Author's Note: A big warning for depictions of torture in this chapter.
80 - Breaking Point
"We thought we had the Exile trapped and cornered in this warded maze, yet somehow she has turned this place into her hunting ground. I am the only one left." –last journal entry of Calisiall Quistel, Greycloak of Evereska
"Good. Let's go over it one more time." Taurgosz Khosann's voice was cold and clinical, his eyes level with Ashura's as they glinted through the pinholes of his hood.
"I d-don't know for sha-sure," Ashura repeated, her voice raw and her breath hitched. She had to steel herself a moment before she could force the words out clearly. "But my…guess is that he's on the road to Berdusk. Traveling on…on foot. Alone."
Taurgosz nodded. "And the pirate wench?"
"Dead. In some cave on the coast. South of Candlekeep. There was a map but…think we left it on her corpse."
"Yes. Tazok's map. He intended to send an expedition, but it seems she beat us to it. A shame that she's out of our reach now. But at least we'll have the boy soon. My men are combing the roads as we speak." His head turned, and he gave a nod to one of his assistants, who rotated the crank at the side of the rack.
Ashura's bonds slackened, relief flowing through her aching limbs. Just a slight easing, of course. New pains flared up as every little motion against the wood irritated the raw, scorched spots were the blazing iron had left its mark. An involuntary tremble made it even worse. After that she tried to remain very, very still.
At first Ashura had tried to lie about Garrick, of course, but that had only bought unnecessary pain. Later, after a long poke of the branding iron, Khosann had calmly explained that Viconia had already told them everything she could. Before the implements had even been brought out, if he was to be believed.
"And the moment they bring that boy of yours in," Khosann continued, "I'm going to place him right there, and have him gelded in front of you. I'll wager that will earn a reaction. And mark my word: if they take you to the gallows before we catch that lover of yours, the first thing I'll do before we go to work on him is show him your dangling corpse. Either way, we will have our revenge."
One of the other men grunted. There were two others, acting as assistants (and keeping Khosann from ever having to dirty his own hands. Thinking on it, he had yet to lay a hand or implement upon her.) They wore no insignias, and from their manner, and the way that Khosann addressed them, it was apparent that they were fellow Black Talons. At times it seemed that this show was mostly for them.
"I am not Tazok," Khosann went on. "I don't take pleasure in this. But you burned and drowned my men. You took everything from me. The scales must be balanced. Vengeance must be exacted. If we were in opposite positions you would do the same."
A pause. He seemed to be looking for a reaction, so Ashura gave him one. She forced her chin up to meet his gaze, then shook her head.
"Oh? You would not? Fancy yourself some sort of noble hero?"
Again, Ashura shook her head. "Hardly," she rasped. "If our positions were reversed, I'd kill you. The instant I could. Orders or no."
Khosann snorted.
"Never leave an enemy alive. Won't make that mistake again."
"A tempting notion. But we've a ways to go before tomorrow morning. And it's good to see that you still have some spirit left to break."
The shadows had returned. They hovered over Imoen, and this time they spoke, whispering and hissing in the tongue of devils. That's what it sounded like at first, at least. Then the hissing resolved, word by word, into something that she recognized.
Chondathan. Human words. Male voices. Baldurian accents, too.
"This one doesn't stink, at least."
"Yeah. Only been here a day." A chuckle. "And check this out. They did a piss-poor job of searching her, eh?" Something nuzzled the cuff of her trousers. "Look at the stitching there? That writing too. These are enchanted boots!" As the shadows spoke they began to look less and less like specters and more and more like men in red and white tabards. Flaming Fist soldiers.
"You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"We slip 'em out to Halbazzer's before we dump this poor lass on the Helmites? They'll sell for a pretty copper."
"My thinking exactly, brother. Just need some place inconspicuous to hide the boots and…" His words faltered and he let out a gasp, suddenly looming over Imoen's face. "Torm's balls! I think she's still breathing!"
"Shit," the other shadow/soldier muttered. "The poor girl. They missed the boots and bungled the execution too?"
"She must be in a lot of pain, with a wound like that. Should we…should we put her out of her misery?"
"Might be for the best. Damn. Damn! Poor kid."
But there was no misery. Imoen's back was a little stiff from lying here on the stone slab, but that was all. Her eyes shot open and the soldier above her rocked back with a start. One of his hands reached for the dagger at his belt, while the other made some sort of placating gesture. "Wowa! Careful miss." The dagger slipped out of its sheath.
Imoen was in no mood to be placated. Her thumbs pressed together, her fingers fanned out, and then she shoved her hands right in front of the soldier's face and barked out the words of a spell. White flames flared up, arcing from her fingertips and blasting the man in the face. He screamed, stumbling backwards and clutching his cheeks, his hair on fire.
The other soldier rushed in to help his companion, pulling out his sword, but Imoen swiveled on the slab and drove the last spurts of flame in his direction. He was a little too far away for her to set his face on fire too, but the spell forced him to hop back, embers flaring up on his tabard. That gave Imoen enough of an opening to leap up off the slab, get close to man with the burnt face, and snatch up the dagger he had dropped.
Up the dagger went, then the blade plunged into the side of the burning man's neck. Carotid artery. Easy enough to find. There was an eruption of blood, and the man went down, clutching and choking.
By then Imoen had raced over to the other soldier, faked one way, wriggled to the opposite side, and then she stabbed, striking roughly the same spot. Shock and sudden blood-loss turned the man's knees to jelly, and he fell just like his partner.
They were in some sort of store room, with several other empty slabs and rows of bottles lining the shelves. A stripped down mortuary, probably just where they stashed dead prisoners before shipping them off to one priesthood or another for proper cleaning and burial.
"What in the Hells are you idiots doing?" a woman shouted from beyond the room's closed door. Footsteps echoed out in the hall.
Beside the man with the burnt face lay a crossbow. He had a quiver at his hip too. Frantic-quick, Imoen bent down and fished out a bolt, loading and cranking.
The door flew open with a bang, and a Flaming Fist woman stomped in, sword in hand. The annoyance in her eyes instantly turned to shock as Imoen raised the crossbow.
Click. Thrump. Thud. The woman's left eye disappeared, replaced by the rattling feathers of the bolt. Her knees wobbled and then she dropped like a rock. There were more guards running, out in the hall. Alarms were behind shouted. No time to think.
They had left her hanging in the dark for gods knew how long. Hours? Minutes? There was no time here. There was only the bite of the manacles at Ashura's wrists, the quivering of her overstretched arms, and the tightness of her aching shoulders. Somewhere beneath her dangling toes she could sense flagstones, just out of reach.
Every muscle shook from the strain of her own weight, each shiver rocked and shifted her at the end of the chain, and each shift sent more reverberations of agony through her exhausted arms and shoulders. The rawness of her ruined fingertips barely registered next to that.
There was nothing to see down here save blackness, no sound save her hitched breaths and the rattle of the chains; no day, no night, no time, and no room to for coherent thought. Nothing but stretched, exhausted, exquisite pain.
And then, faintly, there came a fluttering sound. Then scratching.
Ashura forced her eyes open and raised her chin. The pitch black of the cell had lifted, almost imperceivably, a faint blue-white drifting in from somewhere to replace it. It backlit the Raven, which was perched upon one of the empty shackling-boards on the opposite wall.
The bird cocked its head one way, then the other, examining Ashura. What are you doing, sulking down here in the shadows?
Slipping out of line with the doorway, Imoen felt through her pockets. They had taken her obvious weapons, but not the random bric-a-brac. Without a gaudy robe like Edwin's or Xan's it probably hadn't occurred to the bastards that she might be a mage. Well, egg on their face for underestimating her!
Nimble fingers snatched up a hunk of dried sap with some poor sod's eyelash incased inside, and Imoen made the reagent dance between her fingers, singing out the spell-words that made her fade from sight. A split-second later a trio of Fists burst into the chamber, crossbows out and loaded.
Behind them a young man in a smart red and white uniform rushed in, hands in the air and obviously itching to run them through some arcane gestures. One of the Fist warmages. The crossbow-wielders formed a line in front of him, eyes scanning the room.
"Whoever did this is still here," the warmage announced. "Be ready." He drew a breath. "Viathus-"
Ack! She knew that spell! Silent as she could go –and hastened by her enchanted boots– Imoen danced forward. She wanted to just slip past the little phalanx, but the spellcaster stood squarely in the doorway. Holding her breath, she zipped by the guards and found herself standing face to face with the mage.
"-kret matok!" The crescendo of the spell brought a bright flash of white with it, forcing Imoen to wink into visibility. Of course that happened right as her dagger came down, gripped in both hands, and plunged into the warmage's chest. Earlier, Imoen had been saved from a quick, decisive death when that big executioner-guy's sword had missed her heart. This fellow wasn't so lucky.
As the warmage dropped, his three companions whirled, clutching their crossbows and aiming point-blank, but before anyone could think to pull the trigger a blast of scintillating colors struck all three pairs of eyes. The dancing lights overwhelmed their senses, and the guards swooned in unison, dropping to the floor with groans and the clink of mail.
Turning, Imoen started to take the first step towards the door, but then she paused, a foot raised in the air. The stunning spell would only last a moment or two, and the guards would be up right-quick, giving chase and aiming those crossbows at her backside.
Ugh. Welp: them or me. Imoen put her foot down, gripped the hilt of her dripping dagger tight, and stepped over to the first unconscious soldier. Then she went to work.
Sulking? Ashura leveled a glare at the Raven, peering through her own tangled hair. The bird had raised its wings and started to preen itself. Sulking?!
Yes, the creature's voice answered. The same voice from her dreams.
Their little conversation was interrupted by a creak from the door beyond. The chamber flooded with torchlight, Ashura squinted, and the Raven seemed to fade a bit, growing translucent.
The stocky shadow that stood in the doorframe was quite real, however. Taurgosz Khosann's henchmen shuffled into the room, their leader holding back. Seemed he was speaking with someone in the hallway.
You sulk down here, the Raven continued, whispering from its perch. Spectral now, it faded in and out of sight. Did you not come to this place for vengeance?
I was dragged here.
Dragged. Yes. By that which hums through your blood. To the city of your enemy. To this fortress of his newly-acquired soldiers. For a great and terrible sacrifice.
The torturer's assistants took their places and waited. As usual they were dressed in black padded jackets, armed with short-blades and truncheons. A moment later Khosann ducked in through the door and approached them, a torch in hand. He used it to light a few of the other torches that hung about the cell, red flames flickering and drowning out the Raven's ghost-pale light. It was enough to illuminate the other three prisoners at the far side of the room, who were shackled and eerily silent.
A crank turned, and Ashura suddenly came crashing to the floor, falling in a heap. The chain followed, battering her back and pooling against her, cold and heavy against her bare skin. It was a moment of shock and pain, followed by overwhelming relief in her arms and shoulders.
Then fresh pains set in, a breath or two later. Spikes of agony at her raw, denailed fingertips. A horrible chafing too, at her back and her thighs, where the burns were the worst. She winched and whimpered. Tried to hold still. Just breathe. Long, ragged, desperate breaths.
Taurgosz's massive boots were close to her face. His voice was a low rumble. "Looks rather broken. We've another night to go, though." One of the Black Talons gripped her shoulder and hauled her up, his other hand taking the chain and pulling it in front. They would drag her to the other chamber, she knew. The one with the brazier and the iron rods. The rack. The lash and the whipping post. The implements.
"You took everything from me," Taurgosz repeated, taunting. "Let's see how little of you we can leave for them to hang."
Everything…taken…
Not everything. The voice of the Raven came to her from a distance.
She glared up —beyond the guard who was pulling her chain taut— over to the perch. There was just a hint of black feathers and ghostly light, then they faded.
You still have your gifts.
The torchlight seemed to dim, and all at once Ashura's blurred vision was illuminated by something new — not pale blue-white, but a rich red glow. The light emanated from the three men before her: her guard, the other, smaller man, and Khosann most of all. They seemed to be afire; flaming-red and pulsing.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
She could see it. Hear it thumping in her ears. The pulse of life. The flow of blood. The stores of fat and rolling breaths and glowing vitality of her three tormentors. They were all well-fed, well-rested — hale and strong. Especially Khosann.
After what had been done to her hands it was near impossible to grip anything. It was easy enough, however, for Ashura to open her palms and straighten up, glaring at the big man across the room from her. At his strength. His vitality. His life.
'You took everything from me…'
Blue light flared into being on Ashura's raw, bloody palms, then streaked out across the span between them, pushing beneath the startled man's skin.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum. The big man stumbled back.
She felt it –that pulse– and she pulled, dragged his vitality through the umbilical-strands of ghostlight. It surged into her palms and ran through her fingers. Then, with a sudden, aching shiver, the pain diminished and her wounds began to knit.
Thrum. Thrum. Thru-
A blur of motion and rattling chainmail loomed before her, and then Ashura's head snapped to the side. The blue light winked out and red fire bloomed before her eyes. The guard at her chain. He had punched her.
She stumbled and snarled. Her eyes snapped open and the world was still red.
The guard was rolling the chain around his fist now. Ashura pulled at it, backing a step, stretching the links out between her wrists, and between her and the man. He was going to punch again, this time with steel.
Another snarl, and she dug her fingernails (that had not been there a few seconds ago…) into her palms, balling her fists and pulling them apart. Strength surged up from somewhere below (the Inferno…) and filled her limbs. A grating clink echoed off the walls as a link of chain between her manacles shattered, the sound accompanied by a furious howl.
The man's eyes went wide, and he teetered there, frozen. Ashura lunged before he could act, catching him by the throat, clenching and roaring in his face. Beneath her palms she felt his hammering pulse. Felt the roaring blood, the rushing adrenaline, the churning bile and the surging fear.
Blue ghostfire flared up where her hands gripped, burning cold, and once again she drew and she drank. The guardsman kicked, thrashed, and Ashura had this vague sense of something metallic buffeting her arm. Didn't matter. She held on, and then she lifted the man's feet off the floor and tightened her grip, squeezing the life from him and feeling that life seep into her hands and arms and chest and veins.
The chain fell from the guardsman's hand. His struggling stopped and his skin grew sallow and dry as parchment, his eyes receding in their dark and hollow sockets. Loose locks of hair dropped from his head, the water leaving him as he shriveled and the chamber echoed with his feeble, crackling scream.
It all lasted but an instant, and then the man's open, red-rimmed eyes rolled back, his head lolled to the side as if there were no bones in his neck, and now Ashura found herself holding a desiccated husk. All that had been his was hers now: strength filled her limbs close to bursting, and every ache and stab was gone.
Whole and invigorated. Ha! For some reason she couldn't help but laugh —roar with laughter, in fact— as she let go of the husk and it crumpled to the floor.
Taurgosz was leaning back against the far wall, still clutching at his chest where the sapping blast had struck him, but his assistant was gathering his wits and drawing his sword.
Sword! Ashura bent and swiped the shortblade free from the belt of the man she had just killed. The other Black Talon started forward now, but so did she, laughing and pointing with her sword — clad only in broken manacles and her own dried blood. Her foot crunched against the fallen husk as she stomped across it and lunged, swinging first.
Her slash batted the Black Talon's sword aside. He tried to adjust and swipe, but she slipped around him, found herself at his side, and stabbed, piercing between ribs. His breath hitched and his next swing was feeble; slow enough for her to catch his wrist, yank her own blade out, and stab again, up and through. A shudder, and then he went limp. A shake of her squeezing hand, and she made the sword drop from his, tossing him aside to snatch it up from the floor; laughing - laughing - LAUGHING all the while!
There! Armed and ready! With a short blade in each hand, she faced Khosann. He had recovered now, and was holding up a sword of his own (…the sword that had killed Imoen…) his lips pressed together tight. He opened his mouth, perhaps to say something, and she advanced on him, the chamber still echoing with her laughter.
For a man so bulky, Taurgosz Khossan could move fast. He spun and sprinted the few steps it took to get to the door, ducked down to wriggle through, and then used all of his strength to yank and slam the door shut behind him.
Ashura surged close behind, howling as her leading blade stabbed the reinforced wood. Her other sword clattered to the floor and then her fingers were prying beneath the doorjamb, struggling to get a hold.
Click. Too late. The bolt was in place.
Another howl. She tried to yank, but couldn't really get a good grip between the crack. She hammered with her sword-pommel, but that just made a dull noise. Her pommel slammed again and again, chiseling off bits of wood. Useless! Turning, she tried to shoulder the door. It held firm. The strength that still flowed through her was enough to break chains and batter aside a man's sword, but this damn door…
Beshaba's breath!
Frantic movement caught her eye, over on the other side of the room. One of the torches that Khosann had lit illuminated the other three prisoners, and Viconia and Edwin were shaking their shackled hands, waving for her attention. Their chains shook and their mouths opened and closed, though there was no sound thanks to some spell laid across that side of the chamber.
The other prisoners had been spared most of what Ashura had been put through. After their interrogations and a few lashings (a show to test Ashura's resolve, or how much she cared for them) they had been left shackled to the wall, clad in ragged brown smocks and mostly forgotten.
Ashura shot the door one more glare, then turned from it, stomping over to the fallen Black Talons. One of them —the husk— had been carrying a ring with several keys, and after a little searching and probing she found a key that unlocked Viconia's shackles, then Edwin's, then Xan's. The priestess reacted immediately, stumbling out of the zone of silence and starting to intone a healing prayer for herself.
Similarly, Edwin wobbled forward until he could speak, then began to cast a spell of his own, surrounding himself with ethereal strands that swiftly knit together, resolving into conjured red robes and boots. Gold-threaded with black trim, the robes even more resplendent than his usual clothes. Smoothing out the sleeves, he shot Ashura a glare. "Following you was a colossal mistake," he growled. "A grave miscalculation."
Xan just leaned against the wall, arms crossed and hugging himself, staring at nothing and not bothering to leave the silent space. Looked like he'd be useless.
"They'll be coming," Ashura noted, turning to ponder the remains of the guards. Armor would be good, but would that arming jacket fit? And the boots-
Before she could really start to pick through the corpses the sound of footsteps echoed in from the hall. Lots of them. She turned towards the door.
"Wizard," Viconia commanded, hands out and ready. "Summon something that can see in the dark. If you can."
"If I can?" Edwin bristled.
At the door there was scuffling and commotion. Ashura shifted over to the wall, out of the line that crossbow bolts might come flying in. She readied her blades.
With a deep and sudden intake of breath, Imoen stopped her scampering and clung to the surface of the ceiling. There were voices up ahead, accompanied by quick footsteps. She hugged the stonework and the bracing beam. Was a damn low ceiling, in this tiny hall. The larger rooms would-
But then the soldiers appeared, and there was nothing to do but cling, hold her breath, and trust her ceiling-climbing spell not to wink out too soon. The armored figures raced ahead, two-by-two and six in total, heads down and all business. They were there and gone in an instant.
Whew! She shuffled a hand forward, stuck it to ceiling and made to continue, but more footsteps and shouts gave her pause. Two more Fists appeared at the head of the hall, both women, one lightly armored in leathers and carrying a crossbow, along with lots of odds and ends hanging from her belt.
The other woman wore heavy banded mail and carried a spear, and unfortunately her chin was pointed up a bit. Seemed she had been barking orders, and was ready to storm into the next room and bark some more. That all ended when her eyes alighted on Imoen and widened considerably. Shit!
Crossbow-lady followed her companion's gaze, and then her hand was shooting to the quiver at her back, reaching for a bolt to lock in.
The pilfered crossbow Imoen had slung over her back was already loaded, however. Pushing off, she swung till she was upside down, blood rushing to her head and the butt of the bow against her shoulder. Thrump. The bolt took Crossbow-Lady in the chest, and her own weapon clattered to the floor.
Imoen wasted no time swiping a bolt out of her own quiver, a couple extras slipping out and falling to the floor thanks to the whole upside-down thing (whoops!), but Spear-Lady wasn't wasting time 'neither. She rushed forward and jabbed, the ceiling low enough for her to aim the spear at Imoen's dangling face.
A frantic act of will, and Imoen dropped before the speartip could skewer her, rotating as she fell so her feet smacked the floor and her legs curled up to take the fall. Her back to her opponent (not good!) she scamper/scuttled backward, getting well under the reach of the spear (always good!), still clutching her crossbow with one hand and the bolt with the other.
Bump! She brushed against the startled guardswoman, then Imoen swung back and stabbed with the bolt, hoping to catch a leg. The bolt jabbed into the unarmored back of the woman's knee, eliciting a howl of pain. The big woman dropped, Imoen whirled out of the way to make sure that she didn't get squished or battered by a spear-haft, and then she shot to her feet.
Spear-Lady had taken one knee (what with the bolt in it and all), and before she could recover Imoen slipped all the way around her, drawing her stolen dagger. The Fists were generally well-armored, but she had yet to meet one here who wore a gorget.
One throat-slitting later, Imoen race/scrambled back up the wall, then on to the ceiling, and then forward as fast as she could. She needed an actual hiding place!
She found it, sort of, a few halls and side-chambers later, stumbling into a room that was huge, tall, and had rafters wide enough for her to easily perch upon. A little quite climbing and she was up there, catching her breath.
From her perch, up above the cavernous intersection, she waited and watched. Little clumps of soldiers came hustling through, running from hall to hall in something like orderly panic. They moved with poise and discipline, but some looked like they were not so sure where they were actually supposed to go.
Hm. Maybe 'fake it 'till you make it' applies to the soldier business as much as any other? Imoen certainly felt the same way. Where to go? Where to go? For the moment she was hidden, but she'd need to move before the climbing spell wore off. She had a vague notion of which direction the exit to the fortress's courtyard was. And her friends were in the…dungeons? Right? Which passage led down there?
Down below her, several Fist soldiers were talking. Two seemed to be guarding a reinforced door, facing a little line of four others. "Nope," one of the guards barked. "You need a requisition order. No exceptions."
"Come on," the tall, lanky guy in front the guard protested. "There's some sort of revenant on the loose in the west wing that's killed at least six people, and thanks to bloody Dilos and one of his last minute 'special patrols' we're only half-kitted! We've got less than a quiver of bolts between us! Not a single healing draught either."
Whoa. They think I'm an undead monster?
The shorter soldier was unimpressed. "You've got swords and mail don't you? Go put 'em to use."
"You don't outrank-"
"Here I do! Storage is my department. When it comes to this door and these vaults, I'm Lord Almighty Ao!" He waved a hand at the barred door behind him. "No one passes without a requisition order."
With a roll of his eyes and a lot of grumbling the lanky man turned on his heel and gestured for the other three to follow him. They marched off and down the western hall.
"I thought the trouble was in the dungeons?" the other guard, a bearded fellow posted beside Mr. Requisition Order, muttered.
So they're guarding store rooms, huh? She wondered…
"Who knows? Probably some miscommunication."
Quiet as she could, Imoen started to crawl and shimmy from one rafter to the next, then the next.
"I mean," the other guard was saying, "if we're really under attack from multiple sides-"
"Absolutely not," Mr. Requisition Order insisted. "You can't go thinking like that. They'd loot this place dry in seconds if we just opened up the door. And half of it would 'mysteriously disappear' and end up in old Ravenscar's stores."
Imoen found a perch directly above the pair, squatting with her feet braced on a rafter, the loaded crossbow cradled in her arms. The bearded guy was wearing a halfhelm, but Mr. Requisition Order wasn't. They both had crossbows near their feet, propped up against a short wooden bench.
"Nope," the requisition officer went on, sitting down. "We've got to stand firm. Especially with guys like Samuel. Know for a fact that he trades stuff under the table. 'Dilos' special patrols' my ass."
"You don't know that. Or you'd 'ev reported it." The other guard sat down as well.
A grumble. "Well, he seems like the type."
"We're the only thing holding back chaos and a full free-for-all, huh?"
Mr. Requisitions didn't reply to the obvious sarcasm; just crossed his arms at his chest and stared forward. It had grown quiet in this wing of the fortress. Seemed everyone was elsewhere, searching for the 'revenant.' Or perhaps securing the dungeons. Imoen frowned at the thought of that.
All clear and quiet. There wouldn't be a better time. Imoen adjusted the crossbow so that it was hanging right over the requisitions officer. Silent-silent-silent, she let out a careful breath, and once her lungs were empty and her hands were still, she tickled the trigger.
Thrum and thunk! The bolt took a completely vertical path and nearly disappeared —save the bright red fletching— into the top of the man's balding head.
Imoen didn't wait around to watch their reaction. Instead she tossed her crossbow hard as she could, sending it falling and clattering in front of the two men. The momentary distraction held the second guard's eyes long enough to keep him from looking up as she dropped from the rafters, aiming her feet at his shoulders and whipping her dagger out as she fell. Her feet struck her target and she bent like a gargoyle, grabbing the soldier's helmet for purchase and letting momentum carry her other hand —the one holding the dagger— down. It connected with something soft.
A wobble back, a stumble forward, and then the guard plunged, face first, to the flagstones.
Oof! Impact. She rolled off the fallen man and bounded to her feet, gripping a wet dagger in a warm hand. The man she'd toppled twitched a bit.
The guard with the feathered bolt lodged in his crown had slumped and slipped off the bench, and as Imoen approached him he dropped completely. She bent and searched his belt, quick-quick-quick, lest some other party of soldiers come rushing in, and came up with a wardstone and ring of keys. The third key that she tried unlocked the reinforced door, and with a little effort she heaved it open and slipped into the storage area, closing and locking it behind her.
There were several branching chambers beyond, each behind a barred door that hopefully corresponded to a key on Mr. Requisition's ring. Each room was well-organized, and they were handily labeled with little wooden placards. Imoen passed an apothecary stacked floor to ceiling with neatly lined bottles (Hmm. Some invisibility potions would be handy right about now…) and another room full of crates, but a sign that read Contraband and Seizures caught her eye above all else. The sign, and a very distinct shade of purple beyond the bars.
Here we go!
It took some fumbling with the keyring, but eventually the door opened up. Rows and rows of shelves greeted her, some lined with empty crates and others stacked high with goods. And sure enough: Xan's purple outer-robes poked out at the top of one of those crates. Had to stand on her tiptoes to get to it, but the contents spilled out: the rest of Xan's garments, along with a hoard of enchanted jewelry that she recognized and three spellbooks, her own included. Woohoo!
There were weapons lined up on the same shelf that she also recognized. Her hands were instantly drawn to the darkwood bow with the abstract whorls carved along the limbs: the trusty enchanted weapon she had bought at Thunderhammer's ages ago, and which had served her through thick and thin ever since. Better still: her quiver lay nearby, half-way stuffed with enchanted arrows. Yellow and green fletching: arrows that would pierce cleaner than any normal steel could, or splatter gobs of acid on impact.
Oh! And near her quiver the Fists had laid out an enchanted dagger, still resting in its black buckskin sheath. The dagger that she had picked up off the corpse of Montaron —that old, dead Zhent assassin— all those long months ago: keen and sturdy, with an edge that never needed tending.
'Now the game is on!' It was a phrase Fuller had often used when someone in the training yard had taken a rough hit, gotten mad, and started fighting with real and fierce intent. It was also something her dad used to say when the stakes got upped at cards. And, of course, Winthrop always cleaned Fuller out.
There were other weapons as well, and piled up armor too. Varscona, along with Ashura's shorter, offhand blade (which had also once belonged to Montaron.) Next to that lay Ashura's battered chainmail, enchanted gloves, arrow-dodging boots, Viconia's leathers, and beyond all that were rows and rows of other useful things.
There were rolls of spell-scrolls, and (better still!) wands, along with bundles of arrows that could fill Imeon's quiver out with some nice surprises (fire and lightning, of course, but better yet: a few were marked with symbols of dispelling!)
She'd never be able to lug most of this stuff, but at least she could slip the most useful of them into her belt while she was trying to figure out where to sneak to next. The dungeons, where her friends were kept? And to get there-
And then something else entirely, tucked away on a high shelf that she'd have to climb up to, caught Imoen's eye. It was a roundish, deflated sack that would maybe be the size of a small melon if it were ever full; spun from fine, powder-blue cloth, with a red tasseled tie-rope at the top. Elven lettering ran down the side, woven in glittering thread-of-gold, and if she was reading it right those letters spoke about dimensions. About space, and the folding thereof.
Imoen's eyes widened, and she scrambled to get to the sack.
Oh, it was on. On, on, ON!
Author's Note: Just going to point out that vampiric touch is one of the last Bhaalspawn powers that you can get in the game.