The tavern was like most other taverns in this part of town. Smoky, dimly-lit, filled with the sounds of quiet murmuring as deals are made, and stories exchanged. The clinking of mugs underlaying everything, and the expert dodge of the occasional grope at the passing waitress as she delivered drinks to those who ordered them.

The waitress at this one, was like most of the others, tired-looking and gaudily dressed in the hopes of enticing a few more coins from the rowdier bunch as their drunkenness grows over the night. To keep herself occupied, rather than simply trying to shut off her mind like some may have, she kept herself busy trying to guess why each person was here.

Usually it was just challenging enough to keep her occupied, but still fairly easy. That elf? A fence most likely, from the way he positioned his body to hide whatever was on the table, and the nervousness of his companion. Those three men? Too well dressed for the normal crowd, probably some merchants' sons slumming it and looking for a good time. That was one place she always drew the line though.

Glancing back as she heard the entry bell chime, the waitress took stock of the next new arrival as he- no, she- made her way to one of the few corner booths not already taken. Making her way to the table, she gave the new woman a glance-over.

/Athletic build... graceful though, not muscular. Tight leather clothing... either jinkskirt or knight of the post. No.. doesn't show enough skin for a jinkskirt, though she's got the looks for it,/ the waitress thought with a slight bit of envy as she skirted around a grasping hand, ending up at the table of the lady in question.

As the table's occupant looked up at her, she confirmed her initial guess. "So, what'll it be?" she asked, as the cold emerald eyes appraised her. /Definitely in the cross-trade,/ she mused, suppressing the slight shiver she always felt around the dangerous ones, like this fiery-haired woman seemed to be.

---

Tigerlily looked up with some annoyance as the bar wench interrupted her thoughts. "An ale," she said grudgingly, then glanced towards the door as the frumpled girl headed back towards the bar. This would be her first job by herself, and of course after the rushing to get here on time, not only was she late but her contact was nowhere in sight. /What a lovely start,/ she sighed mentally.

In fact, she was halfway through her drink, even nursing it, before she saw the face she had been watching for appear through the door. Setting her mug down, she watched as the dark-haired elf glanced around a moment before spotting her, then made his way casually to her table.

"I was delayed," he said with a shrug, in response to her barely concealed glare. "A personal matter, it has nothing to do with the reason for our meeting." Tigerlily just leaned back against the wall, arms crossed under her breasts, a neutral expression across her face.

"Erm, anyways," the fixer said, feeling a little uneasy, "Tark said I could trust you with this, and the cutter never set me wrong before." At that moment the serving girl returned, and while he busied himself shooing her off, Tigerlily took another sip from her ale. Finally, having sent her off with a silver down her chemise to make sure they weren't bothered, the elf turned back to the bravo.

"Now, where was I? Ah, yes, I remember now. My client needs a... lost object retrieved."

Tigerlily's eyes narrowed slightly. "What, where, and how much?"

The elf put on an affronted look, though she could tell he wasn't bothered. "Please, I was just getting to that. Take a look at these." Sliding over a couple sheets of paper, he waited for her to glance over them. "Does this interest you?"

As she glanced over the details she pursed her lips lightly. "Looks doable. How soon would you like delivery?"

"Three days should suffice. You'll take the commission then?"

Tigerlily never even bothered to look up, her eyes and mind already thinking ahead as she studied the information in it. "Come back in three days."

The elf waited a few minutes more, but seeing no farther response, he rose, nodding to her. "Until then." Turning and heading out the door, he paused at the entrance to glance back, and started as he saw the table was empty, apart from the mug she had been drinking from. A quick look-around showed no sign of her in the tavern at all. "Heh, she'll do nicely," he murmured.

---

/So far, so good./ The information the fixer had given her had let her find the building easily, and some observation and quick action had gotten her inside. The hidden trapdoor was right where the papers had said it was, and she'd been able to open it after some quiet fiddling with the latch. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to tell her anything about what was under the trap door except that the item in question, a pendant of some unmentioned magical power, was hidden down here.

Now she crouched just under the trapdoor, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Within a few moments her vision cleared and she glanced around the chamber she found herself in. Several crates filled a large portion of it, and she could make out the outline of a door on the far wall.

Quickly, she crept over to it, watching every step for traps, and examined the door. /Another simple lock.. aha! Sneaky fellow,/ she thought as she discovered the poison needle launcher hidden in the lock mechanism. A few moments more and both the trap and lock were disabled.

The rakshasi pushed the door open gingerly, wincing as she heard the hinges creak. Quickly pushing it the rest of the way, she pressed herself against the wall, shifting back to her natural form, then took a peek around the door frame, one ear twitching slightly as she listened carefully for any sentries. Other than a dull distant thumping, all was silent, and the next room looked as if no one had been there in a long time. A thick layer of dust covered the wooden floor, and in the center of the room was a stone pedestal.

Stepping lightly, she made her way to the column, and regarded it with a small frown on her muzzle. The object she came for was resting right on top of the pedestal, but she could feel a strange faint aura of magic on the entire thing, more than could be explained from seepage from the pendant.

Taking her shortsword from its sheath strapped against her thigh, Tigerlily prodded the top with the swordtip, and felt mingled relief and disappointment when nothing happened. /Maybe something else was here before./ Just to be safe, she used the tip to catch the disc and push it off into her waiting hand.

"Almost too easy." She turned to leave, but froze when she heard a faint whistling echo. /Spoke too soon,/ she cursed silently. Dropping flat, she pressed herself against the dusty floor, and resisting the urge to sneeze, watched the half-open door.

A splash of light illuminated the other room as someone opened the trap door, silhouetting the figure who climbed down. "That's odd... how'd this get open?" Her breath caught in her throat as she saw a backlit head stick in through the door. "Don't need any zombies finding their way in," he muttered as he closed it behind her, the lock catching with a snik.

/Zombies?/ Blinking away the light changes she glanced around, but the room was as empty as before. She crept over to the door, and stifled a quiet sound of dismay as she saw that there was no latch or anything of the sort on this side. "Dammit..."

A few minutes' search however turned up a hidden door on the far wall, and with a little fiddling it was easily unlatched. The moment the latch clicked though, the reason for the faint pounding she'd been hearing the entire time hit her right in the face.

Stumbling back, she brought her sword up at the zombie who had just tried to claw her face, her other hand tucking the pendant away safely in one of her pouches. Experimentally she took a swing, her strike sloughing off a part of its arm, but the thing just kept stumbling towards her, moaning quietly. She cursed softly, then dodged around it, ducking under another swipe of dirty, rotting nails as she dashed into the open passage beyond it.

The floor was slippery with slime, but she barely managed to keep her footing as she made her way down the strangely dank passage. "This must have been what he was talking about," she muttered as she wrinkled her nose at the smell of rotting flesh. "Pheh, what a smell."

Spotting a faint green glow ahead, Tigerlily slowed down and pressed herself against the wall. Slowly, she slid along it, until she could see into the room ahead of her.

The walls were covered with a faintly glowing green moss, which seemed to be the source of the light. A small shaft of light shone down into the center of the room, highlighting a ladder rising up into a hole, presumably to the streets above. There was just one catch; the reason the floor was covered in slime. It was packed with a writhing mob of zombies, and the nearest ones were beginning to look her way with worm-infested, rotten eyes.

Quickly, she moved back, deeper into the shadow, but as if they could sense her presence the zombies started flowing her direction... only to press against some invisible barrier across the entryway to the room.

the rakshasi glanced back the way she came, and though she couldn't see it, she could hear the sounds of the zombie she had left behind making it's slow way along the corridor after her. "Between a zombie and a slimy place," she commented, shaking her head a little. In the meantime the mob was flowing more and more towards the entrance, squishing closer against the magically barred doorway.

Hefting her shortsword, she steeled herself and charged forward, diving underneath the zombie legs and into the slime and decay left by their presence for who knows how long. Grimacing against the pain as mushy legs and feet slammed into her and stepped on her, she slowly tried making her way to the base of the ladder.

The moment Tigerlily had broken through though, the whole rhythm of their movement had changed. Rather than pressing towards the door, they now seemed to be trying to press around her, forming a veritable forest of decaying flesh to bar her way. Cursing, she tried swiping with her shortsword to cut herself a path, but the moment she pulled her arm back the blade was kicked from her hand, and went skidding between several sets of legs to slide to a stop against a wall.

Cursing louder, she started battering and tearing at the legs, sending gibs of decaying flesh flying. That actually drew a reaction from the ones wounded as they tried to bend over to get at the low attacker, but the press of their fellows held them up. Not for much longer however, for as she finally started to make progress, several somehow managed to give way at once, collapsing on top of her and flattening her to the floor.

"Get... OFF!" she gasped out as she tried to wriggle free, but more of their fellows just mindlessly collapsed on top, burying her under a mountain of undead flesh. If she hadn't been rakshasi she probably would have been squished completely under their weight, but even as it was she was feeling more and more trapped. The smell was becoming as overwhelming as their weight and her weapon was way out of reach.

"MOVE!" She practically yelled, not caring whether she was heard any longer. As she scrabbled at the wriggling, slimy bodies with her claws, trying to dig her way free, she felt a stronger and stronger need to be free NOW. With a wordless yell that was more of a roar, she struck again... and found to her surprise her right hand held some sort of blade. Not of a mind to ask questions, just grateful she had something effective finally, she started carving her way free of the pile, a snarl tearing from her throat with each undead body cleaved in twain, the hands of the remaining ones clawing ineffectively at her body.

Letting out a cry of victory she tore free of the zombie pile, sending a spray of gore and rotting flesh flying. Grabbing the ladder with her free hand, she slashed back at the ones scrabbling for her legs, ending their unlife with vicious swings of her mysterious new blade.

Finally, the last one dead again, she hung there by the rung, panting as she lifted her hand to look at her new acquisition. It was giving off an odd glow, and though she'd never seen it before it was somehow familiar. She glanced across the mess and shook her head slightly. "No way I'm gonna dig the other one out of that." However, as she went to sheathe the sword, she blinked in surprise. It had disappeared the moment she opened her hand, and a quick look around showed no sign of it. Shaking her head at the craziness that had sprouted from what should have been an easy job, she turned back and started climbing the ladder.

As she pulled herself the final bit of the ladder, and into the diffuse light of the streets, she concentrated just enough to shift to a human form. Slime-matter fur gave way to slime-slicked skin, her muzzle pulling back into the typical flat face as she collapsed onto the rough surface of the alleyway, clean air clearing the stench of undead flesh from her nose.

After a minute or two, she pulled herself to a sitting position, glanced back at the manhole and spit down it. "That for undead. Blasted things are a blight on the planes." Using the wall as support, she pulled herself to her feet and after making sure her legs were steady, started walking towards the main street it connected to. It was time to find a bathhouse and take a nice, long soak.

---

The next day found Tigerlily and her contact at the same table as before. As before, she had been the first to arrive, but this time she had gotten there early, and the elf had shown up right at the appointed time, which made her wonder a bit if the reason he had been late last time is if there had been someone set to watch her then.

"Do you have it?" he asked quietly, leaning forward and resting his chin on interlaced fingers.

"Of course," she said with a smirk, patting her belt. "Do you have the payment ready?"

Sitting back up, he pulled a small pouch off his belt and placed it before her. Tigerlily picked it up, hefting it a moment to judge its weight, then dropped her hand below the table, raising it a moment later to put an identical bag in front of the dark-haired elf. He took it, took a peek inside, then dropped it in a larger belt pouch. "It was a pleasure doing business with you."

As he started to get up, Tigerlily cleared her throat a moment. "I wouldn't normally ask, but if I may know, just what exactly does it do?"

The elf frowned a moment. "Well, I don't see how it matters..." he trailed off then shrugged, dropping fully back into the seat. "The dark of it is it enhances the ability of the bearer to affect musties, if properly trained. If not trained or properly shielded though, it has a tendency to attract them." He paused a second. "Is there a reason you were wanting to know?"

She shook her head. "Just idle curiosity."

He gave her a funny look, then stood back up, glancing at the diminishing light outside. "In any case I must be going. Remember, it's best for dark to stay dark. Watch the Spire."

As she watched him go, her grip on the chair arms tightened for a moment, her nails gouging the wood slightly as she fought down the urge to leap over the table and throttle him. /Blasted elf... its his fault that I almost got smothered by those things. If I'd had some warning..." Breathing deeply in and out, she forced herself to relax.

/Still.../ She unclenched her right hand, lifting it up and looking at it. /What was that sword? Thinking back, it didn't have the magical 'feel' that enchanted swords do, but the way it appeared and disappeared, it wasn't normal. Maybe I should make a few inquiries... if I can control it, that might come in handy./

Letting out a soft sigh, she leaned back against the chair and lowered the hand to finger the gold in her pouch. /And now I'm one step closer to finding a way out of here,/ she thought, smiling as she contemplated the future.