"What the hell?" Chert jumped to his feet but quickly fell back on the bed. "Who's been messing with my brain?" he asked, holding his head in both hands. His friend resisted the urge to reply sarcastically and, instead, briefly related the past hour's events. Although he was still somewhat lightheaded from the drug, the hillman readily agreed with Gord's suggestion that the two immediately pay Plincourt a visit.

They crept up the main stairs and cautiously entered a room that was obviously the kitchen. It was quiet and deserted, although a lantern burned, indicating that someone was probably nearby. Taking the closest exit, Gord led the way to a refectory with two passages leading from it. This time the adventurers opted for the narrower way. In a minute they had stolen up to a small room that was the hostel's office. Plincourt was there, hunched over a small table reading a scroll by candlelight. He spoke without looking up. "Come in, Yagbo, and bring the trunk, but be forewarned. If you and Lou have rifled it I will be very angry."

Without hesitation. Gord sprang into the room, swinging his shortsword so as to strike the long head of the rail-like Plincourt with its flat side, stunning him. As fast as he was, Gord missed the blow, for somehow Plincourt had sensed the attack. He ducked, turned, and leaped erect in one smooth motion.

"Thunderation!" Chert exclaimed, now fully conscious and wishing he wasn't. Following his friend's lead, the brawny barbarian had also entered the office ready to use dagger, pommel and fist to finish the work that Gord initiated. What he saw made him tear free his axe with haste, giving the sign to ward off the evil eye as he did so.

Plincourt was facing his attackers. "Welcome! I am feeling hungry and regretting the spilling of blood . . . uselessly." he sneered, glaring at the two young adventurers with his burning red eyes and licking his fangs all the while.

"Vampire!" Gord hissed.

"No shit." Chert, said, hefting his axe and swinging it a little so that it emitted a reassuring hum.

Plincourt chuckled softly at the reaction he had evoked in the pair. "Let us chat a while, friends, rather than use ugly aggression. I am willing to forgive and forget, so let us be comrades," he said softly, gazing at first Gord, then Chert.

"Beware his eyes!" Chert called to his friend.

Gord had already acted, however, even as the barbarian spoke. He took out the symbol of Fharlanghn given to him by his druid friend, Curley Greenleaf, and held it before his eyes.

"Put that filthy thing away!" Plincourt demanded as his gaze swept from the bigger man back to Gord once again.

"This?" Gord asked ingenuoiisly, thrusting the symbol toward the vampire as he spoke.

Plincourt recoiled, clawing at the holy disc that Gord held in both hands. Thus distracted, the vampire failed to notice the steely blur of Chert's great axe as it sang toward him. Brool bit deep into the undead monster's chest, causing the vampire to stagger and throwing him back against the wall.

"And this!" Gord shouted as he thrust his own weapon full into Pllncourt's skinny body.

Plincourt shrieked, a piercing scream much resembling the cry of a monstrous bat. He tore the axe from the hands of the dumbfounded barbarian, reversed it, and hurled it toward Chert's face. "Now you, small man!" the vampire said with a growl, darting forward to grapple with Gord.

The long, thin frame rushed at him, but Gord had already withdrawn his blade and was dancing back, point before him on guard. The sign of Fharlanghn hung free around his throat, and the supple thief’s free hand now held his long poinard as main gauche. He spat at the horrible visage of the vampire as it rushed toward him. "No easy foe here!" and then struck again twice at the exposed form, thrusting sword into Plincourt's abdomen, dagger into throat. "These fangs drink blood too!"

The force of his own furious lunge carried the vampire into the darting blades. Plincourt groaned and jerked back from the pain which the dweomered steel conveyed to his unnatural body. Eyes blazing, mouth set in a horrific snarl, he screamed. "For that I will make your death slow and painful, your afterlife one of degrading service to me!"

Gord laughed and taunted him, buying time for his friend. Chert had moved so as to avoid the full force of his own weapon, but the heavy axe had torn a gash in his forehead and stunned him. Gord saw the barbarian out of the corner of his eye, risen to one knee now, and holding Brool once again. At that moment, Plincourt launched himself at Gord in another furious assault.

"Penwolf!" Chert boomed, shouting his clan war-cry as he stood erect and swung his axe from his hip in one, smooth motion. Brool sang like an angry hornet as it arced from the floor to strike the lunging vampire in the upper torso. The edge nearly severed Pllncourt's extended arm. and the force of the blow skewed the vampire's lanky form toward the left where Gord's shortsword waited.

"Die. undead thing!" Gord said from between clenched teeth as he thrust the blade forward to pierce the vampire's body in a blow that sank past collarbone through chest and protruded from Plincourt's back.

Plincourt jerked backward, alive somehow despite the terrible wounds inflicted upon his unnatural form. Right arm hanging limp and useless, the vampire held up his left hand, saying, "Wait! Before you slay me consider the wealth I could bestow upon you!"

Chert hesitated, his great axe poised at shoulder height. Still recovering from the vampire's last lunge. Gord, too, slowed his attack at the creature's words. As Gord watched, however, the vampire's form seemed to grow translucent and hazy. What was happening?

"Quickly. Strike!" The young thief shouted to his friend, for he suspected some trick on Plincourt's part.

Too late. Brool flashed through the air and swept through the insubstantial form of the vampire — uselessly. The smoky shape wavered, coalesced upon its core, and swirled, shrinking and pouring downward through a space beneath the floorboards.

"He escaped!" Chert cried.

Gord sheathed his dagger and loosed the holy disc from around his neck, placing it over the crack through which Plincourt had vaporized. "The monster is somewhere below — let him stay there!" He looked around the disheveled room. "So, what have we got here?"

Both adventurers rapidly searched the small office, but found nothing there save a small box filled with coins of little value, notes, some bills, and the scroll that Plincourt had been studying when they had attempted to take him by surprise. Chert scooped the coins into his purse while Gord rolled up the scroll, tied it fast, and thrust it into his pouch for perusal at a more convenient time. Then they departed the small room hurriedly, Gord grabbing his necklace from the floor as he went.

"It is nearly dawn," the barbarian muttered as they came to the foyer. "Let's hasten upstairs, get our gold, and leave this place forever!"

"Wait a moment," Gord said, and proceeded to search behind the rosewood counter. A few minutes later he had found what he sought. The thick book that they had registered in laid open on the counter's polished wooden top. "There!" he said, with satisfaction as he ripped out the page that contained his signature and Chert's mark. "That will make things more difficult for any who seek our identity."

Both men bounded upstairs then, and upon entering their chambers went to work. The gold and platinum coins were bagged in lots of one hundred, each group housed within a small, leather sack. Using the blankets off the bed they made two bundles. Gord carried one. Chert the other, as they departed the Hostel of Ineffable Comfort.

"What of Yagbo and his crony?" Chert asked.

"I have a feeling they're going to turn up missing — tsk, tsk." Gord clucked his tongue and shrugged, then burst into laughter. The huge hillman grinned and with a jaunty step followed his friend.