Nirk is working his way up the ladder of the guild toward
his goal; the road is rough but his luck and skills are on
his side...


After parting from my new friends, and buying the items I
will need for the long journey, I continued my quest to
Waterdeep, knowing I'm one step closer to competing my quest
to avenge the death of my parents.
It took me two months, while guarding caravans part of the
way, but most of it by sneaking into caravans and "enjoying
their hospitality", though I always left money as a payment
for their lost.
Even with Amlok's directions, it took me two weeks to find
the place he told me about. Waterdeep was a huge city and my
childhood memories of it and its sewers weren't much help.

The place I needed to get into was indeed in the sewers, and
bribing the guards wasn't much help. I needed to wait for
three more days in a smelly old room inside the sewers for
them to verify my story; standing in a pitch black room, I
waited... thinking that my darkness sight will give me
advantage in the interview, which was proven wrong by the
ray of light directed to my eyes just before the start of
the interview, blinding me completely till the end of it.
A strong unrecognizable voice said then that I was smart not
to kill Amlok in order to get the information I wanted...
the location I was now in. The test was successful because
of it, and only one test remains in order to get the
position I wanted... the maze, which in its end I will get a
bonus, an item to strengthen me.
They gave me a day to get ready. I knew being invisible will
not work this time, for I will probably not go against
leaving beings, but traps and more traps. I bought a strong
silk rope with a hook, a small beg of marbles, some fairy
dust, two magic potions, four scrolls of "Detect Magic" and
two scroll of "Detect Secret Door", in case my skills will
not suffice.
I was instructed to finish the maze in less than ten hours
or fail; I guessed that it meant death.
I started in a small entrapped room with two doors ahead of
me. After two minutes of searching the doors for clues which
one I should choose, I decided taking the hidden door
between them.
On the other side I found an oddly warm room with no doors.
I took one of my marbles and threw it inside in order to
activate any trap it can while I'm not there. A big mistake,
because the people who built the place thought thieves will
do just that, so three traps were activated - loosing three
clusters of ice daggers, right toward me. I simply closed
the hidden door in front of me. It wasn't luck that helped
me still being behind the door while testing the traps... I
was glad I wasn't absent that day in Thai.
I opened the door again by its wall-like handle, seeing the
icy image that should have contained me, on the door; I
tossed another marble, this time against the far wall.
Without touching the floor, it bounced right back at me...
no air traps, it seemed. I did it a few times more in other
directions to be sure of it.
Then I took the rope, aimed the hook toward a crack in the
far wall, and threw the hook at the crack very carefully
while not giving my end of the rope to get to the ground.
I was ready to jump to the last room again but I was lucky
and the hook was attached to the crack. I tied it to the top
corner of the door, and crawled on the door, never touching
the trapped ground. I was very fortunate in two ways: that
the crack did hold my weight, and that the crack had
belonged to a secret door, worn by the use of it and by the
ice daggers snapping in the warm room. I figured out that
the warmness came to confuse the users of the elemental
protections of any kind.
It took me ten minutes to understand the mechanism of the
door and to disarm its magical trap.
I then opened the door and on the other side stood... me,
five times. Five mirrors stood in front of me. After
checking the ground for traps I went down and jerked the
rope to my hands and closed the door, though not completely,
and went to the mirrors.
I knew this game, some were real mirrors and some only
illusions; any touch on a real mirror will break it, and
that way I'll lose, and in this case most likely die. It was
one of the last tests in Thai, the only way was to examine
every single mirror and illusion till I found some clue to
what was real and what was not. This time was a lot easier;
I used a "Detect Magic" scroll and just went through all the
illusions I've detected, till I came to three mirrors, none
of them was magical... this was new.
I guessed one of them must be the door to the next chamber,
but I had no time to waist because I didn't know how many
rooms I had left. I used the "Detect Secret Door" scroll I
had and found out two of them were doors. I searched for
traps and when I found a bunch of traps on one of the doors
I decided to go through the door with no traps. "They
already know I think as a thief if I got this far and don't
choose the easy way, so this time they will try to trick me
by luring me to the trapped door". That's what my thief's
instincts told me, and my mind agreed.
I went through the door and through the long hall that went
to the right, leading me to a very wide room with a
bottomless ground but for a small bridge going to a door on
the other side. Above the bridge huge axes and maces swung,
just a centimeter above from hitting it, in great velocity,
the speed I needed was great, but though I knew I could do
it, it would take too long. I took the rope, through it to
the first axe's attachment to the roof. It got tied up by
the axe's movement in a minute. Using the axe's swing, I
bulleted myself away from the bridge. The rope pulled me in
an arch, right out of the obstacles range, right into the
other side of the bridge, and then was shredded to pieces by
them.
While walking toward the door, I realized that if my timing
was two seconds later, I would have never reached the
bridge, and now because of the unseen bottom - my rage to
avenge my parents blinded me, I understood now - the door
was surprisingly entrapped, so I thought... The trap was
just out of my league; unable to jump sideways to avoid the
fireball (I was still on the bridge), I absorbed it with my
body. For a fireball the damage wasn't so great, but it
still left me badly wounded (though normally I would have
been dead by such a trap) and the potions and the scrolls
were all gone because of it.
I was in a room with five more doors leading to it from my
direction. In front of me stood a simple chair with some
cloth folded upon it, an aura in the whole room indicated a
spell has been made here - it seemed it wasn't on anything
specific, so I had nothing to deal it with. Estimating the
cloth's weight, I subtracted the number of marbles from
their bag and with one swift swing I switched between
them...
All of a sudden, the roof above me opened; a trigger somehow
must have been made in spite of my precautions. The magical
aura I've seen before must have been responsible for it
somehow. I saw no way of escaping the thing that must fall
from above now...
Instead of a shower of stone or fire, a bright light was now
upon me, blinding me for a second, and instead of hearing my
death approaches, I heard a voice: "You have done well,
Nirk".
It seemed I successfully changed the item in my hand with
the marble bag, and by that avoided locking the roof and all
of the doors, locking myself inside the room. The magical
aura I've seen through the "Detect Magic" I've cast, was
simply a spell to see what's going on in the room, and when
I was successful to let me out with my prize: the cloth in
my hand was actually a "Cloak Of Resistance" - it added my
power greatly in both body and mind, making me more able to
resist any affects on my mind, body, and even my reflexes
were improved much, I could feel it.
After telling me that, the voice complimented me on a new
record for the maze, surpassing any previous achievement by
halving them, and more, for that he decided to test me, at
my new position "guild captain" - I was now permitted to
join other capable thieves to the guild for one percent of
their future profits - in a job that will give me some
advancement options. He knew my position as a thief - not as
an assassin, and he knew of my refusal to take any job that
will hurt any non-evil opponents - though he told me it will
be much harder to get jobs and advance in the guild with
those principles.
This guild, known (at least to me) only as "the guild", has
any kind of rogue you wanted: thieves, assassins,
pick-lockers, trap builders/disarmer, good, bad, and even
politicians. Good thieves like myself were welcomed like
anyone else and our jobs always contained defending good by
weakening evil.
The variety of religions in the guild was great, though most
of the people worshiped Olidamarra or Erythnul, but there
were still groups of Nerull and Vecna worshippers. It was
there I begun to take interest in deities. The luck I had in
all of the adventures I had, made me believe some great
power may have been helping me: from the time I dropped some
objects from my backpack, and just on the fake traps,
through the people and opportunities that I met on the way
and made me closer to "the halfling", and even now I was
saved in a second from the swinging huge axes - Olidamarra
must have poured his luck on me; I promised myself I will
someday pay him back.

The job I got took action two weeks from that day. The job
was to find a way to weaken a wizard, named Nifof, which was
making terror in the city. My job was to sneak into his
house and do something to significantly weaken him. My
orders contained two suggestions: to poison him somehow in
some permanently weakening poison or to steal his spell-book
(a big bonus will be delivered if I'll kill him - I was
told). I was not going to kill the man, not unless in self
defense or after knowing he's an immediate obstacle to a
good soul of this world, and the poison I will need was much
to expensive. I needed to find something else, maybe his
spell-book...
I acquired "Improve Invisibility" and "Detect Magic"
scrolls, and after viewing his house for two days and
knowing his schedule, I attacked...
It was six hours after sundown (about 2am), and the last
light in the house just disappeared from the wizard's study.
I observed the door for five minutes and was lucky to found
out about the spell's mechanism: how it works, how to
disable it, and even how to bypass it without leaving a
trace - including disarming it, and that's what I did.
I entered the house, after oiling the hinges so that no one
inside could hear the door open. In front of me was an empty
chair, a little table and a small lighten lamp on it. I went
to the chair and examined it, it was a bit wormer - someone
recently set on it... I guessed it was a guard; he must have
been on his patrol, and I thanked Olidamarra in my heart for
letting me open the door without the guard see it open.
I went to the room I was told (by the informer of the guild)
was the study of the wizard; it was in the end of a hall on
the second floor. I stopped just before it because I've
noticed a strange thing - the two meter square in front of
me, just before the door, was a centimeter higher then the
floor I was on. I searched it for anything suspicious. I
then noticed a subtle, barely detectable, circle on the
raised floor, and after searching it for a few more seconds,
I decided this is a trap. From the traps I've learned in
Thai, this must be a "Teleportation Circle", a magical trap,
but not just any magical trap - this was one of the most
powerful traps magic can provide, much too powerful for
Nifof to make (by what the informer told me). I used the
detect magic to see if it was active - and it was; instead
of trying to disarm this "out of my league" trap, that
certainly will teleport me to a cell or the middle of the
sky or something similar, I just moved around it. It was
difficult but possible because I've seen its exact borders
with the "Detect Magic" I've cast.
The door had no aura so I just opened it, hoping no simple
trap was tied to it. I was right; I slipped around the aura,
through the door, inside the room.
The room was full of magic things. The aura was everywhere;
it was strongest in two places - in a man's hands, held
tight, while he was sleeping, and beside his bed, on a small
table, on a pair pf gloves.
The book - the spell book - was too risky to take from his
tight grasp, but the gloves were just in hand; it just may
be enough, I thought and put it inside my jacket. On that
second every aura in the room disappeared, the spell was
gone. I knew that I could never bypass the trap outside this
way; I hid myself under the bed and waited for the
morning...
As soon as I heard Nifof waking up I've started reciting the
scroll I had left. He never noticed me, or the magic I've
used, he was too busy in finding out his gloves were
missing. He started yelling for his guard and searching
everywhere in the room, including under the bed (looking
right through me), and then left the room, pushing a button
on the wall before stepping inside his "Teleportation
Circle", and after a few seconds meeting the guard down the
hallway, yelling him to find his gloves, that they need them
to kill a powerful wizard, that without them they'll need
the help of forces he wished not to invoke. The name of the
wizard came out in such hatred that I was eagerly trying to
find a way off his path.
I wasted no time, left the room and pushed the button I've
seen him push. I saw then that the centimeter higher ground
was returning from under the wall to my right. I pushed it
again and it disappeared under the wall again. I then went
to the front door quickly, before the magic will disappear.
They just came back to the study, passing me without
noticing me, with two more servants with them. I was alone
in front of the front door, bypassing the door's trap easily
(after knowing everything about it from last night); I
opened the door and was free.
In the thief guild they said the gloves will suffice in
weakening Nifof, those are "gloves of intelligence" they
said, it will add a lot to many of my skills and will give
some help in learning faster and reasoning better. For a
wizard though, the gloves would have been much more helping
in casting magic spells and some other magical things, and
for that my job was very successful.
I asked the wizard that identified the gloves after the
interview, "by the way", not telling him anything I have
heard, who was the wizard that Nifof talked about.
The wizard was famous and very powerful, though people say
that they've seen him help weaker men from time to time,
without revealing his identity.
That was good enough for me, if rumors said such things,
even if their false, it does make it very probable that the
wizard is a good man and deserves a warning for the assault.
I found out where he was living and planned to do something
about it...
The wizard name was Larry. He lived in a great mansion
called "the porter". Legend tells that the mansion is a
gateway to some forbidden place and that the wizard's family
lived there, guarding it - and that's the origin of the
name.
When I asked in the street about the wizard, those who heard
me asking about him, knowing my occupation, warned me not to
have any business against that "Larry of Porter", who's
known to have no mercy for his enemies (who are said to be
of the darkest orders). Those things just encouraged me to
warn him of the plan that was building up against him - not
only because my opinion of his "good" nature strengthened,
but also because I was afraid that if the rumors were true,
Nifof might be from one of those dark orders, and it worried
me that a good wizard like Larry might be beaten - because
no matter how powerful he is, Nifof never said "I" while
referring to killing Larry... he used "we", and even worst,
now that I weakened him he might invoke those powers he was
afraid to and that might be worst for Larry. So now it was
my duty to inform him what I had heard - though I knew it
would be hard because a rag like me will never be too
trusted by a wizard.

As from an instinct, I wasted an hour before knocking on his
door, inspecting all the exits and traps lying in sight on
the mention's ground. I saw only few. That indicated me that
the master of the house had really good traps or a really
good confidence on his abilities to defend his home.
I saw just little movement to and from the house, a few
servants doing the laundry and bringing baskets of food from
the market, a gardener mending the flowers and lions-formed
bushes, while instinctively avoiding the simple traps I have
already noticed from within my distinct location. I saw no
indications in his actions of any other traps lying about.
I was ready to leave the shadows and go to the front gate,
when I saw a very peculiar group of individuals walking to
it: a heavy looking dwarf with a red beard who seemed to
miss his bath for longer than the time I was living; he had
two huge swords on his beck, bigger than him.
Beside him walked a grey-eyed elf in a red-blue robe,
holding a beautifully carved stuff. There was a
bizarre-looking bird making singing voices on his shoulder;
the voices seemed to be more like words than of bird
nonsense. I even imagined catching some words in the elven
language. Suddenly the strange bird left the elf's shoulder
and swung around the dwarf's head. I wasn't sure but I
thought I heard the bird laugh in some bird-like voice; the
dwarf tried in vein to catch the bird, and the bird flew
away, leaving some droppings on the dwarf's head (which he
never bothered cleaning).
A step behind them walked a young man in full body plate
with only a dagger in his belt and a crossbow on his back
(he seemed barely accustomed to them both). Walking right
after him was the strangest thing I saw so far - some sort
of a mechanical man made of bronze or something like it;
instead of one of his arms he had a battle axe - made of the
same metal he was made of. He seemed to be somehow linked to
the man, mimicking his moves and following him.
But even this strange mechanical man wasn't the thing that
drew my eyes... walking in front of them all, as if he was
their leader (a thing that the dwarf was obviously not happy
with and he tried unsuccessfully to catch up on him); he was
magnificent. Though he seemed human in look, he had
something god-like in him - the light seemed to fall on him
more than on the others - maybe it was just a trick of the
light, falling on his white clothes and reflecting by his
bright long-sword, but it did seem as if he was some child
of an angel. He was radiating self-conscious and
righteousness all over, as if he was better than the rest of
us and we all knew it to be true. I even believe most people
won't disagree with him on that.
As for myself, for the moment I laid my eyes on him,
something inside me told me that I should oppose him
somehow, that we stand on the opposite sides of some scale.
All of my questions that were calmed a bit by Anila, about
who and what I was came to hunt me again... I had to
question someone about it.
The strange group of people was invited immediately inside,
as if they were well known or expected.
Fearing they were somehow a part of Nifof's plan, I
immediately stepped out of the shadows, into the busy
street, and right to the front gate of the mention called
"The Porter".
I really preferred coming in from the shadows and felt
really exposed, ringing the bell in the middle of the day
and the street like that, but even if I wasn't here for a
business of this nature, I would have feared to try and
infiltrate this house.
After a few seconds of waiting, a servant came.
"Greetings, sir. May I know what is your business with my
master?" he had politely asked.
His expression was not what I was expecting of a servant of
a mention like this greeting a simple looking man like me,
almost in a peasant clothes. He seemed accustomed to greet
the likes of me.
"I need to see the master of this house in a business only
meant to be heard by his ears", I replied.
"The master is very busy and can not be disposed to any
peasant that comes to his door. I'm afraid that without a
better explanation of your business, I can't let you in".
"Is your master's name Larry?" I asked.
"It is well known that it is", replied he.
"In that case notify your master that the matter I want to
bring to him regards his... well being", I said cautiously.
The servant then gave me an accusing look but said nothing
of it, just "And who should I say inquires the interview
with my master?"
"You may address me as Nog", I told him instinctively...
'Never use your real name, if any alternative is available.
Though this simple lie may end your life in some occasions,
most of the time it will save your life; any two unconnected
individuals must know you in two different names.'  I
recited this rule, planted it in me in Thai, in my head,
while the servant let me in through the guarded gate,
through a side trail in the garden and into a small side
door, and into a sitting room that seemed to be designed for
guests such as myself.
"The master has guests at the moment and it may take a while
until he'll be available", he said while pouring some water
from a steaming bucket to a small basin and extracting some
hot towels from a closet above the fireplace. "Get yourself
comfortable in the meantime, I'll send some wine and fruits
and some soap in case you want to wash your face".
"I have no time for such things, I need to see your master
immediately. It might even be connected to the guests he's
seeing".
"I can assure you that my master is in no immediate danger.
I will notify him of your presence and he'll see you if and
when he desires", he said while going away in the direction
of the door. "So please, sir, make yourself comfortable",
and with that the door closed behind him and I heard a
barely noticeable clicking sound of a lock.
The room looked to be designed for exactly such occasion.
The windows were high and too small for any grown man to go
through. There were no other doors in addition to the one I
came through, and it was a strong and solid one. It seemed
it had a three phases automatic locking mechanism - which
was nearly impossible to pick from the inside, but the room
was designed to conceal behind all that rich and comfortable
decoration. For the untrained eye this will look as a normal
and comfortable waiting hall, but the truth is that this
room, designed for those that are not trusted yet, but so
they won't be offended, they are treated as guests and
normally don't even know they are locked.
I did as the servant advised and got as comfortable as I
could, washed my self a bit, enjoyed the wine and fruits the
servants gave me, noticing, as they went in, the two guards
that patrolled near the room's opening as if it was a part
of their route, but it seemed to be repeating itself too
much near my door.
Suddenly, I felt as if someone was watching me intensely. I
looked around and saw nothing, but the feeling did not
change - in my occupation, you develop this notion of being
watched and learn to trust it, because your life may be
depending on it. After a few minutes the feeling was gone as
suddenly as it came. I was now pretty sure magic was involve
in it and was expecting to see the wizard soon, and I wasn't
wrong.

...That's all for now, I wrote this story a few years ago as
a part of some project and that's all I did, if I'll get a
large request to continue it, I may do so, and for the mean
time - enjoy my other stories (: