"This is so disgusting!" moaned Imoen. "Why is it that whenever I hang out with you, I end up being totally grossed out?"

"Human disgusting!" yipped the young kobold. "Me the one grossed out!"

"Just hold your head in there a little longer," said Arrow, her voice muffled through her sleeve, "And try not to breathe."

Imoen was not exaggerating. What they were up to was undeniably disgusting. They were wading knee-deep through sludgy filth in the sewers under Baldur's Gate. The smell of excrement was overpowering and, unlike Arrow, Imoen did not possess a ranger's constitution. She struggled not to succumb to the fumes.

To make it worse the pair of them were vigorously smushing their hair into the scales of a family of kobolds, in an attempt to deliberately infect themselves with lice. Arrow's hair had grown back to form a good solid covering over her scalp, but she was not confident that she would be allowed into Jessa's Hair Emporium. Suffice it to say that when she and Jessa Vai had first met in Beregost, the pair of them had not hit it off. So Arrow had brought Imoen with her as backup. 'For an adventure!'

"You couldn't have dragged Rasaad into the sewers to do this?" complained Imoen miserably.

"Rasaad and I are… erm… not on speaking terms," replied Arrow. By which she meant that she had threatened to shoot him in the kneecap as she had once done to poor, deceased Montaron unless he cleared off. She had avoided discussing the topic of the moon monk with Imoen but the truth was she had not set eyes on him in days and, frankly, she felt her spirits lifting in his absence. "Besides Rasaad is bald."

"All the more reason for him to get a wig!" scowled Imoen. She could taste the sewage in the air, but this was not incentivising her to close her mouth instead of grumbling. "What about your new pal, Coran then? He has a better reason to get a wig than me anyway, his hair is ridiculous!"

Arrow rolled her eyes. When it came to gossip the pink haired girl was like a blood-hound. It had not occurred to the ranger to invite Coran down here. He was not a sewer kind of man, and though his attention the last few days was undeniably entertaining, she was not really on favour-asking terms with him just yet. Especially since Coran might want payment for his help that she was not willing to provide. She had no intention of becoming yet another notch on his bedpost. Frankly that seemed like an invitation for every venereal Jaheira had ever warned her about to take up residence in her knickers at once!

Instead she planned to leave for the Cloud Peaks just as soon as she heard from Khalid and Jaheira. Still, against her better judgement, she had agreed to have dinner with Coran. After months of angst with the taciturn monk she felt that a casual date with a fun, happy and wholly transparent rogue might prove a well-deserved morale booster. Imoen lifted her head from the kobold she had been rubbing and it hopped away hastily to wash itself in the sewer water.

"Mommy I don't want to!" wailed a very small kobold puppy when it was his turn to be rubbed. "They stink!"

"No be rude!" yipped the kobold's mother, giving him a sharp clip around the back of the head.

"What do we stink of?" asked Imoen. The kobold's mother glared at her for encouraging bad behaviour in her offspring, but the pink haired girl shrugged disarmingly. "You live in a sewer, what is coming off of us that you find so repulsive? I'm just curious."

"Milk," replied the kobold mother repressively.

"Milk?" Arrow frowned, her own curiosity peaked.

"Humans really yucky!" piped up the young kobold, warming to his subject matter, as his mother tried to shush him. "Did you know? Did you know? Humans squeeze white pus out of slave animals and drink it! It really true!"

Arrow and Imoen snorted with laughter, but it was cut short by a large slop of green slime dropping from the ceiling and down Imoen's cleavage. The pink haired girl screwed up her eyes and whined. At least this was just regular ooze rather than the lethal sentient kind. A familiar itch was starting at the base of their necks. Kobold lice, as they knew from experience, were insanely infectious to humans. Their work here was done.

"But it true!" the kobold infant was wailing as his furious mother reprimanded him.

"I believe you," smiled Arrow, crouching down to the kobold's level. "Thank you, we appreciate your time. Here you go. Fifty fire arrows, as promised." The kobold mother snatched the arrows up and herded her rambunctious brood away with a disapproving backward glance at the pair of them. "C'mon Immy. Let's get out of here."

"Fifty arrows?" muttered Imoen darkly. "Couldn't just shoot them like a normal adventurer, could you?"

Part two of Arrow's plan was going to be even more revolting. They were headed to Jessa's Hair Emporium, a popular wig shop whose patrons included Arrow's adopted guardian, Jaheira. The wigs had a reputation for exquisite quality, in fact when placed on the owner's head they were quite indistinguishable from human hair.

Unfortunately, this was because they were human hair. Where others had seen an iron crisis, the entrepreneurial Officer Vai had spotted an opportunity. She had placed a generous bounty on the scalps of bandits slain on the road by adventurers. Notionally this was to purge the trading routes of dangerous brigands. In reality the corrupt cop had been preserving them in order to stock her wig shop.

Irritatingly, as Khalid had pointed out, all of this was perfectly legal. Officer Vai had acquired the scalps through legitimate channels and in any case the Flaming Fist were notorious for protecting their own. Even if it turned out that she had violated some regulation or other, it was unlikely that the police of Baldur's Gate would investigate or prosecute her. Especially since this would mean her cancelling her retirement and returning to her day job. Arrow had heard that Lieutenant Corwin was set to take over her position, and from what she had seen of her it seemed unlikely that the brusque soldier would relinquish her promotion over a few dead bandits.

So Arrow was having to resort to… alternative tactics.

She and Imoen climbed out of the sewer, ignoring the disgusted glances from passing citizens. They returned to the Ducal Palace first for a wash, earning horrified gasps from the domestic staff. Arrow cringed guiltily. Freya with her muddy boots, moulting fur and periodic bouts of drooling had generated enough extra work for them. Now here she was leaving sewer drippings on the Grand Dukes' long-suffering red velvet carpets.

As the two girls were drying themselves on towels (which would need to be thrown away afterward, the power of soap has its limits) there were two loud bangs that made the door shake. Arrow looked up in alarm. She reached for her weapons and had her bow half-raised when Imoen trilled out cheerfully;

"Come on in, Freya!"

The door opened and the six-foot-three human-Labrador that was Freya ducked into the room carrying her helmet under her arm. She was wearing full armour. It was odd that, even in the comfort and luxury of the Ducal Palace, Arrow never saw her without it. Once she had bumped into Freya coming out of the privy in the middle of the night. She had even been kitted up then.

"Alright, do me," Freya said, pulling her flowing blonde hair loose from its band and bending forward to shake out her mane. It was so pretty, shiny and yellow like puppy fur, that even Arrow wanted to stroke it. Imoen laughed and rubbed her scalp vigorously against Freya's. They looked like a pair of rutting stags minus the antlers. Freya stood up and scratched her scalp vigorously. "Damn, I'm itching already. Those little bastards work fast don't they?"

"Better not transform like that or we'll never get them out of that fur coat of yours," Imoen teased.

"What is happening here?" asked Arrow, bewildered.

"Freya came to help!" said Imoen brightly. "It's a family adventure now!"

"I wanted to pitch in. I didn't realise what Jessa wanted those scalps for and I… er… can't help but feel partly responsible," Freya admitted sheepishly.

"Partly?" thundered Arrow. "You personally supplied almost every scalp in her shop! You are entirely responsible!"

"Is she always like this with people who are trying to help her?" Freya asked Imoen casually.

"I didn't see you volunteering to help us in the sewers!" snapped Arrow resentfully.

"I don't do sewers unless I really have to," said Freya. Arrow gave her a scathing look. "Give me a break. My sense of smell is twenty times more powerful than yours. Now, while we're both here we need to talk."

Freya was looking at her with an unusually serious expression. Arrow glared up at her stern face defiantly. She wasn't about to fall for her sister's artificially inflated charisma. If the blonde warrior imagined that she was in charge of her she could think again.

"Imoen says you plan on leaving Baldur's Gate," Freya said. Arrow nodded curtly and explained her intention to head South as soon as she heard from Khalid and Jaheira. Freya shrugged. "Well, you can't."

"So I'm a prisoner, is that it?" demanded Arrow. She had been afraid something like this might happen. Freya had been responsible for the deaths of two of their siblings in as many weeks, and though both of the dead brothers were unquestionably evil, Arrow did not entirely trust her not to find some excuse to do the same to her.

"No, you're not a prisoner. Well…" Freya conceded, "No more than I am anyway."

"If this is about the Hooded Man," Arrow began.

"The Hooded Man?" Freya blinked. "You mean Eric's master right? Yeah, obviously this is about him. Arrow, were you ever asleep when he was conducting his experiments on our brother?"

"Only once. I went out of my way to avoid it," Arrow admitted.

"Well I didn't often have the luxury of choosing when I slept," said Freya. Arrow scowled at her. "I saw it a lot, I felt it. I'm no stranger to pain and battle injuries but this was on a whole different level. I won't stop you from leaving if you're really hell bent, but if you do you won't have the protection of me or the Flaming Fist. He'll catch you the moment you step outside the gate, and believe me you do not want to be his captive."

"The big bad wolf is afraid of the Hooded One. Didn't Gorion used to have a storybook about that?" goaded Arrow. She did not like the idea of needing the protection of her stronger, prettier more heroic sister one little bit. Yet common sense was telling her that Freya may have a point.

"I'm familiar with that book," Freya replied darkly. "I believe the wolf ended up being eviscerated?"

"Please don't say that," said Imoen in a small voice. "Don't even joke about it. I've lost so many of you already." Then she turned to Arrow, and to the ranger's horror her eyes were flooding with tears again. "I can't bear to lose any more. Please don't leave Arrow. Don't let him catch you. Please!"

Arrow opened and closed her mouth like a goldfish. She had no desire whatsoever to stay in the Ducal Palace. The perfumed lords with their daft frilly cuffs and misplaced sense of self-superiority made her bristle when so many were suffering just outside the gates. There was little she could do here though. Whereas the Cloud Peak villages really needed her. There she could both be free of the bustling city and make a real difference. Yet she remembered the searing, unbearable pain of the Hooded Man's torture, and the state he had left Eric in was still fresh in her mind. There was too much truth in their words to ignore.

She postponed having to answer by hurrying them out of the door in the direction of Jessa's Hair Emporium. Her plan was to try on as many wigs as possible and infest them with kobold lice. When Jessa's well-off customers realised the source of the infestation her reputation would be ruined, and her disgusting scalp shop forced to close.

"I sleep in my armour," Freya mentioned casually as they stepped out into the street. "I don't dare take it off except to wash in case he comes for me in my bed."

Arrow could think of no response to this. She stared silently down the road leading out of Baldur's Gate that she longed to follow to the Cloud Peak mountains. There the Hooded Man was waiting for her, probably hoping to trap her in some replica of Gamaz's grotesque dungeon. She sighed, a miserable resigned sigh.

"Then I guess I'm staying," she said. Beside her Freya nodded in approval and Imoen sagged with relief. Then she thought of Officer Vai and a vindictive smile crept across her lips. She scratched her scalp where the kobold lice were happily taking to their new human habitat. "Now let's go spoil some wigs!"

The three of them had a fun time at the wig shop testing out different hair, trying not to dwell too much on the fact that these had once been the scalps of living people. Every so often, one of the more distinctive wigs would catch Freya's grey eye and she would wince. No doubt some of the bandits she had scalped stuck in her mind more than others. Yet they derived some gallows humour when Imoen put on one that bore a striking resemblance to Coran and pretended to flirt with the pair of them. Finally, when it became clear that the trio had no serious intention of buying anything, Jessa's shop assistant shooed them out. By then the damage was done and the lice were settling into their morbid new homes.

The Bhaalspawn returned to the Ducal Palace and used the last of Jaheira's bright orange potion to delouse their hair. By night time they were settling down into their pillows, reflecting with satisfaction upon a job well done.

Rasaad was not enjoying such a peaceful sleep. He was dreaming about the Cloud Peak mountains. Arrow was there, looking as she had when they had first climbed it, before her head was shaved. He was trying to follow her to the temple but the deep snow was dragging at his legs and he could not keep up. Though a swirling icy blizzard almost hid her from his sight, he followed her to the peak of the mountain. There, on that hateful, moonlit ledge where he had been forced to slay his brother, she stopped and her hair fell out. When she turned back to face him he found himself looking not at Arrow, but his brother Gamaz.

"Gamaz, why are you doing this?" asked Rasaad, his voice cracking. The cold mountain air was cutting through his skin and tightening his chest so badly that it was difficult to breathe. He shivered, but Gamaz seemed to feel nothing. He uncorked a grey bottle of numbing potion, releasing another wave of icy cold from the neck as he did so. As he drank it the temperature seemed to drop even further and when he replied his voice sounded distant and far away.

"Becoming more powerful was the last thing I really cared about before... before I stopped caring," came Gamaz's strange reply. "So I just carried on… but you know that now don't you?"

"Brother that is insane!" cried Rasaad. "I do not understand! If you no longer care, then why are you doing this?"

"Why not?" Gamaz asked vacantly.

"How could you do this to me?" Rasaad howled, knowing with despair that there was nothing he could do to help his brother. Maybe there was once, but now it was far too late. Gamaz collapsed, dead, leaving a man shaped groove in the deep snow. The monk ran forward to dig his brother out but when he reached the snowy grave he found it contained not Gamaz but Arrow.

Her long dark hair that he loved so much had regrown, but she looked different. She seemed somehow more confident in death and she gave off an aura of glacial power. Her eyes were closed, her face blue and frozen but strangely her death was not the only thing about her that felt viscerally wrong.

"How could you do this to me?" he whispered into the grave. Arowan's eyelids shot open but the eyes beneath them were not her own. Instead of kind and brown they were a solid pupilless gold. The eyes of a god. She smiled up at Rasaad, a twisted half-smile.

"Why not?"

Rasaad woke up screaming, and looked around to find himself sleeping in the streets for the first time since the Sun Soul monk in Calimport had first taken him and his brother in. He had to remind himself that he was no longer a small, vulnerable boy, and while he may have no gold there was no danger of a beating from the local yobs. A disgruntled beggar who had been woken by his cries gathered up his sack of meagre possessions and limped away, muttering crossly.

"Psst!" a man hissed, poking him in the back with a crutch. With a jolt, Rasaad recognized him as the beggar man to whom Arrow had given a hundred gold pieces on her way into Baldur's Gate. He seemed to have purchased himself some warmer clothes and looked better fed than the last time he had seen him. The beggar pressed his finger to his lips, glanced around conspiratorially, and pressed three of Arrow's gold coins into his palm. Then he fled as fast as his uninjured legs would carry him.

"Wait!" cried Rasaad, jumping up and running after him, but clearly the beggar did not trust him not to steal the rest of his fortune. The monk was faster but the beggar knew the back alleys and rooftops of Baldur's Gate and was easily able to lose him.

The monk was left standing alone with the gold coins in his hand, watching the morning light reflecting off of them. At least, until the shadow of a man appeared before him and blocked the light out.

"Rasaad yn Bashir," the Hooded Man said coldly. Rasaad could just make out his face beneath the hood. It looked unnaturally pale and stretched. "I have been searching for you. You are close to the ranger Arowan are you not? I am sure you would not wish to see her harmed."

"You dare threaten her?" cried Rasaad. He aimed a strike at the Hooded Man, but the wizard immobilized him with cold indifference. The monk froze mid-kick unable to do anything but curse him.

"My name is Irenicus," the man said. "And I come to you with an offer. I only need one Bhaalspawn for my purposes and I'd rather it be Freya. Deliver her to me alone, outside of the city walls. If you do, I will leave Arowan alone."

"I'd die before I'd help you!" snarled Rasaad, though the words came out unintelligible through his frozen lips. Irenicus seemed unfazed by his refusal.

"How noble you are," Irenicus said with a sneer. "How unlike your brother. I have just returned from a trip South to see Gamaz's workshop for myself. I admit I was quite intrigued after Eric described it to me. I have been considering a similar investment myself."

Rasaad could not move his arms but his hands balled into tight, angry fists around Arrow's coins.

"I took his experimental notes for recreational reading, they were very extensive," Irenicus continued icily. "Gamaz was an interesting man. It's a shame you killed him. You, however, are not. I will take my leave of you now. Remember what Arowan was almost subjected to in your brother's workshop and rest assured that mine will be exponentially worse. Meditate on that and on my offer. My associates will be in touch Rasaad… just in case you change your mind."

~Fin

Continues in The Buck of Baldur's Gate