Neverwinter Daze

Neeshka supposed it was inevitable, especially considering the company they were keeping. Sooner or later, thieves would out, and word would get to Leldon, and he’d decide that she had to give back what she’d stolen, fair and square. She’d been trying not to think about it, though.

The four thugs standing in front of them, though, had forcibly brought the situation back to clear focus. Each looked more suited to cracking heads than cracking safes; apparently Leldon had changed his taste in company. She nervously fingered her daggers’ hilts as Kris talked to them.

“You can tell this ‘Leldon’ that messing with Neeshka is messing with me,” he proclaimed in a low, dangerous voice. His neatly brown-bearded face, normally holding a look of jovial curiosity, was now dead serious, his lips pressed together in a firm line, his eyes glinting with barely suppressed violence under the brim of his chapeau. She could see now why thieves as often ran from them as ambushed them; their leader was a fearsome man when the mood struck. Khelgar’s obvious readiness to fight didn’t hurt, either. Even Elanee was eying the goons with a look of icy disdain, fingering her quarterstaff.

These thugs had obviously expected another like her. Neeshka freely admitted that she didn’t excel at open confrontation; she always won out in the end, though. Kris was different; he was able and willing to match word for word and stare for stare, and more often than not got the better of those he dealt with. The brigands facing them now were obviously cowed, and just as obviously wouldn’t admit it.

“Leldon don’t care, s’long as he gets what’s his back,” Bennon said. Neeshka remembered him as a hard-headed mugger from the old days; now, he was licking his lips unconsciously as he failed to meet Kris’s gaze. “He wants it without a fuss, fer now.” He jerked his head at his fellows, and they turned and walked back out of the empty alley without a backwards glance.

Khelgar, robbed of his chance at a brawl, was unusually good-cheered as he put his axe up. “We sure told them, didn’t we, halfgirl,” he said almost affectionately, causing Neeshka to stare in surprise. The dwarf said something positive to her? That was a first.

Kris watched the alley mouth for another moment, then turned, fixing her with a concerned look. “Old partner of yours? What’d you take from this one?”

She tittered nervously. “Nothing I didn’t deserve. His fault for trying to cheat me.” She was annoyed, though; why couldn’t the moron just leave well enough alone? “We pulled this job together, and afterwards, Leldon decided he deserved the full share. I disagreed; I was the one that actually got us past the traps and into the storeroom, after all. But no, he said he’d ‘supplied the plan’. Right. Anyway, long story short, he got a few bruisers to rough me up and take the loot. Naturally I couldn’t let this stand, so I waited a few days and then picked his house clean while he was away. Left a note detailing exactly how I’d gotten past all of his traps; boy, would I like to have seen the look on his face!”

She laughed heartily at the image; only Kris seemed to find it amusing, though. Elanee had a disapproving look on her face, while Khelgar just looked uninterested. “Boy, I’d like to steal from him again, take him down a peg or two. Maybe this time, he’ll actually learn his lesson; obviously the last one didn’t take.”

From the way Khelgar rolled his eyes, she could tell the idea didn’t exactly tickle him pink. Elanee was more vocal in her distaste for the idea. “Solve a problem caused by theft with more theft?” she exclaimed, incredulous. “That does not seem to me like the best way to end hostilities at all. Why would we risk it?”

Neeshka couldn’t help herself. “Look, we did all that whiny nature stuff you wanted to do,” she spat angrily. “Why can’t we go take care of my problems now, and make a pretty penny besides?” Elanee flushed with anger, and was about to reply when Kris cut in, seemingly oblivious to the brewing catfight. Neeshka was slightly disappointed; she’d been looking forward to yelling at this self-righteous do-gooder elf.

“To be able to pay fools like those,” Kris mused, “he must be pretty successful nowadays. Certainly couldn’t steal from a nicer guy, too.” That was another thing about him; he didn’t like to steal from anyone he didn’t think deserved it. Neeshka found it both annoyingly naïve and kind of endearing at the same time; she herself couldn’t care less.

“So you’re up for it? Ophala at the Moonstone Mask would know where Leldon’s bedding down these days, if anyone does,” she offered hopefully. “After we’re done with Moire’s job, we could hit the place and be out before Leldon even notices!”

Khelgar finally spoke up again. “Where’s the fun in that?” he nearly yelled. “Surely you at least want to knock a few heads about, teach ‘em not to mess with you!”

“We’ll bring you along to do it for us,” Kris told him before Neeshka could respond. “That way, you won’t be bored while we gather up all that hum-drum jewels and loot.”

“Alright then,” Khelgar exclaimed, standing straighter. “Count me in!”

Elanee contented herself with a disgruntled sigh before agreeing. This time, it was Neeshka who rolled her eyes as they started off.


****


The common room was full of laughter and good cheer as they doled out the loot. Even Elanee deigned to accept an amulet, carved with a badger, for which she thanked Kris profusely. Leldon’s house had been lucrative, both in monetary value and in satisfaction, Neeshka thought. There had been some head-knocking, quite a bit of it, in fact, including Leldon’s. Maybe now, the ass would lay off, she thought as she twirled his lucky coin between her fingers. Somehow, she doubted it.

Khelgar was having a fine time of it, trading insults at the bar with Qara, the fire-girl. Neeshka thought she liked the sorceress; for a human, she had an admirably well-honed sense of fun, even if was unnerving once in a while. And she could certainly match egos with Khelgar; hell, even that annoying hedge magician, Sand, didn’t have her beaten in that department. Elanee, as usual, was slightly apart from the two, listening to their banter with stifled laughter and an occasional verbal thrust of her own.

Kris was off in the corner, chatting comfortably with his uncle over a mug of ale. As she watched, he leaned close to give the jovial elf a pat on the back, and slipped him a bejeweled ring they’d found, which Qara claimed was magical in some way. For his part, Duncan laughed harder and took a long swig before pushing his chair back and rising. Neeshka caught “… put this with the others …” around the general babble of the common room, before he stepped through the kitchen door, ale in hand.

Their leader sat by himself a moment, just grinning into space. Then, he too pushed himself up, and turned to find her studying him. His grin grew even wider, and he sidled over to her table, taking the chair across from her. He glanced towards the still-open kitchen door, and then back at her. “It wouldn’t be nice to steal from the man who’s giving us free rooms,” he winked, “even setting aside the fact he’s my uncle.”

“Hey, I would never …” Neeshka giggled softly. “Is it that obvious?”

“I just know you by now,” Kris replied, sitting back and taking the last draft of his ale.

She pushed her own half-finished mug over to him, and he nodded gratefully. “I wasn’t really considering it,” she said in her most ingratiating voice. “Just, you know, force of habit.”

He picked her mug up and raised it to his lips. “Uh huh.”

“So, where should we pawn all this loot?” she asked, flicking Leldon’s lucky coin so that it spun around the table.

“Deekin seems the best choice,” he said after a moment. “That little guy pays top coin and doesn’t ask questions. I got to say, for a kobold, he’s a pretty likeable fellow.” Another sip. “Too bad he’s attached to this city, or I’d ask him to come along with us.”

Neeshka nodded. “Yeah, I hear even the ‘respectable’ citizens tolerate him. The way they sneer at me, you’d think he’d draw full-blown screams.” She thought about it, a quizzical expression on her orange face. “Then again, that might be because I steal and he buys.”

Kris guffawed into his mug, but waved her off when she raised an eyebrow in question.

“Anyway,” she continued after he’d calmed down, “I hope this doesn’t mean we won’t be stealing again anytime soon. A little thing like rolling in gold shouldn’t stop us.”

“Are you kidding?” he asked incredulously. “Hell, as soon as I figure out a way to do it, we’ll hit Axel, just for the fun of it.” He set the ale down and gave her a warm smile. “Good thing I met you, though. I don’t know how I’d do it without you. That guy had some amazingly complicated traps, but you treated all of them as though they were made by a goblin tactician,” he joked.

She blushed, but gave back an equally warm smile. “I know how you’d do it without me. You’d just flow around whatever you couldn’t destroy.” Her smile faded. “Really, I thought you were a goner when that spear trap I missed went off.”

He shrugged modestly. “Eh. Reflexes. Living in the Mere, you gotta be on your toes all the time.”

She pointed a finger at him playfully. “You lived in West Harbor, not the actual Mere, you liar.”

“Hey,” he replied in a pained voice. “I didn’t spend all my time inside the fences. That swamp had some interesting places, and I wasn’t about to stay in the village for my entire childhood. No, we used to go traipsing about the swamp all the time, me and Bevil and …” He grimaced slightly. “Amie …”

“Your friend who died?” Neeshka cringed when he looked at her sharply. “Sorry. It’s not your fault, though.”

“I know,” he muttered. Then, in a stronger voice, he went on. “It’s just … it was so senseless. She wasn’t even a threat, yet that monster of a wizard killed her …”

“Well, considering how often the Githyanki show up on our tail,” she said comfortingly, “we’ll find him soon, and gut him for her.”

He smiled grimly around his unfocused, remembering stare. “That we will.”

She stayed silent for a moment, letting him settle down a bit and take a few more sips of his ale. Then, in a more hesitant voice, she asked, “Was she … close … to you?” She made “close” sound like a sentence all its own.

Kris’s eyes refocused on her, taking in her small tremulous smile and hopeful face. Damn, she thought. For a thief, I sure have a bad bluffer’s face. Quickly, she schooled her expression to stillness.

Grinning again, he settled back in his chair. “As a friend, yes. But not like you mean, I think,” he continued. “No, none of the village girls interested me that way, for very long.”

“I know what you mean,” she laughed a little too shrilly. “I could never stay with just one guy too long, either.”

“Really.” He waggled an eyebrow at her. “So does that mean there’ve been a lot?”

“A few,” she answered, a little defensively. His dark eyes held hers, a bit unsettlingly. “No one too memorable.”

“Hmm. I begin to gain insight!” he said, affecting a mocking, Sand-like voice. She laughed at that before he went on in his normal tone. “Leldon was one, wasn’t he?”

Neeshka shook her head violently, for once taken aback. “What? No! That slimy clod? He’s barely competent to lift a purse, let alone satisfy me.”

He leaned a bit closer across the table, and she found herself leaning forward to match him. “So what does it take,” he asked in low tones, “to satisfy you?”

“Someone who can keep up,” she rejoined, in the same sultry tone. “ Someone with quick hands and a quicker tongue.”

His mug of ale forgotten at his side, Kris leaned closer. “And how long’s it been, since you met someone like that?”

“Oh,” she answered, bracing herself for rejection, but plunging ahead anyway. “About three weeks, now.”

With a deep, satisfied laugh, Kris sat back, and her stomach fluttered. His intrigued grin, though, made it clear he wasn’t laughing at her.

“You know, I just remembered,” he told her, eyes dancing. “I have a bit more loot back in my room, that I, uh, forgot to divvy up. What say you come back with me, and tell me what you want?”

She found the speed at which this was moving to her liking. “Just so long as I have my pick of your inventory,” she replied, holding his gaze as they pushed back their chairs to stand up.