XV: Through Demons and Gith (part two)
The tunnel again led down, flowing into a huge square chamber, it walls covered in ancient peeled inlay. The passageway went further – but was blocked by a transparent shimmering wall, quivering slightly in the air like a mirage. In front of that wall of light, inside of a circle of chained together runes drawn on the floor towered a figure of a man in long dark robe. His pointed ears, chalk-white skin and a relaxed yet dignified bearing made him look almost like an elf…
…but in sharp contrast to all that were his reptile eyes, fixed on the three succubi that clustered around the circle, probably unable to step into it.
"Oh, sssshit," Neeshka whispered, suddenly starting to scratch her neck and shoulder, wincing a bit as if from pain.
"Beg your pardon," Casavir stepped away from her.
"Nah, it's not that… it's… argh, damn," she furiously raked her nails along her arm.
Bishop, already pulling the string of his bow with an arrow ready, glanced at her in irritation before returning his eyes to the succubi: "Damn you, tiefling, can you louse somewhere else?"
"Oh, fuck you," she sniffed in response, her red eyes glued to the figure in the circle.
"Such a rare opportunity, my sisters," they heard a purring voice of one of the succubi. "A mighty devil, trapped and helpless."
"Perhaps we can find a way to amuse him?" another laughed. "To lessen his suffering somehow?"
"Or perhaps we could convince him to amuse us," the third added, bending down slightly and from that position looking up in snake's eyes. "What say you, devil? Are we not worthy of your attention?"
The devil in question didn't move, staring back at her silently and indifferently. She sighed: "Sisters, it appears that this handsome one is immune to our advances."
The second succubi pouted: "Such a shame... and to be turned away by such indifference. Why, I am dreadfully hurt."
"But is he indifferent to pain?" the third succubi wondered with a sly grin. "That, perhaps, is worthy to test."
The first one swiveled her head and hissed: "We're not alone, sisters!"
They rushed to attack, but Adele managed to hold her companions from counterattacking, waiting for the succubi to bunch together in their haste, and after that gestured to Qara. With a grin the girl hurled a long ago prepared fireball at them, knocking the demons off their feet – not that they were damaged by fire, but the force of the blow was enough to send them flying, past the devil who followed the three of them with the same apathetic glance, and right onto the shining wall, where they simply disappeared in the blaze of white sparkles, leaving nothing but a faint smell of ozone.
"Uh-huh," Adele nodded at the result of an experiment and sighed. "So, we won't be able to pass there as well."
"Yeah," Neeshka echoed, still rubbing herself violently, and landed an angry gaze on the figure on the circle. "What the...? This guy... Look, he freaks me out."
"So, going to kill him too?" Bishop wondered, nodding at the devil.
"He can't leave the summoning circle," Casavir said.
"And who cares?"
Meanwhile Adele stepped towards the circle, ignoring cold tingles down her spine, caused by an intent stare of reptile eyes. As she approached, the devil bowed his head slightly in greeting.
"Well met. I am grateful to you for ridding me of those..." he gestured absently at the wall where the succubi got incinerated, "…nuisances."
"Don't talk to him," Neeshka hissed.
The devil shifted his gaze at her, and the corners of his lips moved faintly in a smile: "Ah. I see you have brought blood of the Lower Planes with you. Well met to you, tiefling."
"Don't talk to me like we are pals!" Neeshka spat. "I can always smell a trick, so you just try anything – and you'll see much more blood than you expected!"
"Hey, hey," Adele softly caught her shoulder, as the tiefling looked like she was ready to jump on the devil, and Neeshka gave a start, staring at her. "What's gotten into you?"
"I… Nothing! You just can never trust devils! Especially when they are so polite!"
The devil sighed: "Unfortunatelly, such prejudices are not uncommon even in the lower realms… I meant no offence. Regardless of your intent, you actions have benefited me. I wish to help you in return, if you will allow it."
"Be careful," Casavir said almost in a whisper, standing behind Adele's back.
Adele nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the devil, and shrugged: "I'm sure, your offer would be more than tempting and with a great many catches, but I'm really running out of patience and time right now, so…" she shrugged again expressively.
The devil's smile became more obvious: "Well-spoken. I, too, have little patience for the... unpleasant nuances that usually mark such bargains offered by others of my kind. You see, I am not here by choice. I was bound to this circle by the githyanki... enemies of yours, I believe. Once bound, I was forced to shape the barrier you see ahead, to prevent any... trespass."
"…Really?" Adele eyed the wall, then looked back at the devil. "Then how do the gith pass through it?"
"Ah, but that is exactly the irony of my present state. You see, it was not the githyanki that commanded such a shaping. My fortune played a cruel joke on me, as the soul of the githyanki, who summoned me, was devoured by a demon named Zaxis. By doing that Zaxis gained her power over me… and, alas, there's nothing I can do about it. And if nothing is done, the barrier, unfortunately, remain."
"So what?" Neeshka folded her arms stubbornly. "I can pick any lock, magical or whatever."
"I have no doubt of that, tiefling. But this barrier is not a simple thing of stone, metal or clever lock. It cannot be dispelled either," he added, for a second moving his gaze towards Qara and by that preventing her from any words. "Just like the githyanki portals, this barrier exists outside this plane – and can be destroyed only by the contact with another similar barrier. For now my presence here feeds it," he tilted his head a bit. "However, if you were to banish me, it will disappear."
"You want us to banish you?" Adele clarified.
"By all means. Today is clearly not my day, and I would prefer to spend the rest of it in my home Stygia."
"And how do we do that?"
"You can do it by speaking my true name. I will tell it to you – but, of course, I will need your promise that you will use it only to banish me. This agreement will be as binding as this circle. If you have any doubts, please know that I only wish free passage for us both."
And wouldn't knowing your True Name give me control over you? Adele mused, not tearing her gaze away from his eyes, bored deeply into her eye-sockets. Yeah, sure… you wouldn't just throw it around if it was that easy, would you?
She pursed her lips, licking them from the inside, and then nodded: "…Alright. As long as you honour your side of agreement not only in words but in thought and deed, I agree."
"Of course. My kind is bound by laws as well, you know. Now, listen carefully..." he bent a bit forward. "My true name is 'Mephasm'. Not hard to remember, is it? Now speak it and say "I command you to be banished from this plane."
"Very well," she backed off from the circle, breathing in air, still crisp from the sparkles of the barrier. "Mephasm, I command you to be banished from this plane."
Tiny flames of fire blazed at the border of the circle, making others tighten their grips on weapon. But Mephasm just smiled, closing his eyes in bliss: "At last…"
He turned to the barrier, stretching out his hand, and the wall suddenly started to compress in the middle like a sheet of paper crumpled in a fist. A moment – and there was only a small glittering sphere lying in the devil's palm.
"And that is all that left," he concluded, again looking at Adele. "Barely a pebble, and an obstruction no more. Here, keep it," he tossed it to the woman, and she instinctively caught it in the air, raising her brows in silent question. Mephasm smiled again: "A gift. It may be of use in the time between our next meeting."
"Next meeting?!" Neeshka snorted. "Not if we can help it!"
He shot her a brief glance, still smiling: "Ah, would that you were able, little one," he nodded to Adele. "We will meet again."
And disappeared in a cloud of crimson smoke.
Elanee gave a quiet sigh: "I miss the Mere… Now I start to think it was so peaceful there."
Adele looked at the sphere, shimmering gold in her palm. It wasn't cold or warm, it just… was, but she had a feeling that it tries to seep through her fingers as if wanting to dissolve into the air.
"Throw it away," Neeshka suggested, her voice still carried traces of irritation and suspicion.
"Why?" Grobnar wondered. "No, you shouldn't, really! It is so beautiful, such a shimmer…"
"I don't sense any… danger in it," Adele muttered. "Maybe I'm wrong, but… he did gave it to me for some reason, right?" shaking her head, she placed the sphere into her breech-pocket and looked up at the opened passageway. "Let's go."
…Khelgar lowered his axe, in wide eyes staring at Zaxis, who's massive hulk got engulf in flames and collapsed on the floor, his carcass fading as well as his screams until it was no more.
"Did ya…?" the dwarf stared at up at Adele, who let out a breath of relief and wiped her sweaty neck. "Did ya just talked a hezrou demon to suicide?!"
She smirked at him: "And you said talking won't do me any good."
"Conclusion: it sucks to be an idiot," Neeshka grinned, looking at the spot where the demon used to stand.
"I don't think he died," Casavir noted. "He was… banished also."
"Well, he is not here anymore – and that's just fine by me," Adele lifted her eyes at the stone door to gith chambers that had cost Zaxis his presence on the plane. "So, Neesh… What say you?"
The tiefling strode to the closed door, studying it carefully, while the others took the opportunity to have a break. Adele leaned against the wall, sheathed her rapier, rubbed the wrist of her fighting hand absently to ease the tension in the tendon, then took a gulp from her waterskin and dried her lips with the back of her palm. She hoped that with all the distraction caused by demons the githyanki didn't have enough time to harm Shandra.
Elanee's eyes were closed, and that was the only indicator that the elf was trying to recover her mental powers. Khelgar still looked stunned by what has happened to Zaxis, combing his beard thoughtfully. Casavir stood not far from him, upright and stoic, as usual, though his armor looked dull from all the blood it was stained with. For what must have been a hundred time Adele wondered how in the Hells was he able to move, fight and walk so much with all the amount of metal on him. She didn't wear any armor at all apart from her thin jerkin, yet still even she felt that the tunic underneath it was soaked with sweat.
Grobnar made himself comfortable right on the floor, writing something hastily in a thick journal he took from his pack, his eyes gleaming with excitement. Qara tapped her fingers impatiently over her staff, her small foot tapping over the ground in unison. Adele smiled inwardly on that. For all Qara's elitism and arrogance, Adele found herself actually growing fond of the snotty little sorceress. It was like having a capricious peppery younger sister.
She shifted her gaze to Bishop – only to be met with a return gaze. The ranger watched her out of the corner of his eye, his lids lowered, face still, unreadable. He didn't avert his eyes, and Adele arched her brow at him, expecting another crude or smutty comment that was surely to come, but instead his lips only twitched slowly into a familiar wry smirk.
"Well, eat my tail," Neeshka's voice distracted her from staring competition with the ranger, and Adele looked at the tiefling. Neeshka shook her head in defeat. "The door is not trapped, not locked – 'cause there isn't any lock at all."
"Force it?" Khelgar suggested, though his voice didn't sound convinced in success – they all saw how Zaxis tried desperately and failed to do that already.
Qara opened her mouth – probably to suggest blowing the door up – but before she could even start saying something, the door flied opened, making Neeshka jump to the side and flooding the tunnel with dim purple light, that made it hard to see what was inside.
"Wow," Neeshka giggled nervously. "Never thought I could open doors with my will."
"Don't like it when doors open by themselves," Adele muttered, pushing herself off the wall.
"There are gith," said the tiefling, carefully stepping from behind the door and peering inside the chamber. "Looks like they are waiting for us."
"Maybe they want to talk too?" Grobnar supposed.
"So, princess, how about talking a pack of gith to suicide?" Bishop grinned. "Can you handle that?"
Adele suddenly found herself grinning back: "You never know until you try," she shrugged and ran her fingers through her hair nervously. "Alright, everybody, just be ready for a trick."
She entered right after Khelgar, stepping to a chamber with a large translucent glimmering sphere in its centre, looking just like the portal they saw at the gith's lair in Neverwinter. The sphere was surrounded by githyanki, two dozens at least, but they didn't attack, closely watching their company coming in. Adele shot a brief glance to the far corner of the room, at a cast-iron cage cut right into the wall; inside of it, on the floor, sat Shandra, pale, tousled, slightly bruised and obviously pissed off. Noticing Adele's glance, she threw her hands up in a "yeah, look where I've got myself into" way.
Adele's eye caught some movement inside of the shining cocoon of the portal, and she turned to it, facing a tall skinny githyanki woman in scale armor that almost merged with her body.
"Think I know now whom to bring down first," Khelgar nodded.
"So," the gith inside the sphere smiled. Her grey skin was stretched so tightly on her skull that the whole face was moving along with her lips. "Though those demons were unanticipated, your arrival was not. I have seen it burning brightly in my visions for some time," flat colorless eyes turned to Adele. "Did you really think you could escape us for long, Kalack-Cha?"
"Well, here I am, ain't I?" Adele smiled back at her, hearing the reassuring quiet rustle of her friends' steps as all of them tried to take better positions for attack. "So, release Shandra, then we'll try to come to know the particulars of our relationships."
Khelgar tried and failed to stifle the guffaw that overrode quiet chortles from the rest of her companions. Even Shandra snorted, looking at Zeeaire: "Trust me, once she gets on your trail – you are doomed."
"Know that you are in no position to demand anything from me!" Zeeaire hissed to Adele. "You will answer for your crimes – along with this frail thing that carries last of the Jerro blood."
"Why would she answer for my crimes? Or she happened to commit her own already?"
"You know the answer, Kalack-Cha. Her ancestor stole a silver sword, priceless relic of our people."
"But he is long dead."
"Yes," Zeeaire sneered. "The lifes of humans are all to brief. But their sins are passed to their kin. And so has the crime of Ammon Jerro passed to his descendant for her to answer. Just like you will answer for yours."
"I've got four on the right on me," Bishop whispered behind her back.
"I'm taking the left side then," Qara added.
"Need ta lure the ugly one from her shield," Khelgar grunted. "She's surely safe there, or wouln't've been so bold."
Adele cast one more quick glance over the gith. Too many. Too dispersed. And indeed, Hells know how to get Zeeaire out of her sphere.
The woman took one more step towards the portal: "I have the right to know what crimes I committed."
Zeeaire stared at her unbelievingly: "You don't know your crimes? You have slaughtered many of our people! And you hold in your possession relic sacred to the githyanki, a…" she suddenly gasped, stumbling in her words for a second, then swallowed: "…silver sword of our people… fragments of it."
Adele arched her brow, having the feeling that if Zeeaire was physically able she would have probably blushed: "So it's not just an ordinary silver sword?"
The gith grimaced, which made her mug, repulsive as it is, even more horrible: "You think there's something special or unique about your crime? Or the shards you carry?! There is not! You have nothing that other thieves have not stolen before!"
"She's lying!" Neeshka exclaimed and nudged Casavir standing not far from her. The paladin nodded silently, and Neeshka turned to other githyanki: "Come on, she is lying, you can tell it! It's written across her face!"
"If it is a face," Bishop smirked.
Zeeaire stared at them furiously: "You dare to presume to know more than I about this matter?!" she shouted, and Adele did her best to hold back a snort. The sword or the face? "You know nothing about what you've done! Nor the importance of what you carry!" The sword it is then… what a relief.
"Well then, don't protest that much," she shrugged and smiled. "Makes me wonder, you know."
One of the githyanki soldiers standing near the sphere cleared his throat: "Zeeaire, forgive my words… but I too felt the power from the shards when the Kalack-Cha entered… and when I gathered the shards you carry."
"As did I," another added. "This seems a matter greater then us. Our Queen should know of it. It has been too long since we have sent words to her of our… actions here."
Several more gith nodded in agreement, but Zeeaire just waved them off: "Ignore the words of the criminal – they are deceptions! She seeks to manipulate you like illithids did! Do not allow it!"
The githyanki exchanged grim doubtful glances, and then suddenly the most part of them marched to the door in firm footsteps. With the same smile Adele stepped aside to let them pass.
Not a good idea to consider and call your own soldiers idiots, Zee.
"Looks like she lost some of her… face…" Bishop's whisper came to her ear, almost making her jump. And not a good idea to forget that this guy is somewhere behind your back. "We may be able to count on some more defections if things turn nasty."
"You had doubts that the things will turn nasty?" Adele wondered without turning to him, earning a hoarse chuckle in response:
"I never do."
"Enough of this!" Zeeaire barked, glaring at Adele. "You will not stall your punishment any longer! If we were in Astral Plane the Lich Queen would see that you were slowly tortured… killed… and then raised again in countless cycles. Your crime merits many deaths. But I will allow you the last chance to atone for your crime," she tossed her head up arrogantly. "My offer of mercy is this – I shall grant a swift painless death for you and your companions if you freely hand over the shards."
Adele shrugged: "I have a counteroffer to save us both some time. A duel. You and me. The winner gets the shards. Simple as that."
The remaining githyanki again exchanged glances. Casavir looked at Adele: "You do not seriously expect us to stand aside and watch you fight this creature on your own?"
"Please, Casavir," Adele sighed, "I do not expect her to accept, no matter how sound is the offer."
"I'm through with it!" Zeeaire spat, and the woman shrugged at the paladin, indicating proof to her words. "Just like I'm through asking for what I may simply take from you!"
With that she waved her hand, and Adele felt her bag sliding down her shoulder. The woman caught the strap, but it burst with a snap, and the pack fell on the stone floor. Adele fell right after it, grabbing it and trying to hold, but the pack itself tore as the sharp edges of the shards cut through its leather side, flying into the air and disappearing inside Zeeaire's sphere, and all Adele could do was to slap her hand helplessly on the floor: "…Damn."
"Did you really think you could keep such relics of my people?" the gith mocked, catching the shards from the air. "They do not belong to you," she fell silent suddenly, her eyes narrowed at Adele as she drawled: "Odd… I have all the ones you carry... and yet it seems you still possess one…"
"I don't, trust me," Adele snapped angrily, pushing herself off the floor.
Zeeaire. paying no attention to her words, waved her hand once more…
…and a thrust of pain in the chest made Adele's legs and arms bend under her, her whole body coiling up, tears splashing out of her eyes, a high-pitched groan trickling out through set jaws. Someone fell to knees beside her, soft arms wrapping around her waist, but Adele didn't even feel that, didn't see anyone through the dark shroud of pain covering her eyes, and only Zeeaire's astonished voice reached her, muffled and distant as if tearing its way through a wall of wool:
"…You have a piece of the sword inside of you…"
The gith rushed, her companions met, blades clashing, arrows and bolt whizzing, spells flying… Adele didn't see that, didn't hear, didn't get. She just stared stupidly at the cave floor underneath her, blurring before her eyes. A single crimson blot appeared on the rock. Adele tore her palm off the floor, so slowly like there was a bag of stones hanging on it, and wiped it against her lips, leaving a smear of blood on her fingers, then stared at it, just stared…
…In her chest…
That scar…?
No… No, it can't be… I…
You could have guessed a long time ago, you insolent fool, her inner voice whispered disdainfully.
"Get up," Elanee's soft voice somehow managed to pierce the fog of pain, her arms tugging at her waist. "You should, this creature is-"
She didn't finish her words, pushing Adele away and herself rolling aside, allowing a bolt of blindingly-blue lighting strike the empty spot between them. Zeeaire cursed and started casting another spell, but Adele, coming to her senses from the jolt, jerked her head upwards, squinting her eyes at the shine of the portal…
…and suddenly remembered Mephasm's words.
…can be destroyed only by the contact with another similar barrier…
"Oh, you… devil," she grinned, pulling the pebble he gave her from her pocket, squeezed it in her palm and hurled it at the sphere, shouting: "Back off everybody!!!"
A wave of hot sparkling air crashed into her, almost singing her face and hair, but it didn't matter – what mattered was the sight of the sphere shudder and disappear in a wheezing cloud of the blast. Snatching her rapier, Adele abruptly straightened her legs, pushing herself up and forward, diving into the mess of fire and debris, her eyes searching frantically for the glimpse of Zeeaire. The gith leader has also collected herself, but before she could do that completely, Adele rushed at her, making her back off under the pressure of swift rapid lunges. Zeeaire parried, but the woman couldn't help but notice how sluggishly she moved, her grey scaly skin seemed to wither outside the sphere, fade, melt…
Dodging, sidestepping, thrusting, Adele pressed on her, her own movements a cold calculated gale, her pain nothing more than a scourge making her move even faster. She didn't stop, she couldn't stop – because stopping would mean ache, coughing, blood…
Zeeiare's back hit one of the stone wedges that used to be a hold for the portal, and Adele ran into her, plunging her blade deep in her stomach. The gith let out a shuttered wheeze, her body scrambling down the wedge, on the floor, and Adele followed, kneeling on top of her and pressed the point of her rapier to the wrinkled neck of the creature.
"Don't move," she breathed out and grinned herself at the uselessness of her warning – the gith couldn't move in her state even if she wanted too.
Zeeaire panted, looking up at her, her deep gasps an echo of Adele's own erratic breathing that sounded damp from the blood, that flooded her throat from the lung severed by the shard. Behind her back the woman heard established silence, as her companions had finished off the last of the githyanki, and were now probably also busy with calming themselves down after the fight.
"You…" Zeeaire whispered almost mutely, the dust from the explosion falling slowly on her disfigured face, sticking to blood on her thawing skin. "You think this is over? You are wrong, Kalach-Cha… So wrong… I hope the pain you have brought here is revisited upon you a thousandfold. The Lich Queen will know of my fall," the gith croaked, her fading eyes fixed on the woman, "but it will be too late. What comes for you will be revenge enough."
"What, even no threats of how the githyanki will get to me in the end?" Adele wondered, a few droplets of blood escaping her lips and trickling down her chin.
"We were never the ones you had to fear… In defying us, you have harmed only yourself… your own people… everything on your plane… The shards you carry were needed... the shard in you... all are needed… Evil wakes, Kalach-Cha, and in killing me you now stand alone against what comes."
"…What are you talking about?"
"An ancient enemy comes for you… one that has existed for millennia…" a convulsive gloating grin twisted her lips. "You have already felt the effects of his presence - and he will grow stronger with time… This enemy… this… King of Shadows... he would turn your civilization to dust… life to death... There will be no more attacks from my people, because it will serve no purpose… You have sealed your fate."
"Just my luck, huh?" Adele smirked down at her, almost sympathetically. Yeah, several minutes ago you are a mighty Sword Stalker – and now you are nothing more than a pile of dying flesh under someone's blade… Must be terrible.
"I will see you in death, Kalach-Cha." Zeeaire mirrored her smirk, her colorless eyes closing in acceptance. "I do not think I... will have to wait long."
Adele nodded: "See you, then."
…and thrust the rapier down her throat, eliciting one last choking wheeze, rasping and strident, that made tiny hairs on her arms stand on end – and then there was blissful silence.
Bishop flinched with a chuckle: "And that's all we needed to hear from the start, I think."
Adele chuckled humourlessly in response, closing her eyes and resting her forehead on her folded hands that were still lying on the hilt of her rapier stuck deep into gith's neck. Giving herself this second to relax, she swallowed down the blood that rose again in her throat and stood up, leaving Zeeaire's body, avoiding looking or touching it anymore, wiping off the rest of the blood from her chin.
Guess I look scary right now with all that blood on my lips… involuntarily she looked down at the wolf, whose own muzzle was stained with blood, and grinned at him. Like I had bitten Zeeaire to death.
Elanee's arm folded around her waist, helping her to stand steadily, and she smiled gratefully at the elf.
"Can you hold until we make camp?" the druidess asked with care. "I think I'll be able to attend your wounds after a short rest."
"Yeah, I'll be fine," Adele nodded, her smile becoming a bit grim. "Not the first time, after all."
She looked at the cage where the gith kept Shandra, seeing Neeshka already busy with the lock, but before she could come up to them her gaze met with that of Casavir. Paladin's eyes were shocked, wide as he stared at her.
Oh my, do I look that scary?
"Why have you done this?" he asked.
"…Why have I done what?"
"She had the right to say her last words, not be killed."
Adele blinked at him in disbelief, looked at Zeeaire's corpse, then back at him: "She did say her last words."
Casavir shook his head: "There was no reason for you to end her like this."
Adele arched her brow at him.
Heard that, Zee? Fighting you is good. Battling you, slashing, stabbing, leaving you, humiliated and crippled, to die in agony or beg for forgiveness... it's good. But killing is bad.
She tried to say anything, but all that escaped her mouth was a cough, a few drops of blood falling on his armored chest, and the paladin lapsed into silence.
Well, judging was to be expected, after all. He is a paladin.
"Sorry," Adele rubbed the blots off from his armor with her sleeve and smirked from the way how easily the plate became shining and clean again, then looked up at his face: "Let's just get Shandra out of here, I'll eat something, be healed – and then I'll be ready to debate the morale. Right now I'm not really quick-witted from the bloodloss."
He opened his mouth to say something, his expression caught somewhere between disapproval and shame, but didn't come up with words. From the side came a rusty Bishop's chuckle, who was occupied with looting corpses but never the one to miss someone's conversation nonetheless: "Pinned down, paladin."
Casavir shot him an angry glance, but the ranger paid no attention to it, rolling one of the bodies on its back with his foot. Khelgar patted Casavir's back with an understanding grin: "Lad, ya don't wanna argue with the lass who talked hezrou demon to suicide, trust me."
Adele, no longer engaged in the conversation, just came up to Shandra's cell. The blond woman herself was watching Neeshka battle with the lock, her head pressed to the bars.
"Gotcha!" the tiefling finally grinned, stepping aside, and Adele opened the door.
Shandra smiled wearily at them: "I'm getting so tired of this," she muttered, rubbing her eyes and looking at Adele: "You have to let me save you sometime, or else I'll never be able to pay you back."
Adele squeezed her shoulder encouragingly and went back to Zeeaire's body, remembering that she hadn't recovered the blasted shards from her.
"Oh, don't worry, girl," said Bishop, looking appraisingly at the amulet from one of the bodies. "There'll be plenty of time for you to pay all of us on the way back to Neverwinter."
Shandra folded her arms: "Well, actually, you all put me in danger! I'm not paying you a single coin," she tousled her hair nervously. "Not that I have any on me anyway."
The ranger shrugged indifferently, putting the amulet into his pocket, and the same appraising gaze slid down Shandra this time: "Well, then you'll be paying me another way," he smirked. "My bedroll's a little cold at night... I'm thinking you can fix that."
Shandra's face fell a full inch, her eyes huge in indignation.
"I won't have you speaking to her - or anyone else that way, Bishop," Casavir cut off.
"Oh, really? What a surprise," he quirked his brow questioningly at the paladin. "And how'd you like it if I left you here in Luskan territory with your righteousness to keep you company, huh?"
"I bet Qara can simply put him on fire," Neeshka suggested, nodding at the ranger. The sorceress grinned. "That'll solve two problems at once."
"Ah, you wound me, girls," Bishop drawled in mock sadness, then smirked again. "Or is it jealousy I hear? Don't worry, I'll get to you soon enough."
"Gods save me," Qara winced. "The smell would kill me first."
Grobnar, who had been turning his head on them all this time in wonder, finally gave way: "And what did sir Bishop mean?"
As usual his words made everybody stare at him, until Bishop gave a short derisive laugh, slapping the gnome against his back that almost send him flying: "Let's get moving, you worthless piece of meat. Maybe I'll tell you in my spare time, seeing how Mom and Dad hadn't bothered," he looked back at the others. "So, whom are we waiting for? We've got our precious little farm treasure already."
Shandra scowled at him, and Bishop grated her with another telltale grin.
"Bishop," Casavir growled in warning.
"Hmm?" he responded, deliberately not tearing his unnerving stare from Shandra.
"Alright, people, that's enough," Adele whispered tiredly, coming up to them and rubbing her scar absently. "We should leave."
"Agreed, get a move on," Bishop nodded.
He leaned against the wall in the doors, letting others out first – probably to savor friendly glances once more. Adele, who was walking out the last, said quietly: "Cut it off, Bishop, please."
"And what's wrong?"
"Can't you see, Shandra's tired, and-"
He smiled slowly: "Jealousy's thick in this little band, I see. Don't worry, princess, I haven't forgotten your pretty face."
She regarded him with a long stare, then shook her head helplessly: "And here I hoped you had."
