Scourge of the Sword Coast

by Anja Kidd

Aphra and Imoen of Candlekeep embark from their childhood home, barely children themselves, into a life of bloody misadventure and time-bending lunacy. This story is cross-posted on AO3 and WP.

4. Ch 3: The City of Coin

All unsecured praise and devotion must put in the overhead bins and kept safe for Trisa_Slyne, for being my editor.

---

"Power is not a means. It is an end."

—George Orwell, 1984

---

It was ultimately Yoshimo who defused the situation. The Kara-Turan, now unfrozen from the wizard's spell, stepped forward after shouldering his bow. "Peace and stay your weapons, we mean no harm," Yoshimo spoke to the armored men with familiarity, "I am Yoshimo. Ask your Chief Inspector of me, I turn in bounties to him often."

"You're a bounty hunter? Explain this disturbance!" One of the guards demanded as the halberds nonetheless were pointed away from them. Aphra blinked at the sudden change and wondered if their luck had shifted.

She scratched her half-bald head as Yoshimo briefly explained, "We were captives of a madman, whom many here saw battling the Cowled Wizards. We escaped as his lair was infiltrated by the Shadow Thieves." Aphra distantly recalled one of the black-clad men that had attacked them in Irenicus' lair mentioning the Shadow Thieves, but the connection between Irenicus, them, and the vampire they'd found was lost on her. It seemed Yoshimo was determined to only tell what was necessary to the guard to clear them of suspicion, for he mentioned nothing else, no details of their capture nor of the many horrible things and poor creatures they'd encountered in there.

"This site will be crawling with Cowlies soon," one of the other guards mentioned, perhaps a little snidely. "You best clear out of here, unless you want to be detained."

"Thank you," Yoshimo said with a courteous bow. "We will seek the nearest inn."

"Looking like that?" the same guard snorted. "You're better off at the Coronet."

Aphra felt the wind from the outside air briefly brush the bare side of her scalp and looked down at her filthy boots and shift. She tried not to laugh again, and only let out a few chuckles. The others gave her alarmed glances. Under the sun she felt better, more alive, more human perhaps, even as the loss of Imoen pierced her. The guards gave her strange looks when she glanced at them, but they said nothing as they tensed their grips on their halberds. Yoshimo urged them all along away from the crowd and toward the marketplace, where most people gave them a wide berth with upturned noses. Tall conical hats and strange dresses alerted her to the presence of nobility, one of whom fainted at the sight of Aphra when she made eye contact with her.

"Do I really look so frightful?" She said aloud to no one in particular, but it was Boo who answered her perched on Minsc's shoulder. She looked up at the hamster who pawed the air, rubbed his nose, and then went to hide in the crook of Minsc's neck on the other side of the warrior's body. Aphra sighed, and tried not to cry about losing Imoen, her only sibling, her best friend.

She tried very hard not to cry and managed to pass the time by staring at her boots and hating herself quite a lot for her weakness and inadequacies. How had it devolved into this? How had she allowed it? Gorion would be ashamed. Her thoughts began to become insidiously hurtful by the time Yoshimo stopped leading them away, and they all paused in a quiet street.

"Aphra," Jaheira spoke sharply, getting the girl's attention. When Aphra looked at her, something in Jaheira's gaze softened, bent, or broke. There was a moment of clarity between them both when the magnitude of what they'd both just lost hit them simultaneously, and she felt very understood by the druid in that moment. "Do not give up on finding Imoen," Jaheira instructed, and Aphra listened. "We will have vengeance upon Irenicus. I promise this to you, I will stop at nothing to help you find her and kill this wretch for what he has done to us. He will pay a thousandfold for what he has taken."

Aphra wasn't sure what she'd done to earn Jaheira's loyalty and knowing her disdain for Xzar she decided not to mention that he had also been innocently captured and needed rescuing. Imoen was naturally her priority however, and on this she agreed with Jaheira. So she nodded, said nothing, and Jaheira turned back to Yoshimo. "You say you know an inn here? Is it a place of ill-repute?" she asked.

Yoshimo winced. "It is, perhaps, one of two places in Athkatla where we would be received as we are with no questions and little coin. We may get our bearings there and make sense of what has happened to us."

"Why are you helping us?" Jaheira demanded to know. Her grip on her quarterstaff tightened, her knuckles turning white. "You owe us nothing, now that you are free."

"Forgive me, but I do not take kindly to being abducted and experimented upon," Yoshimo said formally, but curtly. "Perhaps I share your aim of vengeance."

"Perhaps," Jaheira repeated dubiously, but nonetheless added, "Take us to this inn of ill-repute then. The less questions are asked of our circumstance, the better."

Aphra thought of the naked woman from the jar that had run off with her sword, and the dryads still trapped in the chamber that housed their trees - so many victims of Irenicus, just like her and Imoen. She thought of the cowled fellows that had broken apart with the wizard's spells and had no idea how she was supposed to kill such a being and save her sister from his clutches. Could it be accomplished? She was so lost in her mind that she only made note of her new surroundings when the scene around her changed into a dimly lit and reeking-of-sour-ale inn-interior, full of raucous laughter and distant smoky conversations. A pang struck her heart unexpectedly as she looked out into a semi-familiar scene, reminding her of the Jovial Juggler - her last certain memory before her subsequent capture.

Yoshimo led them to a bartender who was also a merchant of odd goods, who gave them a room and access to baths, as well as offered to trade them for some of their gear when he saw they were in need. Aphra offered her enchanted dagger for a set of sturdy clothes that seemed to be in her size, and meals for their group. Imoen had been carrying most of the gold and valuables unfortunately, but Yoshimo had some danter on him and Jaheira had pocketed much - anything she thought looked valuable or recognized as useful, including several gems and scrolls looted from the Mistress' room. She traded her quarterstaff, which was of a mild enchantment, for gold.

They were depleted, and Aphra didn't feel safe. She felt disconnected from her body and her life as Jaheira led her away to the women's baths, but Aphra had the wherewithal to clean herself thoroughly at least and did in fact feel better about her circumstances once she was clean. Her hair was hopeless and would simply take time to re-grow, but she wasn't certain she wanted it to grow back. Jaheira braided it back for her after watching Aphra struggle for a while with its wet half-length.

"Would you like me to cut it for you?" Jaheira offered as she tied off the end of Aphra's hair with a strip of leather. "It will grow back more evenly."

"I guess," Aphra said noncommittally. She felt connected to Jaheira in a way, but was still conscious of the fact that she barely knew this woman, or the husband she had lost, or the addled Rashmenic berserker in the men's bath. "When and where did we meet? I don't recall anything beyond leaving Candlekeep and getting to Beregost," Aphra directed this to Jaheira.

Jaheira paused and took a step back to the other side of the bath and dunked her head into the water. When she emerged and wiped her face of the water, she slicked her braids back with a hand and said, "It is nothing you have forgotten, Aphra. From your perspective, we have not yet met. From mine, we met a year ago at the Nashkel Fair. You will go there and find us and tell us that we have met. Whether or not we will believe you then is in question."

This confused Aphra greatly; Imoen had said something similar but it made no sense to Aphra. How could Jaheira be describing anything other than a loss of memory? "Should we find a priest maybe?" She wondered aloud. "That wizard maybe did something to my mind, or—"

"Your . . . Inability to recall these events, is because they have not happened yet to you," Jaheira struggled to explain. "It will make sense in time, I suspect, but for now you shall be bewildered. Let us instead focus on what comes next - finding Irenicus, and Imoen."

Aphra nodded and decided that it was wise to let the matter go for now. She had clothes, a meal, and a roof over her head - a vast improvement from her earlier situation. She dressed herself in silence, as did Jaheira, and she followed the half-elven druid out of the baths of which they had thankfully been the only occupants. They rejoined a much more scrubbed-looking Minsc and Yoshimo out in the main hall of the Inn called the Copper Coronet, who had saved them a table in a secluded corner that they might sort through their situation in some privacy.

No one said anything after Aphra and Jaheira sat down, however, so Aphra decided to break the ice after entirely too long spent in tense silence. "We're in Amn, yeah?" she asked of the table. "Whereabouts in Amn?"

"That would be Athkatla, my lady, the City of Coin and crime," Yoshimo addressed to her politely. "Capitol of Amn."

"We are far from Baldur's Gate," Jaheira demurred. She looked to Minsc, who seemed surprised to be addressed. "My friend, what is the last thing you recall?" she asked, her tone very different from the harsh one she had used when she had called him an affront to nature.

Minsc took it, and everything, in stride. "We were walking down the Coast Way when we were taken! Boo says . . . Hmm . . . Yes, I see," Minsc murmured and whispered something to his hamster, who seemed to chitter something back at him. Aphra stared at the spectacle torn between confusion and alarm. "Boo says we were captured with magic, and he was too small to be detected by the spell!" Minsc announced and suddenly held Boo up in the air victoriously. "Oh, such a smart miniature giant space hamster you are! Yes, Boo says the bad wizard Irenicus enchanted us to follow him through a portal to Amn, to his evil lair! There, he put us in cages like so many hamsters."

Aphra mouthed, 'miniature giant space hamster?' to Jaheira, who looked back at her with fond amusement. "That's not surprising," Aphra decided, knowing she had seemingly little defense against magic compared to her innate elemental resistances. "Yoshimo, what about you?" She wondered. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was at a tavern across town in Athkatla, near the Bridge district," Yoshimo reported. "I fell asleep and awoke in the dungeon."

"Do you think this has something to do with the man who killed Gorion?" Aphra wondered, looking to Jaheira for answers. "I only remember a horned-helmeted man, with a great big shining sword."

Jaheira told her, "The man you seek has a name - Sarevok. He is dead. You slew him underneath Baldur's Gate some time ago."

Aphra blinked, surprised and annoyed that she didn't remember this great victory, but also was confused by the somber look on Jaheira's face. "So I did end up killing him? Gorion was avenged? How?" Aphra pressed.

"You nearly died in the process. It is not a memory I care to revisit in present company," Jaheira snapped.

Yoshimo leaned in and spoke up, "Forgive me, but I have heard of this tale from the north. You speak of the fall of the Iron Throne?"

"It did not fall," Jaheira summarized curtly. "And take care what questions you ask of this matter in such a place as this."

"That is fair," Yoshimo decided, and withheld his questions for the moment.

For her part, Aphra felt their task was hopeless and asked to be pardoned from their company as mostly Yoshimo and Jaheira, but also Minsc, talked about improving their circumstances. It reminded her too much of Imoen and her job-seeking in Beregost, which only made her sad. Aphra couldn't properly hear herself think through the clamor of the Copper Coronet's crowd, so she went outside and looked for a way to climb to the roof when she saw no one looking her way. She scrambled up quickly, her boots and nimble fingers finding easy purchase on the jutting stones and wood of the Copper Coronet.

As she watched the sun go down on an unfamiliar, loud, smelly city skyline - Aphra wished for nothing more than this awful, horrible dream to end. It seemed this was her life now, however and there was nothing else to be done about it. Jaheira and Imoen's cryptic comments aside, she resolved to both cut the rest of her hair the following day - or perhaps simply shave it all evenly - and to purchase a journal at her next available opportunity, so she might better make sense of her thoughts and keep herself focused. Finding Imoen was what mattered. Nothing else.

She stared up at the darkening sky and watched the stars of the Sphere peek out between the clouds. She tried not to pay too much attention to the stench of the city around her. Almost as soon as the sun's last rays hit the last building in Athkatla, a minor earthquake had Aphra on her hands and knees trying to find a stable place to get her bearings. The world shook for several moments violently, before a huge crashing thud echoed throughout the Athkatla slums.

Aphra's eyes sought out the disturbance and alighted upon a smooth, spherical dome that was embedded in the ground and had appeared or collided with several houses in the slums themselves. People began to scream and cry for help, and Aphra jumped off the roof to get a better look and offer her assistance.

Guards surrounded the metallic dome in moments, making Aphra nervous. Citizens whose homes had been engulfed by the sphere cried in the streets, some of their loved ones having been inside - and had disappeared with the appearance of the dome. "We'll wait for the Cowled Wizards! Everyone, calm down!" One of the guards commanded, trying to calm people down.

It didn't succeed. Aphra stepped forward while no one was looking and touched the dome with her fingers, surprised to find it warm beneath her hand. It seemed to thrum with some kind of energy, and it left her fingertips tingling. It also didn't give way at all to her strength, having been made of a superior metal than most common ones. Aphra had no trouble bending iron or alloys, depending on their thickness. A guard barked at her to take a step back when he noticed she was touching it and staring at it, so Aphra shuffled away and realized there was nothing she could do to help the people that were trapped inside. There was no door to the dome, no entrance. It was just an object, squatting on the ground.

Aphra wandered back in the direction of the inn, feeling hollow and getting lost a little bit but not minding it. She eventually went back toward their table only to find it unoccupied, and reasoned they must be back in the rooms. That was precisely when Aphra realized she had no idea where the rooms they had rented were, and panicked for a moment, seeking a familiar face in the crowd. She spied Minsc by the bar raising a tankard of ale in the air, so she walked over to him, accidentally bumping into someone along the way.

"Sorry," Aphra mumbled, and hid the half of her head that was shaved from view reflexively and shuffled along. It had been a shiny-armored fellow who tried to stop and speak with her, but she was having none of it that day and wanted only to see familiar (somewhat) faces. "Minsc!" She called out in relief.

"Aphra!" Minsc roared in greeting, nearly spilling his ale in the process. "Come and join our celebration!"

"'Scuse me," a drunken man on the other side of Minsc squinted at her. Aphra stared challengingly at him and tried not to feel self-conscious about her appearance. Bafflingly, the man asked, "are you the young miss whose skull beats swords?"

"What? Piss off," she rolled her eyes and sat down at Minsc's side on the barstool.

A mere moment later the bartender appeared, ready to serve her. "I'm Bernard," he barked. "What'll it be?"

Aphra knew that she did not know her exact age and was on her eighteenth summer by Imoen's last reckoning, but still felt younger than her years when she realized that she'd never really drank ale before. She had a few coins left over from when she had traded for the dagger, and felt them in her pants pocket with one hand when she asked, "How much for ale?"

Bernard also squinted at her, and then at Minsc. "You don't seem like an ale gal if you don't mind me saying so. How about some mead? On the house," he added.

Aphra was instantly suspicious. "Is there a catch?" She asked, trying not to sound impolite.

"You seem like you've had a rough go of it," Bernard said mildly and passed her an earthenware mug full of pleasantly fragrant amber fluid. "So the first drink's on me," he added and wandered off toward another customer that demanded his attention.

"That was very nice of Bernard," Minsc commented. "Let us drink to our survival!" He declared and held up his tankard of ale.

It took Aphra several seconds to realize that Minsc intended her to clink her mug against his, and for them to drink together. She flushed at her own inexperience and wondered just what else was missing from the year she didn't remember.

The mead went down pleasantly and gave her a warm, cozy feeling in the gut that spread all the way to her toes by the end of it. Jaheira found her at the bottom of the glass of mead and gave her a disapproving look, but Aphra's mood had been uplifted by the drink so she found herself with an infinite well of patience for Jaheira's acerbic personality. "Come, you as well Minsc," Jaheira commanded.

Minsc downed the rest of his ale and didn't object to following Jaheira, but his legs did, causing him to stumble slightly. Jaheira and Aphra supported him for the most part all the way upstairs and to the small room that they all agreed to share for the night, with four less-than-cozy looking cots. Still, it was a place to sleep with a roof over their heads, so Aphra tried not to complain. She did wrinkle her nose at the smell of her cot when she was placed in it, however, and couldn't even try to sleep with how her mind was racing - whereas Minsc's head hit the pillow and he was out like a light, Boo perched in a comfortable pile of hamster on top of him.

"Yoshimo?" Aphra whispered into the air. "Jaheira?" She looked over and saw one of the cots was missing - Yoshimo was still out.

"Rest, child," Jaheira instructed.

"I can't," she admitted and sat up. "I'm not at all tired, and I'd rather not dream."

Jaheira sighed wearily. In the dim room, the only light was a small oil lantern placed on a desk that Jaheira had lit. She had been in the process of putting it out before reconsidering and bringing the light and herself over to Aphra. Jaheira sat on the floor in front of her and placed the lantern beside her, which illuminated their features. She gave Aphra an appraising, cautious sort of gaze. "You are thinking of Imoen?" Jaheira assumed more than asked.

"Only all the time," Aphra tried to joke. "Probably at least as often as you're thinking about Khalid. Sorry," she added, knowing she had dredged up a terrible memory, but felt helpless to stop herself from doing so. Her hands flapped uselessly by her side as she struggled to form coherence. "There's so much I don't understand still about all this missing time, and no one will explain it to me, and I can't sleep. My mind won't let me," she added, frustrated.

"You cannot remember something you have yet to experience," Jaheira corrected her gently. This confused Aphra even further, and impossibly more so when Jaheira went on to say, "I have come to believe that it is not memory you are missing, but that you are gifted. Your mind is bound to two separate places in time. The girl I met at the Nashkel Fair a year ago told me when we first met that we had met before - and you showed me a rendering that you had drawn of my likeness, as it is now, with my braids like so. I did not believe you then. I was a fool. You will learn to forgive me, I suspect."

Aphra thought about this and tried to make sense of it. She felt there was just something key that she was not grasping. Something in her breast-bone throbbed and she rubbed at it. "I-I don't understand. How is that possible? How can I—be bound in—time only flows in one direction!" She argued.

Jaheira sighed and answered quietly, adjusting the lamp in her grip and placing it on the floor next to them. With two hands she grasped Aphra's own and held them in her fingers delicately. "I know in the past, as I remember it, we did not always get along," she admitted. "That is because I . . . Did not want us to. I mourned Gorion's ignoble murder and saw you as his unworthy successor. I also did not realize, when you spoke of this time to me in Nashkel, that Khalid would—you did not tell me about any of this. Only that we had met, and beyond that you had seemed stricken. And now I am more the fool, for I understand why."

Aphra's brain hurt. "I'm so baffled," she confessed. "How is such a thing possible? You're saying the fact that I don't remember us meeting - that means we haven't met yet. But you're also saying that we traveled together for a year. That can't be possible!"

"It will make sense in time," Jaheira promised her. "When you next see Imoen, look for a man named Sarevok. He is the horned-one you seek," she informed her. Aphra perked up at this information. "And love her well," she instructed carefully, "for on the same awful day that I lost my Khalid, you have lost her. I must go on living with this, while you have yet to live the past. Cherish this gift you have, Aphra. Use it wisely, to make the most of each moment you are in."

Aphra thought of Garrick and Neera and Imoen still in the Jovial Juggler, just moments after she had fallen asleep, and it just didn't make sense. What force could have done such a thing to them, and what was its purpose? She was saved from her ruminations by the return of Yoshimo, whom she had not realized but had been gone. He opened the door with a faint knock first and announced his name so as not to alarm them, but Aphra heard his padded step before he entered and had already memorized it. It reminded her of Imoen's too-careful footsteps through the halls of Candlekeep and made her even more wistful for home.

"I bring news, if it is not too late for such affairs," Yoshimo announced quietly, respectful of Minsc's rest. The berserker snored gently.

"Speak of what you have learned," Jaheira commanded.

Aphra became excited immediately and blurted, "Is it news about Imoen? Or Irenicus? Or how we got here?"

Yoshimo hesitated a moment before answering. "Magic is illegal in Athkatla, as you well may know now," he began. "Strangeness abounds in this city, but anything strange in public is considered an aberration and is as likely to find you tied to a stake and burnt alive or arrested by the Cowled Wizards and taken to their mysterious prison for the 'magically deviant.' They call it Spellhold. No one knows where it is, nor how to get to it, nor has anyone ever emerged from it to my knowledge. I went to the Government District today to speak to the Cowled Wizards and inform the Inspector about my circumstances. I was told that the three 'prisoners' from the incident in Waukeen's Promenade were taken to Spellhold."

Aphra puzzled this information over and decided none of it was really helpful or good, until she found a way to Spellhold. That meant help from someone with more resources than she presently had. Something about the situation still bothered her - and clearly bothered Jaheira as well, for she voiced both hers and Aphra's thoughts, "Then tell me bounty hunter, what did Irenicus want with you?"

"I believe it has something to do with my tenuous - and strictly professional - connection to the Shadow Thieves," he hesitantly answered, "whom, if you will recall, precipitated our freedom."

"They also attacked us in Irenicus' dungeon," Aphra reminded him. "Though to be fair, I would be suspicious of us in their circumstances. But what did they want with Irenicus?"

"That, I do not know," Yoshimo admitted and pulled at his long black mustache. "I suspect our answers may lay with them, however."

"It is suspicious to me that we escaped as we did," Jaheira uttered. "It is not like a wizard of Irenicus' power to make such mistakes."

Aphra thought about it for a moment and was able to piece together a few observations. "He kept me imprisoned quite easily, which is no small feat," she said. "He weakened me and kept me like that. So, no ordinary means would suffice."

"He knew enough to keep us all separated, until Imoen mysteriously escaped," Jaheira added as she fiddled with her still-damp braids. "Perhaps . . ." She trailed off.

"This couldn't have been his plan, unless it was in which case it's a madly brilliant plan," Aphra said. "Whatever Irenicus wanted from me, he wasn't able to get it because we escaped. His plans changed. Imoen and Xzar are now his leverage - he wants us to find him. He must. Because then he wouldn't have to look for us. He needs me for something sinister, and when gets in close I'll crush his head like a grape," she concluded factually.

Yoshimo and Jaheira stared at her with a mix of expressions and emotions. Yoshimo spoke after a few moments, "It is unlikely that the authorities will cooperate with Imoen's release, or your friend Xzar. The presence of the Shadow Thieves is what worries me the most, as if they have allied themselves against Irenicus, it is an indication of something great being afoot in the underworld of Amn."

Something clicked in Aphra's mind in that moment into the right place, as she realized there would be no help from the government - after all, they were as good as collaborating with Irenicus at this point. Only one group was certain of them not collaborating with the wizard. "Yoshimo," she spoke to get the bounty hunter's attention, and he looked at her. "As payment for saving your life, I ask that you reach out to the Shadow Thieves on our behalf to set up a meeting. Preferably someone you know well and trust. Also I'll throw you into a wall so hard your brains will leak out of your ears if you cross us," she added in afterthought.

Yoshimo nodded, and forgivingly did not mention her threat. "I know just such a man. I will contact him in the morning and arrange a meeting."

"A good plan, for now," Jaheira decided, and stood, grabbing the lantern after her. She went over to her cot after putting the lamp back up, and Yoshimo went over to his and collapsed in it. Aphra laid down in hers and stared up at the ceiling and could not find rest no matter how she tried. She listened to the others and watched the changes in their forms as they gradually succumbed to slumber, but sleep would not find her. Only dark thoughts circled in her mind as she listened to their even breathing - thoughts about how she couldn't rescue Imoen, how she was doomed to failure, how Irenicus was too powerful to face in her state, how she had failed her father by endangering her sister - and then the thought circled back into her mind of some of Gorion's parting words. 'Live as you can, where you can,' he had said. 'Survive,' had been his sole, final commandment. How could she, in the face of such a foe?

Hours crept by like years as the dawn slowly descended on Athkatla. At that point, Aphra had carefully stepped out of the room and went back to the roof of the Copper Coronet, where she was unbothered by anyone and left alone with her thoughts under the canvas of the sky. When the sun's rays had peeked over the strange silver dome, she went back to their shared room and crawled back into her cot and pretended to be asleep. Jaheira 'awoke' her shortly thereafter, and Aphra pretended to rouse from sleep to avoid any questions. Upon recalling the vivid nightmares she had suffered before waking up in Irenicus' dungeon, Aphra had no desire to sleep, not ever again.

Yoshimo arose a few minutes later and, still yawning as he left the room, promised he would return with word from his Shadow Thief contact. Aphra was about to ask him if he'd even had breakfast, but he left in a hurry, perhaps remembering her threat the previous evening. Minsc took the longest to wake up but was by far the most 'awake' of them when the three of them went downstairs to the inn's main floor, which was decidedly less crowded and raucous now that it was morning. A few people were passed out at tables, the whole air smelled like spilled bad ale, and generally Aphra wouldn't be sorry if they saw the tail end of the place forever that morning.

Jaheira, who had been left in charge of what little money they possessed, paid for their breakfast which was less of a meal and more of a loaf of bread and part of a wheel of cheese. Bernard offered water, but it smelled off - Jaheira uttered a sylvan phrase under her breath, and this seemed to cleanse the water that was in their cups, or at least eliminated the suspicious smell. By the time they had finished off the bread loaf and most of the cheese, Yoshimo had returned.

Aphra, Jaheira, Minsc and Boo (on Minsc's shoulder being fed tiny amounts of bread) were escorted out of the Copper Coronet into the morning light. He led them out, and toward the houses surrounding the Copper Coronet - the "slums" of the city as Yoshimo described them, narrating for them as he led them to an unknown location. Aphra prepared herself mentally for having to erupt into violence at any moment, a fear arousing in her that Yoshimo would lead them into an ambush, or astray and into Irenicus' clutches. Her fears were unfounded, however, as he led them down a few alleys and toward a young man in basic leathers, who was unarmed.

"This is Gaelan Bayle," Yoshimo introduced. Aphra stepped forward beside him to examine the presumed Shadow Thief. He was handsome with a crooked, charming smile unhidden by the hood that covered his hair and ears. He didn't look at Aphra funny, so she decided he was alright, and she shook the hand that was offered to her by him.

"Pleased to meet'cha," Gaelan Bayle offered in a friendly tone. His accent was northern, perhaps even further north than the Gate, but Aphra was not good at gaging these matters.

"I'm Aphra," she introduced, and dropped his hand. She pointed to Jaheira and Minsc. "That's Jaheira, Minsc, and the little one is Boo." Poised in Minsc's outstretched large hand, Boo squeaked as Gaelan examined him with confused interest.

"Oh, I know who you are," Gaelan qualified with a raised eyebrow. He looked to Jaheira specifically and added, "and who you work for. But the street is hardly the place for such a conversation. Care to follow me to my house? It's down the way. There's no tell who's listening in."

"Yoshimo vouched for you," Aphra stated, "and that's enough for me." She wondered what sort of reputation she had garnered in a year, if anything, that people would have heard of her before meeting her. Was she recognizable by some on sight? She hadn't considered the possibility but was dwelling on it as she followed Gaelan back to his house.

"He will not try to harm us," Yoshimo reassured her as he walked by her side. Aphra nodded, saying nothing, but did feel confident from Yoshimo's reassurance. So far, he had proven to be as much of an ally as Jaheira and Minsc. Ordinarily she would have pestered him about adventures and tales from his homeland of Kara-Tur, but with everything that had happened she had other matters on her mind. She followed Yoshimo inside a building with a ground entrance, after Gaelan Bayle.

Gaelan's house was a simple affair on the surface, but on the inside was quite comfortable without being lush. She suspected he was a man of some means from his work with the Shadow Thieves, if he was afforded a two-story house even in the slums of the city. From the entryway there was an area to take off one's boots or shoes, a small kitchen visible through a hallway, and there was a comfortably plush green carpet of whirling designs on the planked wooden ground beneath a round table, around which there were enough chairs for all of them to sit. Gaelan moved over to the table and motioned them all forward, so Aphra quickly unlaced her boots to kick them off, and enjoyed the feeling of the carpet beneath her toes as she sat down. It wasn't that long ago that she was running barefoot through a dungeon. She reflected on her strange, suddenly violent life for a moment.

Gaelan Bayle offered them water and refreshments, which they accepted - small cookies and water that didn't smell as odd as the water from the Coronet. He waited for them to settle in for a moment before announcing, "I know you must have a lot of questions," he began, "and I'm here to answer them, and offer you a deal when you're ready to hear it."

Aphra swallowed a cookie nearly whole, coughed, and asked, "What do you know about me?"

"Why, you're the Scourge of Baldur's Gate," he stated like it was so obvious, even though it only confused Aphra.

Jaheira coughed lightly, and Aphra looked at her incredulously. "Scourge? Is THAT what they call me? What did I do in a year?" Aphra wondered of the air, baffled and slightly horrified.

"It is a long story," Jaheira summarized curtly. She turned to Gaelan and took control of the conversation. "Who are you? What is your connection to the Shadow Thieves? You know much of us, and we know so little of you," she pointed out.

"I'm what you might call an information distributor," Gaelan explained, leaning forward on his elbows on the table. "I used to work in, and now run a printing press. The Gondites officially own it, but I organize and distribute the pamphlets and papers produced by it. I connect people from the city who are trying to buy their way into good news and rumors."

"So you're some kind of . . . Information seller? Broker?" Aphra figured.

"I prefer the term, 'journalist,'" Gaelan said with a grin.

"I can see how the Shadow Thieves might want such a person," she conceded, thinking of all the uses an international guild of thieves might have for a man such as Gaelan Bayle.

"Put simply, yes," he agreed with a grin. He seemed so young to have such an important job, and Aphra was momentarily bewildered about how her life had been so simple just a few days ago compared to her present circumstance. She realized she had to decide relatively quickly if Gaelan was to be her ally or enemy and had never before been faced with such decisions. It was a little overwhelming to her.

"Do you know where Imoen, Xzar, and Irenicus were taken? Or how to get them out?" Aphra asked.

"If only it were so simple," Gaelan chuckled and leaned back in his seat, staring up at the ceiling. "Athkatla is no place for mages unless you own enough money for a license. Your friends never stood a chance."

"Figured this was his back-up plan somehow, Irenicus I mean," Aphra stated, feeling like she was starting to get along well with this man. Perhaps that was his natural charm, almost bard-like in its nature. In any case, he reminded her of Garrick. "Even so, I have to find him, and it'd help if I knew what you thief-fellows wanted with him."

"Well, the city is a powder keg right now, and I'm the one with the fuse. If anyone can help you find him, it's me. But there's a catch," Gaelan said. Aphra noted he hadn't answered her question or addressed her concerns yet.

Jaheira and Aphra rolled their eyes at each other at precisely the same time. Aphra wondered how well the two of them had gotten along, in her hidden past. "Nothing is free," Jaheira bit out. "Tell us your price, rake."

Gaelan's grin fell a bit as he explained, "Well, the only way to get anywhere in Athkatla is with coin and reputation, only one of which I can provide. The coin, I can't help you with. My benefactors don't do anything for free. It will take forty thousand danter for them to escort you to Spellhold. How you can get in, and get your friends out, is up to you. That's something no one has ever done before. All they can do is effectively show you the door."

Jaheira stood and looked livid and opened her mouth - poised for a demeaning lecture - but Aphra put a hand on Jaheira's and looked up at her pleadingly, silently asking her to let Aphra handle this. Jaheira glared at her but did sit back down, which surprised Aphra. Aphra turned her eyes back to Gaelan and said, "That's fair, everything costs something. Are there no favors I can do for you instead? I've obviously not the coin, and a naked elven woman took my sword and ran off with it."

Gaelan Bayle shrugged and sat a little more upright in his chair. "The sort of favors my fellows might ask you to do, aren't the sort that would agree with your principles. You'd have to steal, maybe even kill. If that's something you can live with, seek out Renal Bloodscalp in the Docks."

Aphra thought about it and reflected on the act of killing. She knew if it got her closer to Imoen, she could do it - it didn't bother her morally so much as literally. She was bulky and tall, and not very stealthy. Could she steal something like Imoen, with her quick fingers? Imoen had been able to walk amongst a crowd and step out of it with a pile of gold. Aphra was better when you pointed her directly at a problem that you needed hitting directly. "Is thirty thousand acceptable, if I agree to help your . . . Benefactors?" She asked. "I'll return to you once I have that much."

"Depends on how your work goes," Gaelan said reasonably. "Come back when you have the funds, and we'll talk then. In the meantime, if you have any questions about Amn or the city, I can answer."

He explained many intricacies of Athkatla that Aphra took mental note of; she wished that she had a journal that she could have written everything down in and knew that would be one of the first things she would have to invest in once she found a store. There was a noble oligarchy that ruled over Athkatla, almost an aristocracy but less official. The city was officially run by a series of bureaucratic institutions, over which the Justice Bureau had the second-most sway (the Cowled Wizards being the only institution more wealthy and prominent) as they possessed the ability to litigate, judge, and imprison people with impunity. This illusion of justice was maintained by the clergy, of which the Order of the Radiant Heart was the most prominent in the Temple District.

On the matter of danter acquisition, Gaelan had a few recommendations for work beyond the Docks - he knew a woman named Nalia had been seen frequently trying to net warriors for some cause in the Copper Coronet during the day, as well as reports of animal attacks from Trademeet, and strange news from the Umar Hills outside of the city. The Order of the Radiant Heart had also sent a contingent to the Windspear Hills further north and east, which had yet to return. They did not have the gear for such an adventure at the present time, but Jaheira looked particularly eager at the thought of getting out of the city.

When they left Gaelan's house he parted with them on friendly terms, waving them along. Once outside Aphra led them to the metal dome that had appeared in the slums during the night, swallowing up entire people and houses. She described the humming feeling when she had touched it, but they noted that many guards were now placed outside of it, and a Cowled Wizard was seen examining it up close. Aphra expressed a desire to find a journal with writing implements, so it was decided that they would head back to the Promenade where the market was in search of goods and possible work.

Yoshimo led them through the winding streets to the Promenade and kept them out of the way of most of the traffic, though at times they had to travel in a line to avoid losing sight of each other or dodge a carriage. Aphra's sensitive nose picked up on the stench of civilization, far worse than she had ever suspected - every kind of piss and manure, every kind of bodily fluid, every kind of awful thing all piled into one stinking heap where people clawed their way to the top of to stay alive. She had thought Beregost was overwhelming, but Athkatla was somewhere beyond that. Aphra was in a daze until they reached the Promenade.

Jaheira had most of their funds and decided to take Minsc with her to try and purchase supplies for them all for a venture into the wilderness. She knew how to forage and hunt, so that was less of a concern thankfully, but they had no tents, no bedrolls, no waterskins. Nothing at all. Consequently, Aphra and Yoshimo were left to their own devices, and somehow ended up leaning on a fence eating peanuts while they watched a circus slowly set up and try to get all their tent poles in place.

It was an entertaining struggle and a peaceful enough moment, until Yoshimo broke the silence with a pointed question. "Irenicus called you something," he spoke, bringing Aphra's mind right back to the moment Imoen had been taken all over again.

She hesitated mid-bite, and then kept chewing her peanuts. "What?" She mumbled around food.

"He addressed you as 'god-child,'" Yoshimo quoted, and looked at her pointedly. "What do you think he meant? It struck me as very unusual."

Aphra considered this and had been baffled by it as well - but she hadn't thought of it again until that moment. It, for whatever reason, reminded her of the dream she'd had with the river of blood and bones that had washed her away. "I don't know," she admitted honestly. She was about to go on, but someone from the circus had approached them and interrupted her by calling her name.

Startled, Aphra looked across - and then down, where the voice had come from, and met the eyes of a particularly purple gnome. It took her a long moment to realize that he was just wearing a lot of different shades of purple - otherwise he would look like a fairly normal gnome, with an absurdly long beard. He peered up at her with dark eyes behind glasses and cleared his throat. "Aphra?" He called out again.

"I—I'm sorry, who are you?" She asked, not wanting to be rude but actually having no idea who this gnome was.

"Quayle, from Baldur's Gate?" He queried, sounding annoyed. "You told me to fuck off and not call you Shirley? Really? We ran into each other several times in Baldur's Gate. I should be offended, but somehow I'm not. I understand it was a challenging time for you."

"That does sound like something I'd probably say in a sour mood," Aphra opined, and stuffed another peanut into her mouth after shelling it. "But, well it's not negligence on my part that I don't remember. You'll have to forgive me if we're previously acquainted, a wizard did something to my mind." It was an easy enough lie, that she felt it would make a convincing explanation.

Quayle's eyes widened in understanding. "Ah. That would explain the haircut," he added, staring at the side of her head.

Aphra fidgeted with the end of her braid and wondered if it wouldn't be better just to cut all the hair off. She'd ask Jaheira to do it later. "Not really a fashion statement, so much as I woke up this way and don't remember anything after I shortly left Candlekeep. You say we met in Baldur's Gate?"

"A few times," Quayle said dismissively, "hardly noteworthy encounters. It was before the Siege, after that mess with the Iron Throne."

The names Aphra took note of, but she wasn't sure what to do with that information. "There was a siege? Who besieged Baldur's Gate?"

"Not the Gate itself, but Dragonspear to the north," Quayle summarized. "You don't know?"

"I don't remember," she reminded him bitterly.

"But surely someone around you would have told you," he reasoned.

"I just got here a day ago and I told you a mad wizard tortured me!" She nearly roared. "No wonder I told you to fuck off. What are you here for, anyway?"

"Oh, I'm a part of the circus!" Quayle at least seemed excited about this topic. "You should come back when we're set up in a few days and I'll get you in for free. You really should keep abreast of current events, Aphra, especially when they concern you. Farewell—for now!" And with that, he wandered off.

Aphra glared after the gnome and grumpily shelled another peanut to eat. "Everyone forgets I don't remember except for me," she grumbled.

"It must be disorienting," Yoshimo commented sympathetically. "Surely a temple can help you. Perhaps an Ilmateri? There is a temple near here we can visit," he offered.

Aphra looked around for Jaheira and Minsc and didn't see or hear them over the clamor of the crowd. "Where'd Jaheira tell us to meet her again?"

"Adventurer's Mart," Yoshimo supplied. "Come, the Temple of Ilmater is not far. We may as well ask."

She nodded, pocketed the rest of her peanuts, and followed Yoshimo through the crowd. They wove in and out of bewilderingly large crowds of people, but Yoshimo took care to lead her around the largest groups and toward a small, squat building built into the arena-like complex that surrounded Waukeen's Promenade. He opened the door for her and followed her in, and she had to squint in the sudden dim light of the temple. It was low-ceilinged, so the doorway was small enough that she had to slightly duck to get in.

There was a strange combination of smells that assaulted Aphra as she stepped inside the Temple of Ilmater, the most prominent and obvious smell being blood - both fresh and dried. Then, there was the heady incense of burnt cloves and other herbal notes she couldn't define well enough that seemed to be trying to mask the other scent. There was a clean smell as well, acerbic and scalding like hot lye-soap that reminded her of all the times she'd had to scour pots because of Imoen. The temple was a simple, small hall with an altar at the end and a smock-wearing priest and monk attending to it, with a side door cut into the wall that led to the priests' and monks' humble quarters, perhaps. When Aphra stepped in, she felt immediately like she didn't belong, but it was clear from the expression on the approaching priest's face that the feeling was not mutual. He had a small and gentle smile on his face as he greeted her, "Welcome to the shrine of Ilmater. How can I help you?"

Aphra thought about this request for a few moments. She was tempted to just blurt out the entirety of her problems, but something inside her head that sounded like Imoen told her reasonably that it wouldn't be wise to get other people involved in her business. After all, her business had gotten Jaheira's husband killed. "I'm missing about a year's worth of memories," she summarized, "and I'm not sure why. I recently escaped capture from a mad wizard's death-dungeon and I don't know what he did to me."

The priest's expression was one of empathy, thankfully not sympathy, as he said, "I am sorry, but Ilmater does not hold sway over the domain of memory. I . . . Hesitate to say so, for their reputation is fearsome, but a Sharran would be better suited to your task. Memory is the realm of Shar. I can, however, treat you for any wounds you might still have from your journey."

"I think I'm healed," Aphra said dubiously, "and I've not the coin."

"We do not require coin," the priest of Ilmater said kindly. "We accept donations, but there is no charge for our services."

"You're serious?" Aphra's eyebrows went up. "That's quite a business model. No wonder you're in a shack. I've never seen a temple of Lathander that looked like this."

The priest shrugged. "It is our duty to help those who cannot help themselves, as Ilmater would want us. We treat everyone equally, as our Broken Lord understands that we all suffer together."

This gave Aphra a bittersweet feeling that she could not exactly define. It reminded her inexplicably of Gorion, and tears welled up in her eyes. It seemed very much like something he might say to her, always subtly reminding her to be mindful and more charitable toward others. To be mindful of the weaknesses of others. She sniffled and tried to stop the tears, but the priest shushed her and placed a hand on her arm and they came tumbling out anyway. Yoshimo thankfully kept his distance, but the priest did not as he helped sit her down at one of the small pews which creaked under her weight. Still, it was sturdy and held as she cried her heart out. She had thought she was done with tears for Gorion, but the loss still felt so near to her that it could not be helped.

He let her cry and patted her back, and politely didn't mention the hiccups she gained at the end. He even gave her a clean handkerchief that he told her to keep so she could clear her nose and didn't pry when she got up quickly to leave thereafter. Yoshimo trailed after her as she exited the temple, and only came up to her side when she came to a stop before the circus area.

She sniffled, and told him, "I lost my father recently. Well. A year ago. But I remember it like yesterday because it was for me. I don't . . . I don't understand what's happening to me. I guess I need to find a Sharran, but where in the Hells is one of those going to turn up in Athkatla?"

"That is an excellent point," Yoshimo conceded. "They are notoriously reclusive and unlikely to help a stranger. But we may dwell on this later. We should find Jaheira and Minsc. I do not wish to make her wait."

She sniffled again and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. "You're right. Where's that adventuring mart?"

It was on the other side of the market, but Yoshimo was once more considerate about leading Aphra around rather than through the crowds of people. Once inside the shop, the smell of candles and spell-scrolls made her feel wistful for home. The Adventurer's Mart was a splendid shop of wonders, expensive armor, and various spoils that had been traded to the owner for years. They caught Jaheira mid-argument with him over a set of leather brigandine, which abruptly ended when Aphra and Yoshimo arrived. Jaheira slammed some coins down on the counter and took the armor, looking irritated, and turned to Aphra. "There you are," she practically growled out.

Aphra winced. Jaheira was not the sort of person one wanted to catch in an impatient, or unpleasant mood. "Yeah, we had a bit of a time getting around. Stopped by a temple too, to see if there was something they could do to help my mind out."

Jaheira's expression slackened into concern, her entire demeanor shifting. "What did they say?" She asked more gently.

"That I should find a Sharran," Aphra bit out. "Who knows where I'm going to find one of those!"

"We knew of one in our travels," Jaheira revealed, but with a scowl she seemed to recall, "but she parted ways with us before our capture. I am not certain her pride would allow her to work with us again, should we encounter her. Something to consider, perhaps."

"Ah, fair Viconia!" Minsc recalled. "Minsc recalls the endless arguing, yes. Boo says he does not know where she went, but his whiskers twitch in anticipation! Perhaps we will meet her again soon! He has a way of knowing these things," Minsc concluded wisely. "Such a smart hamster he is!"

"Perhaps not," Jaheira said dubiously.

Aphra blinked and wondered just how she had gotten around, in this hidden year of hers. "You're going to have to tell me what happened during the past year, back at the Coronet," she told Jaheira. "I ran into a gnome earlier with the circus who said he knew me."

"His name wasn't Tiax, was it?" Jaheira asked suddenly, looking and sounding alarmed.

"No, Quayle," Aphra corrected and quirked up an eyebrow, amused at Jaheira's reaction.

"Fah, also a bothersome one," Jaheira assessed rightfully, calming down and shaking her head dismissively. "With luck we will never see that odious gnome again! Let us return to the inn and speak there."

Aphra felt like she was starting to get a feel for the city when she recognized most of the landmarks on the way back to the Copper Coronet - namely the large metal dome that was still there squatting upon a good portion of the city. Aphra stared at it suspiciously until she had to nearly be dragged along by Jaheira and the others to the inn. She made menacing eye contact with the Cowled Wizard who was examining the dome the entire time, until he flinched away.

Once back in the dingy, smelly, seedy interior of the Coronet, Yoshimo seemed to take the hint and led Minsc away to Bernard's bar for a nice, distracting drink. Part of Aphra wished Minsc were present for her much-overdue conversation with Jaheira, but she knew the addled warrior's off-putting commentary might only make matters more confusing for her. Jaheira was at least direct and usually cut to the point.

Enclosed in the privacy of their shared but empty room, Jaheira planted herself in front of the lamp to light it with a flint and blade she carried in one of her new belt's pockets. Aphra looked down at her clothes and realized she was still in the same affair she'd purchased for her dagger from Bernard, and wondered if she should bother at all with armor anymore. What was the point, now that Irenicus knew how to break past her skin's natural defenses? Only so few substances seemed to be able to, and if Irenicus had his hands on diamond or adamantine tools - metal so strong it could chip diamond - what was the purpose? She'd only worn armor before because Imoen had pointed out that it would look strange if she were not to wear it. Back in the Adventurer's Mart there had been some pieces behind enchanted glass cases whose construction she admired, but she mostly desired to be comfortable.

Some of her hair that had been bound back fell forward into her line of sight as she thought, and she batted it away insistently. "Jaheira?" She spoke up. "Would you mind just chopping all my hair off?"

Jaheira turned to her with the lit lamp in hand. Aphra stared up into her fierce moss-green eyes as they narrowed in concern. "It will grow back more evenly if we do cut it," she conceded. "I purchased proper shears from the Promenade, thinking of this for you."

"Oh," Aphra made a noise of surprise at Jaheira's consideration. "Thank you."

"First, I think there is something you should see," Jaheira began carefully, and rifled through the pack that had been strapped to her back on the ground, removed once they had entered the room. After a few seconds she emerged with a small round vanity, whose reflection was a little dull but still reflective enough to get a good look at one's appearance.

Aphra handled the vanity hesitantly and took the lamp from Jaheira's hands that was offered. She held it up to her face and brought the lamplight closer, grimacing in anticipation of what she might see. Aphra stared into the mirror and a stranger stared back. First she turned to the side of her head where her hair was still long and touched it fondly. Then she turned to the other side, and noticed the ridged and even, small scars that were collected in lines down the sides of her head and neck, all the way down her arms and legs, like large stitches had been ripped out at some point and healed improperly. She had studied the ones in her arms but the ones on her head concerned her - for some of them came down close to her forehead and brow, and past her eye and cheekbones. It made her wonder what exactly Irenicus had done, and if she would ever 'remember' it.

There was something strange about her eyes, however - Aphra held the mirror closer and stared into her own eyes for a moment, before nearly completely recoiling in horror. Those were not her eyes - hers were gray orbs, pale like the fog in the early morning that swept over Candlekeep from the Sea of Fallen Stars to the northeast. These eyes were the same color, somehow brighter - and the pupil malformed, larger than it should have been and no longer round but slitted, like some reptilian creature. She handed the mirror back to Jaheira and covered her eyes with her hand and repressed the urge to sob into her arms.

"Aphra," Jaheira spoke, getting her attention. Aphra nodded but refused to look at her. "Believe it or not, but this is your true appearance," the druid informed her as she sat down by Aphra's side.

"I'm a freak!" Aphra mumbled into her hand.

"The fault can be lain with Gorion, as many things in your life happen to," Jaheira said bitterly.

"What do you mean?" Aphra wondered what her father could possibly have to do with this when he was dead.

"His death left you with questions, did it not?" Jaheira intoned a little more compassionately, as she placed an arm around Aphra's shoulders. Aphra found herself leaning into the woman's touch gently, resting her head on Jaheira's shoulder even as she covered her face and eyes with her hands and tried not to cry again. Aphra nodded, and Jaheira went on, "he intended for us to meet sooner than we did, but events took us down a different path - a necessary path, but nonetheless one he did not plan. I am certain he did not intend to die before he could reveal the truth about your heritage to you."

"He said we'd talk when we—" Aphra said but cut herself off when she realized she couldn't quite finish that sentence without crying and choked back the rest of her words.

Jaheira went on, "When you were but a babe, fresh from your mother's womb, he cast a polymorph upon you. To hide your true appearance, so you might look and seem more human. It was imperfect, however, and did not disguise everything about you. I imagine the monks were suspicious of your nature as you grew, were they not? Your great strength, speed, and durability, the source of which is a mystery to you."

She thought of all the lectures Ulraunt had given her for climbing like a lizard where she wasn't supposed to, breaking the Keep's walls and having to repair them, the runs she would take out in the courtyard to get the wind out and just expend some of that pent-up energy she always used to have in her body - and all the frightened looks the various people of Candlekeep used to give her from time to time, with the exception of Imoen, Winthrop, Gorion, and Jocelin. "I knew I was . . . Odd, but I never could figure out why," Aphra conceded to Jaheira. "Neither could the monks and I think that frustrated them a lot."

"It is understandable," said Jaheira. Aphra let her hands fall from her face as Jaheira further explained, "your eyes, and other features will become more clear to you over time as the polymorph fades. It has been a year since his death, and it is perhaps due to the events that transpired during our . . . Our time as captives, that you now appear the way you do. I do not want you to be alarmed by this. It is perfectly natural, and it is who you are, Aphra."

"But what am I?" Aphra bit out, frustrated. "I look like a complete freak of nature! Er, no offense," she added, keeping in mind Jaheira's druidic abilities.

"If anyone is a 'freak of nature,' it is Irenicus," Jaheira practically growled. "There is nothing wrong with you, Aphra. You are who you are."

"You don't know what I am either, do you?" Aphra accused lightly. "You're just trying to make me feel better."

"In a way," Jaheira answered. "Are you ready to have your hair cut?" She queried.

Aphra nodded and pulled away from Jaheira. "Do it," she said.

Jaheira motioned her away from the cot and to sit on the ground and went about her delicate task with a pair of shears she pulled from out of her pack. They were sharp enough for Jaheira's task, and she was able to use the side of them like a razor when Aphra instructed her to just shave it all off as evenly as possible. She didn't care if she looked like Minsc by the end of it. Minsc had somehow cut his own hair in the process the previous night to a clean-shorn shave and was back to what Aphra suspected was his usual appearance - he seemingly had recovered quickly from their adventure, although had been unusually quiet at times and seemingly contemplative. Aphra wondered how much of it was because he was thinking of Dynaheir, whom she did not know, but he had apparently been close to.

"Who's Dynaheir?" Aphra suddenly asked.

Jaheira paused in her task but for a moment before continuing, perhaps thinking of her answer. "Minsc called her his witch," Jaheira answered. "He and Dynaheir were on a quest in Baldur's Gate, to bring back knowledge about the prophecies of Alaundo to her village. He called it a 'dejemma,' I believe it is a Rashemenic rite of passage. Without Dynaheir, I am uncertain he will be able to return to Rashemen," she concluded sadly.

"How did we meet?" Aphra wondered.

"I am unclear on that matter as well," Jaheira replied, "as you were already traveling with him and Dynaheir by the time we met in Nashkel. Perhaps ask Minsc, although his memory is . . . Not the most clear at times," she concluded delicately. "But it may do him good to remember Dynaheir fondly, rather than dwell on the injustice of her death."

Aphra definitely didn't mention Khalid, although she wanted to. She was afraid Jaheira would clam up and end the conversation, so she quickly changed the subject: "Was there a siege on Baldur's Gate? Quayle mentioned something about a siege," she directed.

"The siege on Dragonspear Castle," Jaheira began as she cut away at the hair on Aphra's head, tugging it in unusual ways in the process, "was led by an aasimar they called the 'Shining Lady.' She determined that the souls who were lost in the Second Dragonspear War could be retrieved from the portal to Avernus in the Castle's dungeon by venturing inside of it. She was misled, and many died in the process of her crusade."

"Any relation to the Horned Man? What did you call him again?" Aphra asked, obligingly letting Jaheira turn her head.

"Sarevok, and no, surprisingly," Jaheira explained. "You and I were separated at this time, so I cannot tell you what you and Imoen were up to. But Khalid and I had been asked to investigate the crusade. He went undercover, and we rejoined you after a while. Our relationship at this time was contentious, to my regret."

"Nooo, you? Contentious?" Aphra couldn't resist the sarcasm that leaked into her voice.

Jaheira's eyes narrowed, but she continued her work without changing her pace or ferocity. "Yes, I am known for my acerbic personality. I am aware of this," she huffed. "I have no tolerance for the stupidity or games of others, and at the time I did not understand what you were about. You seemed flippant to me, and misguided. I regret that, and it is to my shame that I now admit so. I thought of you at the time as a child that had been led astray by the company you kept."

As Jaheira finished her work, she talked a little of the people Aphra had collected that she held such negative opinions of - her opinions were short and to the point. Xzar, she had much distaste for, as she had for a companion of Xzar's she named 'Montaron' - "an entirely unpleasant halfling in every sense of the word 'unpleasant,'" is how she described him. A half-orc named Dorn who "killed too easily," Jaheira also mentioned, along with different people with different names that Aphra could not keep track of.

"I think I'd like to get another journal," Aphra said after Jaheira was done cutting her hair and brushing it off her shoulders and gathering it into a pile.

A quick spark set the pile on fire, and Jaheira's boots stamped it out. She quickly explained, "Your hair could be a valuable spell component to our enemies." Aphra nodded, pleased that Jaheira had thought of this precaution, and then she admired the ease with which her head turned without all the weight of her hair dragging it down on one side. It was a subtle difference, but noticeable. Aphra ran her hands over the surface of her scalp, surprised to find herself very satisfied with the smooth feeling even as her fingers caught on the ridged scars along her left side.

"Thank you," Aphra made sure to express her gratitude for the woman's care. "I don't know what I'd do without you, Jaheira," she admitted honestly. "I appreciate all your help."

"We are in this together," Jaheira reminded her. "Your thanks are unnecessary, but welcome."

Aphra ran her hands over her head even more, pleased that the fuzz along both sides was now largely even. She picked up the vanity she'd set aside and admired her reflection for the first time, and actually found that the haircut suited her. She didn't mind the scars as much, either, figuring they looked enough like war-wounds to be impressive. Perhaps she could make up a story behind them to disguise the truth. She still had gray crocodile eyes, but that couldn't be helped. Still, they bothered her less now. She returned the mirror to Jaheira and stood to stretch. "I think I'm going to go get another mead," she decided. "Care to join?" She offered to Jaheira, fully expecting the woman to decline.

Jaheira did. "I will refrain," she said as predicted. "We should continue to rest and recover, until we find work to earn us enough coin," Jaheira suggested as Aphra was about to walk out of the door to the room.

"Inns and ale are the domain and lifeblood of adventurers," Aphra assessed. "If there is work to be had in Athkatla for us, perhaps we'll find it here."

"You seem to be in a better mood," Jaheira remarked.

Aphra smiled at her pleasantly. "It's the haircut. I feel like a new person!"

Jaheira smiled at her. It was a brittle thing, but it was a far sight more pleasant than any other expression she'd seen on Jaheira's face so far. She had wondered if the druid was even capable of such an expression - not that she blamed the woman for being so glum. Aphra had done little but brood on Imoen's capture; she didn't know what she would do in Jaheira's position if it were her husband who had died. Aphra found herself inwardly admiring Jaheira's strength of character as she left the woman behind and descended the steps into the Copper Coronet's main hall.

Aphra realized abruptly as she walked over to where Minsc had been perched in front of Bernard's bar, that she had no coin with which to purchase a drink. She rifled through the pockets of her pants and cursed when she realized and was about to head back up into the room to sulk when she nearly ran into someone in the process.

"Oh, sorry," she apologized reflexively. "I didn't look where—" she began, but as she looked up at the stranger she'd nearly bowled over and into, she found her words got caught in her throat and died. It was a clean-cut, dark-bearded man whose height slightly exceeded her own (a novelty in itself), with short-cropped black hair above his ears and dressed in fine robes of red with gold designs woven into them. Aphra spied runic work amongst the gilded leaves and flowers that decorated the robe, which could indicate that he was a mage - but looking at him as Aphra was, she didn't make such an assumption. He was too young to be an arch-mage and far too pretty to be an apprentice - his perfectly sculpted features were carefully arranged into a blank mask as he must have assessed Aphra the way she had assessed him. She felt like she was at a disadvantage, in cheap clothes, unarmed, with a scarred and shaved appearance. "Oh, I'll be—" she started when her ability to say words came back, but the man cut her off gently.

"No, it was my error," he said reassuringly, even warmly. "Let me get you a drink to make amends."

Aphra reflexively wanted to decline because Imoen had once told her not to accept drinks from strange and handsome men at inns, but she was out of coin and a drink did sound incredibly nice in that moment. So (not because she was a sucker for a pretty face, or so she told herself) she nodded, and followed him to a table in a secluded spot of the Copper Coronet near the stairs, where she could look out at the sea of people watching them. He sat her down across from him at the table and passed over an untouched glass of red wine, which she sipped at delicately as she wasn't sure she'd ever had wine before outside of stealing a bottle once from Winthrop for her and Imoen's birthday one year. The wine in the glass was sweeter than Winthrop's, and she didn't mind it, only raising an eyebrow in reaction as the red-and-gold man sat across from her and adjusted his robe around his body.

In the dim lighting of the inn it had been hard to see - but with a candle between them that illuminated his features, his eyes were revealed to be a peculiar shade of deep red almost the color of fiery chestnuts. Mostly from a lack of knowing what to say in such a situation - and from being sheltered in a library fortress for most of her life - Aphra was about to stand up and walk back over to Minsc and said, "Well, thanks for the wine stranger, but I really should—"

"Stay," said the man, and though it did not sound like a command - more of a polite request - Aphra found herself wanting to obey. She settled back into her chair after half-standing in it.

"We haven't met, have we?" Aphra guessed. "I should tell you right now if we have, I don't remember and I was recently a captive of some mad wizard who did things to my mind, so I'm missing quite a bit of information about my life right now."

"No, we have not," he confirmed. "That's a strange introduction," he noted. "My name is Jierdan Firkraag."

"Aphra," she shot back. "Are you a noble?"

"I am a Lord, of a kind," he replied. "I must admit however, despite the fact that we have not met, the name and reputation of Aphra of Candlekeep has preceded you."

"Oh, bloody Hells," she sighed. "Don't tell me I'm a fucking Scourge again. Still not clear on how I earned that one, Jaheira has yet to explain but I'm sure knowing my life that it's a bloody ridiculous tale."

Jierdan Firkraag smiled at this, and it was a peculiar sight - somewhere between a menacing snarl and a gleeful grin, Aphra wasn't sure how to feel about it. He wasn't necessarily more handsome when he smiled but the sight of a smile seemed alien on his perfect face. It was like watching a statue break out into an expression. Emotions ill-fitted his features. "I have seen the posters," he commented, and the smile thankfully fell. "I admit I sought you out for your reputation. I have a job for you."

Aphra perked up at this and leaned her elbows on the table, on either side of her glass of wine. To Firkraag's credit, nothing about his posture or expression seemed at all bothered by her supposed reputation or appearance, even though she knew by now that she must look a fright. For a noble, he was polite and composed. "We're definitely in the market for work," she confirmed. "How can I help?"

"I own land east of here in the Windspear Hills," he explained. "I am, effectively, its administrator. A recent invasion of ogres into my territory has overwhelmed my hired forces, and the paladin forces from the Radiant Heart I requested. They sent a contingent who never returned."

"A job even paladins can't do?" Aphra scoffed. "And you want me to what, wipe out your ogre infestation? Have you tried talking to them or negotiating? They're not as mindless as most people fear." Aphra delicately withheld that she only knew this from reading about them, having never actually met an ogre (except one she killed).

"I want you to investigate their presence," he corrected gently. "And, if they are violent, yes. Wipe them out. I know you are quite capable."

Aphra recalled the poor dryads stuck down in Irenicus' dungeon in front of their trees, and the acorns that Jaheira had kept safe for them. "We're headed out in that direction soon anyway," she explained, "so we may as well investigate your ogres while we're at it. Anything else I should know?"

The young lord detached something from his belt inside his outer robe and passed it across the table to her. It was a decently-sized coin pouch that Aphra stared at confusedly. "Consider this an advance payment for your services," said the young Lord Jierdan. "The rest is receivable upon completion of the work."

She peeked inside the coin pouch and was surprised to see nothing but gold danter glinting back at her. "Do you just carry this around in the hopes you'll stumble across the right person for the job? In this area of town?" Aphra was baffled. "It's like you're asking to be robbed."

"Appearances can be deceiving," Jierdan said. He stood and brushed off his robes, as if to leave. Aphra automatically stood with him out of habit. "You may find me at my stronghold in the Hills," he said in parting, "when you are ready." He passed over a note across the table written in scrawling, delicate red ink, and abruptly stepped back. With an arcane gesture, a silent shimmering portal appeared at his side that he simply walked through and which disappeared after it swallowed him whole. Aphra half-expected more Cowled Wizards to show up, but no one did - and then recalled that Yoshimo had mentioned that there was a license for practicing magic, if it could be afforded by citizens. Angry at the corrupt system but pleased she had more gold, Aphra pocketed the pouch of danter after closing it and wandered over to the bar with her glass of wine in hand.

In afterthought, she ran back to Firkraag's table and picked up the note, reading it quickly. It was addressed to her by name and had clearly been written beforehand - but how Lord Jierdan had found her and why was still unclear. The wording of the note was strangely vague and cryptic, almost advice-like, and did not read like a formal job offer despite what he had said and the gold he had given. She folded the note in her other pocket and put it from her mind for the moment.

Aphra,

The door to the future lays in the past. I will be waiting.

F.

"Hello Minsc," she greeted as she sat next to her biggest friend. He was armored and freshly armed with the ogre's sword still strapped to his back. He seemed to have taken a liking to it.

"Aphra!" He called out and clapped her on the back vigorously. She smiled, appreciating the friendly gesture that she wasn't sure she'd earned yet. "Boo was just talking about you, and now we see you have cut your hair to emulate Minsc! All we need now is to find you a small rodent."

Aphra wouldn't have minded having a squirrel friend or two, having befriended a few as a child around Candlekeep by giving them nuts. The mental image of her and Minsc marching about and administering justice while two tiny hamsters were perched on their shoulders made her laugh and put her in a better mood. "Aye, what shall I name mine?"

"Hamsters name themselves," Minsc shared. "Boo told me his name when he found me!" He seemed to listen to the hamster say something in his ear and hummed in agreement. "Boo says some hamsters have fearsome names, but he has chosen Boo because it lures his enemies into a false sense of security."

It was a surprisingly well-thought out response for the berserker, so Aphra accepted it with aplomb. "I might have gotten a job for us," she told him. "We got a bit of an advance on it, and it's already sort of on the way to where we need to go. Remember the dryads in the dungeon? I want to drop off their acorns soon, and free them."

Minsc wholeheartedly agreed and clapped her on the back again. "Yes! Rescuing damsels is hero business!" He declared. "And now we have supplies for a long march!"

"And a little coin to spend on mead," Aphra agreed and pulled out a few gold, putting it on top of the counter. "Bernard!" She called down to the bartender, who was attending to another customer.

It was a few moments before Bernard came over, and unfortunately before he did the owner of the Copper Coronet appeared across from the bar and attended to Aphra, waving Bernard off. Aphra watched him go with a sad frown - she rather liked Bernard and didn't know this other person - and felt an uncomfortable shiver at the base of her spine when the owner introduced himself as such. "Lehtinan, proprietor of this fine establishment," he introduced. He was a greasy-seeming fellow - for what reason Aphra wasn't sure, because he was immaculately clean and beardless. Perhaps it was only the lack of facial hair and Aphra was being prejudiced, but something definitely struck her as 'off' about the man.

"'Fine establishment?'" Aphra repeated. "It's barely one of those things - but definitely not both."

"But you have yet to peruse our panoply of entertainments," Lehtinan defended.

"You talking about him?" Aphra jabbed her thumb in the general direction over her shoulder, where a gnomish bard was warbling miserably over the loud clamor and getting the occasional thing thrown at him. "I hope you at least paid him in advance, for his sake. You couldn't pay me to play in this dump, and I actually know how to play the lute."

"No, no, no," said Lehtinan, and eyed the gold she had dropped on the table. She glared at him and started to pull the money back. He simply watched her do so as he said, "behind the stairs, knock at the door and tell them Lehtinan sent you. Go, and see what the Copper Coronet really has to offer," he suggested.

Aphra passed one of the coins over to him and felt immediately off-put and suspicious but tried not to let it show on her face. "Come on, Minsc," she said and tugged on the warrior's arm. He stood and grabbed his ale, taking it with him as he followed her with no objection through the crowd of the Copper Coronet. She abandoned her wine - mead was better, anyway. "Minsc, go find Jaheira, would you?" She suggested. "Tell her to meet us by the stairs. I'll find Yoshimo. Tell her it's important."

Minsc patted her on the head once - an odd gesture that she didn't mind so much as was baffled by - and tottered off with his ale to do as he suggested. Aphra turned about and peered through the smoky crowd, wincing as the bard hit an awfully high note that was just slightly off-key due to his sheer nervousness, and finally spied Yoshimo seated as far away from the bard as possible eating quietly in the corner.

She decided to loom over Yoshimo's table rather than sit down at it like he suggested with a polite gesture from his hand. Instead, she jerked her head to the side and motioned quickly toward her chest with one hand, indicating he should follow and pointedly said nothing to avoid him asking questions that Lehtinan - or perhaps the man's hired muscle she spied near the entrances - might hear. He abandoned his meal and followed without question. They had to wait only a moment before Jaheira descended the steps with Minsc in tow with a stern expression on her features and wearing armor she'd traded up for at the Adventurer's Mart. Aphra noted a new scimitar belted to her side and a buckler strapped to her back, and appreciated her preparedness - though she did not know how much, if any, fighting they might face. It depended on what they found.

"What is this about?" Jaheira demanded.

"Lehtinan had an offer I think we should take him up on," Aphra reported mildly. "He's the owner. Yoshimo, know anything about this?"

As Aphra turned her bald, scarred head to look at Yoshimo, she noted he was carefully expressionless - or genuinely had no idea what she was talking about. She ran a comforting hand over her own scalp, scratching at the scarred ridges on the left as Yoshimo said, "There are many rumors about this place, and none of them pleasant. I have never seen anything, myself. You are thinking you wish to investigate the rumors?"

"That would depend on whatever these rumors are," said Aphra. "We're not exactly locals, and I grew up in a library. I don't know how to navigate these seedy dens of corruption." She sighed plaintively. She found herself wishing aloud, "I wish Imoen was here. She would know what to do."

Jaheira descended the last of the stairs and placed a comforting hand on Aphra's shoulder. "You said the owner had a suspicious offer," she said, and suggested, "let us take him up on it."

"The only thing to do with a seedy den of corruption is to upend it, like destroying a hornet's nest! So says Boo," Minsc supplied with another comforting, forceful clap on the back. Aphra didn't mind it, as it did amuse her a bit. Had he done the gesture to anyone else, they might have been knocked over.

The guards by the side-door of the Copper Coronet let them in when Aphra dropped Lehtinan's name without question. The entered a long torch-lit corridor which had several branching hallways and rooms off from it. From up some stairs along the way, Aphra's ears and nose picked up the tell-tale signs of frenzied lovemaking, and a curious odor she associated with Thayvian merchants. One look in a room was enough to discern the nature of this - incense and black lotus, refined, cured, and burnt to produce psychogenic effects. She recalled Gorion's lecture on the subject when she had once asked him as a child what it was - 'dull entertainments for dull minds,' is how the old man had put it. Still, it wasn't enough to concern her that something fishy had been going on in the tavern - prostitution and the trade and selling of substances, she had learned from Gorion and from travelers through Candlekeep, was common outside of her library fortress in large cities and was how many made a living regardless of its local legalities. It sat ill in her stomach however, as they ventured on through the corridors, when she started to smell blood.

"This is a den of stinking evil," Minsc boomed suddenly as they came into view of a curious sight. The corridor opened up into an arena of sorts, in which three to four rows of seats were arranged in a semicircle. The seats were filled with people avidly watching and commentating on the spectacle in front of them - the sight of two haggard and hairy men fighting for their lives. Aphra caught the tail end of the fight just as one gladiator beheaded another and was shocked. Killing, she had done in the wilderness, or in the dungeon in self-defense. But for the sport or entertainment of others? It struck her as inherently wrong.

The crowd roared. Minsc tsked, and Jaheira's glare became stern and sullen. Aphra looked to Yoshimo for answers. "Is this legal?" she wondered, keeping her voice low despite her concern.

"It is not strictly illegal, no," Yoshimo carefully answered, as if he were abundantly aware that this conversation could go many different ways and wanted to direct its flow away from his person. "The city guard rarely show their faces here - officially, these sports are illegal, as are the keeping of slaves. I cannot imagine these men volunteered for this spectacle."

"Slaves," she repeated, dumbfounded. She stepped away from the arena and watched as the winning gladiator was dragged off to the roaring of the crowd, into a nearby corridor that led to a secluded area. Two more guards were stationed outside of it, and without thinking she began to march after them, determined to make a nuisance of herself.

Jaheira stopped her with one hand on her shoulder, gently. "We should approach this with caution, Aphra," she stated. "You lost your weapon, remember?"

Aphra considered this. She had perhaps enough time to go back to Bernard and purchase a sword from his collection of pilfered items, but to do so would put money in Lehtinan's coffers. "I am a weapon," she declared. "Follow me or don't, but I'm freeing these people now," she decided firmly.

"We stand with you," Jaheira nodded, putting a hand on her scimitar as she withdrew her shield from her back and mounted it on her arm.

Yoshimo and Minsc both nodded and something in their postures tensed, though they did not draw their weapons. Aphra led them as a group toward the guards that stood in front of the door that led to, presumably, where Lehtinan kept his gladiatorial slaves. She felt righteous and powerful in a way she never had before, and without word of greeting or even so much as a twitch to give away her intent, Aphra came to a stop in front of them and took out one immediately with a faster-than-he-could-see powerful punch aimed right at the throat. It crushed the bone in it, causing him to jerk back as his whole body went flying onto the wall behind him and he fell shuddering in a heap, dribbling and coughing up blood. The other was immediately pierced through the neck by Jaheira's scimitar which was a shining blur in the corner of Aphra's vision. They were cut down in seconds, nearly soundlessly over the noise of the crowd - the people had not noticed, and there had yet to be any alarm.

Yoshimo un-shouldered his shortbow and Minsc his sword. Jaheira spent a quick moment bent over rifling the pockets of the guards and stood back upright with a ring of keys taken from the belt of the one that she had slain. One of the keys opened the door, and Minsc and Yoshimo immediately filed inside while Jaheira followed. Aphra dragged the bodies of the guards with them and quickly shut them inside.

Once inside she dropped them immediately and faced down a few guards with their swords drawn whom Minsc and Yoshimo had yet to engage. "I promise this isn't what it looks like," Aphra lied instinctively. "They were traitors to Lehtinan, and he ordered us to kill them!"

It caused at least one of them to lower their guard in confusion for a moment, which was enough for Aphra to rush forward and steal his sword from him in a quick uppercut to the forearm, which caused him to reflexively relax his grip as he moved to protect his injured arm. His sword fell into Aphra's waiting hand - a maneuver she'd practiced countless times against her trainer - and she whirled it around and through his neck. Blood sprayed out and across her face as she turned to engage the second guard, when an arrow from Yoshimo's bow suddenly pierced his throat. The guard's eyes widened as he gripped the shaft that protruded through his voice box, and breathlessly gaped in the sudden throes of his death. Aphra put her new sword through his skull to quicken the process, knowing it would probably take some time before he completely bled out from such a wound.

"I think we're getting good at this teamwork business," Aphra commented as she pulled her new sword out of her enemy's eye socket. She glanced around the hallway they were now in and noted that it was lined with many locked doors with bars on them. She approached one and peered inside and was shocked to meet the shy gaze of a frightened child, who cried when she saw Aphra and hid from sight. "There's a little girl in here!" She blurted out, turning back to Jaheira.

Jaheira's expression was somber. She did not answer, but someone did - a voice came from one of the nearby cells that Aphra followed to its source, revealed to be a tall and fierce-looking northern man with defiant, ice-blue eyes, whom clearly did not belong in the cell he was confined in. He spoke as Aphra approached his cell in a voice that rumbled from abuse and disuse, "A few will house warriors like I, but the rest will be children. They will be sold as servants, or worse."

She stood outside the cell of this man and appraised him. He looked at least as rough as she did, which made her feel a little better about her appearance. She kept her sword pointed down and in one hand as she gestured with the other, when he was finished talking, and introduced herself. "'Ello. I'm Aphra, that's Jaheira, Minsc, and Yoshimo. We're here to free you lot. Any tips on how we go about doing that? This door seems to be an enchanted lock," she added, glancing at the runic inscription around the door handle to the man's cell.

"Truly?" The man seemed dubious, but then he glanced over at the silent, bleeding forms of the guards and seemed to re-think his assessment. "I am Hendak, my lady," he addressed more formally. "If you wish to free us . . . I will forever be in your debt. The key to our cells is held by the Beastmaster. You can find him on the other side of the arena, where he keeps the animals caged."

"Animals?" Jaheira was outraged. "Children? This Lehtinan's crimes know no bounds! He will pay for this," she promised Hendak.

"We'll talk more when you're out of there," Aphra promised and looked to the others for guidance. "How should we approach this? You said he has animals. Will he set them against us?"

"Most likely," Hendak assured her. "He has a great leopard, who is his prize. A bear who killed my shipmate, a wolf, and others I assume. Be prepared for the fight of your life if you should try to wrest the key from him. It is only he to whom the wretch Lehtinan entrusts us slaves."

Aphra felt her hand involuntarily clench when Hendak described himself as a slave. "Don't worry, Lehtinan's going to die tonight," she told Hendak quite confidently. She was sure she could take the creep in a fight.

Hendak's arms, tattooed with black knotted designs, reached forward to grip the bars of his caged door. "He will," Hendak agreed, "because I will kill him myself. He is the reason why my wife, my family . . ." Hendak trailed off brokenly, perhaps not wanting to finish his own sentence. Aphra didn't know how to comfort him beyond killing everyone who had made him upset in the first place, which she had already planned on doing.

"Alright, we'll kill the Beastmaster, free you lot, then it's off with Lehtinan's head," she stated, and patted Hendak's hand with her own over the bars. He withdrew at her touch instinctively, but she didn't mind, figuring it had been some time since anyone had reached out to him in any sort of kindness.

"I will hold you to your promise," Hendak stated. "Kill the Beastmaster as fast as you can before he can set his animals upon you. He has a mighty bow he will use from a distance to attack you first - do not let him fire off a single shot."

Aphra nodded and turned to the others. Minsc spoke his opinion first quite plainly, "Both people and nature held against their will? Boo's whiskers tremble in outrage! We must free them at once!"

"Nature's wrath will fall upon this man's head for these crimes," Jaheira vowed as she cleaned the edge of her scimitar on a ripped piece of one of the guard's clothes. Aphra looked down at her own stolen sword, bloodied, and felt strangely unbothered.

Yoshimo's hands gripped his bow a little more tightly, but his expression was determined. He seemed to find empathy for these captured slaves, perhaps seeing something of his own former state in them as one of Irenicus' many pawns. He said nothing, but nodded when Aphra nodded to him and she led them out of the cells toward the arena, where the crowd had slowly begun to disperse.

Aphra pushed to the front of what was left of the crowd without caring who got shoved aside and leapt down into the arena in spite of their objections. Her booted feet hit the dirt ground and she kicked up fine dust as she strode purposefully toward the opposite gate - where the Beastmaster apparently resided. There was no guard at this door, but it was unlocked and swung open on squeaky hinges when Aphra nudged it open.

Inside was a chamber not unlike the other which housed the rows of slaves, but this one kept furred ones. There was a hulking, furious seeming brown bear with a crazed gleam in its eyes that Aphra did not like, who rattled its cages as she passed it and toward the lit end of the corridor. There, a man in dark hide armor with a mighty bow slung over his shoulder crouched, attending to a massive female leopard who lay at his feet. There was no way to stealthily approach him, so Aphra drew up her weapon and heard her companions simultaneously unsheathe theirs. Yoshimo knocked an arrow and Aphra kept marching forward toward the man purposefully with her bloodied sword in one hand, and her other hand clenched in a fist.

He opened his mouth to voice an objection, but all Aphra could hear was the shattered tone of Hendak's voice when he spoke of his family - no, this man in front of her was definitely going to die. He had it coming, Aphra was certain. The leopard yowled and crouched back, ready to pounce on Aphra at her master's command. He drew his bow and stepped back as an alarmed expression spread across his face. Aphra ran forward, certain that no matter how fast that leopard was, she was at least just as if not more so. She managed to tackle the Beastmaster and broke the string of his bow with her sword trying to stab him in the chest, and once more aimed for the neck when she was tackled over by the leopard who clawed and bit and mauled with every ounce of her strength.

It was a vicious attack and would have completely destroyed an ordinary person. Her claws and teeth did not have the strength, however, to pierce Aphra's skin. Her clothes torn, Aphra threw the leopard off of her into the wall with all the force she had, and it slumped after a sickening crack, remaining motionless. Aphra charged the Beastmaster again, who was now facing off against Jaheira as well. He walked backward into the wall behind him and groped for a lever that he struck before Aphra got to him - she managed to pierce him through completely with her stolen sword just as he had pulled down on the lever, which released every beast from their cage simultaneously.

Gibberlings, bears, wolves, and panthers cut loose and wrought absolute havoc. The wolves and panthers dashed for the entrance and escaped to the cries of the crowd of inn-patrons, but Aphra felt no pity for them and wished the animals a merry time of things in their attempted escape. One black bear took a look at Jaheira before she held up her hand in a strange gesture that caused the bear to stop in its tracks and start to pummel the other brown bear that had the crazed gleam in its eyes and was charging Minsc. The bears tackled each other and started ripping into one another while Aphra ran at the Beastmaster and finished him off without another word. She rifled through his pockets and found the keys, and ran past the bear-fight and into the arena.

The animals were cornered but lashing out - Jaheira was in her element however and ran to them, transforming mid-leap into a leopard not unlike the one Aphra had just killed. She lashed out at the guards that were threatening the panthers and wolves, which seemed to rally them to her as they started fighting with her against the guards. Jaheira fearlessly tackled one to the ground and mauled him while one panther took on another - the other ran for the entrance with a yowl as the wolves leapt into the panicking, previously bloodthirsty crowd. Minsc and Yoshimo were busily fending off the gibberlings that had decided to attack them, and Aphra spared enough attention to swipe at one as she passed them by. Unbothered by the separation of her party, she continued through the crowd that fearfully parted ways before her toward the back rooms, where Hendak and the other slaves were being kept.

She freed Hendak first and threw open his cell with nary a word, then went down the line of children, some of whom were too afraid to emerge from their cells even though they were open and unlocked. She would let Hendak or Jaheira deal with them; she was far out of her element, around children. "Now don't go running about and getting into trouble," she cautioned the children who did emerge and courageously gathered. Many were crying bewildered tears and looking just as lost as Aphra felt. "Whatever happens, everyone is to stay behind me! My name is Aphra, and I'm here to beat the ones that put you in here!" She declared authoritatively.

"Really?" One little girl asked and clung to Aphra's legs in a desperate hug. Aphra wasn't sure what to do with the small embrace from the birdlike girl, who was so terribly skinny and fragile, so she knelt down and gently hugged the girl back with the least amount of strength she could while still trying to be reassuring. "Yes. Hendak told me to get the keys and free everyone," she said over the small girl's head. It felt touching, to not be looked at like a freak for all of a moment, even if it was an awful moment in other ways.

"Oh, Hendak is nice," one little boy said and there was a sound of murmuring agreement. "So you're here to kill the bad people?"

"Yes," she said, not bothering to hide the fact that she wished violence on their captors. The children seemed in agreement with her about this though, and a few even cheered when she said this. She was sure that wasn't healthy but had no room to disagree having just recently been forced into a life of killing in the name of self-defense. She would wish the same in their shoes.

The crowd around the arena had entirely dispersed and fled into the main area of the Copper Coronet. Jaheira had subdued the animals that were left - the panther that had tried to flee had been stabbed to death by Lehtinan's guards, but two wolves and another panther had survived. Meanwhile they, Minsc, Jaheira and Yoshimo were left battling the battered and bloodied brown bear that had won its fight with the black bear. She left them to it, noting the bear's heavy injuries as it trailed dark blood everywhere, and followed Hendak's trail which he had made in blood himself down the hall. He had taken a sword from a fallen guard and used it to cut a way through the other guards, mercilessly inflicting kill wounds that she could not - even if she wanted to - hide from the children that followed her into the Inn proper. They pointed and whispered at the bodies they passed, and one boy ran forward and kicked a corpse.

She caught the tail end of Lehtinan's dying gurgles as Hendak's sword ripped through the bald man, as patrons of the Copper Coronet screamed and scrambled en masse for the exit. She let the crowd pass by from the doorway, keeping the children from it with her arms as she crouched protectively over them. The children gasped. One, frighteningly, laughed. Hendak turned the sword then threateningly on Bernard before Aphra got there, and she rushed to the bartender's defense. "Hey! He gave me free mead, he can't be all that bad," she badly defended. "Bernard, did you know anything about the child slaves Lehtinan kept in pens in the back rooms?" She demanded to know.

"I had no idea! I'm just a shopkeep and bartender! Don't hurt me!" He pleaded, getting down on his large knees and bowing before Hendak. She was reminded of Silke - he did smell of fear and sweat, as would anyone in his position, but she doubted he was lying - or even really dangerous, if he was.

"Stand," Hendak demanded, sounding disgusted. "I will take you at your word, for now," he decided and put away the sword. He looked to Aphra and she noted for the first time that despite his haggard, grizzled appearance - and he did badly need a shave - there was something lively in his sparkling blue eyes, as if Lehtinan's death had brought it back to life. "I thank you, my lady," he said graciously, lowering those bright blues deferentially for a moment before returning her answering smile. He, at least, did not look upon her with fear or faint at the sight of her slitted reptile-eyes.

Aphra looked behind them and noted that almost the entire crowd of the Copper Coronet, save two men at the bar, the gnomish bard, and one drunken dwarf had all fled into the night. It was eerily, but rightfully, quiet. Aphra felt her hand get wrapped up in the grip of the little girl whom she had hugged earlier, and she squeezed the hand back gently and looked down at the girl with a smile. Big green eyes peered back up at her. "Worth it," she decided immediately.

Minsc and Yoshimo were a little more battered when they emerged from the back rooms, but they reported that the distempered bear had been put down. Jaheira was with the other animals, having calmed them down, and was busily trying to find them food in the storage. Bernard was of some help in this regard, having access to the cold cellar and was equipped with the keys to the wine cellar as well, which Hendak claimed for himself. Hendak's reasoning: "Lehtinan took all that I hold dear from me, so now I shall take the contents of his life for my own and use them as I see fit." It was sound reasoning - and someone needed to run the Inn properly, if Bernard was to still have a job serving drinks to drunks.

"I doubt this was the sole slave-trading operation in the city," Yoshimo threw out as Hendak used Lehtinan's keys to open up his 'special' storehouse.

As Hendak fumbled with the keys he rasped, "No, it is not. There is a dry-docked ship not far from here, which was where we were before we were taken to the pit. There are more children there," he revealed.

Aphra thought of the children and tensed. The little girl still gripped her hand while the other children milled about, as Bernard tried to keep them all busy. There were about nine of them in total. Aphra knelt down to the little girl's level and addressed her this time, "You there, chin up. What's your name?" She asked.

The little girl might have been a mirror of a little Imoen - small, red-headed, freckled and green-eyed. "I'm Tiri," she said shyly.

"You remember where you were before this?" Aphra asked gently. "Was it a big ship?"

Tiri nodded, a little hesitantly. "When I—when mommy and daddy—when I was—" she seemed to struggle to find the words for what she wanted to say. Aphra's hand involuntarily clenched, but she forced it to relax and placed it on the little girl's shoulder for reassurance.

"You can tell us what happened," Aphra said, "but you don't have to, Tiri. It's okay."

"They—they sold me," she confided in soft words. Then she continued, almost matter-of-factly, "they got two hundred danter. Then I was taken to the ship by the bad men, which is where they keep us before they take us somewhere else!"

Aphra stood and kept holding Tiri's little hand for comfort, her sword in her other. She looked around the room and noted a stirring under one of the tables in the far part of the room. Letting go of Tiri's hand for a moment, she stomped over to the table and upended it immediately.

An armored man with ridiculously pretty features was underneath it, who cleared his throat awkwardly at his sudden attention and exposure. She pointed her bloodied sword at him momentarily before pointing it away when he cringed and started praying.

"The fight's over, you can go home you know," Aphra intoned dryly.

"Ah, I see," said the man as he stood, and brushed off nonexistent dirt and dust from his shining armor. His hair had once been perfectly coiffed but was now a mess from being crouched under the table avoiding attention for so long. "I heard mention of—a slaver ship?" He said questioningly, almost nervously.

Aphra glared at him. "What do you know?" She growled, gripping her sword and bearing it forward again.

He seemed a little terrified, and also intrigued. "No I—I had no idea of the goings-on of this corrupt place! I was only looking for work when I arrived here. I had heard there might be work found here, for one such as I. I am a priest of Helm for hire," he corrected. "I had no desire to be caught in a fight I knew not the nature of. If slavery is practiced within Athkatla's walls, it is my duty to stamp it out with impunity and report it to my Order!"

"Sure, you can report it all you want, see where it gets you," Aphra chided. "But if you want to help? Actually help? Come with me." She didn't give him the chance to offer or object and simply dragged him by the armor back over to Yoshimo and Hendak, who were perusing Lehtinan's hidden stash beneath a trap door behind the bar.

"You'll like this," Yoshimo said with a grin when he saw her. She let go of the armored fellow as he tossed a literal flaming sword in her direction, hilt first. She caught it in her hand effortlessly and tested out the balance, getting 'oohs' and 'ahhs' from both the armored fellow and the children around her.

"It's so pretty!" Tiri gasped and came in close to get a look at the blade as Aphra came to a standstill.

"Is there a sheath?" Aphra inquired. Yoshimo tossed Aphra the belt and sheath for the enchanted sword. She put it away at her side, to the sad sighs of her audience. "Alright, who knows a lot about this docked ship full of slavers? I want to raid it tonight, and free everyone we can," she announced in a loud volume, hoping Minsc and Jaheira would hear her from the other room, where they were still occupied with the animals.

"I am with you," Yoshimo announced.

"As am I," said Hendak, who picked another blade from Lehtinan's stash - a two-handed one he seemed more comfortable and familiar with, judging from his stance.

"It might be better if you watched over the children," Aphra suggested, looking askance at Tiri and the others. She empathized with Hendak's need for vengeance, but she was better suited to the task at present. "Someone ought to protect them from the guards if they come asking questions. And there's still some back there that were too scared to come out of their cages - they trust you, they need you Hendak," she tried to convince him. "We can figure out what to do with them after we deal with the slavers, but for now, I think you should take care of them here and get them all fed."

"That is . . . A fair point," Hendak conceded grumpily. He put his sword down on the bar-top counter. "Very well, I will trust you with this. I am weary, besides," he added tiredly, "and would not trust this task to another."

"I will happily aid you," the cleric she'd literally dragged over said to Aphra. "My name is Anomen Delryn," he introduced with a bow.

"Yeah, sorry I threatened you, I do that a lot it seems. I'm Aphra," she introduced and stuck out a callused hand for him to shake. He stared at her blatantly - and she knew she looked odd, being bald and lizard-eyed, but there was no call for rudeness. Annoyed, she shook his hand forcibly. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. Anyone else?"

"Aye, lass!" A very drunken, very dwarven man stumbled over in their vague direction. He almost made the children scatter with his appearance and smell alone, but Aphra appreciated the effort - and the fact that he was armed with a very large axe. "Ye're a bonny sight wit that blade, and I've never had such a good show in the entire time I've been here." He had been holding half an ale that he downed at the end of that sentence and tossed the stein over at the gnomish bard who had been frozen in terror for some time. This seemed to scare the gnome out of his stupor, who suddenly made a run for the entrance. "Bloody awful idiot," the dwarf complained, chuckling. "Wanted ta do that for hours!"

"And you are?" Aphra inquired politely.

"Korgan Bloodaxe," he said with a truly awful, crooked grin. He reeked of ale, sweat, and blood that didn't belong to him - which stained his axe. He might have even been a participant of the Copper Coronet's blood sports, but she had no idea if his offer was genuine. Either way, she could use the help, and he hadn't run away or attacked her yet.

"Of course you are," Aphra demurred. "Anyone else care to join in our crusade?"

"I will! Oops!" Offered one other drunken voice from the bar - one of two men that had decided to remain behind and tend to their drinks while the entire crowd and crew fled the coup. The one who offered, an elven man in green robe, was too drunk to stand and had to be helped up by his companion. They both appeared to be mages judging from their robes and the smell of components, but Aphra could not be sure with the strangeness of Athkatla's fashions. The elven man hiccupped and had to be uprighted manually on his stool by his friend. "Or maybe not," he said, clearly sloshed. "Drini! You go!" He demanded, pointing a lazy finger at his friend.

"Me?" The rust-robed one named Drini objected. "Why do I have to?"

"S'yer, you know, civic duty," the elven one said. He hiccupped again. "Help the girl who skull beats swords!"

Aphra was confused by this, but Drini nonetheless nodded and downed the rest of his ale before stomping over. "Oi, name's Drini," he introduced without a handshake. "Let's set some slavers on fire, aye?" he offered. "I'm an alchemist," he explained upon noticing Aphra's eyebrow raised. "Also, flaming sword?" He reminded her.

"Oh right," she recalled, staring down at her own sword-belt. Tiri's fingers gripped hers tightly and she seemed to be trying to get Aphra's attention, so Aphra bent down to the little girl's level and asked her, "What is it?"

"You're going to make the bad men pay? On the boat?" Tiri inquired quietly.

Aphra nodded. She bent back down to Tiri's level. "So they can't hurt anyone like you again," she said.

Tiri nodded. "Good. Be careful, Miss Aphra," she said and hugged Aphra around the neck tightly, quickly, and let go.

Aphra stood and looked at Yoshimo. "Can you fetch Jaheira and Minsc?" She turned to Hendak. "You lead the way to this place."

"There is an underground passage through the sewers, which will be unguarded, unlike the entrance to the place on the street level," Hendak offered. "I am sure one of Lehtinan's keys opens it up. We just have to find it."

"Oh, I know where it is!" The little boy from earlier mentioned. He raised his hand eagerly. "I can show you, Miss Aphra!"

"Splendid," Aphra clapped happily, in spite of her circumstances. Some of the children, finding her mood infectious, started clapping with her, which disconcerted her even as she continued clapping. She didn't know what to do with such a young, little, fragile, traumatized audience. The least she could do was kill their tormentors.

The little boy led Aphra by the hand through the halls of the Copper Coronet, toward an area near where she'd smelled the Black Lotus users smoking, though the smell now was old and not fresh, all the people having vacated the Inn with everyone else. The little boy, whose name was Daran, pushed a particular stone in the wall with all his strength but nothing seemed to happen. Daran seemed frustrated by this, and pointed insistently at it to Aphra, who got the hint and pushed with her strength instead. The stone slid forward into the wall with a grinding click, and the wall retreated back into itself and slid away to reveal a rather sophisticated mechanism hiding a passage down into the dark.

"Good luck!" Daran wished her well, and ran back to Hendak and the other children, while Aphra and her bolstered crew followed her into the passageway. It was unlit, so Aphra retrieved a sconce from one of the walls and held it in her hands, not minding the heat of the metal which would have burned an ordinary person.

"Perhaps I should take point from here," Yoshimo offered. "Who knows what mousetraps your toes will stumble upon in the dark? Lehtinan was an unsavory, sneaky sort after all."

She conceded that he had a point and didn't want to ruin her new boots in a potential acid trap. "Fair enough, but I'll be close behind you in the inevitable event of violence," she agreed, and he nodded, taking a point ahead of her.

"You are a mighty foe," Yoshimo commented. "Though we march into a den of enemies, I think the safer place is by your side."

Aphra doubted that most vehemently. "Tell that to Imoen." She thought also of Khalid, Dynaheir, and Xzar, but did not mention them for fear of Jaheira's potential upset or responding lecture.

Jaheira for her part said nothing, nor did Minsc who shored up the rear of their group with the drunken alchemist and priest. Korgan, who had taken to following behind Aphra, began to strangely laugh as they descended into the dark which seemed to offend Anomen, for some reason. "Can you stand next to . . . Someone else? How long has it been since you've bathed?" Anomen objected to the dwarf's presence with a wrinkled nose.

"Let him be," Aphra cut in, even though she could smell the dwarf better than anyone and privately agreed with him. Still, Anomen's expression and attitude grated at her. "You're fighting together now and will soon be covered in the same enemy's blood. Killing those slavers is all that matters, and making sure these children are safe. Also, we're about to go into the sewers," she reminded them. "Complaining about a rank smell is petty at this point."

Anomen was appropriately chastised. "Of course, my lady," he said with deference. Aphra approved of this.

"Any objections to the plan better be voiced now," Aphra added.

"We are with you," Jaheira summarized for everyone's benefit, just as Drini cackled with Korgan, and their mood seemed to be infectious, because Aphra felt her lips curl in a smile. Part of her wondered what she had come to and when the last time she'd observed a butterfly alight on a flower or a spider spinning a web in the sunlight - how had her life become one seemingly unending dungeon? When had death become so easy? So righteous? Yet she hated people that she did not know for what they had done - what they were still doing. It was an entirely new feeling that she wasn't sure she liked. The larger, now loudest part of her ached for the next battle, and Aphra clenched the hilt of her sword in her hand. It felt just, and right, doing harm to those that harmed others. But where did the violence end?

Yoshimo led them through and around a series of pressure plates and trip-wires - she wasn't sure who to hate more for the inconvenience, Lehtinan or the soon-to-be-dead slavers, but it slowed them significantly. There was no way to mark the passage of time down in the sewer beyond counting seconds as they passed, but Aphra estimated that it had to have been past the dead of night by the time they reached the sewer-level entrance to the slaver compound. Luckily, the path, despite being trapped, was fairly straightforward. There was a secondary passage that led further into Athkatla's sewers, but Aphra was already breathing through her mouth and didn't care to spend more time than absolutely necessary in the foul cesspit of shit and urine. Minsc complained that it stank of evil, and Aphra couldn't really disagree with him. The stench was legendarily heinous. Part of her wondered, if and when she met Garrick again, if he would write about this part of the adventure. Why had she and Imoen once thought such a lifestyle was romantic? Aphra blamed Volo.

Aphra dropped her sconce and drew her flaming sword when they found a ceiling level trap door and ladder that led to it down the trapped hallway from their entrance. "This has to be it," Aphra decided and after Yoshimo inspected the entrance for traps, Aphra led the way sword-first, with Minsc and Korgan close behind her.

She emerged behind a series of stacked crates to the sound of a quiet conversation. She held her finger up to her face when she looked down at Minsc and assisted him and the others with getting out of the door. Yoshimo poked his head around the crates to see what was going on while sticking to the shadows while Aphra quietly sheathed her sword to hide its light. He drew back an arrow and waited a few moments for her permission before firing into the dim light of the slavers' lower deck chamber, and struck a man right in the upper chest, felling him in one blow. Aphra charged around the corner and drew her sword in a flash to quickly dispatch the man that had been standing next to them - they'd caught both of the slavers off guard, and his armor parted easily before her new reinforced and enchanted blade. He left behind a smoldering corpse that Aphra barely glanced at, before motioning behind her to Yoshimo. He silently led the others to her, and they awaited her command.

"We haven't alerted anyone yet," she said quietly. "I say we go room by room and try to kill as many as we can without causing alarm. If we do, we'll just deal with whatever they throw at us."

"Aye, we be killin' them all," Korgan cackled, albeit softly.

"After what they have forced these people - these children to endure - I think they deserve their fate," Anomen huffed.

"I agree with the arrogant one," said Jaheira, looking at Anomen askance as if she were uncomfortable with the admission.

"We will deliver a mighty kick to the backside of evil," Minsc announced loudly, and looked a little sheepish when he was simultaneously hushed by both Anomen and Jaheira before Aphra could do it.

The plan worked fine, for a time, before Yoshimo started slowing them down by noticing more traps. Aphra wanted to charge over them, but she considered the odds that some of the traps might be magical in nature - perhaps triggering confusion spells, or armed with adamantine spikes - and decided it was safer to be cautious when it came to things she didn't know. Korgan had to be healed by Anomen quickly when he accidentally triggered a trip wired trap that nearly squished him. She watched as Yoshimo carefully disarmed them all, fascinated by the delicate mechanisms underneath his nimble hands, and paid even closer mind when he noticed her attention and began to explain quickly what he was doing.

They encountered a few larger cages that housed two groups of children, numbering five in total, which Anomen volunteered to escort back to the Inn. It left them minus a healer, but they hadn't needed him much so far, so she sent him back with Minsc to attend to them and corral the children back to the Copper Coronet through the sewers. She, Drini, Korgan, and Jaheira continued on as Yoshimo led the way once more with Aphra close behind. The next room they encountered housed five of the slavers, two of whom were asleep, and Drini cackled as he chucked two flasks at the ground near the group of them that exploded into flames that burst through the air. Aphra charged in after him while the others took cover from the fire - she was undaunted, having never been burnt by anything in her life - and finished off two of them with her sword before Yoshimo got one of the ones that had just woken up with his bow. Jaheira and Korgan got the third simultaneously in a beautiful display of teamwork where he sent the crispy man reeling with a harsh blow from his broad-axe and Jaheira cut him down with her scimitar as he spun into her. Aphra got the last, who had barely been woken up, and quickly slit his throat, searing the wound behind her and leaving him breathless for a gasp that would never come. He quickly died.

Anomen and Minsc caught back up with them after their mission just as they had entered a heavily trapped room full of three wizards and four slaver guards, two of which were armed with bows. Aphra charged in heedless of the warning cry Jaheira and Yoshimo gave to her and triggered the pressure plates hidden in the floorboards, sending green gas seeping up into the air that sent everyone - slavers included - running through the ship to recover. It took them quite some time to track everyone down, and Minsc got hit with a confusion spell by one in the process which nearly incapacitated both him and Korgan, who was now quite impressed with the Rashemenic warrior after that display.

Finally, after Drini set the last wizard on fire and Aphra cut him down, they all gathered back in the hold to account for what had happened, count the dead, and loot them of valuables. The intention was to split the horde evenly, though she and Jaheira admitted that they'd be donating their share to Hendak and the children so they could sell anything they needed to. Minsc and Yoshimo quickly agreed to do so as well, though Korgan and Drini were happy to pocket their share of the goods. Most of the enchanted items, left unidentified, were left in Jaheira's care. The dead numbered about seventeen, so Aphra highly doubted they were the only slavers in the city. It might have been a main port of operation for the trade of slaves, but it was hardly the only one, and all of the others agreed upon this when she voiced her feelings about it aloud.

When they trudged their way back to the Copper Coronet, they dropped off their goods to Bernard and expressed their intent, while Hendak told them of what had happened while they were away. The guards had indeed come knocking, but since Hendak had found the deed to the place, they left without anything of value. The children were still being kept and Hendak was unsure of what to do with them, but Anomen surprisingly had some suggestions on that front - there was an adoption service operated by a collection of the churches, a charity that rehoused children into homes throughout the region. Aphra doubted its validity since she doubted most things church-related based off of Gorion's principles - he'd expressed admiration for Oghma's church and no others, stating clearly to her as a child that they all had their greedy faults. Most served as social fronts for their followers and collected tithes while building grandiose structures to 'appease' gods that only expressed an interest in them when offered devotion and supplication. Oghma's temples were more like libraries open to the public, in her experience. Gorion, and thus Aphra, firmly did not trust anyone that asked for supplication as a means to get what they needed. No one should force you to bow to them in order to get basic needs.

Jaheira had some thoughts on this front as well and spent some time arguing with Anomen, Hendak, and Bernard about the fate of the children. Aphra, for her part, curled up next to the fire with one hand around her sword. Eventually, Tiri came up to her and gripped the hand that was fixed on Aphra's sword pommel. Slowly, her fingers loosened and curled around the little girl's, and Tiri climbed into her lap. She wordlessly hugged Aphra's neck and clung to her, staring into the fire. It felt awfully natural. Aphra fell asleep before she knew it.

When she awoke to the ceiling of the Jovial Juggler in Beregost as Imoen shook her, Aphra was never more lost and confused.