Chapter Two
Alanis was bewildered; she was hovering horizontally above a hard stone floor. Judging from the time it took to reach the bottom, she guessed her fall at between one- and two hundred feet. She had expected to be killed when she collided with the bottom of the cavern. Instead she was stopped only inches away from it, her red hair hanging down, partly resting on the floor.
As she calmed down enough to gather her wits and take in her surroundings, she felt her body begin to shift into a standing position. She finally found her feet standing on solid ground again. Her heart still pounded in her chest as she gazed around the cavern.
The cave was large enough to hold nearly half of Neverwinter. The walls were mostly bare and craggy, but toward the top grew mosses and lichens. The cavern was lit only by moonlight shining down through the hole she had created in the ground above.
"Thought I might have some company tonight," a male voice said grimly.
Alanis spun toward the sound of the voice, coming from what appeared to be a large throne less than twenty feet away.
"No need to be frightened, I'll even raise the light if it will make you feel better."
The whole room suddenly emanated light as several dozen balls of spellfire shimmered to life on the walls of the cave. The walls were lined with bookshelves up to a height of about twenty-five feet. She supposed that there must be a copy of nearly every book written among these old tomes. Alanis looked up to gaze at the blue globes of light only to see the hole in the cavern's roof seal itself with fresh ground. She looked down to see who this mysterious speaker was.
Her eyes met the hauntingly blue eyes of a man sitting in the throne. His lightly tanned skin and closely cut jet-black hair served only to enhance his already handsome features. He wore a loose dark blue floor-length jacket with red buttons, which hung open to reveal his blue tunic and pants. Even his boots were blue, she saw. He held one of the books in his hand, its pages yellowed from age.
The man smiled warmly, glad to have someone to speak with other than himself.
"I am Lokhi Naru, wizard of Mystra. And you are?"
Alanis looked at the man. Upon hearing the word "wizard", she knew he must have been the one that kept her from striking the hard cavern floor and becoming little more than a memory.
"I am Alanis Reyne. I am…a treasure hunter from Luskan."
Lokhi raised an eyebrow. She was obviously a thief, as he could tell not only from the profession of "treasure hunter", but as a city, Luskan wasn't known for producing strong, upstanding citizens.
"A 'treasure hunter', indeed." He tilted his head to the side and glanced down at her pouch. "I can tell that tonight has been especially fruitful as far as treasure goes. The jewelry you have there is very stylish, even if the charms on them are a bit stale and unimaginative."
Alanis's hand went to the pouch on her hip. She instinctively took a step back from the man who still sat in the old throne, carved from the rock of the cavern. Her mind raced as she considered what sort of person sat before her.
"What sort of wizard can identify such charms without casting any spells himself?"
Lokhi simply smiled and rose from his seat. He stood and let go of the book he was holding, which drifted up to its place on one of the hundreds of shelves.
"And what sort of thief doesn't keep her hair tied back and out of the way?" he asked coyly. "And such fiery hair, at that."
Alanis raised an eyebrow at the question. This was a strange man indeed, and had he been sitting by himself in complete blackness just a moment ago, reading a book?
Lokhi began walking across the room, past Alanis, to a small alcove where the shelves ended. Alanis followed him through a now brightly lit tunnel into a smaller room, also carved out of the cavern's stone.
Alanis gazed around the smaller, box-shaped room, and noticed the paintings hanging from the wall. One featured a younger looking Lokhi standing beside a blue-haired, white-skinned elf maiden. Between them, the elf, wearing a sheer blue dress, was conjuring a small blue fireball. What is it with these people and blue? Alanis wondered. It seemed to be an ongoing theme. In this particular painting, though, Lokhi was wearing a black suit which seemed to double as light armor, based on the protective pieces on the forearms and shoulders. The blackness of the dark suit was accented by dark purple undershirt and trim along the protective body armor. She paused a moment and saw that Lokhi's eyes were green in the painting, not blue.
The next painting they passed appeared to be a family, all dressed in similar black and purple apparel. She saw Lokhi standing to the left of the center, wearing his black and purple suit. The suit seemed to be his signature garb, and she wondered if he still had it somewhere.
Lokhi walked into the room as he had several times before. With a gesture, a small cooking fire flared to life and the contents of the black, cast-iron pot sitting above it began bubbling. Made instantly hot by magic, the stew that Lokhi had been thickening and tending to for several days sent an aroma into the air that Alanis found irresistible.
"Of course, you'll be wanting some of this," Lokhi said. "It is a stew I made from some roast pork, carrots, and the potatoes I have growing up in the forest." Lokhi took a ladle from the small table nearby and dipped Alanis and himself each a bowl of the stew. With another gesture, he activated the magic contained in each bowl. A spoon materialized in the bowls and the stew kept its temperature, not cooling despite the chilly cavern air.
Alanis ate a spoonful of the stew and smiled as it warmed her entire body. Perhaps there had been more than pork, carrots and potatoes in the stew after all…Was everything about Lokhi steeped in magic somehow? She felt her fatigue from the run disappear, as well as the soreness in her ankle.
Lokhi himself quickly spooned down the bowl of stew, which he knew contained traces of a Regenerate potion. It warmed him as well, although his injuries were already healed long before. With a smile, he turned to Alanis.
He could tell she was more introspective, thinking rather than speaking the things she learned and inferred about him. Lokhi could tell that Alanis would be intelligent enough to carry out the mission he had for her, he only hoped that she would trust him after only knowing him for these few minutes.
"Enjoy the stew?" Lokhi asked.
Alanis nodded, smiling while spooning down the last of her stew. She watched as Lokhi's face changed to a more grave expression.
" I knew you'd come because Mystra told me in a dream. It is not so strange, she speaks to me quite often through dreams…probably has to do with having my full attention." Lokhi sighed. "At any rate, she told me that tonight, someone would drop in and it would be the person I need to fulfill the task I have before me.
"A few hundred miles south of here, in the province of Amn, there is a military campaign broiling. The campaign is led by a powerful warlord with an enchanted suit of armor. Needless to say, the political atmosphere in Amn is unstable now, although it has never been as 'friendly' as that of Waterdeep or Neverwinter. Amn has an oligarchic government, ruled by a political entity called the Council of Six. They have strong ties to the Shadow Thieves, and yes, I mean the guild that was kicked out of Waterdeep several years back. They settled in Amn and now they work alongside the Council of Six. They also made an alliance with a gang of ogre mages, despite the Amnian people's hatred for arcane magic.
"Somehow, this warlord has united the greed-filled armies of Amn with the ogre mages' bands of goblins, kobolds, and hill giants. I need someone to find the secret to his persuasiveness, and I have a strong feeling it has something to do with that enchanted armor. According to the Harper agents I've spoken with, he never removes it, and with the helmet in place, they can sense incredible magic flowing, yet none of their own spells will work.
Lokhi glanced at the picture of the family on the wall for a moment; then lowered his gaze. "I need your help. I need you to investigate the warlord, because I can't do it myself. Arcane spellcasters are reviled in Amn, and the clerics of Cyric and Bane down there will cease their holy war just long enough to eradicate a wizard of Mystra if I were discovered."
His gaze met Alanis's and she thought for a moment.
"So what if this warlord tears a path through Amn? If they hate wizards down there, why should you care what happens to them?"
Lokhi couldn't help but smile.
"You have a good point, nearly any Amnite would kill me, given half a chance. But Mystra, the goddess of magic, has bid me spread magic. In this case, the Amnites are not fighting amongst themselves, that has already been done, and this new warlord has come to power. The problem is that he has already declared to the people that Amn should spread to conquer the provinces to the north. After they conquer the Western Heartlands, they'll begin marching up the Sword Coast. It will only be a matter of time before we would have this threat knocking on our door."
Alanis considered the situation. She was a thief, not a hero, and she certainly didn't need to risk her life so that a few mages could practice their art, nevermind that she was also a sorceress on the side. She could keep the shadows as good as anyone if the need be. Still….
"How much does it pay?"
Lokhi frowned. "Any information you can get me will be well rewarded…and you can steal anything you like while you're in Amn. Merchants everywhere, greedy people, lots of jewelry."
Rolling it around in her mind, Alanis liked the idea, although she knew that Lokhi was clearly aware of her profession.
"I'll do it. When do I leave?"
"In the morning, as for now, you had better rest up." Lokhi pointed toward the bed he kept in the corner of the smaller room.
Alanis saw the bed, then turned back to Lokhi and raised an eyebrow.
"Relax, it's yours for the night. I don't sleep." Lokhi turned and walked back into the cavern, pausing only to glance at the picture of he and the blue haired elf maiden. He walked back to the throne in the center of the large cavern and took a seat.
Holding out his hand, the book that he had been reading floated back into his hand and flipped itself open to the page he had been on earlier. With another gesture, he dispelled the blue flames that had been lighting the cavern, and sent the cave back into complete darkness.
In the pitch-blackness, he looked down and continued reading.
From the small room, Alanis saw the cavern go dark. She wasn't naturally trusting, but this wizard seemed at the best to be kind and shy, and at worst a little aloof. Looking at the bed, she supposed that it hadn't been used in months. Perhaps he was serious when he said he didn't sleep…
For now, Alanis realized that she was tired, despite the effects of that stew, or perhaps the warm stew was what made her drowsy in the first place. Either way, she climbed into the bed. She didn't bother removing her black leather suit; she decided she would need that to fight off the cold of the cave, not to mention the fact that she had just met this strange man and was now laying in his bed, several hundred feet underground. She didn't entirely trust him, although he had given her no reason to doubt his integrity.
She drifted off to sleep, dreaming about all of the treasure of Amn.