T'lar slipped silently into the blood-warm river and clung to a gnarled tree root so the sluggish current wouldn't carry her away. The river slid smoothly over her skin without impediment; upon acceptance in the Velkyn Velve, she had shaved her body from scalp to ankle-there would be no incriminating flashes of white to give her away. Floating on her back, she pulled a tangle of dead creeper vines across her naked body to conceal herself. She stared up at the sky, awash with the light of thousands of stars, and listened to the rustling of the night's predators and the startled screeches of their prey. The World Above was a noisy place compared to the cool silence of the Underdark, but even over this restlessness she could hear the soft murmur of voices: the wild elf, and the female T'lar had been sent to kill.

She let go of the root. The current caught her. As she drifted toward the voices, concealed under the tangle of vines, she adjusted the grip of her fingers on her spike-spiders, two walnut-sized metal throwing balls filled with poison and studded with hollow metal needles. A prick from either would numb her hands. Used against someone who hadn't built up an immunity to their poison, they would render the entire body as rigid as petrified wood.