R. Salvatore: The Companions

Barely inside the door, many eyes turning to regard him, he threw back his cloak and swept the water droplets from his beret. He knew that he cut a heroic figure, quite dashing, and didn’t try to hide that in the least. Boldness would get him through, he reminded himself continually, as it had on the bridge. He could not, would not, appear the least bit vulnerable.

He wore three weapons on his belt, which had been looped with a blue sash to match the color of his hat. His rapier sat on his left hip, the hand crossbow in front of his right, and his dagger in a new scabbard just behind the hand crossbow at the side of his right hip. He wore a black leather sleeveless vest and a white shirt, unbuttoned in the front just enough to reveal an undercoat of soft cloth lined with glistening mithral strands. His breeches were light brown and his boots, high and fashionable, shined of black leather to match the fine material of the vest, and indeed, had been crafted by the same leatherworker, one considered, and certainly priced like, the finest in all of Baldur’s Gate.

As he pulled off his riding gloves-leather, but dyed blue to match the hat and belt sash-he scanned the room, nodding politely at those who seemed most interested. Tucking the gloves into his belt, he moved to the bar to ord of the DesaiIcreoner some wine and inquire about a room.

“And how long might you be staying, master?” asked the barkeep, an attractive young woman with gray eyes and rich brown hair just a shade lighter than the halfling’s.

“Master Topolino,” he answered, and he tipped his beret to her. “Spider Topolino of Aglarond. And I would like the room until I find an appropriate caravan setting out for the North.”

“Mirabar? Auckney?”

“Icewind Dale,” said Regis. “I am bound for Ten-Towns.”

She put the glass of wine before him on the bar. “And what business might you have in that forsaken place?”

“My own,” he answered, thinking it strange that anyone living in Luskan at this time would label anywhere else in all the world as “forsaken.”

“Good enough for ye, then,” she replied. “Just making conversation.”

Regis offered her a smile. “My apologies,” he said. “I am unused to friendly conversation. The north road has precious little of it now, I fear, where more oft must I speak with my blade than my charm.”

“Then might be you need to be more charming,” said a man beside him, but rather playfully, he noted, so he laughed and told the barkeep to buy the man a drink on his tab.

“You’ll not need your blade in here,” the barkeep explained.

“You are the owner?”

“Me?” the woman said with a laugh, one that was shared by all others near enough to hear. “No, no. Just a drink-maker and coin-taker.”

“And a pretty eye-full to be enjoyed by the crews,” the man beside Regis added, lifting his glass in toast to her.

Others joined in and the barkeep curtsied and gave a little smile, then moved to the other end of the bar to the call of some other patrons.

“But you beware, little friend, that it’s just an eye-full,” the man warned. “Serena’s spoken for, by One-Eye himself, and he’s not one you’re looking to anger, no matter how well you can work those pretty weapons you carry.”

“One-eye is a man, then?” Regis asked. “I had thought it a card in a deck.”

“Not a man,” the other patron said cryptically, and the others nearby chuckled.

The halfling left it at that. He moved to a table near the blazing hearth and ordered some food, and was quite pleased at the quality, as he was at the quality of his room when he went up to the second story to retire for the night. He found the posting board at the foot of the stairs, but there was only one caravan listed, and it was bound for Port Llast in the south and not to Icewind Dale.

“They’ll be another before the season’s turn,” Serena called out to him when she noted his disappointment as he stood before the board.

He smiled at her, tipped his hat, and bowed gracefully, then climbed the stairs, knowing full well that more than a few patrons were likely talking about him in the common room below.

He set a trap upon his door, using a shim stuck into the top crease of the jamb to hold a vial of acid he had brewed. Anyone coming through uninvited would be in for a painful surprise.hat playthings we be,” an moisture im

He moved his small bed to the corner across the room that would be most sheltered by the inward swing of the door, then laid his hand crossbow out in easy reach. He re-coated the loaded dart in poison, and set another nearby, nodding approvingly at his handiwork. He had served the Grinning Ponies in many capacities. He was their finest housebreaker when they needed to gather information in places like Baldur’s Gate, and also served well as the group’s alchemist, providing potions of healing and speed and heroism, and this poison he had learned to brew. It was not as effective as the drow sleeping poison it had replaced, for he had no access to the mushrooms unique to the Underdark, but he had found a substitute fungus that grew in the forests around the Crags. The poison might not put anyone of considerable constitution to sleep, but it often made an enemy’s movements sluggish, and as an added benefit, the clever Spider had added some particularly nasty pepper juice that made the small puncture wound of the tiny bolts feel as if it were brought about by a hot poker.

Quite a fine distraction, and thus an advantage, he had learned in fights against those so bitten by his clever weapon.

Before he settled in, tanned the room, peering closely at every crack in the wall through the magnifying prism of his ring in search of secret doors or murder holes.

Still, despite his thoroughness and precautions, he didn’t sleep much that night, fully expecting an ambush, and more than that, trying yet again to reconcile himself to these two very different identities, Spider and Regis. In the south and the east, he had been Spider Parrafin and then, after his flight from Delthuntle, Spider Pericolo Topolino, and hadn’t he made a grand name for himself!

But with Ten-Towns looming before him, not so far and not so long, was he to remain Spider? Or to be Regis again? He laughed as he considered that he had given his pony the same name Bruenor often used for him.

“A little of both and neither of one, then,” he decided, and he tried to sleep. But of course, moving from his contemplations only reminded him of his vulnerability and the potential for an ambush, and with that unsettling thought in mind, his sleep came in fits and starts.

No ambush came, however, and the halfling went downstairs the next morning to find a smiling Serena and a fine breakfast set out for guests of the inn.

What a collection those guests proved to be; ragamuffins, one and all, road-weary, or more likely sea-weary, cast-offs looking for work wherever they might find it. Regis sat in the far corner of the common room, near the hearth and close enough that he could leap through one of the few windows in the place if need be. He had his back against the wall, and kept his head up while picking through his food, his eyes scanning.

It occurred to him that any of the dozen others in the room would kill him for the price of a few pieces of silver.

That realization sent his thoughts back to the heady days of Captain Deudermont, when the goodly man tried to wrest control of the City of Sails from the pirates and the Hosttower of the Arcane. Deudermont had failed miserably, and his loss was Luskan’s loss, as was clearly evident by the decay in both structures and citizens. “Alas …,” Regis heard himself whisper.

All but a couple of the inn’s guests departed soon after the morning meal, but others entered, particularly after Serena took her place behind the bar.