Jason sits comfortably after the Prince leaves. After having glanced at Septimus momentarily in his frenzied fevor, he looked away, disinterested. Ah, the troubles of civilization.

He continues to fiddle with the horn that was given to him, and eventually leaves the room. Walking up to the counter just as Septimus leaves the pudgy man working it looking absolutely terrified, he politely adresses him.

"Excuse me sir, I believe I have a room in my name, Jason Windspyre, as the Prince's guest."

The innkeeper opens his list, and shortly thereafter speaks.

"And here we are, third room on the left that-a-way."

He points. Jason turns his head and nods, and takes the key. Observing the metal, he walks to his room, mind still wondering. Something is wrong. Once he arrives in his room, he realizes what it is. A minute later, windo and door are still closed, but Jason is no longer in the room. A piece of aged paper sits on the inner side of his door.

"Sleeping by the stables. There isn't enough wind in here."

Jogging lightly on the inn grounds, he soon comes to the stable, and calls.

"Midnight!"

A briskly walking wolverine, black in coat and graceful in motion, appears, and sidles its way over to Jason. Lying with his head on Midnights cloak, Jason slowly nods off to sleep.

Dae makes her way out of the room after the Prince left. Septimus had been first out. A bit later Jason left. Dae turned to Zara.

"I pray this group can work together, our success may well depend on us doing so, however, since there is nothing I can do about, it, I won't worrry about it either. I will pray for the unity of the mission; the Light listens."

"Let us go off to bed too. It was a long trip today and it is late now. We will share a room." she states in a tone that will brooks no argument.

Zara tags behind Dae with a crestfallen look. She had been planning on having a room for herself. As Dae speaks to the innkeeper, Zara looks at his book and sees what room Septimus is in. Then she follows Dae upstairs to their room.

Once inside Zara to looks to Dae, "I'm going to open the window and I will be right back. I want to put up wards around Septimus's room."

Wards?" Dae pauses. It shouldn't hurt if you do, though I don't think that whoever it is that is after him could trace him to here. He is certainly far from the normal clientele of this place." She looks a Zara. " Well, go ahead but be discreet and do nothing else."

Zara disappears and there is only the softest noise as she exits the window. Slowly she floats over to where Septimpus's room is just beyond Jason's. There she sets the first of her wards at the outside corner of his room but on the return she decides to ward all three rooms and sets the next ward at the far end of their room.

That done she goes back inside and the asks Dae to open the door and look out of it, once the hall is clear she put a ward on the wall of his room at the far end and then comes back and does the same to the opposite end of their wall.

Still invisible Zara slips back into the room.

"Well, that is done," she says reappearing. "If you wake with a thumb prick then someone is breaking into one of the three rooms. You know the old saying; By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes.

"Are you sure, Curly" whispered the first man backed against the wall, a shadow in a shadow.

"Sur' as 'm standin' 'ere, Rat," muttered the second. "It 'as to be 'im. I seem 'im 'nough to know 'im. I knowed 'is walk the moment I set eyes on 'im, same as what he walked the deck with."

"Ok, I got one of the wenches to tell me what room he was in," he points, "that one right there. I already set my rope on the roof now all we got to do is get up to the roof and let ourselves down and into the room. And if'n we wants there are two nubile elves two rooms away, just waiting for us."

Curly gives a quick laugh, "Sounds good, us pleasurin' ourselves adter we does him in. Reember we need his boots and that necklace."

"You get me in quick and quiet and I'll scrag 'im. Price on 'is 'ead is Dead or Alive. Dead is fine with me, as he literally throwed me off 'is ship."

Using a convenient chimney sweeps ladder the two moved quickly and cautiously to the roof, having taken off their shoes and boots to lessen the sound thay made as they crossed the roof and to stand over the indicated window to Septimus's room.

There were two knotted ropes hung over the edge and both men went off the roof over the side with practiced ease. Rat was an accomplished burgular and Curly, having to leave his sea haunts for the sake of his "health" had luckily found a kindred spirit. The Rat knew his buisness, like how he used a ropr loop the he could quickly tie above a knot to slip a foot into and another about should high that he could slip an arm through and be able to work on a window with two hands.

True to the Rat's skill he oiled the window and opened it with caution until a man could easily enter. He then points to Curly to enter.

******

It was hard to say what woke Septimus, was it the pain in his thumb, like when one picks up a piece of mended sail and finds the needle still in it, or was it the cool night air wafting in the window.

******

Both Dae and Zara feel a pick on their thumb. Had Jason been in his room he would have felt it too.

His room was silent.

Shadows flickered serpentine over the rough-hewn boards, the single cot that had been pushed away from the window as far as possible by its occupant, as if the person who lay there feared the faint light that whispered in like ghosts, strung there by a staring moon. He was stretched out, still clothed in his bloodstained robes, his dark hair obscuring his pale face. It was a dreaming face, a tortured face, which looked too much like the skull that lurked just beneath the skin. He was silent. Peaceful even. But even the most hopeless dullard knows that when a serpent is at a disadvantage, it is the most lethal of all.

He slept with his dagger beneath his hand.

He had expected that his brother would be hiring for his death, as he expected the authorities were searching for him, but he would have never contemplated that the two sorry thieves that now crept through his window would be in on the job. Men were frightened of him, and even if there was good money in it, only the desperate would attempt to murder him. These men were not the ones that were searching for him, the ones that frightened him, but they were a sufficient threat as it were.

He was a legend.

A cool draft rustled his cloak and the moth-eaten blanket, it stirred his hair. His hand rested on the hilt of his infamous dagger as it rested beside him, dependant on it, watchful of it, like a pet dog that had gone to sleep. The draft caused him to stir slightly as the man padded softly to the edge of his bed, looking down at him, doubtlessly recognizing him.

His eyes, those strange animal eyes opened as he regulated his breathing, feigning sleep, listening to the rustling of the man. He heard the liquid trill of a blade being drawn and visualized it hovering above his throat. As it swung and he felt the screaming of the air, he twisted, terribly, terribly awake and blocked the blow with the long blade of the dagger.

Curly was faced with what he had to have thought of as the Devil himself.

Their eyes met for a moment, one pair confused and surprised the other seething with mad, furious rage. And then through the opening that the moment gave him, their intended victim swung the legendary dagger as its poison compartment shattered, and the cool steel slipped and scratched the seaman’s vulnerable throat.

Septimus` Kiss.

That was it. Just a nick really. It was nothing dramatic, nothing to write home to Mother about. There were no gaudy streams of arterial blood, no scream. A soft choking noise was all, a drop of blood. Septimus watched motionlessly, as the seaman’s eyes rolled up in his head, and he collapsed. The hands clawed desperately at his throat for a second and then there was a sigh. He was still. Sea snake poison, the most potent toxin in existence. Not even artificial poisons matched it in its sheer power. Septimus was merciful to his would-be killer. It had been quick, with little pain.

You just went to sleep.

His rose noiselessly and faced the Rat, who still lingered outside his window. His eyes were flat and cold, but not dead. No, not dead, there was a horrible vital hatred that twinkled beneath the cool reptilian indifference. “You mean to kill me in my sleep”, he whispered quietly, deadly malice hidden within his tone. “And you were naive enough to think I was not aware?” He dropped the dagger and heard it clink against the floorboards. It landed next to the still dark form upon the floor. He drew his cutlass and in the moonlight it was a half-moon smile, like the proverbial Cheshire Cat without a form.

He smiled in the dead of night and it was a mad smile.

Zara sat up and went to the window, looking out she saw s roguish fellow dangling from a rope and the window open. Sound came out of Septimus's window that told her another was in there already.

Suddenly the man on the rope kicked his foot out of a loop and scurried down the rope like a rat deserting a sinking ship. Then he ran and cursed lowly as his bare feet connected with loose cobblestones.

Beore he got too far Zara sent him a little get along, two fingers of Magic Missles that elicited sharp yelps.

He watched stolidly as the man scurried away, the faintist hint of a smile touching his lips as two spells struck him, elicting high yelps of pain. He sheathed his weapon, and with a superb and uncanny balance, he swung over the windowpane. His boots collided almost noiselessly with the rich earth. His dark cloak rustled about him as he stood there, waiting for the man to stagger out of his sight like a hellish bird of prey.

When he was gone from his view, he glanced up and noted Zara, and attempted a jolly expression, but there was sickness in his heart. A dead man lay within his room and it unsettled him deeply. He had killed dozens of men, no indeed, dozens of dozens, but the closeness of death, the danger of death near, unsettled him.

"I can safety say", he called up to her quietly, " that an 'I told you so', will not entirely suffice?"

Dalyndra rose in one motion taking up her sword, even as she crosses the room. "Zara check outside I will check the hallway and rooms." With that Dae opens the door the faintest crack so she could look out with nothing in the hall she opens the door then shuts it behind her. She moves off to Septimus's door and listen to it then tries it. It is locked against her and unless she were to try to bash in the stout door that would be it.

She cast Detect Evil and wait for any hint of evil, however there was no evil close by, which should have reassured her but didn't--not completely.

(Riverwalker delete you second post and edit you first one to indicate that you get to the inn and two figures on the ground near two ropes leading upwards. One of them you just saw jump down but fell slowly from a spot about where you saw the magic missle come from.. One of these seem to be the man bressed in dark closthes described to you by the Prince, you have his signet ring which is to identify you to any one of the party members. Good luck this message will self destruct when we all bet back on track.)

Zara slips out the window and floats to the ground, she lands close, but not too close to Septimus.

"Nice jump," she comments keeping to a neutral subject.

"Anyone you know or was it just bad luck?"

She waits, for a reply out of politeness though she also realizes he might not give one.

"Come to our room," she says moving up to him, "We can let the constabulary know in the morning since he ran off already."

She waits, but when he does not speak right away, "If there is anything you want from your room, tell me and I will get it for you."

Suddenly her head turns ,"Someone approaches," she says looking into the darkness as a figure emerges. Not much is discernable except height and breath since the figure is covered in a long cloak. The unknown one continues to approach.

Waking to the sound of a scream, Jason looks around him. Finding nothing, he walks to the Inn, where he sees the ropes and the people, beckoning Midnight to follow.

Walking up to Zara, he asks:

"What has happened here?" as Midnight sweeps his huge head around curiously.

A voice shocked him out of his thoughts.

Feeling surprisingly lucid, he glanced up to the window of his room, noting a thick bodied dwarf. He tilted his head slightly, analyzing him. Septimus, as a reputable lover of the shine, respected the dwarves who, more often then not, made the treasure his life depended on. So he faced Riverwalker with a mild form of curiousity, the sort of look one would associate with a man observing a particularly odd species of houseplant. But that faint curiousity was soon replaced by dead-pan seriousness. Was he alright? How he despised the foolishness of that comment. Was it not obvious? “Fine”, he muttered, forcing a rather strained smile upon his visage to prove just have fine he was.

“Absolutely fine”.

As the dwarf lumbered away from his view, Septimus took a deep breath, relief spreading through him as the cool night air caressed his lungs. He held his head in his hands for a moment. Adrenaline still pumped through his body, his heart was racing, and his hands were shaking. He heard Zara slip quietly out of the window and raised his head, stiffening instinctively. She did not approach him. Good. She had learned well.

He kept his back to her, ignoring the innocent comment and question. He refused to answer. “I’m a danger to you all, aren’t I”, he whispered solemnly. “And for that, I apologise”. He turned to her swiftly and a sad, wretched anger glittered in his eyes.

“It was not a choice of mine to be the way I am”.

He nodded faintly, and turned away.

It was safer with the two Elven girls, as much at it injured his masculine pride to admit that. But they were comrades now. Friends, of sorts. He looked at her, and took in the carefully measured distance between them. He smiled grimly. As close as he had ever gotten to friendship.

“My dagger”, he murmured. “I left it near the body…not the wisest action, I admit, but I was panicked. It is small, and is engraved with a serpent. If you bring it to me, take care to hold it by the hilt, slip it into its sheath, and do not drop it, for pity’s sake.” A faint hint of pride crept into his tone. “The vial is broken and the dagger holds sea snake poison, which is fast-acting, but extremely painful when entered into the bloodstream, particularly if the person is not weak to begin with. Hold it carefully. If you are scratched with any part of the blade, you will be dead before you realised you had an accident”.

“Also”, he took care to note, “you will NOT be informing the constable.” He nodded. “That poor wretch won’t be coming back, I assure you.”

His head jerked around at the slightest noise and Zara`s announcement came slightly late. An ominous figure stood a few metres away, as if born from the earth itself. It was not his brother, nor one of his henchmen, but the feeling of it`s waiting, of its cold indifference, troubled him. He drew his cutlass and held it away from his body in a silver curve. His mouth was set in a grim line, his dark eyes glowed. “Stand behind me”, he hissed to Zara furiously.

“I will not have you injured or slain by one who might seek only me. So I suggest that you stand behind me, where I can defend you as long as I am able or…” he snarled, “I will kill you myself”.

But his tone was surprisingly gentle, and edged with terror. He was not, of course, going to kill her if she disobeyed him. He was simply trying to protect her, to give her an incentive to listen to him, even against all odds. For Septimus did, in his own way and despite his reputation and black heart, care for the girl, and did not want her to come to harm. He was perfectly willing to sacrifice his life, if only Zara lived. She was too much like his daughter. Like his Rose.

He turned and faced the figure.

Let it come.

(BTW Riverwalker is now a Dwarf Mage

Zara slides in behind the pirate captain and looks over at the newcomer and the ring he held.

"Oh, good a new member. I'm Zara and this is Serin Darkwood." Zara peals the name out without hesitation. "Glad to have you with us."

Zara cocked her head listening so intently that she paused her breathing.

After a few moments she spoke. "He is looking for a hole to hide in."

"Now I think we should get in before it rains again,"

"Jason, are you coming. Your room has two beds, Our new member can bunk with you."

(Now how did she know his room had 2 beds, she and Dae were already in their room when he had gone up.)