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...

13. Temporary Heroes

Chapter Thirteen: Temporary Heroes

Before presenting Kangaxx with the golden limbs and torso I had us take every precaution I could come up with, and a couple I might not have thought of had the others not suggested them. I bought potions of Cloud Giant Strength and Storm Giant Strength from Roger the Fence, plus all the Potions of Heroism and Oils of Speed he had, and drank the Cloud Giant potion and then Draw Upon Holy Might to make my strength temporarily that of a god. Minsc and Jaheira used Fire Giant Strength potions; the Storm Giant one I wanted to keep for the direst of emergencies. Our most powerful summoned monsters were positioned close to the sarcophagus. Yoshimo laid traps everywhere he thought the lich might go. Nalia cast Spell Immunity: Abjuration, on top of her regular protections, as I had learned that Kangaxx favored the use of Imprisonment and that is an Abjuration spell. Viconia cast Righteous Magic on herself. Every one of us was as protected as we possibly could be and with our striking power at the absolute maximum. I opened the sarcophagus, Kangaxx took the body parts, and within seconds the fight was on.

It was a furious whirl of frenzied activity. Kangaxx did not appear where I expected, and the traps were in the wrong place, but we adjusted quickly. He must have had Contingencies or Spell Triggers prepared because after our first, successful, attacks suddenly he was invulnerable to our weapons. Nalia stripped away some of his protections with a Breach spell, and I used Carsomyr's power of dispelling, and we started to damage him again. He went invisible, but Nalia used the spell Oracle to negate it, and we continued to smite him. He destroyed our Skeleton Warrior, and our Mountain Bears, but we remained unscathed and our Fire Elemental was unharmed. I dealt him a mighty blow, and Nalia used Daystar to sear him with a Sunray, and his limbs and torso crumbled…

…only for his skull to rise, floating above the floor, and declare that now he was freed and could unleash his full power. And the fight continued.

It grew worse. He wasted some of his most dangerous spells on the Fire Elemental but then his Symbols of Fear and of Stun took Nalia and Yoshimo out of the fight. He cast Remove Magic on us, stripping me of the additional strength drawn from the potions and Draw Upon Holy Might, and then Viconia cast Miscast Magic on him without realizing that he had cast Spell Reflection. That neutralized her ability to cast spells for the rest of the fight. She continued to pelt him with the magical bullets from the Sling of Everard, and they were chipping pieces from his undead skull, but the holes healed up almost as fast as she could inflict them. The same applied to the gashes carved by Carsomyr. Then Kangaxx made a mistake.

He cast Imprisonment on Nalia, who had made herself immune to that spell, and then, when it didn't work, he didn't think to change targets but simply tried again. Another failure. Then Jaheira used the Ring of the Ram, won from Tolgerias in the Planar Sphere, to knock Kangaxx away and send him into the traps Yoshimo had laid earlier. In that brief moment of respite, I took the opportunity to drink the Potion of Storm Giant Strength and another Oil of Speed. I hurled myself on Kangaxx and smote him with redoubled fury. And the skull shattered. Kangaxx had been destroyed.

The victory had left us surprisingly unharmed; Kangaxx had been using spells that immobilized, or killed outright, but none that caused wounds or other physical injury, and his lethal spells had been wasted on those of us temporarily immune. We had to wait for several minutes for Nalia and Yoshimo to recover from the Symbol of Stun, and for the Miscast Magic to wear off Viconia so that she dared cast again, but other than that we had suffered no harm whatsoever. The potions we had used were expensive but, compared with the value of what we found, that was trivial.

In the pile of dust and pieces of shattered bone, all that was left of Kangaxx, I found a sack of one and a half thousand danter, hardly worthy of note to us by now, but also… a ring. I used the Glasses of Identification to discover its capabilities, rather than wait for Nalia to recover, and found that it was everything for which I had hoped. The Ring of Gaxx. It added to the protective value of my armor by the equivalent of an extra two levels of enchantment, it improved my magic resistance, it gave immunity to disease and poison, and could grant invisibility for up to twelve hours once a day, and Improved Haste for ten seconds three times a day. And its healing powers worked at ten times the rate of a Potion of Regeneration. A truly wondrous item.

0=≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

I was still benefiting from the Potion of Storm Giant Strength, and would be for nearly another two hours, and it seemed a waste not to make further use of it. I knew of no outstanding quests, however, although I could perhaps have gone back to the Order of the Radiant Heart to see if they had anything for me to do. I decided, instead, to investigate a house we had come across when looking for the Man in Red in connection with the kidnap victim who had been buried alive. Its entrance had been heavily trapped, none of the locals had known who lived there, and some had spoken of it having an evil reputation. It was next door to the house that had held one lich guarding Kangaxx's golden torso, and I wondered if it might hold some similar grim secret. The first time we had passed that way we had made an attempt to open its door but, although the lock had been no obstacle, an invisible barrier had barred our way. We had more resources now with which to breach such things and I thought it worth making the attempt.

The barrier melted away as soon as I touched it. I felt the slightest of touches at my belt, as if a pickpocket had made an almost successful attempt to get at my gem pouch, and then all of us were pulled through a portal. It was a far briefer journey than when we had been transported to the Planar Prison, and I had not even completed my thought of 'Not again!' when we arrived in a smallish, dimly-lit, chamber.

It opened out onto a much larger chamber dominated by a very large stone table incised with runes and triangles inside triangles. Some kind of altar, I guessed. I examined it briefly and then a figure materialized on its center. Skeletal, robed, crowned… almost certainly a lich.

"You have power," the lich addressed me. "Chained, but it is not of my giving. Do you know where you are?"

"Well, we were in the Bridge District of Athkatla," I said, "but I'm guessing we're somewhere else now."

"Yet you had a key, a Rogue Stone," he said. "What did you hope to accomplish by trespassing in my chamber?"

"I'm a paladin," I said. So that explained the touch at my gem pouch. I'd kept all the Rogue Stones we had acquired, together with other high-value gems and some jewelry, because it was far more convenient than carrying around heavy sacks of gold. Now, it would seem, I had one fewer. "It is my role to explore strange places, meet interesting people, and, if they do evil, kill them."

"As you wish. Come, friends, it seems the Twisted Rune shall have a bit of amusement today." With that, other beings began to appear in the chamber. I say 'beings' because one was a Beholder. The others were two humans, one garbed as a mage and the other as a thief, and a vampire. And, of course, they attacked.

On another day this might have been a very tough fight. Unfortunately for the Twisted Rune most of us still were possessed of the enhancements we had put in place during our battle with Kangaxx. We did not need to cast protective spells, or drink potions, during which time we could have been attacked at a disadvantage. We could, and did, go into all-out attack immediately. Our foes, though formidable, went down surprisingly quickly.

It was not quite a bloodless victory. I suffered some injury, although the Ring of Gaxx healed me in minutes, and Jaheira, Nalia, and Yoshimo took some minor hurts. Viconia and Minsc were not even scratched. We found four thousand danter on the bodies, which more than made up for the lost Rogue Stone, and the mage had possessed a staff that made Nalia squeal in delight. The Staff of the Magi, a legendary weapon, with so many abilities that I lost track as she recited them. The most interesting was that it could make the wielder invisible, as many times as she liked, just by passing it from one hand to the other. It hadn't helped the Twisted Rune mage, as Viconia had activated the Gem of Seeing during the lich's opening speech, and had been able to keep track of her at all times. We might come upon foes with similar advantages and it would not do to rely upon it too strongly. Very useful, even so, and a significant bonus to Nalia's growing effectiveness.

Our only problem was how to get back to Athkatla. Nalia had not yet mastered any spells of teleportation and the portal through which we entered had closed behind us. At one side of the main room stood a machine of some sort, apparently operated by a large lever, and on the other was a cauldron. The machine looked promising but pulling the lever achieved nothing. There were no sockets into which anything could be inserted and so, thinking of the way the inward portal had been triggered, I tried dropping a Rogue Stone into the cauldron. The lever remained inactive. Then, on further examination, Yoshimo noticed that the cauldron was marked with a symbol resembling an eye on a stalk. I couldn't imagine that the Beholder would part with an eye every time the Rune members needed to leave the chamber, but then I realized that, although there was a Beholder eyestalk on the floor, all of the Beholder's eyes were still attached to its corpse. Dropping that spare eye into the cauldron activated the machine, pulling the lever reopened the portal, and it took us back to the outside of that house in Athkatla.

We had expended so many potions during our assault on Kangaxx that I thought it advisable to purchase replacements. An old lady in the Bridge District sold potions, and we were able to partially replenish our supply there, but the Storm Giant and Cloud Giant Strength potions were harder to source. In the end we went off to the Temple District sewers and Roger the Fence for them. Whilst there I thought we might as well call in on the Order of the Radiant Heart, to see if there was anything that they required me to do, but they had no current tasks for me. From there we went to Waukeen's Promenade and the Adventurers' Mart, where Nalia purchased a couple of spells and the best Bracers of Defense I had ever seen; as protective against weapons as plate mail. She had been wearing Bracers of Archery, which she passed on to Yoshimo, and her manner as she did so was warm enough that I began to think that his feelings for her might not be entirely unreciprocated. None of the other merchants in the Promenade had anything worth purchasing and we moved on to the Slums District.

Bernard had little of interest for sale, save for a couple of spell scrolls that Nalia purchased, and neither did the other merchant who operated from the Coronet. I became involved in a minor altercation with a cleric attached to the Order of the Radiant Heart, who resented that I, a Drow, had been accepted as a full Knight of the Order whereas he had been relegated to a subordinate role, but I calmed him down without it coming to blows. He then offered to join my party, hoping to win sufficient renown in our company to advance within the Order, but I turned him down. I had no use for strangers at this stage of our quest. The time had come to go to Gaelan Bayle, pay him the fee of fifteen thousand danter, and be given the location of Spellhold where Imoen, and Irenicus, were being held.

0=≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

Bayle did not divulge the information right away. He gave me a key, and told me how to find a secret door in the Docks District guildhall, which would take me into the presence of the supreme head of the Shadow Thieves. It was the Shadowmaster, Aran Linvail, who would tell me what I wanted to know and, I guessed going from past experience, would demand that I perform a task for him first.

I was correct, but not entirely so. He did require a task, as I had predicted, but he gave us something in return. A twice-enchanted Ring of Protection, almost worthless to us at present as it would not work in conjunction with other protective items, although it might be very useful for Imoen later, and an amulet far more useful. Intended for spellcasters, it gave the wearer complete protection from being Silenced, immunity to the life-draining powers of vampires, a slight increase to magic resistance, and a minor reduction in the casting time of spells. We decided that Viconia could make the best use of it. It was valuable enough that we might even have been prepared to pay the fifteen thousand just to obtain it, and so I could not truly resent Linvail wanting us to carry out a mission in addition to paying the fee.

The task seemed simple enough on the face of it. Linvail admitted that the guild was suffering losses at the hands of the rival guild, the one that I was certain was headed by vampires, and he told us that incoming shipments of goods – he did not say what type – were being intercepted. He had a guard waiting for a current shipment, which was due to arrive shortly after nightfall, but the guard was only one woman and he wanted us to back her up. We were to go down to a specific dock after dark and join up with the guard, a woman named Mook.

We did as he asked and it didn't go well. The shipment was delivered safely but Mook saw someone she claimed had passed by a suspicious number of times, went to challenge him, and was killed instantly by the man… who was, in fact, a vampire. We didn't react quickly enough to save her, and though we slew the vampire, that would only be temporary. He drifted away as a cloud of mist and would return to his coffin, regenerate, and be as good as new the next night.

We returned to the guildhall, angered and embarrassed by our failure to protect Mook, but Aran Linvail seemed undisturbed. He asked us to do something else for him, annoying me at first, but I changed my mind when he explained the nature of the task. Two members of the Shadow Thieves were planning to defect to the rival guild and he had been having them watched. They were to meet a contact from the other guild at the Five Flagons Inn, very soon, and he wanted us to go there and either obtain the location of the guild base from them or directly from their contact. His own men were known to the defectors but we, as outsiders, might well be able to do something they could not.

Had this been a normal dispute between thieves' guilds I would not have taken sides, and I would have resented Linvail's use of Imoen as leverage; but it wasn't. The rival guild was linked to the vampires, quite probably headed by the mysterious Bodhi I had met in the Graveyard District, and that meant that they were connected to Safana. I wanted, no needed, to locate Safana's body and grant her a true death. And to eliminate all those involved in turning her into a vampire.

We headed off to the Five Flagons Inn right away. Yoshimo expressed some misgivings about our growing involvement with the Shadow Thieves, feeling that we were getting involved in a dispute that was none of our business, but saw my point when I reminded him about Safana. The others, especially Viconia, were all happy to go along with my decision.

I found the two defectors easily enough, on the upper floor of the Five Flagons, and decided to try claiming that I was the contact, to see what information I could get from them, as my first step. The others stayed further back and acted as if they were not with me. My plan had a fatal flaw. The defectors didn't know their contact by sight – but they did know that he was a man named Gracen, and I'm a woman. They attacked, and died, and had nothing on their bodies holding clues to the other guild's location. Then the real Gracen arrived.

I passed myself off as a defector, and the dead bodies as spies I had slain, and that I had learnt the contact's name satisfied him for a moment. He told me that the guild I was supposed to be joining could be found beneath the Graveyard District, behind a set of blue stone doors, and I had seen such doors during our previous explorations. I probed too much, however, and gave myself away. His attempt to eliminate the spy was terminally unsuccessful. A letter on his body, signed by someone named Lassal, contained a few details confirming that the lair we sought was behind those blue doors.

Doors that we had failed to open when we had first seen them. Well, perhaps the Shadow Thieves would have a way. Or perhaps I could try rubbing them with a Rogue Stone.

0=≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

Aran Linvail received my information with thanks but no great surprise. During our absence the guildhall had been attacked, by vampires led by Bodhi, and they had been driven off only at the cost of several thieves' lives. He had already known there were vampires collaborating with the rival guild, but had been uncertain whether they were part of the command structure or merely acting as mercenary enforcers. The attack had confirmed that they were at the top of the hierarchy, with Bodhi probably the overall commander, and that she was intelligent, ruthless, and brutal even by the standards of vampires. He had obtained some evidence as to the location of their base, which tied in precisely with what we had found, and he wanted us to strike back on his behalf and, ideally, kill Bodhi. He regretted that, following the losses incurred in the attack, he was limited in what forces he could provide to assist us. Only a mage, Haz by name, who possessed a golem specially designed to be able to open doors otherwise impregnable. He proposed that we go directly to the tombs under the Graveyard District and he would send Haz to meet us there.

I was all in favor of attacking the vampires but declined to do as he suggested. "If you're attacking vampires in their lair," I said, "you should do it by day. That way they have no way of escape and, if you are forced to retreat, then they cannot follow. That is what I shall do. If your wizard Haz goes down there tonight… I'm afraid he'll go alone."

"I bow to your superior expertise," Linvail said. "Tomorrow morning, first thing, it shall be."

0=≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

We arrived at the Graveyard District at seven in the morning, when the sun was high and bright enough that no vampire would venture out into the daylight, ready for battle and carrying plenty of wooden stakes. Spiders had repopulated the tombs since we had cleared them out, but their attacks were scarcely even an inconvenience to us now. In the hallway that led to the stone doors we met the wizard, Haz, and his golem companion.

"At last, you've arrived," he said, although he could not have been waiting for very long. "Those spiders were starting to make me nervous. Allow me to open these doors for you." He gave a command to his golem, it lumbered forward, and its mighty hands wrenched open the previously immobile doors.

In the room beyond the doors stood the vampire who had slain Mook. "Fools!" he addressed us, as we advanced to get a clear line of sight on him. "The mistress knew you would come. Fight, then, and know that you die for nothing!" With that, he teleported away, before any of us could loose at him, and four skeletal beings resembling the Doom Guards from Durlag's Tower stepped out of niches at the sides of the hallway and attacked. They concentrated their attacks on Haz, at first, and though his golem tried to defend him it had no sense of strategy and merely battered away at the nearest. We fought them more effectively, and destroyed all four without too much difficulty, but not before they had slain Haz.

Once those skeletal guards had been destroyed the golem lapsed into immobility and advanced no further. It ignored any commands we tried to give it and we had to press on without it. We entered the large room, which was dominated by a table large enough to seat twenty around it but with only eight chairs, and we saw the vampire reappear at a side door.

"Come then, come to your doom!" he cried. "Dare you breach the inner sanctum? I think not." He ducked back through the doorway, before we could attack him, and was gone.

There were other doorways nearer to us than that one and I wasn't going to follow him without checking them out. I did not want to be caught between him and others coming at us from behind and so, instead, I led us to the closest, to our left, and faced another vampire there almost at once. Another vampire and a Greater Ghoul advanced upon us from the further door on that side. We slew all three monsters before they could reach us. We continued along our chosen course along a corridor, checked out the room at the end and found it to be empty, although stairs led up from it and appeared to lead to the world outside. We left the stairs unexplored, for the time being, and retraced our steps slightly and took another turning from the corridor. It led to a room containing several coffins. One of them was occupied. One of the vampires we had just slain was there, its corpse regenerating, and we hammered a stake through its heart. The body uttered a single cry and decayed, in an instant, as if it had been dead for months or years – as, indeed, it had.

At first sight there seemed to be no exit from the room other than the corridor through which we had entered. A second look revealed a secret door, which we opened, and we went through a short corridor into a chamber containing a rectangular stone bath, some twelve feet by six in size, which was filled to the brim with what appeared to be blood. Bubbling blood, heated by some unknown source, perhaps a grisly bath for vampires. Another Greater Ghoul, and two vampires, attacked us but were easily dispatched.

Turbulence within the pool gave me a glimpse of an object under the surface, its shape indicating that it might be a weapon of some sort, and I plunged my hand beneath the surface and grasped it. The scent and feel of the blood made me nauseous but I trusted in the Ring of Gaxx to protect me from any diseases or poisons in the liquid. And, if the weapon was cursed, I knew that Viconia kept Remove Curse memorized in case of need.

It wasn't cursed; quite the reverse. We cleaned the blood off my hands, and the weapon, and it was revealed as a gleaming metal mace. Obviously enchanted, and a spell revealed it to be a Mace of Disruption, created for the destruction of vampires, capable of slaying Undead with a single blow. And this was the weapon that Cromwell had claimed he could improve if he had access to illithium. Even unimproved it was almost the perfect weapon for our situation, as good as Azuredge or nearly, and Viconia adopted it in place of her Flail of Ages for at least as long as vampires would be our main foe.

The next foe we faced was a Clay Golem, against which the Flail of Ages would have been the better choice, but it made little difference and we shattered it anyway. We went back to the room with the coffins and found that a second one was now occupied, one of those we had slain having returned to its body in gaseous form. Another stake was put to use and another vampire was granted true death.

We made our way back to the large room, currently empty of foes, and decided upon our next move. There was one other exit other than the one through which the first vampire had departed, closer to the stone doors, and I deemed it wise to investigate that one next. A corridor led from the doorway, running straight at first but then angling off to our right, and a fledgling vampire confronted us on the first section. We slew her in moments, and moved on to the angled corner, where we faced a sterner challenge. The vampire there was a mage, and protected by multiple spells, and our first attacks did nothing. Nalia broke through her protections, though, and we destroyed her – or thought we did, for she had been employing Mislead, and what we had slain was an illusionary copy. The real vampire cast her own spells but our protections proved their worth again. Her Domination spell failed, I slashed her Mirror Images into non-existence, and Minsc finished her off with Azuredge.

Beyond the place where that vampire had fallen the corridor opened into a large chamber, its floor sloping down to the center, in the middle of which was a wide, blood-encrusted, drain. The floor of the chamber was bristling with spikes, set close enough together that walking through them without injury would require some care, and it looked ominously as if the purpose of the drain was to collect the blood of victims impaled upon the spikes. I guessed that the drain was the source of the blood filling the bath in the other room. There seemed to be nothing else in the chamber, and I saw little point in risking injury on the spikes with nothing to gain, and we returned to the room of coffins. I hoped that the mage's gaseous form would have returned there, so that she could be staked, but the only occupants of the coffins were the two decayed corpses we had staked earlier. Her coffin must be somewhere else.

Only one exit from the entrance hall remained unexplored; the one through which the vampire who had first greeted us had fled. Beyond it would be what he had termed 'the inner sanctum'. That might be where the mage's coffin lay, and where we would be most likely to find Bodhi – and, I hoped, Safana.

The doorway led to stairs down, and then to a corridor, and we were attacked there by two Greater Ghouls; easily dispatched. There was a door at the end of the corridor and we sent Viconia's Skeleton Warrior in first. Inside the room were four of the skeletal Doom Guard types and two fledgling vampires. The vampires ignored the Skeleton Warrior, bloodless as it was, but it drew some of the attacks of the skeletal guards away from us. All were soon dead, although I took a couple of wounds, and we were able to look around.

This room was positively creepy. A fairly large chamber in which were five pools of blood; a square one in each corner, from which channels led to a hexagonal pool in the center. They must have been supplied by the drain in the room of spikes above. There were two doors in the room. We set the Skeleton Warrior to stand sentry at the further door and went to check out the other. It led to a fairly small room in which the only things of interest were a funerary urn, in which were a few coins, and a locked and trapped chest. The chest held a twice-enchanted katana and an unusual suit of armor; made of wyvern scales, very light in weight, although a little too inflexible for a thief to wear. It was no use to us but would, no doubt, sell for a very nice sum indeed.

We opened the other door and were met, yet again, by the vampire who had confronted us when we first opened the stone doors. "One ambush you have survived, but the battle is far from over," he declared, ignoring several arrows and sling bullets that hit him even as he spoke. "Find me upstairs in the room of blood and blades." He teleported away again just in time to avoid being struck by Azuredge.

There was only one thing of note in the room; a large model ship, perhaps fifteen feet in length, resembling pictures I had seen of an Untheric funeral barge. There was a compartment in the hull, large enough to have held a body, but it was empty. There was nothing else for it but to return up the stairs and go to 'the room of blood and blades', by which I guessed the vampire had meant the room with the spiked floor and the bloody drain in its center.

The visible spikes were not the only peril in that room. A hidden spike shot upward from a seemingly safe place, catching me in a vulnerable spot and injuring me. Neither Yoshimo nor Nalia had seen any sign to give away the presence of the trap. Both Minsc and Jaheira fell victim to other spike traps, both being injured enough to require immediate healing, before we reached the vampire who awaited us there. This time he did not teleport away and we reduced him to gaseous form with but a few strokes.

Retracing our steps and getting out of the room was somewhat nerve-wracking but we managed it without anyone suffering further injury. We went directly to the room of coffins and found that the vampire had returned to his grave. The application of a stake ensured that he would never leave it.

And then there was a swirl of magic energy and another vampire appeared in the room a few yards away. A black-haired vampire woman, a darthiir, who wore a tight leather bodice that left her legs, and everything above the mid-point of her breasts, completely exposed; an outfit chosen to draw the male eye rather than to be practical in combat. We had seen that woman before. Bodhi.

I signaled to my comrades not to attack immediately. I had questions to ask before I killed her.

"Hmm," she said. "I had hoped it would not come to this, but you are set in your path, aren't you?"

"I am an Undead Hunter, and you are a vampire," I said. "What else did you expect? And, before I kill you, where is Safana?"

"Not here," she said. "I had a special role for that very talented thief. And, speaking of thieves, have the Shadow Thieves done more than promise? Have they delivered anything, or have they simply made sure that you are always within reach? Have they said why they sought your services? Why they offered to help you?"

"To get rid of you, I should imagine," I said.

"Oh? There are others who would have served as well," Bodhi said. "Do you realize the extent to which you were being used? Were you being observed, your capabilities mapped and charted?"

"The Shadow Thieves seem to be honest in their dealings so far," I said, "and I can understand them wanting to make use of my expertise."

"Ah, but what if their interest in you was more than simply mercenary?" she suggested. "What if they knew full well who you are… and what you are? You look surprised. I know what you are, Child of Bhaal. Irenicus told me. He might have learned more, awakened your power, but the thieves interrupted him."

"What do you know of my capture?" I asked.

"I was there," she admitted. "You are… moderately competent. I could not trust my subordinates to handle you and your… escort without my supervision."

"You work with Irenicus? Or is it, rather, for Irenicus?" I wondered. "He did not seem the type to have anyone close to him. What are you to him?"

"A sister," she answered, which could not possibly be true, at least not literally, as it was obvious that she was a full-blooded elf, or had been before she became a vampire, and Irenicus was human. "I grow tired of this conversation. You have asked your questions, and made your threats, and I have indulged you. Now this will end."

"I still want to know about Safana," I said.

"Get used to disappointment," she said, and almost blurred with speed as she leapt to the attack.

She was incredibly fast and agile, avoiding Minsc's throws of Azuredge effortlessly, and she hit me harder than any other being I had fought save for Firkraag. She drew a short-sword that gleamed with enchantments but did not wield it as an offensive weapon, only to parry, and she used only her fist to strike me. It was like being hit with a mace. Vampires were strong, certainly, but she was in a class of her own. I managed to connect, a solid blow, but she only laughed.

"Well, that certainly was… educational," she remarked, continuing to dodge and parry as she spoke. "I have seen enough, and I am done with you… for now." And then she transformed into a bat and flew away. A Magic Missile from Nalia hit the bat but had little apparent effect. None of the rest of us managed to hit the small, erratically-moving, target before she was out of sight.

We searched the complex for her, and for the corpses of those vampires we had slain but not staked, but found nothing. A bat could hide in so many places and, even if she couldn't go out into the sun, there was the whole labyrinth of catacombs outside the stone doors to which she could have fled. Eventually, we gave up, and left by the stairs in the room along the corridor from the room of coffins. It led out, as I had expected, emerging through the door that Bodhi had shown us on the night when we had first met her. The door was barred on the inside and, as soon as we were out, it swung closed and the bar dropped back into place. It was unopenable once more.

0=≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

We trudged back to Aran Linvail to report failure. I was disheartened but, to my surprise, Linvail didn't see it as a defeat.

"That you did not manage to kill Bodhi herself is not of great consequence," he said. "You have weakened her guild significantly. Almost all of her recruits have gone. Some have disappeared entirely, and we have found bodies of others. Enough to convince any other potential defectors that, whatever fine promises they may be made, in the end they would serve only as food for the vampires. We can handle the rest ourselves. You are free to move on to your objective. Spellhold."

He went on to tell me about the Cowled Wizard's asylum, the 'Residence for The Magically Deviant', colloquially known as Spellhold. It was located in a town called Brynnlaw in the Pirate Isles. Some of what he told me I had found out for myself, but some was new to me. Brynnlaw was entirely under the control of pirates, who made it perilous for any outsiders to visit the island, and they also served to guard the asylum from intrusion.

Understandably, it wasn't easy to find sea captains who would undertake a journey to a pirate stronghold other than those who were, themselves, pirates. Taking passage on an actual pirate ship would risk being robbed, marooned, thrown overboard, or worse; even a party as strong as mine would not be safe, as on a ship the crew would have all the advantages, and we would have to sleep eventually. Linvail had found an alternative he regarded as ideal; a smuggler, a somewhat shady character, but not openly dishonest, averse to violence, and persona grata with the pirates. Captain Saemon Havarian was willing to take us there, and Linvail had put him on a retainer to keep his ship available at short notice, one reason why he had charged us the fifteen thousand danter fee. Now that we had fought Bodhi on his behalf Linvail wanted us to depart, as soon as possible, so that he could stop paying Captain Havarian.

"We will be ready to leave very soon," I assured Linvail. "There is only one more thing I want to have made before we go. We will be at Cromwell's smithy, if you need us, for the next few hours."

0=≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

It took closer to a full day than a few hours, and cost us seven and a half thousand danter on top of providing the weapon and the illithium, but the improved Mace of Disruption was worth it. Not only was its enchantment improved, so that it was now possible for it to strike beings such as Kangaxx who were impervious to all but the most highly enchanted weapons, but it now protected its wielder from the life-draining powers of vampires. And it could still kill them, or at least force them into gaseous form, with a single blow. We allocated it to Minsc, as I was immune to life-drains already, and Viconia wore an amulet that granted her the same immunity. Now three of us had protection and our two healers had spells that could bestow it on the rest.

I was certain that we would face vampires again, quite probably on the pirate island itself. Bodhi had mentioned a 'special task' she had for Safana. Our friend had had three main areas of expertise; seduction, stealing everything that wasn't nailed down, and… piracy. If you wanted someone to infiltrate a pirate island, passing through without opposition and possibly recruiting pirate allies, it would be hard to think of someone better qualified than Safana. Bodhi was a close associate of Irenicus, even if she couldn't really be his sister, and I tried to work out what they had planned.

Irenicus had anticipated his capture by the Cowled Wizards, I was sure, and had manipulated the course of events to ensure that they took Imoen as well as him. My hypothesis was that he wanted to force us to break into the asylum, rescue Imoen, and in the process weaken the Cowled Ones sufficiently for him to get free also. He would then recapture us, gain control over the asylum, and use its facilities to pick up where he had left off in his scheme to 'unleash my power' and use me as a weapon against his other enemies. Where did Bodhi, and Safana, fit in? I would have thought them capable of breaking in and rescuing Irenicus themselves, after my confrontation with Bodhi had shown her power, but if his end game was to control me that explained why they did not do so. Instead, he would use them to recapture me, or as a back-up plan in case my rescue failed. I could not anticipate all his schemes, and he might still have something that would surprise me, but at least I could be prepared to face both Irenicus and his vampire allies. And I had two advantages for which, I hoped, he would not be expecting; Carsomyr, and the Ring of Gaxx.

My companions were reasonably sanguine about our prospects; all except Yoshimo. He was willing to accompany us, and I was confident that he would pull his weight, but he was not happy about Nalia's participation. The rest of us all had personal reasons to seek revenge upon Irenicus. Viconia had been moderately fond of Imoen, although sometimes finding her irrepressible cheerfulness irritating, and had herself been sold into slavery by the mage. Minsc needed to avenge Dynaheir's murder. Jaheira's husband had been murdered. Even Yoshimo had cause, having been abducted and left to be a victim of a vampire, although I suspected that Irenicus had arrange the timing such that Yoshimo would have had a good chance of escape. Only Nalia had not suffered at the hands of Irenicus in any way, and was only coming with us out of loyalty to me, and her feeling that she owed me a debt. Yoshimo did not feel that was sufficient to justify her putting herself into such extreme peril, risking the attentions of the Cowled Wizards, and possibly being imprisoned in Spellhold herself, as well as the dangers inherent in facing Irenicus.

I was extremely glad that Nalia was determined to accompany us, and certainly would not seek to dissuade her, but had she expressed a desire to stay behind I would have accepted her decision. There were others I could have recruited in her place, if absolutely necessary; Edwin Odesseiron could have been hired, although his price would no doubt have been high, and keeping him and Minsc from killing each other would have been a constant burden. The bard Haer'Dalis could have served as a substitute for a true mage, using wands, of which we had an ample supply, to augment his more limited spell use. I could have gone to the Umar Hills and asked Valygar and Suna Seni to join us on the expedition, as they were skilled combatants accustomed to fighting alongside us, although we would have lacked access to arcane magic. But Nalia was a far better option.

And Nalia did not disappoint me. She was touched by Yoshimo's concern but remained adamant that she would stick with me through thick and thin. Yoshimo accepted her decision with good grace but remained somewhat worried about her. I was relieved, and very glad indeed, and resolved to do my best to ensure that she did not have cause to regret accompanying us. Before we returned to Aran Linvail, to arrange the final details of our passage on the ship he had found, I made sure that all of Nalia's wands were fully charged and she had all the potions and spell scrolls she desired. Then, as ready as we ever would be, we went back to Linvail and told him we were ready to sail.

0=≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

Captain Saemon Havarian did not impress me much. Foppish in manner, and a braggart, and I suspected likely to prove a coward in a tight spot. I sensed that Aran Linvail was not impressed either, and the Shadowmaster had taken steps to ensure Havarian remained true to his contract; an extra passenger, a human woman thief named Sime, was to travel with us to keep an eye on him; and, I had no doubt, to kill him at the first sign of betrayal. She was Evil, but courteous and polite with us, and it was obvious that she was committed to the Shadow Thief cause. In this situation, where the interests of the Shadow Thieves aligned with ours, I believed that she could be trusted absolutely. I wasn't so sure about Havarian.

I had never been on a ship before, and I found the sensation unpleasant at first, to the point of being ill when the wind freshened and the ship rocked up and down and side to side. I became used to it, after a couple of days, and it no longer troubled me. Other things did.

I had to refrain from wearing my armor, as otherwise falling overboard would be a death sentence, although I put on the excellent bracers that we had bought to give to Imoen and still was well protected. Minsc, who wore Gauntlets of Dexterity, and Jaheira, who wore Gauntlets of Ogre Power, preferred to keep what they had and were happy for me to take the bracers. Viconia wore a set of somewhat lesser Bracers of Protection, taken from one of the Harpers who had been with Dermin when they attacked us, and Yoshimo's Shadow Dragon armor was light enough not to drag him down.

Captain Havarian was irritating company. He tried to flirt with me, and I tried to ignore him. He made advances to Viconia, and in the past she might have been receptive, but not now; she brushed him off with cutting remarks, only some of which were in Ilythiirra. He tried Nalia, much to Yoshimo's obvious displeasure, and hers. And he made the mistake of trying with Jaheira. She did not quite go as far as hitting him with an Insect Plague, but it was close. He gave Sime a wide berth.

The crew were dirty, lewd, and noisy. Nalia described them as 'boorish'. We did not fraternize with them to any great extent, although Yoshimo played cards with them and won more than he lost. The food on the ship was unappetizing, until Yoshimo took over cooking for our party, preparing dishes from the cuisines of Kozakura and Shou Lung, which we all enjoyed. I particularly liked the seafood, fresh caught, and the dishes including mushrooms, but I did not join Yoshimo in eating thinly-sliced raw fish.

And then, after seven days at sea, we arrived at the harbor of Brynnlaw. Further along the coast we could see a large, grim-looking, building perched on a clifftop.

Spellhold.

Glossary of Drow Phrases

darthiir = Surface Elf