J. King: The Diamond

"In Undermountain," Kern explained, lifting a disapproving eyebrow at Noph's casual manner. "Ironically, this force of great virtue was led first to a city of great vice-wicked Skullport. 'Tis forever the burden of great men to confront and contend against the powers of darkness. Let evil know that, even to survive, it must forever wrestle great men-"

"Some women can pin evil right well, too-Aleena for one," Noph put in. There was laughter from the crowd.

Glowering, Kern continued, "In Undermountain, we lost the first of our men, Harloon, to the fell attack of an ettin-"

"Due to my own stupidity," Noph interjected, suddenly solemn.

"Continue," Khelben growled. "And one at a time." Noph took up the tale. "We found a portal to the Utter East," he said, "but it was crawling with fiends. We fought past most of them to reach it, but had the gods own bitter time trying to get the thing open as we fought one fiend after another. We opened it in the end. Aleena stayed behind to close it forever."

He glanced around the room, looking for the conspicuously absent lady paladin. A gentle blush crept from his collar. "I hoped we could see-I mean, I could… uh, that she'd made if out all right."

Impatiently, Kern brushed aside the younger man and continued. "We arrived in a land equally embattled by fiends, a realm clutched in the tyrannical tentacles of King Aetheric III, Lord of the Bloodforge!"

The awed sensation he'd intended this pronouncement to evoke was destroyed by chortles over the accidental alliteration of "tyrannical tentacles."

Ruffled, the paladin snapped, "Aetheric was a twisted monstrosity, a giant whose lower body had been transformed by the bloodforge into the grasping tentacles of a squid."

No mirth followed this description. "The more he used the bloodforge to create armies," Kern said in tones of doom, "the more twisted he became, and the more fiends he drew to his land!"

Noph took up the story again. "You've Aetheric to thank for those shadow warriors who came here and busted up the place. They kidnapped Eidola. Aetheric sent them, figuring we'd send fleets of ships and armies of men to Doegan. He wanted to use them as fresh troops to fight his fiend war for him."

"Instead of sending great armies to rescue the bride of the Open Lord, though," Kern said with satisfaction, "we sent only a small company of paladins."

"We certainly showed him the depths of our regard," said Lasker Nesher, bitterly. The listeners dropped their heads, chastened that they'd valued Piergeiron's bride so little.

Kern snapped, "We chose a small strike team instead of an army because this crucial task required a small, delicate tool."

Khelben rolled his eyes. Kern's diplomacy was certainly no delicate tool. The eyes of the crowd turned from the golden warrior to a more ragged, common hero.

"Hosts of fiends overran the city," Noph said. "In the fighting, King Aetheric broke free of his dark pool. He slithered to the top of his palace and fought there like a god from the Time of Troubles! He killed friends in their thousands before he died from the fresh air-see, he breathed poisonous salt water, not air!"

He leaned forward in remembered excitement, and the crowd leaned with him. "With Aetheric dead," Noph added, "the city was helpless. Fiends were all over the place, while we were trapped in the dungeons of the palace. Worse yet, the bloodforge was unguarded!"

Kern gestured toward Entreri. "The assassin Artemis Entreri, scourge of Justice everywhere, was among those who tried to gain control of the foul forge, hoping, no doubt, to sell it to the highest bidder. Instead, the flesh of his left arm was scorched away, leaving only bare bone… a fitting punishment for ever-grasping avarice. Be warned, though: his fingers of bone are as deft as his fingers of flesh have ever been!"

In the silence that followed, Khelben thoughtfully stroked his black beard. "Where are the other paladins from your party? Dead? And where is Eidola?"

"Some are dead," Noph said regretfully. "Some are pursuing Eidola; we don't know where she's led them."

"'Led them'?" interrupted Lasker Nesher. He glared at his disowned son. "What nonsense is this? Since when does a kidnap victim run from her rescuers?"

Khelben's look was keen and level, his eyes testing Noph's response.

The young man rose to his father's challenge. "Not all of us were rescuers, Father. This assassin"-he gestured toward Entreri" led a party of pirates, natives of the Utter East, to slay Eidola. She knew folk were out to kill her. Of course she ran; you would have, too. In the confusion of a fiend war, it's easy enough to mistake a friend for a foe. I'm certain once Miltiades catches her, though, everything will be set right."

"Eidola is alive!" the Brothers Boarskyr shouted in gleeful unison. Becil, the more verbal of the two, waded forward through the mob, his half-wit brother capering in his wake. "Which means she's inheritable to the Throne of King Pallidson!" he roared, "And we're her most conjugal relations, now that the king's reclining in the slumberous arms of the bucket he just kicked…"

Khelben shook his head, motioning them to silence.

The gesture was too subtle for the likes of Becil and Bullard.

"… And if she's become mortified of late, due to the felicitous aptitudes of eternal wherewithal and so forth, the throne is destined to languish beneath our collective posteriors into perpetuous posterity-"

"First," Khelben roared, "Piergeiron is not king, but Open Lord. Second, he has no throne. And third, the funerary rites are not completed, and therefore he is not officially dead. As for Eidola, she was never officially married to the Open Lord, and even if she were, the office of Open Lord is not hereditary-and even if it were, it wouldn't be passed to shirttail relations!"

Blinking at the volume and fury of this sudden outburst, Becil and Bullard glanced down at their shirt-tails, which flapped about their waists, and tucked them before striding on.

"Well," Becil returned smoothly, "we are entitled to certain entitlements due to the titular title of our cousin as regards her impending matrimony to this impending deadman, especially if she herself is found to be in a status symbol wanting of breath and other indications of livingness."

It was not Khelben's breath that was steaming now. "I'm under the impression your quarters this last month were more than lavish," he said almost silkily, "to say nothing of the food and drink granted you. Now I've rather more appropriate accommodations in mind. Captain Rulathon, I believe you're well acquainted with the fine facilities in the deepest parts of the palace?"

The watch captain nodded happily, hooking an arm through Becil's. "Come with me, sir. You'll get everything coming to you."

Bullard crowded forward, hand reaching toward Rulathon's belt. "How's about I've a look at your sword, hey?"

The response was immediate. Four Watchmen intervened with such speed that even Bullard was unaware exactly when and how he was knocked cold. This event also passed the notice of Becil, along with most of the crowd, since unconsciousness did not dramatically change Bullard's intellectual carriage.

As the two numbskulls (one quite literally) were assisted in their departure, the mood of the crowd grew dark. Waterdeep had been through a lot in the past month. If the Open Lord's bride wasn't safe in Piergeiron's Palace on her wedding day, no one was safe anywhere. There'd been talk of dopplegangers, guild conspirators, shadow warriors, assassins, pirates, and squid lords-and not just talk. All of these villains were involved in recent troubles, but none were the greatest, deepest threat. So what then? If these were only surface distractions, what dastardly foes lurked behind them all?

Guilds had closed their doors. Merchants had hired muscle. Guards were ordered to kill first and let the resurrection men ask questions later. Disaffected young nobles spoke fashionably of ending their lives, though none yet had.