Shadows Of The Knight

by Speaker-to-Customers

Sequel to Black Knight but you don't need to wait for that one to be completed before reading this. Captured by Irenicus, with some of her friends slain and even worse having been done to others, T'rissae must work with Jaheira to survive and rescue Viconia and Imoen. The mutual dislike between them is going to make that difficult...

3. Anxiety (Get Nervous)

Chapter Three: Anxiety (Get Nervous)

Minsc was visibly upset by my sobs and tears. He hadn't been with me when I broke down after Gorion's death, and as I worked hard at presenting the appearance of being calm and confident, even when inside I was miserable or frightened, he had never seen me in such a state before. I hoped it wouldn't shake his trust in me. He offered me Boo to hold, as a comfort, and it actually worked. Stroking the little furry creature, with Boo giving little concerned-sounding squeaks, did help me regain control of myself.

Eventually I was able to get up, wash my face, and oversee searching the bodies of our fallen foes. I had a bad feeling about the sword that had been wielded by the half-orc berserker; it was a two-handed sword, obviously bearing significant enchantments, and it would have been an ideal weapon for Minsc, or even a replacement for the Sword of Chaos that I was using, if I hadn't suspected that it might be a cursed Sword of Berserking. Jaheira concurred, saying that she had encountered such a sword before, in the hands of Brage the former Captain of the Nashkel Guard, and this sword looked almost identical. We agreed that we would treat it with extreme caution until we could get it properly identified. The rest of their gear was of good quality, and included some enchanted items, and we came out of the unfortunate encounter richer and with much better equipment than before.

And, after paying an extra fee to have fresh hot water brought up and the dead bodies removed, we were able to bathe at last and then retire to bed.

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We slept long, waking once to get further healing spells cast and then going back to sleep, and rose just before dawn the next morning. Even Jaheira and I were so exhausted that we slept nearly as long as if we had been human. After a hearty breakfast we went out into the shopping district. Yoshimo and Jaheira both recommended a place called the Adventurers' Mart and that is where we went.

The proprietor, Ribald Barterman, greeted Jaheira with what I would describe as 'friendly caution'. He referred to her as a Harper, something I had suspected but not known for sure, and seemed relieved when she assured him that she was there only as a customer and had no professional interest in him. He identified those items Yoshimo had not been able to, confirming that the half-orc's sword was indeed a Cursed Sword of Berserking, and we sold him everything for which we had no use, except for the wands from the room of trapped pillars; we kept those in case we were able to recruit a mage. He even bought the cursed sword and the Bracers of Binding.

We bought very little; his stock included many things we would have liked, but the best of them were too expensive for our current funds, and the items we could afford were not enough of an upgrade to be worth the expenditure. Hopefully, we would be more able to afford the good stuff later. I did manage to get a twist-release back-scabbard for my sword, so that I didn't have to carry it around resting on my shoulder any longer, and he exchanged the dwarf's full plate armor for a set that would fit me for only a nominal fee.

I had been thinking about how to rescue Viconia. The first step would have to be to reconnoiter the Copper Coronet, ideally without me being recognized and the staff being put on guard, and I had a plan for that. Minsc's helm the Eyes of Truth was a full-face helmet, hiding the wearer's face completely, and if I wore that, with my long white hair worn up under the helm and gloves to cover my hands, I would not be instantly identified as a Drow. Yoshimo confirmed that Jaheira's friend Bernard was still the manager of the legitimate side of the Copper Coronet's operations, although Jaheira repeated that Bernard resolutely kept his eyes shut to any other activities; still, we might be able to learn something from him. I was determined to avoid ending up in a situation where we had to fight everyone in the bar, including innocent customers, and the more we could find out in advance, the less likely that worst-case scenario would be. Caution would have to be our watchword.

We continued to discuss our plans as we left Waukeen's Promenade and Yoshimo led our way toward the Slums District and the Copper Coronet. Then a man in leather armor stepped out in front of us.

"Coo!" he greeted us, looking straight at me. "You'd be the one I be looking for, if I not be mistaken. T'rissae be yer name, aye?"

His armor was of excellent workmanship, probably enchanted, and the sword and crossbow hanging at his belt looked to be weapons of very high quality. And he had pronounced my name correctly, including the glottal stop. This was no low-grade mugger, despite his low-class dialect, but an elite rogue, probably an officer in the Shadow Thieves.

"Yes, I am T'rissae," I confirmed. There was no point in denying my identity. I was still wearing the Helm of Balduran, in which my face was visible, and it was unlikely that there were any other Drow wandering through Athkatla unless Viconia had managed to free herself; as she was six inches shorter than me, we were unlikely to be mistaken for each other. "What do you want?"

"'Tis not what I want, but what I can be doin' for ye," he replied. "You might be wanting information about a young lass arrested by the wizards on your arrival here, aye?"

"You're talking about Imoen," I said. "What do you know about her?"

He claimed that he could give me information, and assistance, but refused to talk further out on the street. He offered to take us to his home, to talk further in private, and Yoshimo informed me that the man was Gaelan Bayle, a Shadow Thief officer as I had guessed, and moderately trustworthy. I agreed to his offer and we followed where he led. The route to his house led past the Copper Coronet and so I made sure to exchange helmets with Minsc so that my face, and thus my race, was concealed.

Once we were in Bayle's home, he told me that he represented a group – obviously the Shadow Thieves, although he refrained from naming them – who could give me information on the wizard, on Imoen, and on the Cowled Wizards who had arrested them. They could even assist in a rescue. The snag was that they would charge for this aid; twenty thousand danter.

"That's a lot of money," I said. "Considerably more than we have at the moment."

"Ye're a known warrior," Bayle said. "The Hero of Baldur's Gate, they call ye, do they not? Ye'll soon have that much, an' more. Plenty of jobs for someone like ye in this city, I'll wager. There's a Lord Jierdan at the Copper Coronet, lookin' for a hero to fight monsters for pay, for a start. Raise the coin, an' come back when ye've done. I'll be waitin'."

A dealer in equipment and magic items – a fence, almost certainly – operated from the upper floor of Bayle's house, and we paid him a visit before we moved on. He didn't have much of interest but one thing I thought could be very useful was a pair of Glasses of Identification. These could be used to Identify three magic items a day, potentially saving us a great deal of time and money, and he had another twist-release back-scabbard in stock for Minsc. After making those two purchases we left Bayle's home and headed for the Copper Coronet.

"How does he know so much about us?" Jaheira wondered, as we walked. "I like this not."

"It does not surprise me," I said. "They will have had observers in the Promenade, mingling with the crowds, who will have reported back afterwards. Minsc called out Imoen's name, loudly, and no doubt was overheard. And I met a Shadow Thief liaison with the Baldur's Gate Thieves' Guild, Husam, who will have passed on all he learnt about me to his superiors here. Information is important to thieves. I am more dubious about their motives for offering aid, even at a price. It might be purely because of their own enmity with Irenicus, and so partly altruistic, but it is possible it is merely an attempt to get a lot of money from me whilst giving nothing in return. I don't see that we have any other choice but to go along with it, at least for the time being, unless we can find some other allies. We shall see."

"That is my thought also," Yoshimo put in. He might have said more, but we were interrupted.

As we turned a corner, onto the street on which the Copper Coronet's entrances were sited, we were confronted by a pair of swaggering bullies, one a human and the other a dwarf, and the human shouted at us to get out of their way.

"Calm down, Cohrvale," the dwarf advised his companion. "Mr. F don't like ye killin' people in the streets."

"Shut your mouth, dwarf," Cohrvale snarled. "As for you, I said get your stinking hide out of my way!"

"I'll move," I said. There would have been plenty of room for them to pass us but I saw no point in confrontation.

"Not fast enough," Cohrvale snarled. "I'll teach you a lesson in respect, and the price of my schooling will be… your life!" He raised an axe and went for us.

I drew my sword, my companions readied their weapons, and the dwarf muttered something uncomplimentary about his fellow but drew sword and joined him in attacking us. We killed them both, without taking a scratch, in seconds. They had been low-grade enforcers and their boss 'Mr. F' can't have been a very discriminating employer.

Their corpses didn't yield much of value, but the late Cohrvale had worn a full-face helm. I stood between Minsc and Jaheira, to minimize the chance of passers-by noticing my black skin and white hair, and quickly donned it and returned the Eyes of Truth helm to Minsc. Its night-vision ability was useless to me, in fact mine was better when not wearing it, whereas Minsc needed it to fight effectively in the dark and it would hide his distinctive facial tattoo. The Helm of Balduran went to Jaheira. Our disguises were slender but it was the best we could do with our available resources. It would have to be enough.

We had passed a city guardsman, shortly before turning the corner, and I went back and told him about the fatal affray. He made a comment that it was about time somebody killed that 'right pair of villains' but, other than that, he didn't seem to care in the slightest. A patrol went round a couple of times a day to pick up corpses, so that they didn't clutter up the streets, and that was about as much notice as the city authorities took of violence in the Slums district. Unlicensed use of arcane magic, on the other hand, would be dealt with immediately and severely. I thought the priorities if this city's authorities were severely misplaced but made no comment. We left the guard to his duty, which seemingly consisted merely of standing ogling passing women, and resumed our course for the Copper Coronet.

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The Copper Coronet was a big building, taking up the whole length of the street on which it stood, and the main hall was crowded and busy. The smell of cooking, from a long roasting pit on which several pigs and sheep were cooking, permeated the air. Yoshimo headed off to the room from which he had been abducted, to see if his possessions still remained there, and the rest of us made our way toward the bar area where Jaheira's acquaintance Bernard sold drinks, meals, and rooms.

Before we had gone more than a few steps three human youths blocked our path. They were young, I estimated them to be only two or three years older than Imoen, and equipped only with leather armor. Their weapons were non-magical, as far as I could tell, and I assessed the youths as unlikely to be much of a threat. Their opinion differed. The tallest of them insulted me, trying to provoke a confrontation, and when I didn't react, he openly challenged me to fight and said he would name me as a coward if I refused. I was more puzzled than annoyed; I could have understood his attitude if I hadn't been hiding anything that would give away my race, but with my skin and hair hidden I was just a random person in full plate with a greatsword strapped to my back. Not an obvious target for bullying.

I cast a quick Detect Evil and saw that the three young men, plus a couple of other people in the vicinity, all displayed the tell-tale red glow. Even so, I was reluctant to get into a fight with the idiot. I didn't kill people just because they were evil; I wasn't like the paladin Phandalyn in Baldur's Gate, who was known to attack anyone who showed up as Evil to the spell, and whom I regarded as fanatical to the point of insanity. I judged people by their actions, not their aura, and even Evil people could do good; Viconia had registered as Evil when I first met her, but no longer, and my Aunt Cierre had been Evil when she first came to the Surface world, as she had openly admitted to me, and she had done good deeds only because she was pretending to have been inspired by tales of Drizzt into following his example. By the time I met her she had become so accustomed to doing good that the deception had become the reality. Even so, she would have killed this young idiot without a second thought but, although I loved and admired my aunt, I didn't regard her as any kind of role model.

As I was thinking about this the young man continued to abuse me and positioned himself squarely in front of me. It seemed he was determined to fight and, despite Jaheira hissing at me to ignore the idiot, I decided to oblige him. If I backed down others might take it as a signal that I could be intimidated and that would not be a good thing. Better if I quickly established a reputation as someone with whom it was not safe to trifle. Unless it was by offering me puréed fruit folded into whipped cream or sweet custard…

There was a circle laid out like a small arena close by where the youth had accosted me. It was used mostly for dog-fights, I gathered, but was available for duels. We faced each other there. He came at me with an arming-sword, non-magical, and I parried his first blow without needing to exert myself in the slightest. I had no wish to kill him; idiocy was often a crime for which the penalty was death, but it didn't have to be me who carried out the sentence, and perhaps he would learn sense. My problem was that the two-handed sword was an excellent weapon for killing people but by no means ideal for subduing or inflicting minor wounds upon an opponent. Using the Sword of Chaos, against someone in non-magical leather armor, it would be all too easy to cut him in half.

I struck to disarm him but he managed to keep his grip upon his sword. I parried his next stroke and riposted, driving my point into his right shoulder, and then thrust into his left thigh. He staggered, swapped his sword over to his left hand, and tried again. This time I drilled into his left shoulder and he dropped his weapon. I pointed my blade at his throat.

"I… yield," he croaked out, as his blood dripped onto the arena floor.

"You show sense," I said. "Take this." I handed him a minor Potion of Healing; we had more than a dozen of them left, and a reasonable number of Potions of Extra Healing, and as our magical potion case was one of the things we had lost in our capture we no longer had a convenient way of carrying them around. I could spare the potion more easily than a spell. He took the potion bottle, awkwardly as his arms weren't working properly, and drank.

"Think yourself lucky that I spared you," I said, "and behave better in future." I left the little arena and rejoined my companions. There was a merchant close by, near the cooking pits, and he had a display of weapons. I paused to look at them. They were of very high quality, and a couple of things in particular caught my eye; a highly enchanted sling, that would be lethal in Viconia's hands, and a two-handed sword that looked as fine as my own missing weapon. The seller informed me that it was thrice-enchanted, the same as the World's Edge, but also bore enchantments of cold and confusion that would affect those struck by it about one time in four. It was impressive, and I would have purchased it, save that its price was an astounding twenty-five thousand seven hundred and sixty danter. The sling, and an enchanted Kozakuran-style short scimitar that Jaheira stared at covetously, were even more expensive at twenty-eight thousand each. Far beyond our means, alas, and we moved on without making any purchases.

A young lady approached us as we made our way towards the other end of the barroom, where Bernard could be found; I say 'young lady' because her clothes were elegant, although simple, and she spoke with the accent and phrasing of one well educated and of high status. The short-sword at her belt looked out of place, although perhaps not too surprising considering the surroundings. She addressed us, appealing for adventurers to help her, and she sounded quite desperate. In other circumstances I would have listened but rescuing Viconia had to come first. I told her we couldn't help now, but might be available later, and moved on leaving her looking dejected.

We made it to Bernard's end of the room without further interruption and Yoshimo joined us there. His room was now occupied by someone else, he told us, and almost all of his possessions had gone. He had managed to retrieve his own boots, which pleased him, but nothing else. Most of them were of little value, he said, except for his armor and an enchanted Tuigan shortbow that he would sorely miss. He tried complaining to Bernard but to no avail.

Bernard was more accommodating to Jaheira and was willing to answer a few questions, although not about the business of the tavern. He told us that no-one knew what the Cowled Wizards did with their prisoners, except that they were taken away and never came back, and the Council who controlled the city liked it that way. He recommended that we try asking the Harpers what they knew, although they were likely to ask a price for their aid. They might be a valid alternative to the Shadow Thieves, I thought. When Jaheira asked what Bernard knew about the Shadow Thieves he said that the rumor was that they were involved in a covert war with a rival guild and, unlikely as it seemed, were being pushed hard. Renal Bloodscalp, he said, would be the best source of information on that, but he urged caution as probing too hard could be dangerous.

He ran a shop, dealing mainly in weaponry and adventuring gear, in addition to offering rooms, meals, and drinks. We sold him the things we had taken from the pair of bullies we had slain in the street and looked at what he had to offer.

I recognized one of the weapons immediately; my own enchanted crossbow the Army Scythe! When I laid claim to it Bernard said that he had bought it fair and square and, if I wanted it back, my only option was to purchase it. For seven thousand two hundred danter, over three thousand more than our current funds, and he would not be moved. Imoen's guess that Irenicus had sold off our best gear had been correct, it seemed, and I had to accept that it was lost to me until I could raise the money.

The only way we could get into the private areas in which the presumed brothel was located was by talking to the inn's owner Lehtinan. I didn't think that I would be convincing as a prospective client for a brothel but I spoke to him anyway, claiming to have plenty of money to spend, and enquired about what entertainments were on offer. It worked out better than I had expected. Lehtinan didn't mention the brothel aspect at first but, perhaps because of my fight earlier, immediately suggested that I might be interested in gambling on the fights that took place in the back areas. Not dog-fights, or impromptu combats like the one in which I had engaged but organized gladiatorial combats. For a nominal fee, he told me, my group could be admitted to the private back-rooms where we could watch the fights and gamble. He added that 'companionship' was also available, if we were interested, but didn't seem surprised when I declined. I didn't want to give away my interest in the brothel side of things, until we had properly assessed the opposition we would face, and I avoided that area and followed a bouncer's directions to where a spectators' gallery overlooked the private, larger, fighting arena containing several smaller pits.

I was expecting professional warriors in sporting combats, with death being an occupational hazard but not the intended outcome, but what I witnessed was very different. The fight that took place shortly after we were admitted pitted a badly-equipped dwarf against a troll. The dwarf declared that he would not fight, but an announcer declared that he was a slave, and must obey, and if he refused he would simply be devoured for the spectators' amusement. He fought, quite skillfully, but without fire or acid to stop the troll's regeneration he stood little chance. The troll bludgeoned him down and savaged him to death. I managed to stop Minsc from openly displaying his fury at this sickening spectacle and, silently, resolved to show the announcer just what it meant to be pitted against a vastly superior opponent. Me.

We explored further, meeting the brothel madame but pretending to have no interest in that area, and then retraced our steps and found a corridor with a chamber opening off it that appeared to be a Black Lotus den. A side corridor led us down into sewers; we fought a band of hobgoblins there, slaying them all, and then were attacked by an otyugh. As we all had magical weapons by now it died quickly, as did a pair of slimes in a side chamber. I took advantage of being away from anyone who might overhear to discuss our next actions with the others. Jaheira proposed that we free the slave gladiators, thereby gaining immediate reinforcements, and I agreed that we should do so if an opportunity arose. There seemed little to be gained by going further into the sewers and so we looted the hobgoblins' corpses of everything saleable and returned to Bernard to convert it into cash. After that we resumed our exploration, continuing further along the corridor on which we had found the drug den and the sewer entrance, and went through a door marked 'Staff Only'.

At once we were challenged. "You!" a mail-clad guard yelled, striding up to me. "What are you doing here? This is a restricted area. Leave immediately or face the consequences!"

I could see a row of three barred doors. Slave quarters, I guessed. I reached up to the hilt of my sword and twisted to release the scabbard's catch. "What are all these cells?" I asked.

"I warned you," the guard growled. "Guards! Intruders!" He started to draw his sword but I was ahead of him. My blade descended on his head and he died with his weapon barely out of its sheath.

His fellows rushed to attack us; two more swordsmen in mail and two mages. They died just as quickly, without harming us in the slightest, and I went to examine the cells whilst my companions stripped the fallen foes. Two cells held frightened children but the central one contained several adult men. Some of them were wearing mail armor, rather to my surprise at first, but then it occurred to me that it was likely that those prisoners would be due to enter the fighting pits.

"Greetings, friend," the biggest of them addressed me. He was almost as tall and broad across the shoulders as Minsc. His Northern accent, and his red hair, reminded me of Voghiln. "You are obviously not aligned with our captors. Might I know your name?"

"My name is T'rissae, and I am certainly not aligned with Lehtinan and his men," I told him. There was no more need for deception; the five dead guards on the floor were clear evidence that my intentions toward Lehtinan were hostile. "Who are you?"

"I am Hendak, a proud warrior from the North until my capture by slavers," he replied. "I have been imprisoned longer than any of these men and have survived, although only barely." He told me of the gladiatorial games Lehtinan put on for the entertainment of wealthy nobles and asked me to free him and his fellows. I would have been happy to agree but the door was far too strong to open with brute force and the lock defeated Yoshimo's best efforts.

"It is magically reinforced," he reported. "A physical lock and a locking spell, attuned to the key, in combination. Only the original key will open it."

I had heard of such things before. It was a technique rarely used, because if the key was lost what was behind the lock could be irretrievable, but presumably that aspect was less important to Lehtinan than making sure that the gladiators didn't get loose. I doubted that a meeting between Hendak and Lehtinan would end well for the tavern's owner. "Then we will have to kill Lehtinan to get the key," I said. "I was going to kill him anyway but my plan was to free you first."

"He does not keep it," Hendak informed me. "It is held by the Beastmaster, who trains the animals and creatures that we are forced to fight." He indicated a doorway at the other side of the room to the cell block. "Get the key from him, free us, and Lehtinan shall feel the cold sting of my blade."

"Sounds good to me," I said, and I led my little band in that direction. The doorway opened into the area containing several fighting pits, where we had previously witnessed the dwarf versus troll fight, and the dwarf's body still lay there. Another pit was occupied by a Winter Wolf, which tried to attack us, but we slew it with ease. Beyond the arena was another corridor with cells opening off it, this time on both sides, and we could smell animals within and hear their growls.

At the far end of this corridor stood a man, presumably the Beastmaster, with a leopard at his side. He was slim of build, and not tall, and I guessed that he was most likely a half-elf. He wore plate-and-mail armor and held a short recurve bow in one hand. He challenged me, I told him to hand over the key or die, and he pulled a lever that opened the beast cage doors. Another two leopards, some gibberlings, two bears and a minotaur emerged and joined the Beastmaster in attacking us.

He hadn't allowed for my party including a druid and a ranger. Jaheira and Minsc charmed two of the leopards, and the biggest of the bears, and those animals joined our side. The fight was brutal but short. When it was over the Beastmaster and all the uncharmed creatures lay dead. Our leopards died but our bear survived, although wounded, but we ourselves had scarcely been touched. We searched the Beastmaster's body and found the key. Yoshimo found something else.

"My Tuigan bow!" he exclaimed. "So, this is who took it. I shall put it to good use."

We headed back the way we came, sending the bear ahead of us, and used the key to free the children and then the gladiators. Hendak cried out in glee and called upon his companions to free the women; his own objective was to kill Lehtinan. Those of the gladiators not already wearing armor stripped the corpses of the guards we had slain and took their armor and swords.

Freeing the women, one in particular, was my own primary objective. I decided to head that way and send the others off with Hendak; Jaheira and Minsc would have to direct the bear against the right targets in case it ran amok in the barroom. I took my own helm back from Jaheira, before we split up, so that Viconia would recognize me immediately. I didn't want to risk bursting in unrecognized, her mistaking me for an attacker, and hitting me with something like a Flame Strike.

"You are a Drow!" Hendak exclaimed.

"I had noticed," I said. "I'm a good Drow, and so is the friend I came here to rescue. Those who have imprisoned her will sorely regret it." I rushed off in the direction of the brothel section to find Viconia.

She wasn't there.

I opened every door that wasn't locked, and broke down the two that were, and none of the rooms held Viconia. I ignored the angry complaints of one man, who had been in the middle of coitus when I interrupted, and found the madam.

"Where is Viconia?" I demanded. I pointed my sword at her. The angry man, who had come out of his room with a pillow clutched in front of his privates, gulped and scuttled back whence he had come.

"I… I don't know," the madam stammered out. "Some noble bought her services and she was taken out through the sewer exit. I don't know the noble's name. Lehtinan will know."

I spun around and ran for the barroom. A guard at the top of the stairs leading down from the brothel to the bar tried to stop me. I didn't even bother to fight him, just shoulder-charged him and used my momentum, in my full plate armor, to send him tumbling down the steps. Ahead of me I could see fighting going on throughout the bar. Most of the clientele were staying out of it but two, the girl who had tried to recruit us and a tall human equipped with mace and shield, were fighting alongside the gladiators against what remained of Lehtinan's men. On our side the only fatality I could see was the charmed bear. Hendak, dual-wielding short-swords, was dueling Lehtinan. And clearly winning.

"Hendak!" I yelled. "Don't kill…" Even as I shouted Hendak swept Lehtinan's sword aside with one of his swords and drove the other through the tavern-owner's throat. "…him," I finished, too late. I would have to find some other way of identifying the noble who had Viconia. Lehtinan was not going to be answering any questions. Ever.

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"I am sorry, my friend," Hendak said. "I would have delayed my vengeance had I known you needed to speak to him before he died."

"It cannot be helped," I said. "You had no way of knowing and I was just a few seconds too late."

"You said she was taken away though the sewers," Hendak said. "The slavers have a base elsewhere in the slums, in a dry-docked ship converted into a building, and I was held there for a while. She may be there. It is said there is a passage between here and the ship in the sewers, although I was brought here through the streets, at night, and cannot confirm the existence of such a passage."

"A better approach than knocking on their front door, I would say," Yoshimo put in.

I agreed. "And we've already cleared part of the way," I said. "That is what we shall do. First, though, there is the matter of my crossbow."

Hendak had claimed ownership of the Copper Coronet, as compensation for having been enslaved and, although the legality might have been dubious, I couldn't see anyone contesting it. The other gladiators had replaced the deceased bouncers and guards. Hendak had been happy for Bernard to continue on in his role, which had been more that of a manager than a barman, and consequently the only thing that was changing was that there would be no more forced gladiatorial games and any prostitutes conducting their business in the back rooms would be doing so by their own choice. Hendak, as the proprietor, could instruct Bernard to give me back my stolen Army Scythe.

I explained the situation to Hendak and he discussed the matter with Bernard. Eventually we agreed a compromise. I'd still have to buy back the crossbow but at the price Bernard had paid for it, four thousand eight hundred danter, and Hendak gave me all the cash and jewels that Lehtinan had been carrying when he died. He also told Bernard to give us a permanent discount equal to that which Lehtinan's friends had received. I found that arrangement satisfactory, bought back the Army Scythe, and purchased another weapon that I foresaw could be extremely useful. A hand-axe called Azuredge, crafted to be deadly to the undead, and enchanted to return to the hand after being thrown. Of little use to me, as on the few occasions when I had tried throwing an axe it had struck side-on as often as not, but in Minsc's hands it would be lethal against undead foes. We had only a few hundred danter left, after those purchases, but I was confident that we would find more valuables in the slavers' lair. And Bernard told us that there was reputed to be a great treasure somewhere in that sewer passage, although no sign of such had ever been found as far as he knew.

My priority was Viconia, of course, but treasure would always come in handy, especially as we had to raise twenty thousand danter and to get our equipment back up to at least the level it had been before we were abducted. I made a mental note of what little Bernard could tell me and led my band back to the sewer.

We proceeded further than we had done on our first trip and became involved in a fight against some kobolds that probably could have been avoided. We found a few fire arrows on their bodies, which could come in handy if we had to fight trolls or the like, and also a shaman's circlet, a short-sword with a minor enchantment, and a staff with the power to produce Goodberries. They would sell for a decent price. A carrion crawler attacked and died. After disarming a couple of traps, we entered a chamber in which a loincloth-clad hermit resided with his very odd pet; another carrion crawler. It remained passive, not attacking, and so we let it be and questioned the hermit.

He seemed to know nothing of slavers, or of a female drow being brought through these tunnels, but would only speak about a 'blade', which he assumed was our objective, and his 'friend' the carrion crawler. He directed us to a room into which drains from above emptied, where we would find clues that would lead us to the blade.

Could this 'blade' be the treasure? If it was hidden, there must be something special about it; it was unlikely it was my World's Edge or Minsc's Dragon Blade or Spider's Bane, as the hermit claimed to have been in this place for years, but I decided it was worth investigating, if the quest did not take too long. We headed in the direction he indicated and found ourselves facing another band of hobgoblins.

We slew the hobgoblins, at the cost only of Yoshimo being slightly wounded by arrows, and gained some enchanted arrows and other minor valuables from the bodies. Beyond them was the drain room, where four large pipes emptied into a stagnant pool, and there we were addressed by a voice with no visible source. It claimed that it had been hidden but could be retrieved, and made to serve us, if we found four keys and placed them according to four clues, scratched on the drainpipes in doggerel rhyme, in an order that we could obtain from the hermit Quallo.

One of the rhymes referred to a staff held by a wizard who smelt of dog and had a lizard's skin – the kobold shaman we had slain earlier, presumably. As we had already found one of the 'keys' I decided that we might as well take a little time to search for the others before attacking the slavers. Something about a couple of the other clues rang bells…

We retraced our steps and found two of the objects named as keys in short order. Exploring a side passage, which we had ignored previously, took us into a chamber in which the last surviving member of a group of four adventurers was fighting the myconids that had already slain his colleagues. We joined in, and slew the myconids, but too late to save the minotaur adventurer. A shame because, although his race was normally evil, his dying lament for his fallen comrades had sounded as if this particular minotaur had been brave and noble. I had seen them in the bar earlier, although I had not taken any particular notice of them, and I guessed that they had followed us down into the sewer in search of the mysterious treasure. We laid them to rest as best we could and resumed our search.

We had three 'keys' now and the one remaining was described as 'the blood of a true friend'. The hermit Quallo had called the carrion crawler his friend…

I was averse to shedding the blood of harmless creatures but Quallo had spoken of his 'friend' liking to feed upon the flesh of the innocent. Not so harmless, then, and so I killed it. Quallo gave us the clues as to the order in which the keys should be used, in the form of a simple logic puzzle, and we went back to the drainage pool room and followed the instructions.

The items disappeared as we put them in place, meaning that we wouldn't be able to sell the magic staff, but what we gained was worth far more. We laid down the staff as the final key, it vanished, and a sword rose, hilt first, from the pool. I retrieved it, cautiously, and wiped it clean of dirt. And it talked to me. A sentient sword!

Its name, it told me, was Lilarcor. A sentient two-handed sword of somewhat limited intelligence, unfortunately, and of a rather bloodthirsty turn of phrase, but valuable nonetheless. Identifying it with the magical goggles we had purchased from the fence in Gaelan Bayle's home revealed that Lilarcor was thrice-enchanted, the same as my lost blade the World's Edge, but with useful additional powers. Its – or his, rather, as Lilarcor regarded himself as male – wielder was granted immunity to all charm and confusion spells. That made it, or him, even better than the sword I had lost, and I wanted it, but cold logic told me that it would be better given to Minsc. My race, and my magic resistance, made me almost completely immune to charm spells and gave me a good chance of resisting confusion. Minsc had no such immunities, and on past occasions when he had fallen victim to confusion it had caused us severe problems, and so, reluctantly, I passed the sword on to my large friend. I would continue to use the Sword of Chaos.

We returned to Quallo and found that he wasn't a sewer-dwelling hermit at all; he was a normal citizen who had been charmed somehow and, apparently, set in this place solely to serve as a repository of clues to the location of Lilarcor. Now he was freed from the enchantment he was confused, lost, nearly naked and penniless, and wanting only to return to his family – if they still lived. We gave him some clothing taken from the dead hobgoblins, and a small pouch of gold, and sent him off in the direction of the Copper Coronet. Then we pressed on.

Beyond Quallo's chamber was a corridor that led upward and ended in a wooden door. We opened it, went through, and at once found ourselves under attack. The room beyond the door was large, with curved walls of wood, and it was full of slavers. Numerous, well-equipped, and backed up by a spell-casting priest. In such a large open space they could have swamped the four of us. I ordered a retreat, back into the sewer corridor, and in that confined space the odds changed. We hacked them down as they came through the door, Jaheira and Yoshimo at the front with their one-handed weapons and Minsc and I thrusting with our long blades from the rear, and the bodies of our fallen foes formed a barricade that hampered the later arrivals even more. When the last of them fell, and no more followed, we were almost untouched. Yoshimo, whose armor was the lightest, was dripping blood from a fairly deep cut but Jaheira healed him with a Cure Serious Wounds spell. None of the rest of us had worse than a few bruises.

"That one is wearing my armor!" Yoshimo exclaimed, looking down at the body of a slaver who, from the shouts I had heard, was called 'Captain Hagen' and had been one of their leaders. He wore a fine set of studded leathers, closely resembling a twice-enchanted set that had once belonged to Imoen and then to Safana, and Yoshimo eagerly stripped it from the corpse and donned it himself.

I saw that the late Captain Hagen had been armed with a two-handed sword, and checked it out, but it turned out to be a standard non-magical weapon. An archer among the dead had an enchanted composite longbow, which Minsc seized upon eagerly, and a sheaf of enchanted arrows. Gradually we were rebuilding our stock of enchanted equipment and becoming more formidable.

Back through that door, then, where only a single slaver remained on guard. He tried to run but didn't get far. Part of the room was walled off, with a locked door, behind which were a couple of trolls. I guessed that one had been the troll we had seen slaying a dwarf gladiator. We had something the dwarf had lacked, fire arrows, and we were able to put the trolls down and make sure that they stayed down. We found gemstones, and more fire arrows, and three captive children. We freed them, gave them a hundred danter to hopefully enable them to get home, and pointed them in the direction of the Copper Coronet; the sewer route had been cleared of anything that might have endangered them. Yoshimo still suspected that they would be robbed of all the money before they could get home, alas, and he may have been right. I could not solve all the world's problems, though, and just had to press on with my current mission.

We fought a pair of Yuan-Ti, who proved much less formidable than their reputation, and then a band of slaver warriors backed up by two wizards. We found valuable gemstones, a Cloak of Protection, and numerous spell scrolls. What we didn't find was Viconia. We searched every inch of the place without finding a trace of her. And we'd killed everyone and there was no-one left to question. I felt like kicking myself, although in my defense Captain Hagen would have been the likeliest to have the information and he'd been one of the first to die. There had been little chance of taking him alive. The only bright spot was that we did find a desk containing documents…

And, at last, we found something helpful. A note that 'the Drow slut' had been rented out, at 'the usual discount', to one 'Isaea Roenall'. No address, alas, but it was a starting point. Bernard at the Coronet might know where we could find the man, or Hendak might, or neither of them knew I would try asking Gaelan Bayle and the Shadow Thieves. We left the converted ship, laden down with loot, by a door in the bow that opened onto a platform at the top of steps leading down to the street.

There was a guard there. He tried to fight us and I held back from killing him, only parrying his blows, long enough to ask him about Viconia. He denied all knowledge and I stopped holding back. The guardsman further along the street merely watched as we stripped the corpse.

Five minutes later we were in the Copper Coronet. Hendak was delighted with what we had achieved and rewarded us with a suit of plate mail and an enchanted bastard sword, taken from Lehtinan's personal stores. I recognized the sword, as did Jaheira. It was Kondar, a blade enchanted specifically against shape-changers, that had been given to my party by Aldeth Sashenstar after we had slain the doppelgangers in the Merchants' League headquarters in Baldur's Gate. We had sold it shortly thereafter and, Jaheira revealed, Ajantis the paladin in her party had purchased it and used it to great effect against werewolves. No doubt the servants of Irenicus had taken it when they ambushed us and slew Ajantis. None of us were skilled in the use of that type of sword and so I sold it once more, and started to sell off the gear we had taken from the dead slavers, and during the transactions I asked Hendak and Bernard about 'Isaea Roenall'.

"Did I hear you say 'Isaea Roenall'?" It was the young lady who had spoken to me earlier, attempting to enlist our aid for some sort of rescue mission, and whom I had noticed fighting against Lehtinan's slaver guards.

"You did," I confirmed. "Do you know him?"

"I do, unfortunately," the lady said. "Technically I'm betrothed to him. It was arranged when we were children and I've been trying to persuade my father to break it off. I'd rather be betrothed to an orc!"

"Do you know where he lives?" I asked.

"Of course," she said. "Why?"

"My close friend was taken as a slave and sold to the brothel here," I explained. "We got rid of the slavers, and freed the slaves, but she wasn't here. I found a note saying she'd been hired by Isaea Roenall. I want my friend back."

"Oh! I can help," she volunteered. "You mustn't kill him. You'd get into terrible trouble. But I can make him let her go. Only… I'm in desperate need of help myself."

"If you help me get Viconia back I'll be greatly in your debt," I told her. "Whatever help you need… you shall have it."

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"I've never met a Drow before," the lady, whose name was Nalia De'Arnise, remarked as we walked towards Isaea Roenall's house in the Government District. "You're… not like I expected. Of course, I'd only heard of your people in stories, where they're described as horrible and evil, well, except for Drizzt Do'Urden, that is."

"I've met Drizzt," I told her. "He is as he is portrayed in the stories. The same is true for most of my people, I'm afraid. Many Drow are indeed evil and can be horrible. But not me, and not my aunt, and not my friend Viconia."

"She's a Drow too? That would explain Isaea's interest in her. I've heard he has a taste for… the exotic."

"Viconia is definitely exotic," I said, "and extremely dangerous. I am wondering how he's managed to stop her killing him. If he's harmed her… I don't care how much trouble it would cause; he dies."

"Oh, really, you can't kill him!" Nalia protested. "He's far too influential, that's why my aunt doesn't want the betrothal cancelled. She keeps badgering my father not to do it, but I've managed to get him to see my point of view. He… oh, I do hope Father is all right! We have to save him."

"Tell me more about what you need," I said. "I prefer to be well prepared for whatever I'm getting into."

"The other adventurers I approached backed out when I told them," she admitted. "Our castle has been overrun… by trolls."

"So, we need to stock up on fire spells and arrows," I said. "I had a sword specifically made for killing trolls, but it was taken when we were ambushed. We've regained some of what we lost but, unfortunately, not that sword. Still, we have a reasonable number of fire arrows, and Viconia can cast Flame Strike and Flame Blade."

"And I can cast Flame Blade too," Jaheira put in. "We are well prepared to face trolls, although additional fire or acid weapons would not go amiss."

"I have some fire spells myself," Nalia said. "Oh, I feel so much better now. I was scared that you would back out, too."

"T'rissae does not back down from anything, from what I have seen, young lovely," Yoshimo said, "and neither does the mighty Minsc."

"And Boo," Minsc added. "We are all heroes, me and Boo, and our new friends Jaheira and Yoshimo, and Viconia, and now you too, but T'rissae is the Hero of Baldur's Gate."

"That didn't stop them turning against me," I said. "Public opinion is a fickle thing." A thought struck me. "Lady Nalia, do you have a license to use magic in public?"

"Don't bother with the 'Lady', just call me Nalia," she said. "No, I don't have a license. The De'Arnise estate is several hours' travel outside the city and doesn't come under that stupid law."

"Then we'll get one for you, while we're in the Government District," I said. "I don't want to have to rescue two lady mages from the Cowled Wizards." I explained about Imoen, and Nalia at once volunteered to help with our mission once her castle, and her father, had been saved. I had yet to see evidence of her magical abilities but she had courage and integrity, as I had seen demonstrated when she joined in the fight against Lehtinan's men, and she had status in this society, which could prove very useful. Hopefully it would prove useful in retrieving Viconia without violence.

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The largest buildings in the Government District were the official ones, the prison and the Council of Six offices, but several of the estates belonging to nobles were not much smaller. The Roenall house was not in the same league; it was just the town residence of a family whose estates were outside the city. We passed by a street preacher who was haranguing a small crowd outside the prison, reached the Roenall residence, and banged on the door.

It was opened by a liveried servant. "The master is not receiving visitors at present," he said. "You may leave a message with me and, if he deems it worthwhile, he will respond later."

"Tell Isaea this, Danterworth," Nalia snapped. "If he's not at this door in two minutes – with all his clothes on – I'll do my level best to ruin his reputation in Athkatla forever. Do you understand?"

"Ah, yes, Miss Nalia," Danterworth said, sounding somewhat shaken. "I shall convey your message to my master at once." He went back into the house and closed the door behind him. Nalia started counting down from a hundred and twenty. Before her count expired the door opened again.

"Nalia, my dear! What a pleasant surprise." I assessed the man who appeared at the door as a fop. Youngish, probably a little older than Nalia, with the same accent, well-groomed and wearing expensive clothes. A sword hung at his side. I cast Detect Evil and, sure enough, he glowed red; as did the street preacher at the far fringe of the spell's range, although I took no notice of that at the time. "This isn't really a convenient time, I'm afraid," the fop went on.

"Because you have another woman in there?" Nalia said. "If she was there by her own choice I wouldn't care, but she isn't, is she?"

"I don't know what that rabble with you have been saying," he said, his lip curling in a sneer, "but I assure you…"

He was interrupted by Viconia rushing out of the house and shoving her way past him. She was wearing her green dress, as I expected, and emerald earrings that I had not seen before. "Jabbress!" she cried, as she hurled herself into my arms. "You are free!"

I wrapped my arms around her in a hug. She had to be truly distraught, for normally she was totally averse to that kind of physical contact. The only times I had seen her permit a hug had been when she was comforting Imoen after we discovered the doppelgangers in Candlekeep, and Imoen had feared that Winthrop might have been slain and replaced, and later to comfort me when I was acquitted of killing Skie but still was declared banished from Baldur's Gate. She had never needed one herself before.

Nalia was berating Isaea Roenall, and from what I heard doing so in spectacular style, but I missed most of it because I was concentrating on Viconia.

"I was told that if I escaped, or failed to obey, you and the others would be tortured or killed," she told me, in Ilythiirra. "Now that you are free… I can wreak vengeance upon those who enslaved me. Starting with this piece of excrement…"

"Wait!" I told her. "You can't do that… yet. He has too much influence in this society. Imoen has been arrested by the Cowled Wizards. Getting her back will be difficult enough without setting the law against us."

"If you say so, Jabbress," Viconia agreed. "We must rescue our irritatingly cheerful little abbil." She looked around at my little group. "Where are Dynaheir and Safana?"

"There is no easy way to tell you this, abbil," I said. "Safana has been turned into a vampire, and Dynaheir is dead."

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It took all my persuasiveness to hold Viconia back from hitting Isaea Roenall with her strongest offensive spells and, if necessary, finishing him off by ripping his throat out with her teeth. She told me he'd been showing her off as a trophy, making her accompany him to the homes of some other nobles and act like a willing, compliant, partner – and then making her have sex with him at night. It wasn't the sex aspect that infuriated her, but being forced to play the part of someone submissive, compliant, and inferior to a mere male. She compared Roenall very unfavorably to the Calishite merchant Bhalar yn Faruk, who had treated her with respect, and who was far more skilled in the bedchamber than Isaea Roenall – with more detail than I would have wanted to know. She took off the earrings that he had given her and threw them at him.

Viconia was hit hard by hearing what had happened to Dynaheir and Safana, who had been her good friends, as well as by the arrest of Imoen. She spoke consolingly to Minsc and, when I told her that Khalid too had been murdered by Irenicus, she reacted as I had predicted. She was quite eloquent in praising Khalid, who had never been as hostile to Viconia as had been Jaheira, and in expressing her sympathy for Jaheira. And, of course, her determination to see Irenicus die an agonizing death for what he had done. A resolve that Jaheira shared. I wouldn't have described the two of them as bonding but at least their mutual dislike was now tempered with a degree of mutual respect.

Once Nalia had run out of abuse to hurl at her fiancé, who would become an ex-fiancé as soon as she could arrange it, we headed for the Council of Six building where we could purchase a permit to use magic. I gave Viconia a weapon I had purchased from Bernard specifically for her, the Mauler's Arm, enchanted to increase its wielder's strength to match that of a strong human who had not received the specialist training reserved only for warriors. I had kept the plate-and-mail suit that had belonged to the half-elf Beastmaster, which I hoped would fit Viconia after some alterations, but she would have to wait until we had some privacy before she could try it on in place of her dress. I gave Nalia the enchanted short-sword we had taken from the kobolds in the sewers, as her own sword was non-magical, and the bundle of wands from the traps in the lair of Irenicus.

Isaea Roenall watched us as we departed, his face set in a scowl, and I saw him leave his house just as we were about to enter the Council building. I didn't see where he went as I was distracted by a robed man addressing us. The man, apparently a wizard of some sort, asked us to go in and speak to his master Tolgerias, who was looking for adventurers for a mission. I saw no harm in speaking to this Tolgerias, as we were going in anyway, although I assured Nalia that her mission would come first and the wizard's quest, whatever it was, would have to wait.

First, we bought the magic license from a Cowled Wizard representative named Corneil. Nalia didn't think it was necessary, as she had no intention of using magic in the city, but I told her what had happened to Imoen and explained that I'd much rather spend five thousand danter than have it happen again. It turned out that if I bought the license it would cover any magic users in my party, useful if we recruited a replacement for Nalia after we rescued her father and recovered her castle, and it would even cover Imoen if we could get her released – although unfortunately it was not retroactive, and Corneil refused to reveal anything about any legal way of getting her freed or anything about the location of 'Spellhold', the prison in which the Cowled Wizards kept their prisoners.

We moved on to Tolgerias, who wanted me to sign up for his mission before he would tell us what it involved. There was no way that I was going to do that; I foresaw that it might well put me in a situation where I had a choice between breaking my word and doing evil. In that event I would choose to break my word, of course, but it was far better never to get into such a dilemma in the first place. I tried to press him into giving me information about Imoen's captivity but could get nothing from him except a vague offer to do what he could after I had carried out his mission. I told him "Alu lu'vith dosstan!" and walked away.

I tried speaking to a couple of law enforcement officials who weren't Cowled Wizards, Magistrate Bylanna and Chief Inspector Brega, and although both sympathized, they insisted that their hands were tied, as the Cowled Wizards had been granted sole jurisdiction over the laws relating to magic use, and they had no power to intervene.

I was beginning to really hate this city.

What happened when we went back outside didn't make me change my opinion. We were attacked before we made it half-way to the district exit. A mob of some dozen citizens, led by the street preacher I had vaguely noticed earlier, came rushing towards us.

"Slay the dark and evil drow!" cried the preacher. "Seize them! We shall cleanse them with fire!"

Hypocritical, as my spell had shown him to be evil himself, and suicidally rash, as subsequent events proved. Several members of the mob, those clad in ordinary street clothes and wielding tools rather than proper weapons, turned around and ran as soon as they saw Minsc and me drawing our very large swords. The preacher, and those of his colleagues properly armed and armored, died swiftly. The guardsmen on duty in front of the Council building and the prison stood and watched the whole affair without taking any action.

I wondered what had triggered this attack. Was it purely because Viconia and I were drow, or was there something else behind it? The preacher had a pouch of gold, three hundred danter, on his belt and also a separate pouch containing a much smaller amount. I had a suspicion that Isaea Roenall, whom I had observed leaving his house, might have paid the preacher to attack us with the aim of killing Viconia. I could see no way of proving it, however, and I kept the thought to myself.

We left the Government District and headed for the city gates. I introduced Viconia to Yoshimo and Nalia, and told her about our escape from Irenicus, our fight against Lehtinan's men, and our assault on the slavers in the dry-docked ship and how we had tracked her down. Nalia, of course, was also interested to hear all this. When we reached the city gates, I observed another indication of the corruption that seemed to be rife in this city. The guard on the gates stopped an incoming merchant and said that his wares would have to be searched for contraband. He claimed to be suspicious of the merchant's spices, and the conversation implied that they included Black Lotus, but the merchant offered a free sample and a pouch of gold as a 'goodwill gesture' and was allowed entry with no further investigation. In other words, a drug smuggler had bribed the guard to turn a blind eye. It seemed that in Athkatla the law was wide open to abuse from anyone who had money and was prepared to spend it.

Once out of the city we halted to get Viconia equipped with armor. My thought that the Beastmaster's armor would be suitable proved to be in error; it was too heavy for her to move freely in, except when she held the Mauler's Arm mace to boost her strength, and it was too large to be comfortable without alteration. It looked to be the perfect size for Jaheira, however, and very much to my surprise she suggested a trade.

"Wear my chainmail, Drow," Jaheira said. "It will shrink to fit your skinny body, and is light enough that it will not hamper your weak muscles. I shall wear the plate mail."

Viconia's jaw dropped. "I… thank you for this generous gesture," she said, sincerely, and then regained some of her usual snark. "Your brawny tu'rilthiir frame will be better suited to the plate and mail than my… tarril… what is the word for which I seek, Jabbress?"

"Elegant? Svelte?" I suggested.

"Bel'la dos, abbil… than my svelte figure. We have a deal." She stripped off her silk dress, packed it away carefully, and then donned the thrice-enchanted mail. Jaheira put on the plate mail, which did indeed fit her well, and we resumed our journey.

And our conversation. When Viconia heard that Nalia was betrothed to Isaea Roenall, although hopefully not for much longer, she was shocked.

"The earrings that the rivvil iblith had me wear were to be his wedding gift for his bride," she told us. "He said that you were far away, and would not find out. I pretended to smile, and put them on, and thought about how his screams will sound when I stake him out on the ground and light a fire upon his belly."

"I wouldn't go quite that far," Nalia said, grimacing, "but certainly I'd like to punch him on the nose. And perhaps kick him in the… groin. And I'm definitely going to insist that my father cancels this stupid betrothal right away… as long as we're in time to rescue him."

"One who would so disrespect a lady such as yourself deserves worse than merely a kick in the groin," Yoshimo put in. "Perhaps the punishment proposed by our dark lady might be excessive but a middle ground might be found. If we could prove his involvement with slavers, the authorities might move against him."

Nalia pursed her lips. "They might," she said, "but I'd bet he'd wriggle out of it somehow. I'd be satisfied just to get out of the betrothal."

I hoped, for her sake, that her father was still alive. If he was dead then Nalia, who I was coming to like a lot, would be tied to someone I wouldn't have spit on if Viconia had indeed set him on fire. All we could do, for the moment, was to march on and hope that we arrived in time.

Glossary of Drow Phrases

Jabbress = female commander

abbil = trusted friend

Alu lu'vith dosstan! = Go and fuck yourself

tu'rilthiir = half-elf

tarril = elegant

Bel'la dos, abbil = thank you, my friend

rivvil iblith = human offal or excrement