Talneth sighed, turning impatiently to the surface elf. "For the last time. My mother always carried valuable magic items on her person. The goblinoids wouldn't have done anything with them except maybe hiding them. I'd like to recover what I can and make use of it," he snapped. She knew it was a lie as well as he did; that was why she kept asking. Truthfully, he didn't know. It certainly wasn't love -- his mother had never treated him as anything more than a pawn. A valuable pawn, perhaps, but still highly disposable. A sense of closure? He and his mother<em>did</em>have unfinished business concerning her willingness to let him be sacrificed to Lolth. Or maybe it was revenge, on the kobolds who had denied him the pleasure of tearing out her throat himself.<br/><br/>His footfalls on the sand and then the grass were silent, barely even stirring the unstable ground beneath. His eyes, functioning in the infrared spectrum, saw her as a red configuration of heat patterns as he looked at her, as if to add something to his statement. Instead, he turned back to the road, chewing his bottom lip as a silent form of grumbling. His hood was pulled up over his white hair, and his hands hung at his sides, in easy reach of his weapons.