After his long travels, Nirk arrives to the city of
Silvermoon and starts to practice the trades of his art...



I arrived to a pretty big town named Silvermoon. There I
contacted some others from my employment group. They
introduced me to their guild recruiting agent, Amlok, who
was recruiting for a small and unknown thief-guild named
"The Shadows of the North", exactly what I needed.
After seeing my diploma, Amlok was impressed and was happy
to join me into his guild, though I still needed to pass the
admission test. I chose thievery over assassination - which
was always harder, but in the lifestyle I chose for myself I
can never kill a man if I can avoid it. My task was to steal
a special dagger from a low level assassin dwarf who was
acting without the permission of any of the guilds; without
it he will not be able to do his job without getting the
help of this thief guild (they'll give him the dagger in
return of sixty percent of the money he will earn - the
usual guild's membership fee).
It was hard to find him in this town without the connections
I had no time to establish with the local informers yet. I
had only his name to begin with, Rota.
After two weeks of spending my money for any piece of
information on him I could buy, I found him.
I decided to follow him until the right opportunity will
show. After half an hour of walking, he slipped into a
narrow alley, between two houses. At first I thought that in
spite of the precautious I took, he spotted me following him
so I slipped into an opposite alley, but after a few minutes
of observation I realized he was just waiting for something
in the shadows of the alley (which I could see right through
because of my specially good darkness vision that Anila said
came from my tiefling race).
After about an hour of passing passengers, that none of them
were able to spot either of us, a human father with two
little girls, half-human half-some unknown dragon-like race,
past by me (besides them, the whole street was empty because
of the late hour). Before I knew what was going on, the
father was on the ground, Rota on him, and a dagger was on
the man's throat. The two little girls were standing there
shocked, trembling, too surprise to run or cry or anything.
The father started immediately, as by instinct, yelling them
to run and begging the dwarf to let his little girls live.
The dwarf only said "can't leave witnesses, you know."
During the time I noticed all of this happening, I was
unaware of my body's actions. I noticed suddenly that my
dagger was out and that I was running with it right toward
Rota. He noticed me in the last seconds, avoiding my blade
only by few inches.
I was enraged and I watched my body fight, as if it was
someone else's body. In order to win the dual, I forced
myself to relax and regain control of my body.
Rota attacked me then; his weapon was flying right towards
me in an impressive accuracy that was obviously not coming
from Rota, but from the weapon itself. Though his weapon was
impressive I was a lot faster than him, so I managed to
dodge it and return a strike of myself. He underestimated me
after seeing my raged attack and because of it, he won
himself a nice wound on his off-hand. During the fight I was
drawing him away from the man, and especially from the
little girls. This time, I underestimated him. He understood
my motives and I only succeed getting him a few paces away,
not quite enough for the father to regain his senses and
take his daughters away, not even enough for him to get on
his feet.
Suddenly, Rota left our fight, bolting toward the two girls
that at this point started to grasp things and started
crying. I knew he will use them as a shield... I just
couldn't let him do that... I just couldn't risk their lives
after... I just couldn't let him get to them...
Before understanding my actions, I saw my dagger flying from
my hand, and after an eternity in midair... striking the
target in the neck - there was no blood, he never even felt
the blow; the dagger disconnected his spine from his brain.
"Quicker and cleaner than breaking his neck", one of the
teachers once taught me in 'assassination technique class'.
The dagger prevented any blood from spilling, and even
without it there will be hardly any blood because of the
lack of wounded blood vessels from the dagger.
The dwarf fell immediately, never knowing he was hit just
one pace from the girls. I quickly picked up the dagger from
the dead body's hand, not because it was my mission, but
because I was taught in Thai never to leave an opponent
armed, even if suspected dead. I took my dagger from his
neck, while putting my cloak on him to spare the girls the
sight of blood. I put it in its sheath without cleaning it
first.
By that time the man got to his daughters and held them
tight, looking at me in frightened eyes while his daughters
cry on his shoulders.
I forced a smile on my face, saying "It's ok, I won't hurt
you, it's over".
The father, Karon, didn't relax immediately, but after we
got away from there and walked some more quietly he
understood I wasn't lying, and after inquiring on the cause
of the assassination he told me his life story.
His wife is of a draconic race. Because of her love for him
she changed herself to a human form. A powerful wizard named
Oz is trying since then to turn her beck to a dragon form,
to kill her and to use her body for components for his most
powerful spells. He believes that killing the reason she
took such a primitive shape will change her back to her pure
dragon shape again.
I went to his home and met his wife, Drana. She looked so
young and innocent but she was older then I could imagine -
that I could see in her eyes; she knew a lot about my race,
but even though I saved her husband and daughters lives she
refused to tell me the things I wanted to know. She said
she's bound by blood oath, and can't break it by any way
because the blood she took the oath with was dragon's blood,
her blood.
But she did teach me languages that will help me find out
the truth I search, from my ancestors' most common languages
to even gnoll's language; I was really good with languages
and learned it very quickly.
Taking the dagger to the guild agent, he signed me up for
his guild, and gave me a bonus because his plan to recruit
Rota by giving him his dagger back to Amlok's band was now,
with his death, canceled. He gave me the dagger as a bonus.
The dagger was magical, with the ability to hit easier, as
if it was a masterwork dagger, but more importantly, the
damage it conflicted was also raised magically.
I then hinted him a wizard was trying to take over the area.
I told him that the assassinations ordered were his work,
and that killing him is essential to the control of the
city. I volunteered to be the one to execute it, and to do
so I took some of his most powerful poisons with me...
If I could help it - Oz will never try to hurt this nice
family again!

Oz lived on the far end of town in an old two stories house.
The main door was trapped with some magical trap, marked by
some strange symbols written on it. I had no skills to
disarm such trap, so again, I needed to find another way in
- only this time the backdoor and all the windows, including
the second floor's, were trapped by some sort of a spell
too.
After two days of observation, the answer came to me while
watching the servant coming back with the groceries on what
seemed to be the daily hour to do so, because the day before
it was exactly the same hour. I suddenly noticed that though
the door opened by itself magically (after the servant
called for a doorkeeper from some second floor window to
open it) it did not closed that way, and that suggested to
me that the spell mechanism wasn't checking for the number
of people entering - and was in fact offline after the door
opened until it was closed again. So the idea came to me
immediately and it took me another day and almost any money
I got left to purchase the thing I needed to enter the
house.
The next day I came to the alley I watched the house from
late afternoon and waited. After about an hour I saw the
servant coming down the street toward the alley I was in. On
his way to the house, you could set your clock by him - just
before sundown, I immediately took a scroll from one of my
sleeves and started reciting quietly from it. After a few
seconds the servant past by the alley I was in, and I
quietly slipped a meter behind him, barely breathing,
absorbing my footsteps noise in his. He had no chance of
noticing me; the scroll I read before was a magic scroll and
its job was to make me invisible.
It was like they taught me in Thai: "The most difficult
place a normal man can find something is inside his own
shadow", and I was indeed in the servant's shadow.
As we approached the door and the servant called the
doorkeeper to open the door for him, I got even closer to
the servant in front of me until only a few centimeters were
between us, so that if I was wrong and the spell won't
prevent him from noticing another man is trying to enter the
house, it may be confused by our proximity to be just one
body. We then started walking inside the house through the
door...
After being inside the house and the door was closed again,
I departed from the nice servant who brought me inside the
house, walking toward his nightly errands, never suspecting
my existence for a second, I knew the spell will not last
long, so I wasted no time and ran upstairs, to the place I
thought most likely Oz will be in, the place I saw through
its windows flashing colors two nights ago. I arrived to the
door I estimated as the door to the room I wanted. It was
closed and from it came out noises like a low buzz and
humming. Looking from the keyhole, I saw an old gnome
sitting in a chair, humming to himself, concentrating on
something I couldn't see just ahead of him.
While thinking of how am I going to enter without him
noticing that the door is opening by itself, I heard
footsteps down the hall. I checked to make sure I'm still
invisible, backed away from the door, and waited.
After a few seconds the servant I just departed from came
with a tray in his hand. From the cover of the tray steams
arose, spreading sweet smell of roasted meat, apple pie and
some other stuff I could not identify. The servant arrived
at the door in front of me and knocked on it.
"Who is it?" a voice came from the other side of the door.
"It's Korgal, sir", replied the servant, "I have your
meal".
"So come in and stop bothering me!" replied the gnome in the
room.
The servant dug his pocket and took out a small circular
ordinary looking ceramic plate with some strange looking
pattern written on. He put the plate on the door and it
immediately attached to it - it was surely magic because
neither the door nor the plate had any kind of mechanism to
attach by; he then dug his pocket again and put out a big
silver key. He entered it to the lock and unlocked the door
with it.
I noticed that the plate trembled a bit while the door was
unlocking without any tremble from the door itself. After
the door was unlocked the plate departed from the door by
itself and fell. Korgal caught the plate in midair and put
it back to his pocket.
I knew now that trying to enter without such a plate would
have been disastrous. Korgal has opened the door and
entered, not noticing that me slipping inside after him.
Korgal put the tray on a table and took off the cover,
proving me my nose did not need any help identifying smells.
The old gnome looked on the plate with an unapproving look
and said "tell Oroka I'm taking off three silver pieces of
her monthly salary until her meals will get better".
"It's not her fault, there were no groceries in the
sto...r...." Korgal started saying but then stopped and
started reaching his throat like something was choking him.
"You will address me as sir or Mr. Oz, did I make myself
clear?" said the old wizard while pointing some wand in the
direction of his servant's throat. "And if the problem with
the food is with the groceries you brought, let the three
silver pieces cut down from your salary", he said and
lowered his wand.
"Ye...s Mr. Oz, si...r, s...or...ry s...ir, it w...ill not
ha...ppen again", said Korgal while grasping for air and ran
from the room, closing the door behind him.
Oz put the wand down, smiling to himself, and started again
reciting or humming to himself something while focusing on a
broom in front of him; a buzzing sound started coming from
the broom while it started shaking. After a few seconds it
started floating just a few centimeters above the floor,
while every few seconds it fell and started floating again.
That was my chance. After what I've just seen I had little
doubts left about my mission. I put out Rota's dagger, on
which now laid half of the poison I took from Amlok. I felt
the dagger helping me aiming to the back of my victim's
neck, to the point I used to kill Rota, "the sleeper's
point", called that way because of the instantaneity of the
death, leaving no pain in the victim's face, making him look
like he was sleeping.
My strike then came. I felt the dagger flying to its target
with more accuracy and power I had invested in it. I heard
the bones in his neck snap and saw his head dropping to his
chest while the floating broom in front of me fall to the
floor.
This death was inevitable; the spot I hit with the accuracy
and the force the dagger added to mine, with the instant
damage the powerful poison on the dagger, made this death
unavoidable.
I took by dagger out and cleaned the blood from his wound,
leaving him looking like he had fallen asleep while working
to the naked eye.
I started searching the wizard's body and while doing so
noticed I was visible again. I found on the body a few
important things: little more than five hundred and fifty
gold pieces, a weird looking headband, the wand Oz used on
Korgal before, and a plate like Korgal had, only this one
had a lot more patterns on it and was made of steel.
I guessed the plate's objective, the reason it was different
from Korgal's: Oz was the master of the house and he was
evil hearted; he will have a "master-key" to all the doors
and windows in the house, unlike his servants, for he will
not trust his servants to open the door for him.
The plate I put on the window and as I suspected it trembled
for a second and the window opened automatically. I took the
plate, got out from the window, closed it, and climbed up to
the roof.
I jumped from rooftop to rooftop until I found a low roof
and from it jumped down safely.


I returned to the guild house and met Amlok. Under the
guild-sorcerer's truth spell I told what happened. Amlok was
very impressed and wanted me to meet his superior, but not
before he took his percents off of me: The wand, that the
sorcerer identified as a "wand of telekinesis", the plate to
disarm the traps, and after a lot of negotiating I managed
to keep the "headband of dexterity" to myself, in exchange
to the two hundred gold pieces I was expecting to get for
the success of the mission and half of the gold I got from
our late Oz.
I was anxious to try and use my new powerful headband; the
sorcerer said that the power it will add to my body's
movement and abilities is on the basic level and because of
that I will feel it in almost any action I will do.
While walking the street, searching for a target, I could
feel in every step and every turn my body made the
difference; I was much quicker and that was added to my
agility, even my reflexes were improved.
I wanted to test my improved skills, but not on the expense
of any good soul.
After an hour of wondering, I gave up and decided to visit
my new friends and to tell them that they don't need to be
scared again of that evil wizard.
Drana and Karon welcomed me warmly, while Sinag and Rogan -
their daughters - hiding behind them, picking on me in a
still frightened look.
It reminded me about the times I've seen some horrifying
incidents while growing up; the time Thai slaughtered and
burned the temple of "Salune" flashed before my eyes. I
understood how those girls felt perfectly, and I smiled
warmly at them.
We set to talk, while the girls played with some puzzle box
I gave them, one of the objects we had to practice disarming
mechanical devices in Thai. They had already heard of the
death of the wizard Oz; rumors in small towns like this are
quicker than assassin's strike. We talked a bit more about
their lives, how they were always on the run from guys like
Oz, even in such a remote town, but now with Oz out of the
way they felt safer. She said that they stayed in here
because Oz was the only threat, while in other places
threats were hiding in every corner. Any big wizard could
see immediately Drana's potential. Oz was the biggest wizard
around and it took him a few years to find out her true self
by a chance.
After a while, the girls got tired of the unsolved puzzle;
they were already used to me as only kids could and were
already starting to examine the new stranger present and to
ask him to play with them. I started thinking of my own
childhood that had nothing in common with normal childhood
like this. I was missing the innocence that was in their
eyes and was never in mine, from the unavoidable memory of
seeing my parents murdered, to growing in a school that was
made for thieves and killers.
After thinking that my heart was again full of the sadness
and hatred over the death of my parents, I softened and
started telling them my life's story. They were good
listeners; when I talked about Thai, Karon seemed a little
thoughtful and didn't notice when Rogan started playing with
his beard.
When I got to the part of the sanctuary and told them about
Anila and her parents, Drana smiled and said she met Orin
many years ago.
After I finished my life's story, Karon revealed to me the
reason he looked thoughtful. He said that when he was young
and living in the alleys of Waterdeep, he heard of the name
Nirk; by steeling from shops to survive he made friends with
common jobs and he has heard of it, as a thief and as an
assassin he was very famous, and it was said he was high in
the ladder of the powers of Waterdeep. Sympathizing me, he
told me that if I want to get close to him it isn't enough
climbing the ladder in any thief guild, only in Waterdeep's
thief guilds.
I now knew what my next step should be. I needed to find a
way into Waterdeep, so I went back to the little house I
rented, thinking of it, when something cut my line of
thought...
In the next alley, just before my house, I've noticed Amlok
between the shadows. I walked as if I wasn't aware of him,
but he was able to notice my awareness. He stepped out and
said I was successful in my first test to see his superior;
the second will be to beat him. He said that by doing so
I'll be in his level and will be able to see his boss, but
unfortunately this will be impossible because he's much
better then I... and with that he attacked.
I pulled my dagger and realized it was my old regular
(though masterwork) dagger.
I pulled the other dagger and realized my ranger training
was providing me to use both in the same time. His first
strike was week and got only a piece of my leather mail; my
strike wasn't so. I stroke with one weapon, making him step
backward to avoid it, and the other weapon went to the place
he backed to. I missed him in order to defend myself because
he made an attack while backing off. While avoiding his
blade I saw a vase falling from a woman watching the fight
from the second floor; when she saw me she hid quickly. When
it will snap on the floor it will be my chance. He didn't
wait for my response and attacked again. I avoided it by
backing away, and then the vase exploded, leaving his
attention for one second off of me... after that second he
was on the ground, two daggers on his throat.

I never meant to hurt him, just to prove my abilities, and
for that he told me everything I needed to know... my
question was answered.
My luck was greater then I knew even then. He told me our
guild was a part of a much greater guild and that his
superior would want to meet me in that guild's main meeting
place... Waterdeep.