Jaheira, Edwin, and Viconia lingered in the upstairs hallway of the Seas' Bounty Tavern, in front of a whitewashed door labeled with a charcoal 4. The three of them were there at the behest of Mae'Var. They were to find a wayward underling of his at this inn, then kill him.
"This seems to be a simple affair," Edwin complained. "Why would you wish to have my presence?"
"If it is as simple as it appears," Jaheira said, "you will hardly need to put forth any effort."
Viconia stood off to the side and said nothing but the disgusted face she made as Edwin spoke just as clearly. After she had been rescued, she had nowhere to go and asked Jaheira for work; Jaheira had invited her to Mae'Var's base, despite her skepticism. They both knew well that drow elves were not well-received in many places, Athkatla included.
But their fears were unfounded. Mae'Var's eyes had practically popped out of his head as soon as he had laid eyes on Viconia. He had praised her beauty and immediately sent her on this mission. Jaheira suspected that his decision was motivated by other than rational thought.
In the meantime, they had a job to do. Jaheira held her staff in one hand, the spear-point bared. She confirmed that the others were ready with quick nods, then knocked on the door.
No answer.
Jaheira tried the doorknob, and it easily gave way. As she opened the door, they heard a furious flurry of movement from inside the room.
The rooms at the Seas' Bounty were small but clean and comfortable. This one had no windows, useful if one wanted to stay out of sight. A knapsack rested on a chair, and the bed was still made, except for a divot on the sheets. A small lamp on a side table was still burning.
Jaheira stepped forward, brandishing her spear but keeping her voice even. "Embarl, is it? You and I have some business."
Standing at the side of the bed was a young human man, barely into his twenties, dressed in the typical jack-of-plates that the Shadow Thieves wore. But his hood was down, revealing a shock of badly-cut black hair and a broad, golden-brown face. He raised a dagger, but his hand and lower lip were shaking.
"You're here to kill me, aren't you?" He tried to project a devil-may-care attitude about his fate, but the effort failed before it even started. "Please, tell Mae'Var it was all a misunderstanding!"
Jaheira lowered her spear. "Speak quickly."
"I've been faithful to the Shadow Thieves! I never wanted to get mixed up in this!"
"Clearly, you were not faithful enough," Edwin said, a readied spell in his hand coiling like a snake made of flame.
"I may not be able to restrain my friend for long," Jaheira said. "What are you talking about?"
Embarl nervously lowered his dagger. "I overheard Mae'Var talking to some of the other guild members about killing Renal Bloodscalp. I cried out in shock and Mae'Var heard me. Oh, I'm as good as dead, I know it—"
"You are correct in that assessment," Edwin said. The flame erupted from his hand, turning into a thick fountain of fire that sailed past Jaheira and consumed Embarl's body at once.
With hardly a scream, the Shadow Thief was incinerated. Nothing was left of him except a small pile of blackened ash next to the bed.
"Well, that was completely unnecessary," Jaheira barked, turning to Edward. "He could have returned to Renal and told what he knew."
Edwin had a smug look on his face. "Am I to understand that you disagree with my methods only when you do not find them useful?"
"This jaluk was weak and useless, without even the nerve to keep his mouth shut when he learned a valuable secret," Viconia said. Despite her mundane surroundings, she carried herself like a queen, looking down her nose at the pile of ash. "And Mae'Var is also weak if he cannot inspire loyalty in his charges."
Edwin said, "He is playing a dangerous game if he thinks to challenge Renal." But, behind his dark eyes, one could detect the wheels in his mind already turning.
Jaheira lifted from the floor the blackened remnants of the Embarl's dagger. This weapon was the proof Mae'Var had demanded of his charge's death. "Be that as it may, I shall return this to Mae'Var," she said. "We can discuss what we shall tell him later."
The three of them left the room as it was and descended downstairs. The place was quiet at this hour. The only one sitting at the bar was the man in the tattered coat; he was one of many old, weathered, and beaten-down faces left to drift in the streets. He had some problem with her, but the perpetual glowers in her direction discouraged her from simply asking him what it was.
She had no time to consider this further as a small, vaguely shaped gold orb silently winked into sight and floated in front of her.
Edwin said, "What kind of incompetent spellwork is this?"
"The kind that does not concern you," Jaheira said. "Our business is finished here. I shall meet both of you at the guild as soon as I have taken care of this matter."
She left the others behind and ducked into a small side room as the orb lazily followed her, passing through the door and resuming its place in front of her.
She spoke the password: "Akh'Faer."
The orb opened and grew, shifting its shape into a tiny gold simulacrum of Dermin. He lounged in a chair, lazily staring down at a note and shaking his head. He looked up and smiled slightly, pleased that he could reach her.
He leaned forward. "Urgent assignment. Come at once."
The Sending spell winked out of sight.
Jaheira left the tavern and traced a familiar road: a few steps down the Shardway, then winding turns through a mass of ramshackle, weather-beaten tenements, then turning off into an alley. Tonight, the mist from the harbor laid low upon the ground, partially obscuring her movements, but she still cast a spell to help her pass through the city streets without a trace. The Cowled Wizards, especially, had many ways of seeing and tracking whatever they wanted to.
Finally, she stopped in front of a thin wooden door attached to a dilapidated, imperfectly slatted house.
After a few moments, the door swung open of its own accord. Jaheira stepped inside.
Here, the last embers in a stove burned in a corner kitchen, and a family of five — an exhausted mother and her four young children — slept on makeshift cots on the floor. Jaheira stepped lightly but without as much caution as she usually exercised. While the family would awaken if disturbed, she knew that they were simulacra raised by a spell, no more alive than the mist was. But the illusion was convincing; one time, when she'd come here during the day, Jaheira had seen the children playing outside while the mother fed the chickens or washed clothes.
A green door flickered into sight, and Jaheira passed through it, her hand resting against the wall as she made her way down a pitch-black stairway. She went through one more door into Dermin's office.
This room, though it was set up in a basement, was well-furnished, comfortable, and spacious; rich tapestries adorned the stone walls, a series of spells kept the cold and damp and prying eyes at bay, and gold magelights spread warmth and light throughout the room in the same way a roaring fire would. The walls were lined with full shelves. In one corner rested a lute upon a chair; on a nearby stand was a piece of sheet music, its notes crowded together on the staves like flocking birds upon branches.
Dermin was sitting at his sturdy wooden desk, buried in a pile of books, scrolls, and loose sheets of paper. He sat up and smoothed his graying hair as soon as Jaheira entered, then marked his place in a scroll he was reading and rolled it shut.
They exchanged some pleasantries but went straight to business after a few moments.
"I have a rather strange request for you." Dermin glanced down at the note in his hand as though he were ensuring that he was reading it right. "The Enlightened Ones want us to locate an enchanted sword named Lilarcor. According to them, this must be our priority."
"Are they not capable of casting divination spells?" Jaheira asked, folding her arms. "I find it hard to believe that a single sword could be so crucial to their plans, or if it is, that they could lose sight of it."
"Nonetheless, they have, and that worries them. It's cursed so that it resists magical location, but the Enlightened Ones claim it is easy to track through more mundane means."
"Did they care to inform us what the curse was?" Jaheira asked. "Or why this sword concerns them so much?"
He shook his head.
"So, in other words, we know nothing else."
"Not quite. The last I heard, it was hanging on a wall in Mae'Var's sanctum until a person or persons unknown stole it. It had protection spells upon it, or so I'm told, but the Enlightened Ones are concerned about what the sword could do in the wrong hands. They hope you can use Mae'Var as a starting point to discover where it might have gone."
Jaheira made a disgusted noise. "This is ridiculous and might interfere with my ability to ingratiate myself to Mae'Var besides."
Dermin sighed and leaned forward in his chair. "Jaheira, I dislike this as much as you do, but we have to bear this as one of the conditions of their help. They rarely ask for such favors."