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17. Reservoir Thieves / Keep Fiction


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#1 Guest_Oryx_*

Posted 30 January 2003 - 06:51 AM

17. Reservoir Thieves / Keep Fiction

13 FLAMERULE 2100
CANDLEKEEP

“Look lively, Mr. Green. I have angel and devil in the courtyard at 2 o’clock.”

“Relax, Mr. Black. I see ‘em. We can see everything from up here. Ain’t that right, Mr. White?”

“Yeah, but shut yer trap. The princess will be running out the front door any minute. The kid will be with her, but that’s no concern. Just shoot to kill and then we’re gone.”

“Not to fast, Mr. White. Unless those arrows of yours have disintegration powers, we need the body.”

“Lighten up, Mr. Black. Red-Cloak Ed said he didn’t require the head. Just do our job, and he’ll take public news of the de’Arnise girl’s death as proof enough.”

“Mr. Black is right. It’s resurrection we’re concerned about, not proof for Eddie.”

“Damn, that means we’ll have to take out the kid too.”

“That a problem, Mr. White? For your ethics or your aim?”

“Neither, Mr. Green, I just mean we should agree on our marks now. We might also have to take out the angel.”

“I wouldn’t worry about her, Mr. White. The devil will keep her occupied.”

“You can say that again, Mr. Green. From here it looks like they are making out, or more, on those bales.”

“Oh yeah, a literal roll in the hay. Those are two hot bodies all right. I sure love watching this kinda stuff in infra. Don’t ya just love being an elf sometimes?”

“Cut it out, you pervs. I’ve got the keenest eyes of us all, and I think she’s just crying into his shoulder or something like that.”

“Gee, you’re making me get all teary, Mr. Black, it’s so sickeningly innocent. Let’s pick our marks already.”

“Alright, listen up. I’ll aim for the princess. Mr. Green, you have the kid. Mr. White, you also mark the princess, but if the angel takes heed, and the devil doesn’t get to her first, you take her out. And remember, don’t stop when your mark goes down. I want at least three arrows in each one, the poison might not take the first time. And aim for the throats before the hearts, so they can’t scream.”

“Roger that, Mr. Black.”

“Roger that.”

On the ramparts of the northwest side of Candlekeep’s inner wall, just opposite the outer courtyard from the front door of the Candlekeep Inn, three black-leather-clad figures lay prostrate, holding taut shortbows out in front of themselves and pointing the drawn arrows down into the courtyard. Mr. Black, Mr. Green, and Mr. White, three of the Shadow Thieves’ finest assassins, had been hired by Edwin ‘Red-Cloak’ Odesseiron, a recent but influential associate of the thieves’ guild, for a contract hit on Nalia de’Arnise. Why? They didn’t know, and they didn’t care. But one thing they did care about was their homework, although Edwin had done most of it for them. They knew that their mark, and the friends that might be accompanying her, were young but powerful mages. The missiles drawn in their bows were arrows of dispelling, each coated by the assassins with a particularly potent poison, and they each had several more already coated and ready, lying within reach They had hoped to get at Nalia alone, but their job was to be done fast. They had to take what they could get, and this looked to be as good an opportunity as they were going to get.

One thing they didn’t know, however, was that they weren’t the only trio of snipers lurking atop the walls of Candlekeep just now. In his guise as Dwein Seroindose of Athkatla’s Council of Six, Edwin had told of the hit to his partner in corruption Isaea Roenal, who had a common enemy in miss de’Arnise. However, Isaea’s base lust somewhat realigned his objectives, but instead of confronting Dwein directly on the matter, he had by himself decided, despite the ultimate failure of his last such effort, to catch Nalia alive, and had hired another three operatives, who at the moment happened to be just across the courtyard from Mr. Black, Mr. Green, and Mr. White, crouching in the shadows on the roof of the Candlekeep Inn itself and pointing loaded crossbows down into the courtyard. They were the Bounty Hunter, the Assassin, and the Swashbuckler, going by their free-agent aliases, but were also known as the half-elven Shadow Thief operatives Mr. Orange, Mr. Pink, and Mr. Brown. Of course, it wasn’t Aran Linvail’s usual practice to have a guild whose members contracted directly conflicting jobs, but these accidental overlaps were the sorts of things that happened when everyone ran around yielding little specific or accurate information, such as any unauthorized jobs they might be working on the side, in a world that was low on the technology of communication and high on the art of deception.

“Assassin, if pink comes out with brunette, you take her out. Use a fatal draught, and shoot to kill. Coat Swashbuckler’s bolts too. Swashbuckler, you also go for pink, but if blonde unwraps herself from blue and jumps into the fray, take out blonde first. I’ll fire at brunette first with the net-crossbow, and then start with the paralytic bolts on her. You two feel free to join me if your marks are down, but put at least three poisoned ones in them first. And above all, don’t go for the vitals with brunette.”

“Roger that, Bounty Hunter.”

“Roger that.”

A minute later the front doors of Candlekeep Inn swung open, briefly exporting light and sound into the outdoor night of the quiet library town, and two slight young women came bounding out, one in a suit of aslyferund elven chain, the other in archmagi robes.

“It’s the princess and the kid!” whispered Mr. Black from atop the inner wall.

“It’s brunette and pink!” whispered the Bounty Hunter from atop the outer wall.

Nalia and Imoen briefly scanned the darkness, looking for Aerie, who happened to be not so far off, sitting with Haer’Dalis on a bale of hay in a dark corner against the north wall of Candlekeep. Despite the avariel’s higher-than-usual heat emissions, her human friends couldn’t see her in the darkness, and they started to call her name.

“Ae-“

“Aer-“

Their sounds, overlaid by the almost-silent whizzing of bolts, arrows, and bolas through the night air, were suddenly cut off as said missiles met their marks. A spinning quartet of four small metal balls came spinning down through the darkness from over the front doorway of the inn, gradually widening into a bola-net. The net fell over Nalia and then the balls, still spinning, tied it up around her ankles. Within the same second, two poisoned arrows came shooting diagonally down from across the courtyard into her. One glanced off her mage robe, however, and the other was magically deflected around her as well by some other enchanted trinket she wore. A third poisoned arrow bounced off Imoen’s elven chain, followed almost simultaneously by a poisoned bolt, but a second bolt pierced the light armor just under her left shoulderblade. The girl gave a cry as she felt her heart spasm and fell to the ground.

Nalia shrieked in fright but kept her wits, and began chanting a fire spell to burn through the net. Her arcane utterances were interrupted by a paralytic bolt sailing through the sleeve of her upper arm. It dug into her skin, but failed to halt her nervous system. Two arrows sailed into her stomach, one glancing off her belt and the other piercing her fair flesh, and she gagged as she felt the all-to-familiar tingle of poison in her veins. The horror of her own predicament was interrupted briefly as she watched three missiles sail into Imoen’s crumpled body, causing it to twitch with what Nalia recognized as the also-all-to-familiar visual signs of a comrade being poisoned.

She tried desperately to reach for a dagger at her belt to cut her way out of the net, but two more bolts landed in her now-useless arm, and she had a moment’s awareness of her arm being paralyzed, then fully half of her body, and then she remembered nothing more.

“We did it, Mr. Black! And angel still seems preoccupied with devil.”

“Were you firing at princess, Mr. Green?”

“No, at kid! You said that was my mark.”

“I could swear I saw her getting hit by more arrows than Mr. White and I sent off. Hard to tell, I can’t see actually see ‘em in this darkness, just the way her body spasms on impact.”

“Probably some illusion of her fool magery, Mr. Black. Let’s go down and get her head before some guard comes bumbling by and carries her to the temple.”

With that Mr. White tossed down a rope, which had already been fastened at the top of the wall. The three assassins slid down in rapid succession and dashed quietly across the courtyard to where the two bodies lay. If they had been looking up as well as around, their infravision would have showed them three red bodies rappelling down the outer wall of the town, landing just beside the inn.

Just as Mr. Black, Mr. Green, and Mr. White ran up to the sprawled forms of Nalia and Imoen, they saw against the light of the Candlekeep Inn’s bright windows three silhouetted figures. “Move along, citizens,” Mr. Black snarled, looking up at the shadows. “We’ll take care of this.”

“Let us save you the trouble,” one of them responded with forced politeness.

Mr. Black, already clutching his shortbow and an arrow, put them together and stared down the dark figure of the Swashbuckler. “Oh no, I insis – Mr. Orange?” he gasped.

Mr. Orange squinted back. “Mr. Black?”

Mr. Green took a better look at the Assassin. “Mr. Pink?”

Mr. Pink recognized the voice. “Mr. Green?”

Mr. White looked over the first two half-elves and then at the third. “Mr. Brown?”

Mr. Brown looked at the elf across from him. “Mr. White?”

Immediately, the three half-elves leveled their loaded crossbows at the three elves, who aimed their drawn shortbows at the three half-elves.

“Our catch, we were here first!” cried Mr. Pink, looking over his crossbow at Mr. Green.

“Not a chance, half-breed,” sneered Mr. Green, looking down his arrow at Mr. Brown.

“Whoa whoa whoa! Are we all professionals here or not? Let’s act like it,” said Mr. Brown, looking over his loaded bolt at Mr. Black.

“Well said. What are you three doing here? Who and why?” demanded Mr. Black, looking past his drawn bow at Mr. Orange.

“You first!” insisted Mr. Orange, looking over his launcher at Mr. White.

“No, we asked first,” retorted Mr. White, looking around his taught bowstring at Mr. Pink.

“So you volunteer an answer to what you ask. That’s how it works between professionals,” stated Mr. Pink.

“Fine fine,” sighed Mr. Green. “It’s ‘Red Ed’, that new Thayvian guy that Bloodscalp and Linvail like so much. Got us to grease the de’Arnise girl. Aran cleared it and everything. Now you.”

Mr. Brown started to answer but it devolved into a strange gurgling noise.

“You mutts are freelancing again, aren’t you?” Mr. Black smirked. The awkward silence from the half-elves answered him.

“Roenal set us up to get her alive,” Mr. Orange confessed. “C’mon, he’s practically a member himself.”

“Something like this goes through Linvail, you know that,” Mr. Black stated. “I’d suggest you let us take care of this, and maybe we’ll just forget to mention this little incident to him. For a price. I assume you have Roenal’s down payment on you? I’m guessing this would run about a hundred grand. That will do nicely.”

“Go to hell,” Mr. Brown snarled, sliding his finger along his crossbow trigger.

“Even if you succeeded, Linvail would find out, and where would you be then, besides in a grave? We’re your only chance,” laughed Mr. Black.

“All Linvail and Red Ed will find out is that you never came back,” threatened Mr. Pink.

Mr. Green growled, “Shut up, muthafucka!”

Mr. Pink cried, “You fuckin’ can it, muthafucka!”

Mr. White yelled, “Fuck you, muthafucka! You fuckin’ stow it!”

Mr. Orange shouted, “Fuck that, muthafucka, fuck you! Muthafuckin’ plug it!”

Mr. Black roared, “Fuck no, fuckin’ muthafucka! You fuckin’ shut ya muthafuckin’ hole!”

Mr. Brown screamed, “Fuck no, fuck that, fuck you, you muthafuckin’ muthafucker! You fuckin’ shut yer fuckin’ trap be-fuckin-fore this fuckin’ muthafucka fuckin’ shoots yo fuckin’ ass, muthafucka! How you fuckin’ like fuckin’ that, you fuckin’ muthafucka? Fuck yeah!”

Mr. Green loosed his arrow at Mr. Brown.

Mr. Pink fired his bolt at Mr. Green.

Mr. White released his bow at Mr. Pink.

Mr. Orange squeezed his trigger at Mr. White.

Mr. Black shot his arrow at Mr. Orange.

Mr. Brown unloaded his crossbow at Mr. Black.

Mr. Brown went down with an arrow skewering his chest.

Mr. Green hit the grass with a bolt gouged in his eye.

Mr. Pink collapsed with an arrow through his throat.

Mr. Orange spun with a bolt lodged in his shoulder.

Mr. White spat blood with an arrow impaling his stomach.

Mr. Black cursed with a bolt buried in his thigh.

Mr. Pink and Mr. Green lay quite still, but Mr. White and Mr. Black stood, wincing, and each pulled a second arrow from his quiver and strung it. Mr. White aimed at Mr. Orange, who despite his injured arm was aiming back with a second bolt in his crossbow, and Mr. Black aimed down at Mr. Brown, who was on the ground with an arrow in his chest but still pointing his reloaded crossbow up at Mr. Black.

“Hello, boys.”

The two surviving elves spun their heads right, and the two surviving half-elves spun their heads left, to see the body which owned the sweet voice that had spoken this phrase. What they saw was a very short, young elven girl with delicate, fair features and long wavy blonde hair. She wore sky-blue archmage robes on her extremely feminine frame, held in her left hand a tiny brown shield that suited her size, and in her right a shiny war hammer that seemed a bit big and heavy for someone like her.

“The angel!” cried Mr. Black and Mr. White, turning their shortbows toward her.

“Blonde!” cried Mr. Orange and Mr. Pink, pointing their crossbows at her.

“I prefer ‘Aerie’ “ the girl smiled. All four bows were discharged simultaneously, but the girl calmly held out her small shield. The four rogues watched in a split second of dumb amazement as the arrows and bolts were sucked straight towards the little shield, reflected cleanly off it, and followed their same trajectories right back.

Four curses, colorful even by Shadow Thief standards, echoed through the night air. The arrows and bolts had indeed gone right back where they came from, and Mr. White and Mr. Black now had arrows sticking through their right palms, and Mr. Orange and Mr. Brown had now bolts lodged in their right forearms. All four dropped their launchers and reached with their left hands for throwing daggers stashed at various places on their persons, but they never reached them. Just after the girl had uttered a few strange words, the air about them filled with fine sand that whipped about, choking their throats, scraping their eyes and skin, and overwhelming them with a horribly painful thirst and feeling of utter dehydration, and each felt as if he’d just spent a week walking over endless sand dunes with nary a drop to drink.

Mr. White fell forward helplessly, but his path toward the ground was altered by the presence of a hammer in his face. His wilting body went flying high through the air and splattered against Candlekeep’s stone outer wall. Mr. Orange stood like a zombie, until the spike on the back of the hammer’s head flew into his chest, piercing his heart and then sending him flying into the ground with such force that half his bones (including most of his vertebrae) broke upon impact. Mr. Black received largely the same treatment as Mr. White, becoming intimately familiar with the head of the hammer, but his destination turned out to be a bookshelf on the fourth floor of the Candlekeep library, after sailing clear over the inner wall of the keep and into one of the library’s windows. Not that he was alive after lift-off to experience it. Mr. Brown, down on the ground, tried to crawl away, but a downwards hammer swing buried his head (or at least the pulp that was then left of it) in the soil.

Aerie calmly wiped the head of Crom Faeyr off on a clean patch of grass and then hung it and her shield of reflection back on her belt. She then bent caringly over the body of Imoen, feeling the girl’s neck for a pulse. A faint smile crossed her delicate elven features, and she began to chant a neutralizing spell in a beautiful voice, and the songlike language continued as she segued into a potent healing spell.

Imoen spasmed and then sat upright, innocently blinking her eyes while the missiles sticking out of her melted into air, her wounds closed, and her enchanted elven armor even seemed to repair itself. “What the hey…” the girl cried, and then looked into Aerie’s eyes, grinned hugely, and let the avariel help her to her feet. “Heya, Aerie! Thanks!”

Imoen looked around, and seeing no immediate threats, looked back towards Aerie, who was now bending over Nalia and carefully pulling the net off of her. Imoen watching in silence as Aerie felt for the young noblewoman’s pulse, and then gave a sad sigh. The elven priestess began a very awe-inspiring chant for such a little girl’s voice, and blue energy poured from her hands like a waterfall into the body of Nalia, which glowed blue and green, and above it an ethereal rose appeared. The images disappeared, and Nalia stirred as the shafts and wounds adorning her body faded away.

“What the…where…” Nalia sprang up. She looked around as Imoen had done, then down at the bodies of the four rogues and nodded with relative understanding. Nalia looked over to see the fifth smeared all over the wall, then at Aerie, and nodded approvingly.

“The sixth is now up in the library, or what’s left on him anyway,” Aerie pointed up, and the other two girls giggled. “I heard some men arguing and some bow shots, and came over, and dealt with the four that had survived each other. Sorry I wasn’t here sooner, I guess I didn’t hear when they got you guys.”

“All’s well that ends well, Aer!” Imoen laughed and hugged her.

“And where exactly were you again, Aerie?” Nalia inquired and produced her letter from Valygar. She was about to say something more, but then Haer’Dalis came bounding up out of the dark.

“Zounds, you three have made mincemeat of a party of scallywags!” he cried with imperfectly feigned surprise. “So glad you’re alright!” he reached out with an arm to encircle Aerie’s waist. “Why, I was….”

“….Oh yeah, thanks for helping us,” Aerie scowled with biting sarcasm as she knocked his hand away.

“Aerie, we found something out,” Nalia began. “Apparently my letter from Valygar was intercepted but resealed.”

“We think the code could have been compromised,” Imoen continued, staring pointedly at Haer’Dalis.

“Fascinating!” Haer’Dalis looked back with a perplexed stare of great interest. “Such intrigue! What a way to begin a tale!”

Aerie pulled out her own letter, reputedly from Onyx, and read it over again carefully.

“I wouldn’t worry, my dove,” Haer’Dalis laughed innocently, “I took it straight from his hand, and I can assure you that no other touched it ere your graceful fingers received it from mine. I can assure you that not a soul other has read this letter.”

“Don’t play dumb, Haer,” Nalia scowled at him, “We’re talking about forging, not reading!”

“My my!” Haer exclaimed overemphatically. “Such a tangled web! But alas, there too I’m afraid there is no chance, since he did give it straight to me, in fact he wrote it just before me at the breakfast table - though I averted my eyes from reading it, of course,” he added hastily.

“How polite of you,” Nalia rolled her eyes.

“Speaking of that breakfast,” Aerie looked down at the letter again, “You said Jaheira was wearing a male paladin’s tunic.”

“Why yes, ‘twas a bit large for her, especially about the shoulders, and I share your sorrow my dear, truly I do,” the bard sighed and wrung his hands.

“Tell me, what did it have on it?”

Haer gulped. “Eh, well, you know, the usual stuff, scales of Tyr and all that…”

“Hmmm, that’s funny,” Aerie mused with overacted thoughtfulness, “Onyx doesn’t worship Tyr.”

“I must be misremembering then,” the Doomguard chuckled with visible discomfort. “Tyr, Torm, Helm, they all look alike to me you know! Hey, maybe he got into Tyr since you saw him, who knows.“

Aerie looked down at her note again. All illusions of my feelings for you have been dispelled, one line of the letter bearing Onyx’s signature read. Then the cleric remembered something Haer’Dalis had said aloud to her earlier. Nay, ‘twas but an illusion of feelings soon to be dispelled.

“Heya, look at this guys!” Imoen suddenly popped out from behind Haer, and he and the other two girls suddenly realized they somehow hadn’t noticed her presence or lack thereof the past few minutes. “It’s the key to a code!”

She was holding an unfolded piece of paper in one hand gleefully, waved it in front of Nalia and Aerie’s faces as she skipped around.

“Guess where I got this!” the pink-haired thief winked at her friends, then put her hand over her mouth with a dramatic gesture of mock surprise and looked sidelong at the bard.

Haer shrugged. “Nice try, kiddo. It must be yours.” He put his right hands back in his pocket, and the others couldn’t help noticing that his right hand seemed to be probing fruitlessly for something within. “Now, my dear Imoen,” he began with a haughty smirk, “Just because I’m a cute catch doesn’t mean you need to go sabotaging Aerie and m-PPFFF!!“

He was interrupted by a slap from the avariel. “There is no ‘you and me’, Haer,” she hissed at him as she withdrew her hand into her robes, and pulled out of her pocket a piece of paper, which she handed to Nalia and Imoen, who began reading it and laughed, to the tiefling’s visible embarrassment. “By the way, it stank,” Aerie scoffed as her friends continued howling at the poem that the bard had given her.

“Tastes vary,” he shrugged lamely.

The avariel smirked, “Oh, and I bring it up because I couldn’t help noticing the handwriting matches Imoen’s little code key.”

“Ohhh,” a forced look of sudden understanding came across the Doomguard’s face, “You mean that code key! I remember now. Why yes, actually, you see, Onyx wanted very much for me to join our little circle, and gave me a key. That one’s in my handwriting because I was transcribing it to help me memori-“

SLAP! He was cut off again. “That’s for lying about my brother and tormenting my friend!” the pink-haired girl responsible for the blow yelled. “That’s not all you were transcribing,” she held up another piece of paper, which had ‘The quick brown xvart jumps over the lazy gnoll,’ written a number of times, the handwriting gradually morphing from Haer’s to Onyx’s as it went down the page.

“Ah yes,” the bard chuckled, “At breakfast, Onyx practiced emulating my handwriting, since of course he recognized it as far more artistic than his. Funny he started from the bottom of the page, but the boy’s practically a barbari-“

Haer’s sentence was finished prematurely by an upwards swing of Crom Faeyr that slammed into his crotch.

“WAAAAAHOOOOHOOOHOOOOOO……….” The blade’s screams of pain trailed off as he sailed through the air in a high arc over the outer wall of Candlekeep. Then, from beyond the wall came a sudden loud splash amidst the constant, calm sounds of the ocean.
“Home run!” Imoen giggled as Aerie put the hammer back on her belt again, and Nalia joined them in laughter and hugs.




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