the party held them back.

"Enough!" hollered Jaheira stepping between them. She gave Xan and Viconia an imperious look. "I would expect this coming from Arowan, she is not much more than a child, but you two ought to know better! On to the next room!"

She turned and strode toward the North door, expecting to be obeyed. Arrow stepped toward Viconia again but Khalid yanked her arm. With one last, devilish look at Viconia, she followed the Harpers. Her chest was pounding with irrational rage. She remembered telling Rasaad once not to let his anger change him for the worse. Recently she was having difficulty following her own advice.

Never one to let a slight go, Viconia called Arrow something that made even Edwin raise an eyebrow. Xan, having bit his tongue through yet another round of patronizing by Jaheira turned to Rasaad and said;

"For what it is worth, I believe you made a very wise decision ending your relationship with Arrow."

Rasaad felt a jolt in his stomach at this cruel and unexpected remark. Xan rarely discussed feelings at all, never mind of his own volition. It occurred to Rasaad that he had been so concerned about whether Arrow and Viconia were hurt by the previous night's events, that he had forgotten how Xan must hate him for it as well. His gut twisted with a fresh wave of self-loathing.

"She is a pious, weak, self-pitying little brat!" agreed Viconia, savagely.

"Well there's that," said Xan with a smirk, "And the fact that you would have ended up with Jaheira for a mother-in-law."

"I do not wish to be part of this conversation," said Rasaad stiffly, as Viconia laughed.

Edwin watched him striding away with a thoughtful expression. Clearly there were some serious fault-lines in the party. It might be possible to exploit them to further his own cause, although he had not quite decided on how yet.

"Watch and see, Odesseiron," he told himself, as he followed the party. "Yes… watch and see."