In The Cards

The Serpent card may stand for poison and those who work with poison, such as the followers of Talona. It may also represent snakes of all kinds, as well as other dangerous reptiles. Not necessarily an antagonistic card, but there is always that element of danger.

Excerpt from 'The Chaltar Deck Of Cards - An Introduction'

"Hey, guys! Wait till you hear this!"

"Yes, Immy?" Zaerini said. Her friend had burst into Jenkal's house like a pink typhoon and was currently bouncing up and down on her feet, obviously ready to burst with excitement. "What's up?"

"I've found us a quest! A really good one too. But I'll let her tell you herself." The thief opened the door and spoke to someone outside. "It's all right, you can come in now."

A middle-aged halfling woman stepped inside the room and watched the adventurers with some distrust. She was a sturdy woman whose reddish-brown hair was beginning to gray slightly, and she had a very firm look on her face. "I'm Rosie," she said. "Rosie Boddin. So you're heroes, are you? Well, I don't know about heroes and adventurers, they remind me too much of my no-good sister. But you're good folk, or so the Mayor says, and you may be able to help me."

"Er…perhaps," Rini said, feeling a little stunned by this flow of words. "What exactly is it that you want us to do?"

"I want you to find my daughter," Rosie said and tapped her foot irritably against the floor. "Silly girl has been listening to her aunt's 'adventure' stories far too much, and now she's run off to become one too. I want you to find her and bring her back."

"Find her and bring her back?" Edwin asked, looking incredulous. "What if she doesn't want to? Are we supposed to tie her up?"

"Of course not!" Rosie sighed. "Maybe I can't make her stay, but at least I want her to come back and show herself to be alive. She was supposed to travel north to Baldur's Gate, and it's dangerous country around here. I told her to take the road, but it wouldn't surprise me if she went cross-country instead. There's plenty of basilisks north of here, and when my baby didn't send me any letters like she'd promised I knew something was wrong!" Tears started trickling down her cheeks.

"Yes," Edwin tried, "well…"

"I just want my baby back!" More tears.

"Sure, we'll help you if we can," Zaerini said and patted the weeping woman on the back. "I can't promise anything though. What's your daughter's name, and what does she look like?"

Rosie hauled out an enormous handkerchief embroidered with daisies and loudly blew her nose. "Her name is Alora, and she's the prettiest lass you ever saw. Merry and bright as the sun, always happy and smiling. It's a shame she dyed in those purple streaks in her pretty brown hair, but they'll wash out eventually."

Zaerini gave Imoen's pink locks a meaningful glance. "Hope springs eternal," she said. "Then she turned to Edwin. "What do you say? I say we do this, and it was Immy's idea in the first place, but basilisks are pretty dangerous. If you want to back out I won't blame you."

The wizard sighed. "Very well," he said. "If you feel you must. (There's just something about halflings that gets to me. Probably some sort of inborn weakness in me.)"

Having made up their minds, the adventurers went to search for their two missing companions. Khalid needed to be forcibly rescued from a group of young halfling girls. They all had flowers in their hair and were wearing their prettiest dresses, and they kept swooning over him and telling him how 'incredibly brave' he was. The unfortunate man was very grateful when Imoen walked up and told them that he was needed elsewhere.

It took some time to find Jaheira, but eventually Rini heard her voice from some distance away. "And so Mr Spruce eventually decayed, with the help of Mr Worm and all his little friends, and became good clean earth from which new trees would grow in time. The End."

Immediately a chorus of piping voices spoke up. "What kind of story is that?" "No fun!" "I want a story with monsters and mages and magic swords!" "And I want a story with dragons and princesses! How come there were no dragons?"

"But," Jaheira tried, "it is a very educational story…"

"Ick!"
"Borrrring!"
"Let's go play in the attic of my pa's house instead, that'll be much more fun."
Zaerini, Imoen, Edwin and Khalid were almost run down as a horde of small halfling children streamed past them, chattering happily to each other. Once the onslaught was over they found Jaheira sitting on her own at a table, a puzzled look on her face.

"I still cannot see why they did not like it," the druid complained and scratched at her golden-brown hair. "I even inserted a lightning strike to make it more exciting."

Jaheira and Khalid both approved of helping Rosie, though Jaheira pointed out that they should take the time to prepare properly. "Basilisks are highly dangerous," she pointed out. "I wish to see if the local temple offers any kind of protection against their gaze." As it turned out, it didn't. But there were some magic scrolls that would restore a person turned to stone from a basilisk's gaze, and these the party bought. The following morning they headed north, in search of Rosie's daughter.

The bones were the first thing out of the ordinary that Zaerini noticed. Huge bones, larger than those of any horse, littering the dry sands and sharp rocks of the desert where the party now found themselves. Bleached white by sand and wind they were, with broken ribs pointing accusingly at the open sky and skull staring at her from the ground with their empty sockets. "What are those things?" she wondered. "Dragons?"

"No," Jaheira said. "They are not large enough. Some ancient beast, I would guess, something that no longer walks the land."

"And you won't hear any complaints from me about that," Edwin said as he picked up a sharp tooth as large as his hand. "No indeed. (Though these bones would most likely make a very powerful ally if reanimated. Pity I don't know that spell yet.)"

"Can you not feel the least bit sorry that the Balance was disrupted enough to allow this species to die out?"

"Whatever for? Seems to me if they died out it's because they were too weak to survive, and so your precious Balance regulates itself without your interference. (I really wouldn't want to meet whatever killed them however.)"

"Speaking of beasts," Imoen said in a quiet voice. "Look over there."

Three large animals were sunning themselves some distance away, beside one of the skeletons. Brown and scaly reptiles they were, with pale yellow bellies and eight stumpy legs each, though one of them was larger than the other two. They had ridged backs and tails, and as one of them opened its mouth to yawn it displayed an impressive number of very sharp teeth.

"Oh d-d-dear," Khalid whispered. "Let's all be v-very quiet a-and perhaps they won't n-n-notice us." Unfortunately he happened to trip over a large jawbone at that point and fell to the ground in a clutter of metal. The basilisks all snorted eagerly and raised their heads. Then they started shuffling across the sand towards the adventurers.

"Too late," Jaheira said in a grim voice and raised one of her arms to cover her eyes while drawing her scimitar with the other. "Remember, whatever you do, do not look them in the eyes."

The battle was a nightmare. Zaerini had never really thought about just how important it was to be able to focus on your enemy, it being so self-evident. But now she was forced to fight more or less blindly, only daring a careful squint at her opponents to make sure her sword was pointed at them and not her friends. She swung it wildly, with none of the precision she had managed to acquire. She couldn't cast any spells either, she didn't dare look at the basilisks long enough. Edwin had an advantage the bard lacked however. A howling horde of hobgoblins burst forth out of thin air, summoned into being by the Conjurer's wand. They immediately charged the closest basilisk, and while a couple of them were instantly petrified the others managed to make a few dents in the hard skin.

A loud screeching noise and a gasp of pain to her right caused Rini to turn around. What she saw made her blood turn cold. Imoen was grappling with the largest basilisk, trying to hold off it's powerful jaws with her sword. But she was tiring, and now the sharp teeth had grazed her arm, drawing blood. Imoen's face was pale and pained, she still had her sword raised, but for how long? Poison, Zaerini thought. A basilisk's bite is poison. She attacked, forgetting all prudence as well as her own safety. "Leave her alone!" she yelled. "Don't you dare hurt her!" The sword scratched against the horny hide of the basilisk, making the beast turn to snap at the half-elf. And then she met its eyes.

Large eyes, a pale green color that was actually quite beautiful in its animal simplicity. Unblinking, hard and cold as stone, and yet as deep as wells. She was swimming in them. Deeper. Deeper. Clear green water all around her, growing steadily darker as she went deeper, pressing in on her. All noises seemed so far away, distorted and strange. And the water…went…black…

"Zaerini? Zaerini, wake up, child."

"Wh-what?" Rini managed as she tried to open her eyes. Her eyelids felt as heavy as stone. "Gorion?"

"Not Gorion, child. It is I, Jaheira."

"Jaheira?" The bard coughed violently and felt sweet air rush into her lungs. Had she been holding her breath? She couldn't remember? Finally she managed to open her eyes, and met another pair, green as the leaves of the forest. Not the reptilian eyes of the basilisk these, they were filled with worry and relief.

"At last!" The druid's smile was open and warm, and she gave a deep sigh. Then she immediately collected herself and gave Zaerini a stern look. "Have you any idea how worried we all were? Do not ever do a thing like that again! I promised Gorion to look after you, not your statue."

The druid is right, Softpaws remarked. That was most unpleasant, kitten. Please take better care of yourself in the future.

"My…statue? I was turned to stone?" Rini shook her head and looked about her. She still felt pretty dizzy, and she couldn't remember exactly what had happened. The basilisks all lay dead on the ground. At least that was a good thing.

"You m-m-most certainly were," Khalid said and gave her a comforting hug. "A very p-pretty statue, but we all p-prefer you as you are. L-lucky we b-b-bought those scrolls."

Zaerini suddenly remembered something. "Imoen! The poison! I saw…"

"Hey, I'm just fine," Imoen said, coming up from behind Jaheira. She was smiling, but her cheeks were moist, as if she had been crying. "Jaheira fixed me up, good as new. You've gotta stop scaring me like that, you know. You're all the family I've got, remember?"

The half-elf smiled weakly in return. "Right. I'll try. Anybody else want to tell me how stupid I was? Edwin, how about you?" Then she looked around. Not a sign of the wizard. "Where is he?" she asked, suddenly feeling a dreadful worry. "He's not…not…"

"No, no," Imoen hurriedly assured her. "He just went away a little bit, behind those rocks over there. Said something about not wanting to watch as we used the scroll."

"But why?"

"No idea. He was really weird about the whole thing. Wouldn't talk to any of us."

"I'd better go make sure he's all right," Rini said with a frown, her golden eyes concerned. "Be right back." Then she thought of something. "Who killed the basilisks, by the way? Just curious."

"Jaheira and Khalid got one each," Imoen explained. She beamed proudly. "And I killed the big one. Stabbed him right beneath the jaw. Like this, see?" She stabbed her sword into the air. "Right into the soft spot and down he went. Neat, huh?"

"Er…right. Where did you learn that sort of thing?"

Imoen shrugged innocently. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "I pick these things up here and there. Run off and fetch Edwin, why don't you? Jaheira says there are trees and shade up ahead and I'm really hot."

Zaerini nodded to her friend and then went off in search of the Red Wizard. She didn't have to go very far, fortunately. She found him behind a cluster of large rocks, standing as motionless as one of them. He was leaning his back against the cold stone, his eyes closed and his hands across his ears. He was also whispering something to himself, over and over. Rini couldn't quite make it out, but it sounded a bit like 'hastowork, hastowork, hastowork'.

"Hey, look who's here!" the bard said. Edwin didn't hear her, being too wrapped up in his own thoughts. Looks like I'll have to resort to more drastic methods, Zaerini thought and tapped the wizard on the shoulder. The reaction was dramatic, to say the least.

Edwin's eyes flew open, wide and dark like openings into the night before the world's first dawn. For a moment he stared at her as if he didn't really see her. Then he seized her by the shoulders, so tightly that it almost hurt. "Don't you ever, ever, ever do a thing like that again!" he snarled. "Are you completely witless? Haven't you got any idea of what kind of danger you were in? Do you even care?"

"That's pretty rich coming from you," Rini said, feeling irritated. "You've made a few mistakes from time to time, haven't you?"

"That's different!"

"Oh, really? How?"

"It…it just is. And…and besides, you're a Child of Bhaal, correct?"

"So?"

"So, there was a very real risk of your divine blood interfering with the process of decursing you. The others may not have the intellects to grasp the fact, but I knew there was a very real possibility of you being trapped as a statue forever! (Not that it wasn't a lovely statue, but that's hardly any consolation.)"

So that's why he was hiding over here, Zaerini thought. He was worried I wasn't going to make it…Not as heartless as you'd like to pretend, are you, my friend? "I see your point," she said, her voice now calm once more. "I promise I'll try to be more careful in the future, but I can't very well live my life wrapped in cotton like a fragile ornament that might break. Oh, and Edwin?"

"Yes?"

"Thanks for caring. That's really nice of you, you know." Zaerini flashed the wizard her brightest smile. "I promise I won't tell the others about it if you don't want me to. It can be our own little secret."