“How long can he live in this state?”

“A few moons, perhaps a year.”

Valindra continued to marvel at the process as she watched this Ashmadai warrior become something more, something unique and dangerous. The wrappings went tight around his belly, circling up to his chest, to his neck. She wondered about his head and face—how complete would the skin armor suit be?

The smell of burning hair as the treated umber hulk hide wrapped around him showed her, for when the slave dwarves were done, only Jestry’s eyes, nostrils, ears, and mouth remained uncovered.

The servitor moved away from her, moving up to the transformed warrior, for now the aboleth had to focus completely on Jestry, she realized, had to deceive the man so that he could shrug through the agony and hold to his purpose.

One of the dwarves came up to the lich and motioned for her to leave. “Ye best go in the other cave for a bit,” he explained. “It’s to get loud in here, don’t ye doubt.”

Valindra looked at him with disdain, even disgust, but she heeded his words and glided out into the antechamber, where several other Ashmadai guards waited.

“Where is Jestry?” one woman asked.

In reply, a shriek of agony came from the other room. It went on and on, changing in tone from a high-pitched, pain-filled wail to an angry cry to a roar of utter defiance.

“What have you done to him?” another Ashmadai asked angrily.

Valindra stared at him and said nothing for many heartbeats. The zealot, for all his rage, shrank back from that withering glare.

“Would you like to learn first-hand the answer to that question?” Valindra calmly replied, and the man, for all his dedication, for all his willingness to die for his cause, shrank back even more.

After a long, long while, the screaming in the other room at last abated, and the servitor arrived at the door to inform them that the “dressing” was complete. Soon after, Jestry shambled out of the room, walking stiffly, rolling his hips to throw one leg out in front of him. His breathing came in gasps, and his eyes showed more red than white, for in his agony and screaming he’d exploded many blood vessels.

“It’s done?” Valindra asked him.

He grunted a response that sounded affirmative.

“And you are?” the lich pressed.

“Jestry, Slave of Asmodeus, Champion of Sylora Salm,” the living mummy recited.

“And you’re tasked with?”

“Killing Lady Dahlia,” came the simple response, and the man-beast paused as if considering the words, then clarified with simply, “Killing.”

Behind Valindra, that same obstinate Ashmadai sighed in apparent disapproval.

“Show me,” Valindra bade Jestry. “You claim to be a champion. I would see proof.”

Jestry tilted his head, curious.

Valindra motioned to the Ashmadai.

“He questions the judgment of Lady Sylora,” Valindra explained. She smiled widely when she saw the Ashmadai’s eyes pop open as he realized the game she was playing. “He thinks you have done her a disservice by becoming such a warrior.”

Jestry grunted and faced the Ashmadai directly.

“I don’t question Jestry!” the man pleaded. “I questioned the source of his pain-wracked—”

“He thinks you too weak to suffer the torment of the transformation,” Valindra taunted.

The man started to argue that point as well, distancing himself from any criticism of Jestry, but he needn’t have bothered, for when Valindra, the confidante of Sylora, added, “Show him,” Jestry pounced.

The Ashmadai was ready for the charge, setting his spear-staff tight on his hip to intercept the leaping Jestry—and indeed, Jestry’s chest slammed into that sharp tip full force. Against cloth armor, leather armor, even sturdy chain mail, such a defensive maneuver would have ended the fight before it began, with the spear tip plunging into the attacker’s chest. Against Jestry, though, against the umber hulk hide that had been treated by artisans and wizards alike, the spear couldn’t penetrate. The force of Jestry’s charge fully overwhelmed the strong Ashmadai, barreling him backward and to the floor.

Jestry had been a strong man before the application of his new “skin,” the strongest of the Ashmadai in Neverwinter Wood. Now he was stronger by far, and much heavier than a normal human, and he had little trouble subduing the man, using just his weight and one arm. His other hand grasped the Ashmadai’s head and yanked it to the side, pressing down on the man’s cheek.

The mummified warrior had no idea why he did what happened next. Never would he have considered such an action prior to that day.

He didn’t even realize what he’d done, hardly even heard the screams, until he was standing again, the Ashmadai thrashing on the floor in front of him, holding his ear—or at least, holding the spot where his ear had once been.

That ear was in Jestry’s mouth, and the champion chewed it, savoring the taste.

Across the way, Valindra laughed.

Jestry had been given mighty armor, and greater strength. But it was the internal gift of the aboleth ambassador, Valindra realized even if Jestry had not, that would prove the most important. For now he was something beyond a mere warrior.

Now he was without inhibition.

Now he was bound by nothing but the need to gain victory.

Now he was possessed of a hunger that could not be sated.

Now he was feral.

“I’m called Arunika,” the woman explained when she stood at Herzgo Alegni’s door.

Alegni had been granted a room at the finest inn in Neverwinter, one with a balcony that overlooked the bridge that had been named, yet again, in his honor. He wouldn’t be in the town often, perhaps, but a room, this room, would forever be waiting for him.

“They called you something else,” Alegni replied, his gaze roving up and down the human woman’s form.

“The Forest Sentinel,” she answered.

“You’re a ranger, then?”

“An observer,” she corrected.

“More than that, from what I’ve heard, for you live outside the city walls, and survive quite well, it seems.”

“I have my ways … my knowledge,” she coyly replied. “Knowledge is power, they say.”

“I recall you hinted I was the one destined to save Neverwinter.”

Arunika’s continuing smile put him strangely off balance. “I said that we hoped for one who would step forward and lead us to defeat the Thayan menace,” she corrected him. “Even with the Thayans driven from the wood, there’s no guarantee, no mention at all, that Neverwinter will be saved, is there?”

The tiefling narrowed his eyes as the woman widened her smile. Was there a hint in that knowing grin that this creature believed Alegni and his minions might subsequently destroy Neverwinter after defeating Sylora Salm?

“Are you going to invite me in?” Arunika asked.

“Why would I?”

“Would you have my words of insight and wisdom spread wide throughout Neverwinter, then, by keeping me out in the hallway?” Arunika asked innocently. “Where any passersby might overhear?”

Herzgo Alegni leaned out the doorway and glanced left and right. Then he stepped aside.

Arunika moved in comfortably, the ease in her step conveying that she was not the least bit intimidated. That struck Alegni profoundly. What young human woman wouldn’t be intimidated walking into the private den of a hulking Netherese tiefling?

“Did your ‘knowledge’ assure you that I wouldn’t hurt you?” he asked, only half joking.

“Why would I bother wondering such a thing, and why would you think to?” Arunika sat, comfortably draping her arm over the arm of a divan set near the balcony door, half turning to gain a better view of the city below. “You’re ambitious, and you desire great power.” She swung around to regard Alegni as he closed the door. “Surely that’s no secret. And you’re no fool—that much is obvious as well. You understand that knowledge is indeed power, and there’s no one who knows more of the situation in Neverwinter than I. Not even Jelvus Grinch, who often seeks my counsel.”

Herzgo Alegni spent a long while lingering by the door, looking across the room at the woman. She didn’t appear exotic in any way, hardly the look he would expect from one playing at such dangerous games. Surely she understood that Jelvus Grinch would consider her his personal trough of information, working for him above all others. How might he view her unannounced, uninvited visit to Alegni’s private room?

Did this unremarkable human female wish to get in between a possible power struggle involving Grinch and Alegni?

And if so, Alegni wondered, was her appearance here confirmation that she intended to throw in with the Netherese lord? Or was it, perhaps, a choreographed deception orchestrated by Jelvus Grinch?

Alegni approached her, his every step resonating with intimidation. “Who sent you?”

“I came of my own accord,” she replied casually, and she looked out through the glass doors once more.

“Grinch?” Alegni demanded.

When Arunika didn’t immediately reply, he grabbed her tightly by the arm, turning her around to face him, then roughly lifted her to her feet and glared down at her. The woman barely reached his mid-chest, the discrepancy in their relative sizes and strength so glaringly obvious that Arunika should have been thoroughly flustered.

But her smile appeared sincere.

“Understand this, Herzgo Alegni,” she calmly replied, “I don’t answer to Jelvus Grinch. He doesn’t tell me what to do or where to go, and he knows well not even to try. I answer to myself alone.”

“Because you use your knowledge to chart the way to the future you desire,” Alegni reasoned. He tightened his grip until the woman showed a hint of a grimace.

But she didn’t stop smiling.

“Are you a sorceress or priest, then?” Alegni demanded.

“Not the first, and certainly not the second,” she replied with a carefree laugh. “Though I admit I’m not unaware of the ways of magic. What I am,” she added as Alegni began to bend over her, “is one who understands the nature of things, the ways of people. Most of all, I observe.”

Alegni backed off a bit. “And you know more of the Neverwinter region than anyone else?” he asked, echoing her boasts.

“I do.”

“Your claims of my role here were predicated on more than observation.”

Arunika shrugged. “If the Thayans, the old evil, prove victorious, then what matter what I told Jelvus Grinch and the others?”

Now Alegni put his hands to his hips.

“If they don’t win out, then of course someone will take the lead against them,” Arunika explained. “Why not Herzgo Alegni? I see no one around more capable or prominent.”

“Are you saying you made your claim for my sake?”

“There’s more to it than that,” Arunika replied. “But it seemed prudent to bolster your cause, for your sake, as you said, but also for the benefit of Neverwinter. Our enemies are formidable.”

Herzgo Alegni really had no answer. He stepped to the side and looked out through the door to the carved image of the wyvern that marked the Herzgo Alegni Bridge.