a few breaths, Laraelra, Osco, and Meloon repeated the procedure, leaving the chamber empty only with the glow of Vharem's coffin and the torchlight.
The torch flames flickered and sputtered, the only sound until a thin, teedy voice called out, 'Father? Have you come for me? The ghosts… they left me in the dark. Help me. I did it all for you. I did it all for you…' The voice fell to sobs as the torches flickered out, restoring the all-encompassing darkness.
CHAPTER 17
Khelben the Elder built that tower like he carried himself-rod-straight like his back, stone as black as his scowl, and bristling with magics unguessed. Only the most foolish would ever attempt to steal into the forbidding tower, let along steal from it.
11 Nightal, Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)
Osco stepped off the staitwell and gaped. Whatever he'd expected to find inside Blackstaff Tower, it wasn't this. He stood at the top of a staircase opening into a large ten-sided antechamber, corridors leading off in eight different directions, magical green torches flickering every twenty paces or so. The only other feature was a stone statue of a tearing griffon directly opposite the stairwell against a blank wall. At the center of the room stood Vajra, her back to him.
'Vajra?' Osco asked. 'Where'd everybody go?' Vajra turned to him, a lone tear running down her cheek. While she looked in his general direction, Osco knew her eyes didn't focus on him. 'I'm sorry, friends, for what we now must endure. I thought it safe, but the tower seeks to prove us worthy to walk its halls.' Her form shimmered as she sobbed. 'I'm sorry… and may Tymora bless you with good luck.' As her voice wavered, she faded into a wispy miasma of green mists, leaving Osco alone to contemplate which direction to follow.
'Parharding wizards,' Osco swore under his breath. 'So… we do this by the numbers, as if it's any other place we're casing.' Osco started on the first corridor on his left, scanning carefully for any traps or hidden dangers. After he'd gone thirty paces, he discovered doors on alternating sides of the corridor every six paces beyond the first green torch. Scanning down the seemingly endless corridor, he noted seventeen doors before he stopped counting.
Shaking his head, Osco returned to the original antechamber. He chose the next corridor that arced off in a slightly different direction, and repeated the whole process. His eyebrows rose when he found the exact same dimensions and features in that corridor. He looked, but did not spot any of his own footprints, as these corridors were suspiciously devoid of dust. 'Hmph. So much for the easy way of tracking.'
Curious, Osco took out a small hunk of chalk and marked the first door on his left with an O beneath the lock. He retraced his steps back to the antechamber and chose the third corridor. All the details remained the same as the first two, though Osco growled when he approached the first door to find no mark on it. Scratching his head and scanning further down the corridor, he spotted his mark on the third door on the right. 'So, you want to play games with me, wizard? Send me down the same corridor and shuffle the doors? Fine.' Osco rubbed his hands together, then unbuckled his lock picks from the back of his belt, and said, 'Let's see what's behind our marked door, then.'
The lock appeared clean, unlocked, and without any traps, so Osco opened the door to find himself in a small room, a cot against one wall, a rug at the room's center, and a set of shelves holding a handful of books. Atop the shelves was a statue of a cat made of ivory with sapphires for eyes. Osco's own eyes widened, and he carefully scanned for traps around it before picking it up and slipping it into his backpack. He muttered, 'Well, after all, the biglings always take from the hin, so we're due a donation on our parts.'
Osco walked around the room, tapping the stones in the corners.
He found no hidden doors there. He flipped up the edge of the carpet to expose the trapdoor he assumed would be there. It was.
Osco opened the trapdoor, only to find his view blocked by a cloud of greenish mist. He poked a dagger through and stirred it around, making the mists swirl but not dissipate. He dipped the dagger lower and lower, and his hand felt no shift in temperature or other danger. He leaned his head in, but mists blocked his sight. He whistled low. From the sound he could tell he was in a larger room than before, but could not tell how big. He whispered a prayer to Brandobaris, the halfling god and Master of Stealth, and dropped a copper, counting the ticks before he heard it stop. When it hit a solid surface, Osco knew it had struck stone and it wasn't more than a typical corridor's height. He rolled himself through the trapdoor, holding onto the edge and dangling uncertainly within the mists. Another whispered prayer of, 'Brandobaris, may the risks I undertake in your name lead only to great rewards,' and Osco let go. He dropped into the mist, and his stomach lurched when he realized he'd dropped farther than expected; Just as he started to shout in surprise, he landed outside the mists Back in the original antechamber.
'Parharding wizards,' Osco grumbled, and he stalked into the fourth corridor.
Osco wiped the sweat from his face, then rubbed his hands dry again on his cloak. This lock was tricky, and it was his third attempt at picking it. He'd spent what he thought was at least two bells opening doors, finding hidden doors, and picking the locks on chests. The locks were getting more and more difficult, but Osco liked the challenge almost as much as he liked what he'd filched so far from those locked chests and secret rooms. His pockets, pouches, and bag all bulged with easily fenced goods and gems he'd found along the way. What drove him to distraction was his constant return to that ten-sided room.
Osco had found this room through a series of six locked and hidden doors, though they all shared similar locks, which made them progressively easier to pick. In fact, he actually found that when he looked closely, the lock itself started showing scratches from his own picks before he even started working on the locks.
'Hmph.' Osco smiled. 'Any advantage given is one step up a hin needs to get eye-to-eye with the biglings, who take advantage of us.' With the latest lock picked, Osco pushed the door open into the largest chamber he'd yet found.
Green flames flared from the tops of crystalline pillars almost twice his height, six of them placed around the octagonal room in front of each wall save the one through which he came and the wall opposite that entry. The chamber held two statues, and Osco smiled when he realized this seemed to be a chamber honoring two halflings, rather than the usual human-scaled statuary. The bases were at least as tall as the statues themselves, their plaques identifying the statues. He walked up to the marble statue on the right and gasped. The figure was clad in wizard's robes cut for a slender halfling, and he held a staff also cut to his size, the staff crowned by the carving of a lion's head. He'd seen paintings and drawings of this broadly smiling hin, but never such a lifelike representation, complete down to a dimpled chin still carried by his familial line. Osco's hand rubbed his own dimple as he read the tall base of the statue: Pikar Salibuck. Friend of Two Blackstaffs. Tamer of the Three Fires ofHarlard. Vanquisher of Huillethar the Devourer. He Stood Tall in Art and Life.
'Thank the gods the Blackstaff remembered to honor me great-grandfather,' Osco said. 'Too bad we only get some backwater chamber buried deep away from everything else. No respect, really.'
He turned on his heel and gasped as he saw movement. The marble statue he now faced was far less friendly. A dark scowling grimace seemed to darken the marble from which it was carved. Here was a halfling with long hair bound behind his head and an eye patch over his left eye. He wore older-cut leathers and a cloak and a hin-sized scimitar at his belt. Osco's eyes widened when he realized the statue's details even included the bulges and hints of daggers in both boots and sleeves. Around the statue's feet were bulging stone bags of carved coins, a pile of gems, and, oddly, a penguin. The living Osco read the inscribed plaque as the first line recarved itself anew with two words added to the end of that line. It now read: Osco Salibuck the Elder. Agent of Khelben. Ampratines' Friend. Infiltrator Extraordinaire. No Fear Hindered Hin.
Osco groaned at the pun on the plaque, but smiled as he liked the idea that two members of his family-
