She felt an odd tingling around her middle again and realized she could see a glow-blue sparks wreathed her body, centered on the golden belt she wore beneath her armor. She remembered being surprised when she first donned it, and it seemed to merge with her skin. Looking around at the detritus around them, she realized the sparks provided some protection.

Khelben's spellcasting ended with a sound that reminded Tsarra of shattering glass and a shield bouncing downhill. Whatever it was, she didn't recognize it, but it stilled the odd roaring by the large creature that fought Khelben.

Tsarra pushed herself up on her elbows and realized she wasn't alone-someone lay next to her against the wall, breathing unevenly.

Tsarra blinked a few times in rapid succession and cleared her eyesight. She looked and found a dark skinned bald man whose face, neck, and chest were heavily blistered and bleeding, his left eye blasted away. She flashed back to the day she found her father dead in the Ardeep Forest with similar wounds.

Tsarra pushed herself away from the horrific sight, gasping for air and hitting the foot of the stairs at the same time. She heard Khelben in her head again.

He's alive, unlike your father. See to it he stays that way, and don't draw attention to yourself. The sharn is looking for you and that belt. Don't send in return-I need to concentrate.

Tsarra had read about sharn but like most folk, had never seen one. Still, she resisted looking out from behind the table and focused on the task at hand. She undid a pouch on the back of her leather belt. Retrieving some yarrow and acacia leaves, she chewed them and used the moistened poultice to treat the worst burns on the man's face. Along with a silent prayer to Fenmaril Mestarine, Tsarra thanked her mother for the skills she taught her in woodland herbs and their healing applications. If nothing else, the man's breathing steadied and relaxed. Tsarra's eyes fell on his hand and its ring, which bore the crest of Spellshire. This was Khelben's friend the count, Gamalon Idogyr, and something had stolen the gem he used as his left eye!

Tsarra noticed a purple glow growing in the underside of the table that quickly became a spiral of winking lights. She reached inside herself and cast one of her most common spells to detect magic, though she perceived it by scent rather than sight. The growing spell carried the scent of apples, which she associated with translocational spells for some reason, but the scent was musty and stagnant, as if cast by something old or dead. It didn't smell like any spells she'd sensed from allies, so she assumed the worst.

Tsarra brought a different spell to bear quickly. With a quiet murmured casting, she summoned to her mind's eye an invisible dagger of magic around her right hand. She quickly slashed away the magical connections between the purple glow and the Weave, dispelling the magic. The magic ended, but to Tsarra it felt different than other spells she'd disrupted in the past.

Suddenly, two swarms of purple sparkles erupted around her, all swirling in faster patterns. Tsarra dispelled one of them but then turned to stare into an eyeless face. Its skin glistened an oily black, and its mouth moved as if it had no jaw beneath its sharp teeth. Saliva sprayed from its mouth as it roared at her, the sound reminding her of both a mountain lynx and a wounded hare at the same time.

"Khelben! It's found us!" Tsarra yelled, falling onto her back to avoid the lunge the floating head made at her and to protect the fallen Count Idogyr.

She hooked her thumbs together and summoned up rage and magic. Red and orange flames shot out in a fan from her hands. The sharn's head retreated through its purple portal, the energy still swirling around in mid-air. Before Tsarra could even think of dispelling the portal, a slimy black arm with three smaller arms attached to it thrust through at freakish speed, and its collective twelve fingers all lashed at her. Tsarra kicked at the nearest hand as she sent out another fan of flames. The sharn's translucent black skin crackled and burst like a frog in a campfire. Still, the arm kept reaching for her, and some of its hands began casting a spell. His loud snarl preceding him, Nameless slammed into those upper hands, clawing and biting at them before any power was summoned.

Tsarra breathed easier and worked to dispel the purple portal. She could hear the sounds of battle in the background as well as Khelben's deep monotonic spellcasting. The sharn arm stretched toward her, though some of its hands attacked the familiar. Tsarra slashed away in her mind's eye, severing the magic's ties to the Weave, and the portal snuffed itself out, only to be followed by a tremendous scream. The creature's massive arm lay on the floor before Tsarra, severed when the portal snapped shut on it.

Tsarra stood up, her presence no longer a secret, and surveyed the scene. She stood not on Waterdeep's streets but inside a wrecked tavern, its thatched roof almost entirely blown away and its edges smoldering. She saw at least eight bodies. Khelben stood a few paces away, his back to her. The Blackstaff was the only person within the room, the rest standing on the periphery where the tavern's front wall used to be. Five local laborers or tavern patrons, and a dozen men in guards' livery, fought to shore up the creaking second floor with a fallen support beam, before it collapsed upon them.

Tables and chairs were tossed every which way, as were some unconscious or dead patrons. Among the wreckage the sharn's bulk hovered just above the floor and its skin stretched, as if other creatures pulsed inside its greasy amorphous flesh. Despite Tsarra's luck, the sharn produced a second arm from its form to replace the severed one. It kept one arm busy stretching to grab up fallen weapons while the other worked to cast spells. Eyes appeared and disappeared everywhere on its body, though a few always remained trained on anything that moved. Once it spotted Tsarra, the spellcasting hands twisted toward her with a sick wet crunch.

Khelben was doing some rather long and intricate casting, his attentions wholly focused on the sharn, so Tsarra worked the counterspell against whatever the creature was casting. She smiled, as she had never cast it so quickly before. Once she'd stopped the sharn's spell, Khelben completed his own, and Tsarra she felt it permeate the room and thicken the magic all around. The air crystallized slightly, and she sniffed the telltale smell of burnt rosehips and sulfur. She guessed that Khelben did something to affect teleporters in the area. She hadn't mastered any transmutation spells, but at least she knew their signs.

"That should prevent any additional headaches for the moment."

Khelben chuckled, and Tsarra realized he was enjoying himself.

Amazing he's lived this long, she thought as she threw off her cloak with one hand and pulled her bow off her back with the other.

Indeed. Khelben's sending startled her. I'm glad you're not one of those who gets ill from long-range teleports. The sharn is devilishly tough to affect without magical weapons.

And that's why I've been turning my studies toward arcane archery.

Tsarra pulled back on the bowstring and let an arrow fly, willing some of her sorcerous energies into the missile. It struck one of the eyes in the sharn's central mass, but the creature morphed a mouth around the arrow and bit it to pieces.

"A fine shot, but you'll run out of arrows before it runs out of patience, my dear," Khelben said. "Get Gamalon away from harm before you dive in to attack, Tsarra, but don't wander too far. Mind the danger of us straying too far apart. I'll take care of this." With that, Khelben turned his attentions to the sharn and began another long and complicated casting.

Tsarra still had many questions, but she stored them for later.