Abdel was aware that someone had come into the room, but he couldn't do much more than sit and watch things transpire for what felt like forever. The intruder was huge, bigger than Abdel, and came into the room fast. The door swung into the huge sellsword and sufficed to block him from the view of the newcomer.

Someone else came into the room, and Abdel, realizing he wasn't alone when he started this fight, said, "Imoen?"

"Abdel!" Imoen called, but her voice was too distant, still out in the corridor. He could hear the sound of steel on steel and knew that Imoen was fighting someone out there.

Abdel looked around at the person who'd entered the room. The big man was easily eight feet tall and a mass of corded muscle. The top of his head was strangely flat, and he moved slowly but deliberately, with the gait of a brute more than a trained fighter. Abdel, still stunned, thought he must be a half-ogre.

From the corridor outside came Imoen's voice. "They're trying to kill the minotaur," she said. "The orcs are trying to kill the minotaur!"

The minotaur faced the half-ogre with a dazed sneer. The bull man only started to flinch—unable to dodge or block—when the half-ogre threw a punch and connected with its face with a cracking, meat-on-meat slap. The minotaur went down hard, eyes twitching closed. The way it hit the ground, it might have been dead.

Why Abdel thought he had to defend the minotaur who had been so bent on killing him mere moments before, he wasn't sure, but he stood—the deep wound in his calf already hurting less—teeth clenched, and came at the half-ogre with determination. The aftereffects of whatever the eels had done to him was fading fast, and as he stood, he caught the glint of steel from the corner of his eye.

Sensing the movement behind him, the half-ogre whirled on Abdel, leading with a ham-sized fist. Abdel stopped his forward motion and dropped to one knee to retrieve the battle-axe. The motion sufficed as a dodge. The half-ogre's fist flew over Abdel's head close enough to ruffle the sellsword's long black hair.

Abdel's fingers curled around the axe handle, and he rolled to avoid a slow but strong kick. He spun around on one shoulder and was only dimly aware of deciding on a target. He dragged the simple but serviceable axe across the back of the half-ogre's knee. When the blade came away, it was followed by a scream and a lot of blood. The half-ogre's knee gave way, and he fell. Abdel had to roll again to avoid the falling brute and came up onto his feet with his back to the door.

He didn't see the man who came in next but could see enough in his peripheral vision to take a guess as to the position of the second intruder's face. Abdel threw his right elbow back fast and hard, letting it snap more than follow through. He felt rough, sweaty skin and the texture of a tusk under a lower lip. The orc he hit made a quiet grunting noise and fell with a clatter of wood on stone.

Abdel looked down and to the side, curious about whom he'd just hit. It wasn't a prudent course of action, or so he realized when the half-ogre's rough-knuckled fist drove up hard into his chin, sending a burst of colored lights sparkling across his vision. He remained conscious by sheer force of will alone, but the blow elicited some kind of too-late reflex action that made Abdel drop the battle-axe.

Shaking his head clear, the sellsword avoided a second blow from the slowly standing half-ogre and kicked out fast with his right foot. His toes caught the half-ogre's damaged knee, and he dug them into the gaping wound. The half-ogre screamed in rage and pain, then fell backward. The brute took one step back, tried to catch himself, but ended up just extending his fall back by a pace or two. He spun as he fell and ended up sprawled across the chest of the man strapped to the table.

Abdel looked down for the battle-axe and saw the minotaur, his face set and determined, grab for the weapon. Both the sellsword and the creature gasped when a long length of rusted iron chain seemed to appear out of nowhere, wrapping itself around the battle-axe. The weapon was yanked away after it just barely brushed the tips of the minotaur's fingers. At the other end of the chain was a gaunt, green-skinned orc wearing only tight breeches and a parti-colored kerchief wrapped around its head. On the orc's face was a crudely rendered tattoo of a mermaid. A pirate, this one, Abdel thought.

The orc pirate yanked hard on the chain and whipped the axe back. Abdel, having just regained his footing, lunged at the pirate. The motion startled the tattooed orc and sent his chain flipping wildly through the air over his head. It looked as if he'd meant to take the battle-axe himself. Instead, the weapon came out of the chain and dropped into the eel tank with a splash.

Two of the eels startled, and the man strapped to the table reacted instantly. His chest and back convulsed so sharply and with such strength that the half-ogre—who must have weighed as much as four hundred pounds—popped off the bound man's chest and fell, grimacing, to the floor. The motion made the inmate's head jerk again. One of the half-ogre's fingers had fowled in the leather gag and when he fell, the gag came off the restrained man's face.

Abdel crossed to the tank. Though he was still not sure what sort of power these stubby black eels contained, he knew that the only two weapons at his disposal were both at the bottom of the thick-glassed tank. He lifted one hand, tracking the motion of the eels and looking for the shape of the broadsword in the murky green water. His fingers almost touched the water when he heard something click off the wall in front of him. Less than a second later he was hit in the right eye by something that must have been a stone. It felt heavy and rough and was moving fast. The pain wasn't the half of it. Both his eyes slammed shut, and tears flowed freely.

"What the—?" was all he managed to say.

Abdel looked up with one blurry eye and saw a short figure dart into cover in the doorway, then his attention was drawn to the pirate with the chain. The skinny orc was whirling the rusted chain in fast circles around his head and advancing on an alert minotaur. The creature stayed on his toes and let the orc come in too close. The pirate brought the chain down, but the minotaur was able to slide out of the way.

Abdel turned, momentarily forgetting the weapons in the tank. He held one hand over his wounded eye and was blinking tears out of the other when another stone hit him in that eye.

"Bhaal damn you to …" Abdel cursed, now blinded all together.

"Got her," Imoen called.

Abdel forced his eyes open and saw the blurred shape of Imoen move away from the door. He looked over his shoulder and thought he saw the minotaur dodge a second attack from the chain-wielding orc pirate. The orc switched tactics and brought the chain whipping down low. The minotaur hopped over it and came up high enough that when it straightened its right leg sharply, its foot smashed hard into the sailor's tattooed face. The pirate's nose exploded with a red smudge that must have been blood. Abdel closed his eyes again. He heard a jagged spur of bone pop out of the orc pirate's nose and bounce onto the stone floor. It hit just before the rest of the unconscious humanoid's face did.

The sellsword felt the minotaur brush past him, and he opened one eye. It hurt, but he could see. He was momentarily curious about why it hadn't hurt more when the minotaur had brushed past the leg he'd wounded so severely.

The minotaur hopped up onto the edge of the tank, and a small stone clipped his ankle hard enough to push his foot off its precarious perch. The creature fell into the water with a resounding splash that seemed to contain an odd sizzling noise.

The man on the table quivered, hissed a sharp breath out, and said quietly, "One good a was that."