The Keys to the Vault
Kuhl reached out and retrieved Dawnbringer from where she lay on the table, gently pulling the sword hilt from Jhelnae's loose grasp. As he returned the sentient weapon to his belt, the half-drow, still disguised as a moon-elf Watch Officer, slammed her fist on the table top with a cry of frustration.
"Bastard!"
She struck hard enough to make bowls and tankards bounce and drew the eyes of the tavern staff and the patrons to their table. Not noticing or not caring, she hit with a second blow.
"Bastard!"
"Jhelnae," Aleina said, voice gentle but firm. "Stop."
Not content to use only words, she caught her friend's arm and kept her from hitting the table a third time.
"I know," the aasimar soothed. "I know."
The half-elf sensed the source of this outburst was about more than the half-drow's innate fiery temper. Something about their encounter with Oberlin upset her beyond what had happened. Whatever it was, the aasimar understood it, even if it remained a mystery to him. Which was no surprise. All of those who escaped the Underdark together were close, but the bond between Aleina and Jhelnae was especially tight. They likely shared things with each other they shared with no one else.
"Oberlin had fangs…" Sky said, trailing off and cocking her head in thought. "I think he might be a vampire. If so, vampires are nicer than I expected."
The half-drow took a breath and visibly calmed herself before speaking, but her emerald green eyes were still narrowed.
"He is a vampire," she said. "And none of them are nice. They're parasites. Self-important blood sucking parasites at that. You've been charmed, Sky."
When she said the word 'vampire', the aasimar clasped her friend's hand and gave a reassuring squeeze and Jhelnae subconsciously reached up and rubbed at her neck with her free hand at the words 'blood sucking'. The reason behind her reaction to Oberlin then became obvious. A traumatic history with a vampire or vampires lay in the half-drow's past. Since she'd once been a hostage in Thay to ensure her mother's good behavior, a land infamous for undead, Kuhl was pretty sure when and where this trauma occurred.
His gaze swept up to the tavern's exit. Pushing back his chair, he crossed the taproom and looked outside. No sign of Oberlin in either direction of Bazaar Street or down the Street of Bells. Late night walkers and the occasional rattling carriage over cobblestones were the only traffic.
"He might have gone gaseous," Dawnbringer said in his mind. "They can do that. They're difficult to hunt. Even when possessing a sun sword like myself."
Especially when the vampire threatened to let his spawn feed on children if you hunted him. The half-elf sighed in frustration, glanced and nodded to the crescent moon in the night sky above, then headed back inside.
The seeming spell expired on his way back across the taproom. The green-and-goldenrod Watch uniforms faded off Sky and Jhelnae and the half-drow lost her moon-elf illusion, revealing her ebony-skinned drow form beneath. Kuhl looked down and found his own tunic rather than a Watch officer doublet, a tunic which still bore the hole made from a metal, mechanical bird thrown by a nimblewright from the rooftop of the House of Inspired Hands this morning. Their barmaid saw their magical shift in appearance and, likely most influenced by the change of someone she thought was a moon-elf to a dark-elf, veered from her course to their table to another across the tavern to clear dishes and tankards from there instead.
"I don't feel charmed," Sky was saying as the half-elf approached the table. "But I'm being told I won't realize I was charmed until after it wears off or is broken."
"She is being told?" Dawnbringer thought. "Charming magic affects her strangely."
"That is the way it was for me," Aleina said, nodding. "Before my mind broke free it was strange. I trusted him. Everything he said seemed reasonable."
Those with Elvish blood, Kuhl knew, possessed a natural resistance to charming magic due to their fey heritage. Which was likely how he and Jhelnae had remained unaffected.
"What now?" he asked. "The Palace?"
While they'd all been summoned by the Open Lord when she'd asked them to find the Stone of Golorr, Aleina and Jhelnae had the most dealings with Lady Silverhand.
"I think so," the aasimar said, joining the half-elf in standing. "We'll give her the stone and…"
"Be Oberlin's little messengers," the half-drow finished bitterly as she also stood, shaking her head and looking at the ceiling with an irritated huff."
"Oh, you're right," Sky said, tail lashing as got up from her chair. "Once the charm has been broken you do know you were charmed. As for what now, we could give the Open Lord the stone. Or we could find the treasure then lead her directly to it. I'll bet she'd really appreciate that, busy as she is and all."
"By all that dances," Jhelnae said. "What are you going on about? Finding the treasure directly? By using the stone? None of us even know how to use it."
"It's pretty simple," the tabaxi said, shrugging. "Hold it long enough and it starts talking to you. It will even break an enchantment on you, like it just did for me."
"How do you know that?" Aleina asked, but the sudden widening of her pale blue eyes showed she guessed the answer.
She frantically searched her belt pouch, obviously not finding what she looked for, then glared up at Sky. The tabaxi opened her hand to reveal a small, glossy, greenish-gray stone with three carved gemstones fashioned in the shape of orbs to resemble eyes embedded in its face.
"You said a little rock told you the origin of the lament the Singing Sword recited," Kuhl said slowly, mind catching up with events.
"I figured I should take it for safekeeping," Sky said. "What with a strange man approaching us in the dark of night. And I was right. Aleina got charmed, so couldn't be trusted with it."
"You got charmed too!" the aasimar hissed in an exasperated whisper, glancing around the taproom first to see if anyone was listening.
"Well, it all worked out in the end," the tabaxi said with a dismissive wave as she dropped the stone in her belt pouch. "The embezzled hoard is in a dungeon vault under the estate Neverember bought for his mistress in the Sea Ward. There are three keys needed to unlock the vault along with the Stone of Golorr. The first is an invisible creature and thankfully Jhelnae just met a faerie dragon. So, we need to go back to the theater and convince this faerie dragon to come with us."
The half-drow already shook her head before her friend finished speaking.
"That is a bad idea," she said. "I do want to check on Wishes and make sure they are alright, but I overheard the wizard who turned into a snowman say they have eyes, meaning spies, at the theater. The stone should stay far away from there."
She paused for a moment, letting that sink in before continuing.
"But there is another solution," she said. "Since I've learned the invisibility spell Aravae taught me, I can be the invisible creature."
"You can't be the key," Sky protested. "You're not a creature."
"You called me a boring creature of habit," Jhelnae said. "Just the other day."
"I was there," Aleina put in. "In fact you called us both boring creatures of habit when we invited you to play Masked Lords with Bonnie and Dariya the other night."
"Well, sorry if I don't want to play the same boring game every ten-day," the tabaxi said, not sounding sorry in the least. "Like some people."
"It's not boring," the half-drow said. "But by your own words I am a creature and I can turn invisible. Therefore, invisible creature, which means I should work as the first key."
She emphasizes the words 'invisible creature' by pointing at herself, holding this pose as Sky crossed her arms and shook her head. The two engaged in a brief stare off until the tabaxi relented.
"Fiiine," She sighed. "I'd prefer using a faerie dragon, but fiiine. The next key is an animated construct, and we know one. Ancilla. So, all we have to do is go deeper into the Dungeon of the Mad Mage to catch up to her group and take her with us back to the vault."
"Selune's tears, are you joking?" the aasimar asked, throwing up a hand. "How about Nim? In the House of Inspired Hands? An animated construct in easy reach rather than one we have to chase after"
"But then we don't get to go deeper into Undermountain," the tabaxi said, tone implying that the flaw in this alternative plan should be obvious.
"I wonder if this would work," Kuhl said, pulling out the mechanical bird creation of Nim's that had put the hole in his tunic this morning.
"That?" Sky scoffed, but then got a faraway look that the half-elf interpreted as conferring with the stone. "Would work."
Her last two words were laced with disappointment, but she brightened.
"The last key needs to be a gift from a queen," she said. "You know where there are plenty of queens? The feywild! So, we go there, perform a service for a faerie queen, get a gift, come back here, and use it to open the vault."
"Or," the aasimar said, holding up her hands and displaying the ring on each. "Since Laeral told us she used to be the queen of a kingdom called Stornanter and since she gave these as gifts, we could use one of these."
The faraway look came back into Sky's eyes and she stamped her booted foot in frustration when her gaze refocused a moment later.
"You all are no fun," she said, tail lashing in irritation. "No fun at all. None of you. But yes, either of those will work."
"Your plans for the keys were really good," the half-elf said encouragingly. "It's just we're in a bit of a hurry at the moment. We might gather those other items next time we need to open the vault."
"I'm sorry, Kuhl," Sky said, giving him a sharp toothed smile. "I shouldn't have included you with them. You are fun and you're right, we can gather those keys next time."
"The next time?" Dawnbringer asked in Kuhl's mind. "Why would there be a next time? Why should you ever need to gather keys to get into what will then be an unlocked and emptied vault? And isn't encouraging her like this how you ended up a prisoner in Undermountain and playing a game called Blood and Fortune in an arena in a subterranean city named Skullport?"
The half-elf decided none of those questions really required answering.
"As much as I'd love to see what half a million gold dragons look like," Aleina said. "We just learned important information that needs to be reported to the Open Lord."
"As much as I hate being a messenger for a vampire," Jhelnae said. "I agree. We need to tell Laeral that Manshoon might be in Kolat Towers."
"We could send someone else to tell her," Kuhl mused aloud, becoming more convinced as he thought about it. "In fact, maybe we should. Those we took the stone from will be looking for us and Sky and I were not disguised. If they are going to put watchers out trying to find us, the Palace is a safe bet as a place they will put some."
Whenever he used the word 'bet' it always made him think of Jimjar, their lost deep gnome companion from Velkynvelve who could never resist a wager. The half-elf pushed these memories aside and focused on the present.
"The Trollskull as well," the half-drow said. "I disguised you, Aleina, but you lost that illusion in the magic dead zone. If the snowman reads the Wazoo, he will have recognized the Runaway Aasimar Bride."
"But I kicked him off a building before he could tell anyone," Aleina said. "Does the wizard who created the snowman see everything it saw?"
Shrugs greeted her question. Kuhl had never even heard of a simulacrum, as Oberlin had called it, until tonight, so had no idea how the magic worked.
"Bonnie!" the aasimar said, snapping her fingers. "We can send Bonnie to the Palace with a message to Laeral. She is working the late shift at the Yawning Portal. It's not too far from here."
"But would the guards even let her in?" Jhelnae asked.
"I'll give her my Watch badge," the half-elf said. "And Lady Silverhand told us we could trust Jalaster Silvermane, who is a regular at the Portal. If he is there, we give the message to him, if he's not then she finds him to get a message to the Open Lord."
"See," the half-drow said, favoring Kuhl with a wink. "I knew we kept him around for more than his muscles. And for more than being a convenient, comfortable pillow. He's smart as well."
"He can be. When he doesn't need rescuing from Undermountain," Aleina observed, unknowingly mimicking Dawnbringer's earlier comment.
"Never going to forget that, are you?" the half-elf breathed out with a sighing chuckle.
"Not when I eventually found you in the company of a genasi wearing only her underwear for armor," the aasimar deadpanned, or tried to, she couldn't keep a hint of amusement off her lips.
"She's been very fixated on Sophiya's dragon scale armor," Dawnbringer thought in Kuhl's mind. "Brings it up whenever she talks about Undermountain."
"Again, didn't rescue us," Sky said with a roll of her golden eyes. "We were…"
"Already escaping on your own," Jhelnae finished with an eye roll of her own, then her face went serious. "Are we really doing this? Going to the vault ourselves?"
To the half-elf's surprise, she primarily looked to him for the answer and despite Aleina's banter of needing to rescue him from his own foolishness, she also glanced at him expectantly.
"We go to the Portal first and talk to Jalaster or Bonnie," he said slowly, drawing out the words to give him time to think before he made a decision. "Then let's head to the vault."
I know this one is short. I expected it to be much longer. My plan was for them to reconvene at the Trollskull after a conversation at the Singing Sword and end with them heading towards the Vault. But as the conversation evolved the characters veered off with their own ideas and I was like, "Wait, this is all happening really fast. We're not going to the Trollskull after this?"
Apparently not.
I have no idea if this works, or flows, etc. It was one of those situations where the characters were spitting out lines to me so fast that I could barely type them out on my phone quick enough to keep up…
Which is another thing, posting from my phone so might be formatting issues until I can make it to a computer.
Update - made it to a computer to at least take care of formatting and Happy Halloween!