Heist

Golden morning sunlight streams through the rough-hewn windows in Lorilla’s abode beneath an enormous banyan tree, bright and cheerful in contrast with the mood therein. Although the druid’s home is built for Small creatures, Darrak, Naivara, and Vladislak are all crammed inside with Lorilla, sitting on the floor. Rhogar sits outside next to one of the windows, listening to his comrades-at-arms and serving as door guard. With his bulging muscles and reptilian features, the massive Dragonborn is the most intimidating member of the group.

“We’re all clear on the plan, then?” Vladislak asks. His amber eyes dance across his companions’ faces as he shifts in his seat.

“Don’t love it,” Naivara mutters, “but I don’t have any better ideas.”

“It will be fun to try something new,” Lorilla says with a wry little smile. “I’ve never pretended to be an herb merchant before.”

“I’m not thrilled about being anything less than honest,” Darrak grumbles. “But I understand the necessity.”

“I just hope at some point I’ll get to crack some heads together,” Rhogar says with a pointy grin. He cracks his knuckles to punctuate his words.

“All right! Let’s head into Thradnyss and get started at the merchants’ guild, then,” Vladislak suggests. “It should be just about time for the midday rush. Plenty of cover for sneaking around.”

Naivara’s out the door of Lorilla’s cottage before Vladislak has finished speaking. The lithe wood elf has no interest in staying in cramped quarters, far too close to her companions. She doesn’t wait for any of them, either; by the time Vladislak, Darrak, and Lorilla have emerged from under the banyan tree into the forest, Naivara has disappeared completely amongst the trees.

“I’m sure we’ll see her at the guild hall,” Rhogar tells the others. “She’s never let us down on a mission.”

“I hope so. I don’t want to do all the sneaking around alone,” Vladislak replies with a nervous chuckle.

“Bah. You just want to spend time with her without the rest of us butting in,” Darrak huffs. “It won’t get you anywhere.”

“I assure you I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The half-elf bounds away before the gruff dwarf can argue further. Vladislak tells himself he’s just trying to get ahead of the others so that he has time to get into position to sneak into the merchants’ guild hall once they’re in place making a distraction, but a nagging little voice in the back of his brain tells him that Darrak’s not entirely wrong about his true motives.

***~O~***

Naivara takes a slow, deep breath as she presses herself against the wooden wall of the merchants’ guild. Thick wooden support beams on the outside of the structure keep her mostly concealed from passersby, and while she remains immobile in the shadows, her skin is nearly indistinguishable from the aged wood walls. For a moment, she closes her eyes and enjoys the sounds of the city of Thradnyss. Then footsteps and jovial voices cut through her meditation.

“Aye, here we are. We’ll go in the back way, because Guildmaster Ralotris knows me,” a rough male voice boasts. He and his companions trade jokes and back-slaps as they open the door on the other side of a support beam from Naivara.

None of them see the wood elf slide through the door behind them, silent as a shadow and quick as lightning.

Inside the guild hall of the merchants, the rooms are dark and a bit smoky despite light from several torches, braziers, and windows. The back door leads down a hallway past the kitchen and a couple store-rooms before opening up into the main hall, which is bustling with activity in anticipation of the midday meal. Chatter and clanking of tableware obscure any noise Naivara makes as she glides along the wall, through a small door, and up a narrow flight of stairs. She imagines this path is typically used by whatever servants Guildmaster Ralotris employs to keep the guild hall clean and its inhabitants happy. For her, though, it’s perfect for spy work.

As she crests the stairs and turns into a hallway lined with doors, each hiding a room used by a merchant as lodgings, Vladislak pops out of the nearest room. Naivara bites her tongue hard to stifle a noise of surprise.

“Took you long enough to get here,” he teases, his  eyes twinkling in the candlelight from a nearby wall sconce. Although his voice is just above a whisper, Naivara hisses and shakes her head, then lays one finger against her lips.

“Got it, got it. No sound,” Vladislak agrees. He’s quieter than he was before, but still talking. Naivara rolls her dark eyes in irritation, then points to the room Vladislak has just emerged from and arches an eyebrow. Anything interesting? She wills the question to make it through Vladislak’s thick skull without being verbalized.

Vladislak shakes his head, finally getting the hint from the rogue to avoid speaking for this mission. He holds up a set of lock-picking tools. Naivara produces her own set of thieves’ tools from one of her many pockets, then slides past Vladislak down the hallway. She stops at a door on the right side of the hallway and tries the knob. It’s locked, but it only takes her a few seconds with her tools to change that. Vladislak lets out a low whistle of admiration. Naivara glares at him and points with a knife towards him, then a door on the left side of the hall.

Vladislak takes the hint, doing his best to hide his disappointment. He really had hoped that this mission would give him a chance to get to know Naivara better. So far, all it’s given him is peeks into musty underwear drawers and chests of goods that don’t interest him–and a greater appreciation for Naivara’s many talents. It’s been a long time since he’s met anyone who can match his skill at picking locks.

A few minutes later, they both emerge from the rooms they’ve been scouting. Amber eyes meet dark ones and both shake their heads. They move further down the hallway to the next doors to repeat the process. But when Vladislak jimmies his next target door open, a loud snore meets his ears.

“Someone’s asleep in this one,” he mouths to Naivara, who has not met with the same problem on her side of the hall. Her eyes narrow and she crosses to join him. A particularly loud burst of laughter floats up the main stairs at the end of the hall from the common area below, and the sleeper snorts and rolls over as though that sound has disturbed him.

Naivara gestures for Vladislak to take the room she’s opened and slips past him into the room with the sleeper. Her feet make no sound on the wooden floorboards, although they creak slightly under Vladislak’s weight despite his best efforts to keep his steps light. He mutters a curse under his breath that his elf parent didn’t give him anything resembling Naivara’s otherworldly grace, then scopes out the room the rogue pointed him to.

Meanwhile, Naivara’s search of the room with the sleeping dwarven merchant turned up nothing of interest, though it’s clear from his race and the sigils on his belongings that he’s from Kvashtun. Most of the trouble has come with traders from that region, according to Guildmaster Ralotris. Certainly the Yuan-Ti bent on spreading plague in Thradnyss that Naivara, Vladislak, and their companions brought to justice not too long ago came from Kvashtun. But Naivara isn’t one to judge by appearances or origin stories, only the evidence before her.

She and Vladislak reconnect in the hallway again and then continue slinking to their next targets, only to freeze in their tracks when they hear footsteps on the main stairs, accompanied by booming boasts. In an instant, Naivara is pressed against Vladislak in an imitation of a passionate embrace.

“Fake it,” she hisses into Vladislak’s slightly pointed ear, which turns red along with the rest of his head. He wants to protest, but Naivara’s tongue on the side of his neck turns everything he wants to say into a low moan of desire. In the next instant, she’s flipped them so that it looks to the approaching braggart merchants that he’s got her pushed against the door. Heat explodes throughout the bard’s body. A few sexy mewls escape Naivara’s lips as Vladislak gets into it, running his hands over her exquisite curves while one of her hands claws his back.

“Hell yeah! Get you some!” one of the merchant cheers as the braggarts pass them. Vladislak smiles against Naivara’s hair and tries to pull her lips to his. The wood elf shifts backwards as the door behind her swings open. Vladislak stumbles and curses aloud, but a hand over his mouth muffles the sound.

“Shhhh!” Naivara warns as she closes the door to the room, blocking the hallway out and confining them safely to the room.

“Did you pick that lock blind, with one hand?” Vladislak demands, keeping his voice low and trying to hide his frustration that he didn’t get to kiss her. His eyes adjust to the near-perfect darkness of the room. One thing his elf parent gave him was the ability to see in the dark.

“Maybe. Or maybe the door was left unlocked. You’ll never know. And you’ll never touch me like that again, unless it’s for a mission.” Her voice is a deadly whisper. Vladislak’s insides chill with disappointment.

“Right. Um. Let’s search this room, then.” Vladislak starts with the trunk at the end of the bed, while Naivara goes to the small desk against one wall.

“A map…Do you read?” Vladislak’s head jerks up in surprise to look at Naivara as the lock on the trunk falls open in his hands.

“You don’t?”

“Wasn’t a priority where I grew up. Here.” She thrusts the map in front of him. “I know I’m looking at the Frangath Desert and Elragum, and I can guess that’s the Kyklos River, but what’s marked there by the river mouth?”

“Sorahou–”

“The oasis town. That makes sense–”

“And then…Master Yvred the Dark.”

“With that dragon doodle?”

“Aye, I think so.”

“Do you think the trader is working for a dragon?”

“Maybe. His name is Neshadur.” Vladislak points to the bottom right corner of the map, where the name is scrawled.

“Sounds draconic. Maybe Rhogar knows him.”

“Maybe.” Vladislak passes the map back to her, ignoring the heat that flashes up his arm when her fingers brush his, and opens the chest.

A chalice decorated with serpents holding gemstones in their mouths rests on top of other belongings.

“Snakes,” Naivara breathes. Vladislak gingerly removes the chalice from the chest. Next come black robes with snakes embroidered around the hems. Beneath those are a few vials of liquid.

“Do you think…?” Vladislak’s voice trails off as he looks at Naivara.

“You have the charm. Test them.”

Vladislak produces an amulet from his pocket. Lorilla did something to it so that he can use it to cast Detect Poison and Disease. Unlike Naivara, he’s at least dabbled in magic, making him the right person for this part of the job. He holds the amulet over the vials.

“Vash’kresarys,” he commands, just above a whisper. A greenish glow emanates from the amulet, engulfing both the vials and his hand.

“MINDFOG,” the magic echoes in Vladislak’s mind. He reels backwards and shakes his head side to side. Why didn’t Lorilla tell him what he’d experience when he used the–

“What is it?” Naivara asks. If he didn’t know better, Vladislak might think she sounded concerned about him.

“What we were sent to find,” Vladislak replies, his voice grim. “MindFog. This Neshadur is with the Yuan-Ti.”