The top drawer held the most curious items: a couple of jars of salves and a trio of potion bottles, each filled with a different colored liquid. Entreri nodded knowingly, and looked back to the window, then he shut the drawer and moved along to check the bed.
"Ah, a secret compartment," Jarlaxle said from the closet.
"Let me inspect it for traps."
"No need," said the dark elf.
He stepped back and produced a silver whistle, hung about his neck on a chain. Two short blows and there came a pop and a flash as the secret compartment magically opened.
"You have an answer for everything," Entreri remarked.
"Keeps me alive. Ah, yes, and look what we have here."
A moment later, Jarlaxle walked out of the closet carrying a small statuette, a curious figurine of a muscular man, half white, half black.
"Back to the inn and our reward?" Jarlaxle asked.
In response, the statue began laughing at him. "Doubtful you will be going anywhere, Artemis Entreri!" it said, and the fact that it was addressing Entreri and not Jarlaxle tipped both off that the speech had been preprogrammed, and with foreknowledge of the assassin.
"Um…" Entreri remarked.
The door to the room opened then, and Jarlaxle fell back toward the window. Entreri stayed to his left, over by the bed. In stepped a muscular, dark-skinned man dressed in long and ragged-edged black robes, a many-crested helm on his head. Behind him loomed a horde of huge gray and black dogs, blending in and out of the shadows in the hallway as if they were made of the same indistinct stuff as those patches of blackness.
Entreri felt a pull from his belt, from Charon's Claw, his magnificent sword. It didn't feel to him as if the sword was relating its eagerness for battle, though, as it usually did, but rather, almost as if it was greeting an old friend.
"I take it you were expecting us," Jarlaxle calmly stated, and he presented the statue as his proof.
"If you give it over without a struggle, you may find us to be important allies," the large man said.
"Well, I am not endeared to it just yet," Jarlaxle replied with a grin. "We could discuss price-"
"Not that worthless idol!"
"The sword," Entreri reasoned.
"And the gauntlet," the man confirmed.
Entreri scoffed at him. They are better allies to me than you could ever be."
"Ah, yes, but are they as terrible foes as we?"
"Us? We?" Jarlaxle cut in. "Who are you? And I mean that in the plural sense, not the singular."
Both the dark man and Entreri looked at the drow curiously.
"The sword your friend carries does not belong to him," the dark man said to Jarlaxle.
The drow looked to Entreri and asked, "Did you kill the former owner?"
"What do you think?"
Jarlaxle nodded and looked back to the dark man. "It is his."
"It is Netherese!"
Entreri didn't quite know what that meant, but when he looked to Jarlaxle and saw the drow's eyes opened very wide, as wide as they had been when the pair had encountered the dragon to destroy the Crystal Shard, he knew that there might be a bit of trouble.
"Netherese?" the drow echoed. "A people long gone."
"A people soon to be returned," the dark man assured him. "A people seeking their former glory, and their former possessions."
"Well, there is the best news the world has heard in a millennium," Jarlaxle said sarcastically, to which the dark man only laughed.
"I have been sent to retrieve the sword," he explained. "I could have killed you outright and without question, but it occurred to me that two companions such as yourselves might prove to be very valuable allies to Sh-my people, as we shall be to you."
"How valuable?" asked Jarlaxle, obviously intrigued.
"And if I ally with you, then I get to keep the sword?" Entreri asked.
"No," the dark man answered Entreri.
"Then no," Entreri answered back.
"Let us not be hasty," said the deal-maker drow.
"Seems pretty simple to me," said Entreri.
"Then to me, as well," said the dark man. "The hard way, then. As you wish!"
As he finished, he stepped aside, and the pack of great dogs charged into the room, howling madly, their white teeth gleaming in stark contrast against the blackness of them.
Entreri fell into a crouch, ready to spring aside, but Jarlaxle took matters under control, tossing out before the dogs the same portable hole he had used to enter the room.
With howls turning to yelps, the beasts disappeared through the floor, tumbling to the room below. Jarlaxle bent immediately and scooped up the hole, sealing the floor above them.
"I have to get one of those," Entreri remarked.
"If you do, don't jump into mine with it," said Jarlaxle.
Entreri fixed him with a puzzled expression.
"Rift… astral… you don't want to know," Jarlaxle assured him.
"Right. Now, where does that leave us?" the assassin
"It leaves you with an enemy you do not understand!" the dark man replied.
He laughed and moved to the side, disappearing so quickly, so completely into the shadows that it seemed a trick of the eyes to Entreri. Still, the assassin did manage to flick his fingers and knew his tiny missile had struck home when he heard a slight chirp from the man.
"You favor the darkness, drow?" the dark man asked, and as he finished, the room went perfectly black.
"I do!" Jarlaxle responded, and he blew on the whistle again: a short burst, a long one, and another short one. Entreri heard the door slam.
It was all happening quickly, and purely on instinct, the assassin drew out his sword and his jeweled dagger and moved protectively back against the bed. He tipped his cap again, though he understood this to be magical darkness, impenetrable even by those who had the ability to see in the dark. It was fortunate he did, though, for right after the chill enshrouded his body, he felt the sudden intense heat of a fireball filling the room.
He was down and under the bed in an instant, then came out the other side as the burning mattress collapsed. "Caster!" he yelled.
"Seriously?" came Jarlaxle's sarcastic reply. "Seriously," came the dark man's cry. "And I fear not your little stings!"
"Really?" Entreri asked him, and he was moving as he spoke, trying hard not to give the dark man any definitive target. "Even from the needle off your own window tr-?"
His last word was cut short, though, as complete silence engulfed the room. Profound, magical silence that quieted even the yelping and howling dogs below. Entreri knew that it was Jarlaxle's doing, the drow's standard opening salvo against dangerous magic-users. Without the ability to use verbal components, a wizard's repertoire was severely limited.
But now Entreri had to worry about himself, for his magical sword began a sudden assault upon his sensibilities, compelling him to turn the blade back on himself and take his own life. He had already fought this struggle of wills with the stubborn weapon, but with an apparent representative of its creators nearby, the sword seemed even angrier.
The assassin wore the gauntlet, which minimized the effect the sword could have on him, and he was able to hold the upper hand-somewhat. For he also had to keep exact track of where he was in the room. He had one good shot because of his previous actions and words, he knew, and to miss the opportunity would make this situation even more dangerous.
He aligned himself with the heat emanating from the bed, turned in the direction he guessed to be perfectly perpendicular to the window, then took three definitive strides across the room, finally sheathing the stubborn sword as he went.