"Ever cautious, I see." Baltazar planted his hands on the counter, and apparently came as clean as he could. "I was trying to ask you in a more tasteful way if you would rather fuck someone or kill them." He gave a glance around the bar and said, "Then again, I don't suppose tact is very necessary here." Giving a shrug, Baltazar took a more relaxed position in his seat.<br/><br/>"So, I had started out being hired by a man who had lost something valuable to a group of thieves. Drow, he supposed, since he was only a day from a heavily trafficked entrance to The Underdark." A quick, unreadable glance was shot in Sbatarra's direction before he continued, "A small group including myself and three others went spelunking, and things went disastrously almost immediately. It was as suspected, a group of drow, but with a twist in that nearly every single one had the back of their skull removed and their brains sucked out. Each of them, hollow as a blown egg.<br/><br/>"We searched them, but found nothing on them except for their clothes, and most of their guts," he said, stopping for just a moment to ask for a tall mug of pale cider, something that could actually quench a man's thirst, rather than more hard liquor. A swig of that, the pungent apple aroma mingling with a few spices billowing forth on his breath. "There was much less incident for quite some time, apart from typical adventuring hazards; traps, pitfalls, the occasional wandering monster. It was almost an entire day before we finally encountered something more relevant. Two mind flayers, as well as a good few of their thralls, apparently discussing something telepathically. The sorcerer used<i>black tentacles</i>to hold most of the thralls in place, and even got one of the mind flayers. From there we moved in on the remaining enemies who hadn't been taken. The cleric cast a<i>dimensional anchor</i>onto the remaining tentacle-beard, and from there I advanced on him and beat him to death in just a few strikes, thanks to my practiced techniques. He'd almost got me himself, though. One of those stunning blasts they make and a few seconds later, and half of his tentacles were over my head." Again, that crooked smile; it was hard to tell whether it was genuinely expressing some kind of wickedness or his grin was just naturally unsettling. "I wrestled him off and..." he gave a short, dark laugh, "Well, look at my morningstar and imagine what it would do to something so soft as a mind flayer's head."<br/><br/>Another big swallow of cider, and he pursed his lips with a satisfied expression. "Things didn't turn out quite so well for the rest of the party, The other mind flayer had gotten free and escaped, nearly killed the sorcerer and<i>did</i>kill my swordsage friend, but we'd managed to recover the man's belongings. It took nearly everyone's reward pooled together to get him revived, but we did it. As much as everyone in the world may like money, I'd still rather keep a friend than a fistful of coins." One more long draught, and he set his mostly-empty mug back down. "And yourself? Looking at, well,<i>you</i>, I imagine you've quite the story for me."<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>