"Of course. However, feel free to awe me with your offer of payment."

Thoadrin lifted his fingers in a signal to the guard with the crossbow, who relayed it to someone unseen without taking his eyes off the two men at the table for a moment.

Overhead, there was a sudden rattling sound-that became a clacking of wooden things in motion.

"Try," Thoadrin told the slayer-for-hire, "to avoid any tavern-tale remarks for the next few breaths, hey?"

The Dark Blade of Doom waved a hand in agreement. "You're paying," he said simply-as the winch let go in earnest and the bundle from the next floor came down at their heads like hail being hurled in a storm.

It bounced in its net of ropes, just above the tabletop- Thoadrin hastily rescued his goblet-and came to a stop in the air between their eyes: a coffer of ornate, chased electrum, a trio of keys projecting from its row of tiny locks.

Thoadrin waved at it, but Marlel shook his head and gestured to the Cult warrior to fetch it out of the ropes himself. "I never meddle with another man's traps," he explained.

The Cult warrior frowned and lifted the coffer out onto the table. With a flourish he threw back the lid and turned the coffer until the slayer could see the gleaming heap of cold crimson fire within.

"Calishite rubies of the finest cut and clarity," he explained, for all the world as if he was a jeweler hawking stones from a market stall. "A thousand of them in this coffer."

"Tis but half, yes? The balance to come when the task is done?"

Thoadrin smiled a little weakly. "Of course. As is standard in… matters like this."

Marlel smiled his crooked smile. “You can omit the other standard feature of such payments: the attempt to slay the man collecting them. I'm sure you had no such intention, but just as fair warning: don't. Ever. For I am the Dark Blade of Doom."