Nor was the drow about to pause to figure it out. His fine sword stabbed forward and slashed down, taking the dagger and the hand that held it. A quick retraction re- gathered his balance and power, and out went the sword again. Straight and sure, it tore through flesh and sliced rib, biting hard at the foolish man's heart.
The man fell, quite dead, and still wearing that curious, stunned expression.
Berg'inyon didn't pause long enough to wipe his blade. He crouched, sprang straight up, and levitated fast into the house. His encounter had delayed him no more than a span of a few heartbeats, and yet, the floor of the room and the corridor beyond the open door was already littered with human corpses.
Berg'inyon's team exited the room soon after, before the wizard's initial passwall spell had even expired. Not a drow had been more than slightly injured and not a human remained alive. The Raker house held no treasure when they were done- not even the few coins several of the guildsmen had secretly tucked under loose floorboards-and even the furniture was gone. Magical fires had consumed every foot of flooring and all of the partitioning walls. From the outside, the house seemed quiet and secure. Inside, it was no more than a charred and empty husk.
Bregan D'aerthe had spoken.
"I accept no accolades," Berg'inyon Baenre remarked when he met up with Rai-guy, Kimmuriel, and Sharlotta. It was a common drow saying, with clear implications that the vanquished opponent was not worthy enough for the victor to take any pride in having defeated him.
Kimmuriel gave a wry smile. "The house was effectively purged," he said. "None escaped. You performed as was required. There is no glory in that, but there is acceptance."
As he had done all day, Rai-guy continued his scrutiny of Sharlotta Vespers. Was the human woman even comprehending the sincerity of Kimmuriel's words, and if so, did that allow her any insight into the true power that had come to Calimport? For any guild to so completely annihilate one of another's houses was no small feat- unless the attacking guild happened to be comprised of drow warriors who understood the complexities of inter-house warfare better than any race in all the world. Did Sharlotta recognize this? And if she did, would she be foolish enough to try to use it to her advantage?
Her expression now was mostly stone-faced, but with just a trace of intrigue, a hint to Rai-guy that the answer would be yes, to both questions. The drow wizard smiled at that, a confirmation that Sharlotta Vespers was walking onto very dangerous ground. Quiensin ful biezz coppon quangolth cree, a drow, went the old saying in Menzoberranzan, and elsewhere in the drow world. Doomed are those who believe they understand the designs of the drow.
"What did Jarlaxle learn to change his course so?" Berg'inyon asked.
"Jarlaxle has learned nothing of yet," Rai-guy replied. "He chose to remain behind. The operation was mine to wage."
Berg'inyon started to redirect his question to Rai-guy then, but he stopped in midsentence and merely offered a bow to the appointed leader.
"Perhaps later you will explain to me the source of your decision, that I will better understand our enemies," he said respectfully.
Rai-guy gave a slight nod.
There is the matter of explaining to Jarlaxle," Sharlotta remarked, in her surprising command of the drow tongue. "He will not accept your course with a mere bow."
Rai-guy's gaze darted over at Berg'inyon as she finished, quickly enough to catch the moment of anger flash through his red-glowing eyes. Sharlotta's observations were correct, of course, but coming from a non-drow, an iblith- which was also the drow word for excrement- they intrinsically cast an insulting reflection upon Berg'inyon, who had so accepted the offered explanation. It was a minor mistake, but a few more quips like that against the young Baenre, Rai-guy knew, and there would remain too little of Sharlotta Vespers for anyone ever to make a proper identification of the pieces.
"We must tell Jarlaxle," the drow wizard put in, moving the conversation forward. "To us out here, the course change was obviously required, but he has secluded himself, too much so perhaps, to view things that way."
Kimmuriel and Berg'inyon both looked at him curiously- why would he speak so plainly in front of Sharlotta, after all? — but Rai-guy gave them a quick and quiet signal to follow along.
"We could implicate Domo and the wererats," Kimmuriel put in, obviously catching on. "Though I fear that we will then have to waste our time in slaughtering them." He looked to Sharlotta. "Much of this will fall to you."
"The Basadoni soldiers were the first to leave the fight," Rai-guy added. "And they will be the ones to return without blood on their blades." Now all three gazes fell upon Sharlotta.
The woman held her outward calm quite well. "Domo and the wererats, then," she agreed, thinking things through, obviously, as she went. "We will implicate them without faulting them. Yes, that is the way. Perhaps they did not know of our plans and coincidentally hired on with Pasha Da'Daclan to guard the sewers. As we did not wish to reveal ourselves fully to the coward Domo, we held to the unguarded regions, mostly around the eighth position."
The three drow exchanged looks, and nodded for her to continue.
"Yes," Sharlotta went on, gathering momentum and confidence. "I can turn this into an advantage with Pasha Da'Daclan as well. He felt the press of impending doom, no doubt, and that fear will only heighten when word of the utterly destroyed outer house reaches him. Perhaps he will come to believe that Domo is much more powerful than any of us believed, and that he was in league with the Basadonis, and that only House Basadoni's former dealings with the Rakers cut short the assault."
"But will that not implicate House Basadoni clearly in the one executed attack?" asked Kimmuriel, playing the role of Rai-guy's mouthpiece, drawing Sharlotta in even deeper. "Not that we played a role, but only that we allowed it to happen," Sharlotta reasoned. "A turn of our heads in response to their increased spying efforts against our guild. Yes, and if this is conveyed properly, it will only serve to make Domo seem even more powerful. If we make the Rakers believe that they were on the edge of complete disaster, they will behave more reasonably, and Jarlaxle will find his victory." She smiled as she finished, and the three dark elves returned the look.
"Begin," Rai-guy offered, waving his hand toward the ladder leading out of their sewer quarters.
Sharlotta smiled again, the ignorant fool, and left them.
"Her deception against Pasha Da'Daclan will necessarily extend, to some level, to Jarlaxle," Kimmuriel remarked, clearly envisioning the web Sharlotta was foolishly weaving about herself.
"You have come to fear that something is not right with Jarlaxle," Berg'inyon bluntly remarked, for it was obvious that these two would not normally act so independently of their leader.
"His views have changed," Kimmuriel responded. "You did not wish to come to the surface," Berg'inyon said with a wry smile that seemed to question the motives of his companions' reasoning.
"No, and glad will we be to see the heat of Narbondel again," Rai-guy agreed, speaking of the great glowing clock of Menzoberranzan, a pillar that revealed its measurements with heat to the dark elves, who viewed the Underdark world in the infrared spectrum of light. "You have not been up here long enough to appreciate the ridiculousness of this place. Your heart will call you home soon enough."
"Already," Berg'inyon replied. "I have no taste for this world, nor do I like the sight or smell of any I have seen up here, Sharlotta Vespers least of all."
"Her and the fool Entreri," said Rai-guy. "Yet Jarlaxle favors them both."