Hi everyone!
As I promised, here is the next Tnt, ready to go. Now that my exams are over, I'm looking forward to a more relaxed pace for a few weeks...
Anyway, I hope you'll like it.
Tnt 23 : Leisure Suit Laska
With a slightly stifled, painful groan, Keldorn started awake. Through his hazy vision, he grogilly tried to recall what had happened and where he was. Like a bolt of lighting, it hit him that his last memory had been one of battle. Forcing his body to respond to his will, he tried to rise, but fell back with a thud after crashing down again after the sharp pain in the side of his chest took it's toll.
"Careful, Sir Keldorn," he heard a gruff voice say, "the short sword punctured your lung. We have healed the wounds, but you will feel pain for at least another day..."
Keldorn, his vision still hazy, tried to discern his location. Certainly, he was no longer on any field of battle, but from the sounds coming from his left side, he considered he was actually in a saw-mill, but that made no sense. He blinked several times and allowed the light to stream into his eyes to reveal... a small, spartan hospital-ward, with Minsc and Korgan sleeping on his left side.
"Ah, you are the first to awaken," Keldorn heard say, and noticed a priest-warrior in a shining armor standing over him, the symbol of Helm etched on his chest. Then, Keldorn was forced to look away, since the light reflecting from the shining platemail was staring give him a headache.
"Temple of Helm?" he sighed as he shifted from his painful side.
"The guardpost, in the Bridge Section, Sir Keldorn," the priest-warrior said. "I am Guardian Vottnar, at your service..."
The guardpost, Keldorn recalled, was a smaller temple of Helm, aside from the large temple in the Temple District, which perpose was to provide healing and the discipline of Helm to the poorer common folk.
"I must say, your guardian takes his job very seriously," Vottnar chuckled. "He wouldn't even let the orderlies near any of you three until his mistress allowed it."
"Guardian?" Keldorn asked, just before he noticed Khittix standing at watch in front of the three beds that the sickbay had. "Ah," he chuckled. "The faithful watch-spider."
"There were a few startling moments when you first came here, Sir Keldorn," Vottnar sighed, as if the whole story was rather embarrassing. "A Drow entered our temple, and we were rather shocked by that... I was about to remove her from the temple, when she gave me a look so dirty it would make milk curdle and told me they were carrying wounded. Then another elf and a gnome entered. The elf was severely wounded, but still said that she would personally 'send us all to Helm in a handbasket' if we refused to help her friend. After that, the gnome told this silly tale about Helm and his cuddly teddybear..."
Keldorn chuckled. "Yes, that certainly sounds like my friends."
"Sir Keldorn," Vottnar sighed, "this Drow told me that she is your student... This cannot be true, can it?"
"Aye, 'tis true," Keldorn chuckled. "But at times I feel quite the student myself. We seem to learn a lot from each other."
"But... she is a creature of pure evil! And a servant of Shar, to boot!"
"You'd be surprised how loyal she truly is, Vottnar," Keldorn said. "And I know Shar and Helm are often at odds, but I would not have taken her as a student, if I did not believe she could better herself, guardian..."
'By Torm,' Keldorn chuckled inwardly, 'if someone had told me twenty years ago I would defend a Drow someday, I would have called him or her mad...'
"I see," Vottnar said.
"Ah, Keldy!" Keldorn cringed at the cheerful and loud voice echoing through the sickbay as Jan and Viconia entered the room. "I see you're finally awake. About time too, it's well past noon and you lot have been sleeping all day! If almost getting killed promoted lazyness, I gotta try to get wounded more often. Maybe I'll wake up in a Calimport harem, being fanned and fed fresh turnips by scantally clad gnomish maidens, only wearing three turnip-peels as a costume... Rrrrrrowwwwllll..."
"Eloquent as ever, gnome," Viconia said.
"Oh, you're welcome to join my harem too, Vicky," Jan snickered. "I bet those three turnip-peels would look good on you..."
"I would prefer stuffing turnip-peels up your throat until you explode from the pressure..." Viconia said, as if living a wonderful fantasy.
"Hey, that reminds me of my uncle Tackleberry. He loved blowing stuff up, like his house, the place where he worked (a horrible office deskjob at the Amnian peanut-counting office), his wife, half the slums, his griffin neighbor, that priest of Helm that looked at him cockeyed... Sadly, he sat down on a stick of dynamite and was blown all the way to the moon! And did you know that astrologers say there are all these craters on the moon? Coincidense? I think NOT!"
"Anyway, we thoroughly searched the tanner's lair and found some..." Viconia started.
"OY!" Korgan yelled, instantly waking up. "Treasure!"
"Not really," Jan said. "Some potions, some coins, some gems, nothing much really."
"Except for this bow," Viconia said and produced an ornate black, but unstrung bow. "But it cannot be used. Still, it looks magical. I was hoping Laska could use her magic Glasses to identify it."
"You just missed her," Vottnar spoke, albeit very coldly. "She left shortly after you and your gnomish friend left for the murder-site."
"I see," Viconia told Vottnar with an icy tone.
"But remember that tanner was rummaging around those loose boards before he bolted for his boat?" Jan said. "We shoved them aside and that's when we found this..."
Jan picked up a seperate bag and fished out a most vile suit of armor. The smell of fresh tannin assaulted the senses while Jan held it up. It was a leather-armor consisting entirely out of patches of stitched together human skin.
"Good gods!" Keldorn exclaimed.
"What kind of beast was this tanner?!" Vottnar added.
"This... this... THING," Keldorn snarled, "must be destroyed!"
"Oy, oy, oy!" Korgan broke in. "Ye be 'oldin' off what that, laddie. I be thinkin' this could be worth a pretty penny if we be sellin' it to the right person... Long-limb skin is hard to come by, after all..."
"Korgan," Keldorn snarled. "We will not stoop to selling this horrible thing to anyone."
"What? Those killed long-limbs won't be needin' their skins anymore, so who'd be the bloody wiser?" Korgan chuckled.
"I dunno,"Jan chuckled. "I don't think Ribald will be carrying this armor. Just imagine what would happen if he dressed up a wooden dummy with it and puts it in his window..."
Keldorn, however, ended the would-be discussion by grabbing the armor and tossing it into a fire burning in the hearth to warm the sickbay. Due to the oily residue left from the tanning proces, the armor caught fire and ended it's evil existence in a matter of minutes.
---
Glad to be out of the temple of Helm for a couple of moments, Viconia stepped onto the bridge. Yes, some fresh air would do her some good. She let the wind blow through her hair as she overlooked the mouth of the river, and the trackless expanse of the Sea of Swords beyond.
"Vic!" she heard call, interrupting her musings. Laska was approaching, wearing a wide grin and... for a moment she noticed the tattooed elf was skipping while she walked. "Taking a stroll?" Laska asked.
"Hah!" Viconia chuckled. "I'm just to be out of that temple of Helm for a moment. If that Vottnar uttered one more word about duty, honor or service to Helm, I would have strangled him with my bare hands."
"Well, that's Helm for ya," Laska chuckled and hopped to tip-toe several times.
"You're lively," Viconia grinned, "I take it your wounds healed properly..."
"Oh, someone kissed it and made it better," Laska grinned.
"Yech!" Viconia suddenly shouted as the pungent sweet smell of expensive perfume assaulted her like a wall of air. "What is that smell? It's all over you!"
"Oh, I went to see Rose a few hours ago," Laska said. "She sprayed me with some of her perfume..."
"I see..." Viconia smirked.
"Hey, she was very, very happy to see me again," Laska grinned. "And we spent quite some time talking too. I told her I was raised by humans, and all what I know of my own kind mostly came from books in Candlekeep, but it didn't matter to her, because even I knew more about the elven people than she did..."
"Truly?" Viconia asked.
"Sad thing is I'm the only elf she ever talked to in length. Most of the elves who come through here don't give her time of day. It might have something to do with the fact that most elven traders here are gold elves. I mean, they just ignore her, only because she's half-elven!"
"You are preaching to the wrong type of elf," Viconia chuckled. "Drow are the most purity-driven elven race there is. Half-Drow are killed on sight, abbil."
"Well, you got along fine with Pai'na," Laska said, recalling their dealing with the Half-Drow hivemaster druid they had met under the graveyard. "She gave you Khittix, after all..."
"Yes, but I understand what it is like to be persecuted, and perhaps I was a little more open-minded than my sisters when I was in Menzoberranzan. I had quite a phalanx of personal servants from other races than Drow..."
"Strange thing is, in some stories elves are a very open-minded, funloving and kind people," Laska said, "but in other stories they are such... such... tight-asses..."
"Hah!" Viconia chuckled. "The elven race in a nutshell... But wether or not an elf is a... tight-ass, depends on the individual, rather than the entire race."
"There were plenty of 'individuals' who snubbed poor Rose," Laska shook her head. "I don't get it. She's funny, she's beautiful, she's very sweet, and she liked my tattoos..."
"Which one?" Viconia asked.
"All of them," Laska smirked.
"But," Laska continued, "I still don't get it. I mean I get along fine with half-elves, don't I?"
"Well, except for Jaheira..." Viconia muttered. "When she joined the party the two of your were in a fist-fight two minutes later."
"Yeah, well, I don't like Jaheira because she is Jaheira, not because she's a half-elf..." Laska stressed.
"Hmmm," Viconia said, lost in thought. "Perhaps, but that is all in the past. Might I ask you why you have slung your chainmail over your shoulder instead of wearing it over your tunic?"
"Oh," Laska grinned, referring to the leather tunic she normally wore under her armor and in her leisure time. It was made from soft lightbrown leather, and covered her upper body in a rather skintight short-sleeved wrap-around. It was open in the front, only held together with several strong leather laces. The open V-neck was extremely deep, exposed a good deal of her chest and midrif and offered an excellent view of the tattoo of the elven symbol of longevity, which was located just above her belly-button. "Rose made a suggesting which I kinda liked. She said I should have my chainmail dyed stark white. She says it'll bring out my skincolor. Light-Gray is more visable on top of a white chainmail, than on top of a red one."
"Hmmm, I don't know. Crimson red really suits your heritage, as well as your personality. And do you really want people to think you're some kind of solar?"
"Heh, I guess not," Laska said.
"Besides," Viconia chuckled. "Whenever you get a better chainmail, you always give your old one to me, and I really don't want to wear white."
"Hah!" Laska shared a chuckle with her friend. "I knew there wasn't a selfless reason behind that remark..."
"Anyway," Viconia grinned, "the boys are fit to travel in a couple of moments. I take we'll be going back to the house?"
"To lick our wounds," Laska grimaced. "Dammit, that fight was very bad. I mean, we've duked it out with an undead beholder, a powerful Nebassu, whole legions of undead, and we almost get our gooses cooked by a pair of two-bit thieves!"
"It is a sobering thought," Viconia added.
"Speaking of which, I think I'll go get a cup of Evermead from Delosar. I feel a mite thirsty from everything that's happened today..."
---
A few steps later, the door to the Delosar's Inn could clearly been seen, as indicated by an old worn sign. The building, like most of the ones on the Bridge, were in a definate state of disrepair, showing that all trading and loading had been solely done at the docks these past couple of years, meaning the bridge had not served it's secondary function for quite some time. Just as she was about to enter the inn, fingering her coinpurse to asses the amount of drinking which could be done with it, a casual glance revealed a man wearing a very, very, very red suit. A REALLY, REALLY, REALLY red suit.
When the filefolder labeled 'Useful Information' in the back of Laska's brain was finally opened, and the data had finally managed to override the drinking-impulses, she thought back to two weeks back, when she went with Korgan to investigate the Graveyard district. They can come upon a man called Tirdir, who had been buried alive by kidnappers. During the struggle he had with his kidnapper, he had managed to rip off a piece of his clothing... Taking that piece from her pocket, Laska noticed that the color was the same. She decided it was time to investigate and pulled her chainmail over her head.
The man himself, who also had red hair and wore red boots, didn't look so dangerous to her, aside from his abysmal fashion-sense, but he stood on a parapet added to the side of the bridge, and Laska would be able to see the water through the seams between the boards. Taking a few deep breaths, she steeled herself and decided she just wouldn't look down. Pretending to be as nonchalant as possible, she strolled around the man, hiding the piece in her hand. Looking at the back of his suit, she grinned as she noticed a small piece was missing. Whistling a merry tune, she slowly bend down and carefully held the piece of cloth against the torn fabric. She grinned : It was a perfect match.
"Hey!" the man suddenly spoke up and turned around to look upon the kneeling elf. "What are you doing back there?"
"Hi," Laska greeted. "Are you in some sort of security detachment?" 'Whoa,' Laska thought, 'where did that come from?'
"Errr, no," the man said. "Oh, now I get it. You were admiring my fine set of clothes! Wonderful aren't they? On sale too..."
"Gee, I wonder why?" Laska muttered, still kneeling. "But there was someone who was definately interested in this outfit. Very popular at the graveyard..."
"Wha... wha... wha?" the man replied nervously.
"Yes," Laska said, rising to full height. The man grew even more nervous when this elven woman in front of him turned out to be a lot taller than she had expected. "A man who you buried held it in his hand..."
"But, but, but!" the man suddenly stammered. "I had TO! I can't kill anyone. I can't stand the sight of blood!"
"You wear clothes like that, and you can't stand to see blood?" Laska chuckled.
"Don't make fun of me! I can kill as well as the next guy!" the man said.
"Yes, you leave you victims to die in a small wooden box, no light, no air, no food, no hope..." Laska snarled.
"But, they, they, they said," the man glanced towards a small house at the end of the parapet, "I had to do it but slitting their throats and toss them in the river for the sharks to feel on! I had to get rid of those berks or they would have killed me!"
"Kill you?" Laska grinned wickedly. "There's a thought..."
In her usual lightning-speed matter, her hands shot towards the side of the man's head. A single, violent jerk later, the man fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes. "And that's a more kinder death than your victims ever had."
Drawing Ipsiya and her companion-sword, she stepped towards the small building with determination etched on her face.
---
"We're discovered!" one of the criminals panicked, broke off the attack and ran for the door.
"Wait, ye daft fool! She..." the dwarven ring-leader tried to speak, but it was too late. The elven woman had twirled around and hurled her second sword after the cowardly human, who screamed as he found himself suddenly impaled to the door.
"Ye donnay be gettin' me as easy as that!" the dwarf threatened and slammed his axe on the elf's blue sword. He grinned broadly as his many powerful blows kept the elf on the defensive. It would only be a matter of time before he would be able to corner her and chop her into bits. The elf was very good, he had to admit that, but used to fighting with two swords instead of one. Undoubtedly, there would be an opening on her left flank which he could exploit.
*'Hey!!!'* To the dwarf's surprise, the sword actually spoke! *'Stop scuffing my beautiful blade with that greasy axe of yours!'*
Stunned by this strange turn of events, he did not notice he had lost his head until it was physically so...
---
Satisfied with having removed not one, not two, but three scummy villains from the face of Toril, Laska sheaved the moping Ipsiya and searched the house for anything useful. Apparently the thugs had spent the majority of their money already, since she was only able to find a grand total of three gold pieces tucked in a small drawer.
Going up the stairs, however, revealed something of a very different nature. A young noblewoman, dressed in a silken gown had been tied to a chair and was gagged with a white cloth, which had been roughy shoved in her mouth.
"Vile scoundrel! I demand you release me at once! If you do, I might convince the courts to hang you instead of quarter you!" the lady shouted as soon as Laska removed the gag.
"Don't worry," Laska chuckled and took a dagger from her belt. "I'm not a kidnapper. Now, what's the magic word?"
"RELEASE ME NOW!"
"Be nice," she said, "or I won't use it... Or I will use it, just not on the ropes..."
"VILE FIEND!"
"Goodbye," Laska snickered inwardly at her own joke as she prepared to walk down the stairs.
"NO! wait," the lady sighed meekly, dropping her act. "I'm sorry... I've just been under a lot of stress lately... But I've never given in and... have always been defiant. I sense you're not one of my kidnappers. Please get me out of here, I've been so scared..."
"Wow, a noblewoman is actually admitting she's wrong!" Laska chuckled.
"Yes, that's very rare, isn't it?" the lady chuckled as she rubbed her painful wrists. "My name is Lady Jyystev, and I thank you for my release..."
"You were probably close to being killed though. They were burying their victims alive after they had collected their pay," Laska said.
Growing notably more pale in her face, Lady Jysstev hugged Laska briefly and then headed towards the stairs. "Thank you doubly then. If there's anything I can ever do for you, come see me at my estate near the Council Chambers."
"Okay, and when you get downstairs, just... step over the corpses, they're quite dead."
---
"You should have seen Isaea Roenall's face when I told him outsiders had solved these murders before he did!" Lieutenant Aegisfield raved. "His face grew red, several veins popped and after I had left his office I could hear he had started to trash the place to vent his rage..."
"Ah, Minsc and Boo are glad to have upstaged the corrupt policeman!" Minsc announced.
"And so are all of us at the garrison," Aegisfield laughed. "We all had a good laugh about it... But, I wanted to thank you for doing this. You're already quite popular in this city and if you keep up this good work it'll only get better for all of us. I've been authorized to give you this reward of two-thousand gold..."
"Och, now we be talkin'!" Korgan grinned merrily.
"Such is no trouble, Lieutenant," Keldorn said. "We are happy to... Laska? Laska?" he directed at the elf beside his as he noticed she was waving to a half-elven girl on the other side of the street, who seemed to be blowing Laska a kiss.
"Laska?" Keldorn asked. "Why are you waving to that harlot?"
"Because she kissed my belly-button," Laska whispered in a giggly fashion.
"What?" Keldorn tried to ask, and would have succeeded if Jan hadn't broken in.
"Keldy," Jan asked. "I am almost out of bolts. Do you have some left?"
"Hold on," Keldorn said and rummaged around his his pack. "I think I have some magical bolts left and... OWW," Keldorn suddenly exclaimed and withdraw a bleeding hand from his pack. "What's this?" he said as he pulled the offending sharp object from the very bottom of his pack. It was a large, strange-looking blue gem.
"Oh, that's that gem that Haer'Dalis guys wanted so badly. It was the one Korgan and I tried to destroy back at the undead village," Laska said.
"Hmmm," Keldorn said, "and I took it from you, put in from my pack and forgot about it. Should we bring it to his man? If it is urgent..."
"Nah," Laska said. "That was almost three weeks ago. He can wait another day or two..."
---
"Oh, no!" Laska suddenly spoke up as they entered the Temple district. "I forgot! I totally forgot!"
"Forgot what? Did you leave the gas on perhaps?" Jan suggested. "A lot of rich estates get blown up that way."
"No, no... I hired a maid, but I forgot that we locked the front door rather tightly," Laska said. "I hope they haven't been standing in the porch all day..."
"I nay be seein' someone afore the door," Korgan added.
Indeed, nobody was here. Thinking Lasalle and her daugther might be coming back later, Laska opened the door to her home... and was stunned by the spectacle in front of her.
"By SHAR!" Viconia exclaimed in sheer disbelief. "This place is SPOTLESS!"
"Look Boo!" Minsc added. "The stains from that thrown pizza of last week have been removed!"
"And the bloodstains that Sion so kindly left on my carpets seemed to be gone as well!" Laska said.
"Hmmm," Keldorn added. "Your clothes and armor seem to have been picked up."
"All the woodwork has been waxed," Jan said while he whiped a finger over the woodcoated wall.
"All the faux-armors and copper have been polished," Laska grinned.
"The beds have been made!" Jan shouted from his bedroom. "AAAAHHH! My collection of turnip-peels is gone!" he shouted while headed to the door, making a run for the dumpster behind the house.
Indeed, the place was spotless, clean, waxed, polished and otherwise tidied up. The entrance hall was looking... shiny. And by the looks of it, so were all the other rooms in the house. Utterly stunned, Laska looked around her transformed home.
"Ah, mistress!" Lasalla stepped out of a kitchen with was actually in use for a change. She was wearing a servant's uniform, a welcome change from the rags she had worn this morning. "Welcome back! I took the liberty of entering through the servant's entrance and..."
"We have a servant's entrance?" Laska asked.
"I saw this house really needed a woman's touch, so I changed into this servant uniform..."
"We have servant uniforms?"
"... and collected the cleaning supplies..."
"We have cleaning supplies?"
"... to really get some work done. Your houseguest Risa came home from school and lend Becky some of her clothes. They're playing in the yard right now..."
"We have a yard?"
"Yes, it's next to the garden, mistress," Lasalla chuckled. "After my daughter and I took up resisdence in one of the upper rooms, I checked the larder..."
"We have a larder?"
"... and after I found some stored food..."
"We have stored food?"
"... and some cooking supplies..."
"We have cooking supplies?"
"...dinner is almost ready at the table. I hope you'll enjoy it, mistess..."
"Lasalla?" Laska asked. "Please call me Laska. We're pretty informal around here. And welcome to the house. I think you'll fit in fine..."
"You are good with swords," Lasalla chuckled, "but I am a wizard with my featherduster..."
That's it. Thanks for reading and comments and crits are welcomed.
Wheh, I think I can finish another Tnt, before I go back to Vierna. I guess I'm really on a roll 
It'll be ready Sunday.
---Weyoun
