He reclaimed his old room and even reverted to his real name. The memories of the dignitaries of Luskan did not last as long as they claimed.

In the early years, the thief Morrick had been charged with attempting to murder the venerable captain of the heroic ship Sealing, Dudmont, a well-known pirate hunter. Because being charged in the City of a Thousand Sails is almost exactly tantamount to a verdict of guilt, Morrick has to face the terrifying prospect of being executed at a public display rally at the Carnival of Prisoners. In fact, while he was in the midst of his final torture, it was Captain Dudmont who felt the cruel horror of that terrible sight and forgave him for his crimes.

Whether he was forgiven or not, Morrick was banished from Luskan for good, and it was death-like pain for him. Of course, he came back anyway. At first he used a fake identity as a disguise, but gradually he regained his old clothes, his true habits, his network on the street, his room, and finally his name and the old fame it brought with him. The high-ranking officials knew that, too, but there were too many other thugs waiting for them to torture to death, and they didn't seem to care about it all.

Now he can look back on that terrible day at the Prisoners' Carnival with a sense of humor. It is a wonderful irony for Morrick to be tormented by a trumped-up accusation when so many crimes can be legitimately incriminated.

Now everything has become a memory, a memory of the whirlwind of conspiracy and crisis in the name of Wolfga. He has reinstated himself as Morrick the Thief, and everything is back on track...... At least almost.

Because now a new variable, a tempting and dangerous one, has entered Morrick's life. He cautiously walked to the door of his room, and at the same time looked around the narrow hallway, carefully examining the shadows. Convinced that he was alone now, he quickly approached the door, shielded it from any magical prying eyes, and began to lift nearly a dozen deadly traps along the sides of the doorpost, from top to bottom. Once that was done, he took out a bunch of keys to unlock the door—one, two, three—and clicked open. He lifted another trap—this one was explosive—and went into the room, closed the door and covered it up again, all the traps back to their original shape. The whole process took him more than ten minutes, but he still went through the trouble to do it every time he got home. The Dark Elves broke into Morrick's life without warning. They promised him the riches of a king if he completed the task he had delivered, and they also promised him the other side of the alluring gold coin toss.

Morrick examined a small pedestal near the door. He nodded, pleased to see that the ball in the vase was still in place. The vessel was coated with a layer of contact poison and fitted with a sensitive pressure-triggered trap. He paid a fortune for this particular ball—a huge sum of gold that he had to steal for a year to earn back—but to Morrick's fearful eyes, it was worth the price. It was cast with a powerful anti-magic spell that prevented the dimensional door from opening in this room, preventing the mages from breaking in through another way, a teleportation spell.

Morrick the Thief didn't want to be woken up from his sleep by a dark elf standing beside his bedside and slowly emerging from a high position.

All the locks were securely locked, and his ball lay still in the protective container, but there were still subtle clues, an invisible undercurrent, a slight tickling of the hair on the back of his neck, suggesting to Morrick that something was wrong. He looked around, his gaze wandering from shadow to shadow and back to the curtain that hung quietly from his brick-sealed window long ago. He looked at his bed, which was neatly laid out, and there was no blanket hanging from the edge of the bed. Morrick bent down slightly and scanned the bottom of the bed. No one is hiding there.

Then he thought of the curtains, and began to move in that general direction to avoid any attack from the intruders. After a sudden turn, he rushed to the curtain, clutching the dagger in his hand, and then pulled the curtain open and stabbed it hard, but he saw only air. Greatly relieved, Morrick laughed out loud at his own paranoia. How different his world was when the dark elves arrived. Now he is on the verge of a high degree of nervous tension every day. He had only seen Drow five times in total, including the first time they had met long ago, when Wolfgar had just made a name for himself in the city, and they, for some reason that Morrick had not yet fully figured out, had asked him to keep an eye on the great barbarian.

Always unusually sharp and alert, he warns himself of the potential lucrative benefits of working with Drow. As far as can be deduced, part of the reason why he was able to become the thief Morrick again was a meeting with one of Jalaso's many henchmen with one of the authorities.

He sighed in deep comfort and drew the curtain back, and at that moment he was stunned in horror as a hand covered his mouth and the sharp blade of a dagger pressed against his throat.

"The gems are already in hand?" A voice whispered in his ear, unbelievably strong and calm, albeit in a flat tone. The hand slid down his mouth and up to his forehead, forcing his head back fully to remind him how defenseless and vulnerable his throat was.

Morrick didn't reply, though many possibilities had flashed through his mind - trying to escape seemed the least feasible, for the hand that controlled him displayed terrifying power, and the other, holding the dagger against his throat, was unusually determined. Whoever the attacker was, Morrick immediately understood that he had been defeated.

"I'll just ask again, and then it's all over." The whisper rang out again.

"You're not Drow." , Morrick replied, buying as much time as possible to make sure that the human—he knew it was a human and certainly not a dark elf—would not make any rash moves.

"Maybe I am, but under the guise of some kind of mage spell." The attacker said, "But that's not possible — or is it possible?" - because no magic can work in this room. With that, he gave Morrick a casual push, then grabbed the frightened thief by the shoulder as he stepped back and turned him around.

Morrick didn't know the man, but he knew he was in imminent danger. He lowered his gaze to his dagger, which looked really pitiful compared to the sumptuous weapons his opponent held with jeweled handles—Morrick realized, with some cringe, that it was almost a reflection of the relative power of their respective wielders.

Even in Luskan, a city full of thieves, Morrick the Thief on the streets is an excellent thief. His fame, though grown by clever fraud, has spread far within the city. The human in front of him, perhaps more than ten years older than Morrick, stood in front of him with such a calm and settled attitude......

The man entered his room and remained unnoticed, though Morrick diligently checked the surroundings. At this point, Morrick noticed that his quilt had become a mess - but when he checked it just now, wasn't it very neatly laid?

"You're not Drow." Morrick dared to repeat it again.

"It's not that all of Jalaso's agents are dark elves, isn't it, Morrick the Thief?" The human replied.

Morrick nodded and gently retracted the dagger into the sheath of his belt, an action intended to ease the tension, which Morrick desperately wanted to achieve.

"Where's the gem?" The man asked.

Morrick couldn't hide the panicked look on his face.

"That's what you bought from Telsburgher," the human commented, "and it's not hard to do that." ”

"It would have been unimpeded," corrected Morrick, "but there was a local magistrate who had an old vendetta against me. ”

The intruder began to stare again, showing neither hint of conspiracy nor anger, and Morrick had no way of knowing whether he was interested in listening to any of his excuses.

"Telsburgher was ready to sell it to me," the thief quickly added, "at a price we had already agreed upon." His only hesitation was probably the fear of retaliation from the petty officer, Jharkheld. That troublesome guy is grudgeful. He knew I was back in town and wanted to get me back to the Prisoners' Carnival, but he heard that he couldn't do that because of orders from his superiors. And that's thanks to Jalaso. ”

"Your way of thanking Jalaso should be to do what he was told to do perfectly." The human replied, and Morrick nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "He's helping you to fill his wallet, not to fill his heart with those generous sympathies."

Morrick nodded. "I don't have the guts to fight Jharkheld." He explained, "How costly would it be for me to launch an attack without incurring the wrath of the higher authorities in Luskan, which would ultimately cost Jalaso a loss to his wallet?" he explained. ”

"Jharkheld does not pose a threat." The man replied with such certainty that Morrick found himself completely convinced of what he had said. "Go and close the deal."

"But......," Morrick tried to speak.

"Tonight." That's the answer, and the humans have turned around and started walking towards the door.

In front of Morrick's eyes, the man's hand began to flip with an astonishing dexterity, one trap after another being lifted and the door lock opened. Even Morrick would have taken several minutes to get through the door and the intricate traps he had set up, and he had used the key to open the three locks that were theoretically difficult to pick, but in less than two minutes, the door had now been pushed open widely.

The human glanced back and threw something onto the floor at Morrick's feet.

It was a piece of wire.

"This thing on your bottom trap is too long to be useful," the human explained, "I've fixed it for you." ”

Then he went out and closed the door, and the thief heard the click and turn of all the locks and traps as they were effectively restored.

Morrick cautiously approached his bed and lifted the quilt aside. A hole had been dug into the mattress, just the size for the intruders to hide. The thief laughed helplessly, all of which only increased his respect for the Jalaso mercenary group. He didn't even have to get close to inspect the trap vase to know that the ball was nothing more than a fake, and that the real one had just left his door.

Walking into the late afternoon sun in Luskan, Ntreili couldn't help but blink. He put his hand in his pocket and touched the magical item he had just taken from Morric. The ball thwarted Leckie. When he tried to visit Morrick in person, it rendered his spells completely ineffective, most likely as it did now. The thought alone was satisfying for the killer. Dayet's Independent Mercenary Regiment spent almost the entire decade investigating the cause of Morrick's sudden isolation from magic, and how this man had kept the mage's prying eyes from reaching his room. Therefore, Ntrili was sent. He didn't think that this order had anything to do with his superior kleptocratic skills, but rather because the Dark Elves weren't sure what Morrick's resistance was, as they didn't want any of their companions to risk in the expedition. Of course, Jalaso wouldn't be happy to see Leckie and Kim Murray forcing Ntreuri on the mission, but the pair knew very well that the killer wouldn't reveal it to the mercenary leader.

Thus, Entbrili acted as a messenger for these two powerful and hateful dark elves.

The instructions he received to take the ball and close the deal with Morrick were clear. Now he should have set the ball aside and whistled the dark elves in Port Carlin, thousands of miles away, with the magic signal whistle that Leckie had given him, but he wasn't in a hurry to do so.

He knew he should kill Morric, both because of the man's recklessness in trying to protect himself and because he failed to hand over the necessary gems. Of course, Leckie and Kim Murray would have demanded such a punishment. Now he had to prove himself right to protect Morrick.

The Killer knew Luskan all too well, having passed through the city several times, including a recent long visit when he and a few other Drow agents learned the truth about Morrick's magically designed objects. Walking through the streets, he soon heard the shouts of the prisoners' carnival and the sound of toasts and celebrations. As he walked into the back of the square, some poor fool was bleeding like a long rope. Ntreili barely paid attention to the public display, instead focusing on the short, robed-clad figure of the person presiding over the torture.

The man shouted at the dying victims, shouting that they would confess their accomplices, where and when the crime was committed before everything was irreparable. "For the sake of you being able to have a more enjoyable second half of your life!" The official screamed, his voice standing out as his anger and his angular face. "It's now! Before you die! ”

The prisoner just wailed. To Ntreuri, it seemed like he had long since lost any sense of the official's words.