It’s dark, cloudy. Dreary. Perfect cover for you to skulk around the streets of Waterdeep’s South Ward – some might call the place the slums, or close to it, but to you, these streets have always been home. It smells of rain and seawater, thanks to the storms that have been raging for the better part of the week. You’re soaked and dirty and cold, having clawed your way from the brink of death only to find passage home delayed by wind and weather.

In that time, the hot spark of anger caged in your ribs has only grown, and as the Copper Kettle, the tavern that serves as a front for the Blues, comes into view on this dingy little side street, it roars to a towering inferno.

So close. You’re so close.

You burst through the door like a storm given form, and all eyes turn to you. Several people pale, like they’ve seen a ghost, not least of which is the barkeep, and you know, you know just what that snake Cason has told them all. You stalk across the room to the bar, closing the space in just a few long-legged strides.

“Where is he?” Your tone is low, the fury in it barely leashed. The barkeep is an old friend of yours, but even he looks at you like something alien. “I said where is he, Marc.”

The man behind the bar – human, ginger, with a graying mustache on his upper lip – stares at you a moment more, pieces slotting into place in his head. At last, he nods toward the door back in the kitchens, the one that will take you to the guild headquarters proper. “Kaira’s office.”

You don’t have it in you to utter a thanks, but you do manage a nod before you blow past him and into HQ. Still more people stop and stare as you pass, still more people who think they’re looking at a dead man gone walking. And when you reach the door to the guildmaster’s office, you don’t even bother to knock. You lay into the door with a boot, and it swings wildly inward.

Inside is an office laden with papers and maps, and at the large desk in its center is an elven woman halfway out of her chair, hand on the hilt of the dagger at her belt. She looks startled at first, and then confused, and then a bit concerned. You’re sure that to her eyes, you look like a wild animal. “Winter? What in the hells—”

The man standing opposite her at the desk, another human, ashy blonde hair pulled into a thin ponytail, whips around to face you, and his face goes instantly pale. It’s a different sort of expression than that worn by the people who were told you were dead. This is surprise mixed with absolute dread, because you should be dead. You should be dead and you’re not, and this whole farce is about to come crumbling down around him in the worst way possible.

“Y-You,” he stammers. “You should be d—”

“Dead?” You snap back. He starts a little. You’ve thought about it, of course, what you would say in this moment. What kind of speech you’d give the man who stabbed you in the back and left you, but now that you’re here looking at his sniveling face, a face you used to trust, all those words fly from your head. All that’s left is that bitter hatred, your only company as you lay bleeding in the dark, until your now-patron reached out to your mind.

Power swims through you, magic. You’re not unfamiliar with its touch, given your heritage. Some things are in your blood. But this? This is different. It’s cold and cosmic, and yet oddly comforting. A lifeline that you didn’t know that you needed, but now that you have it? Oh, now you’re going to make him pay. Starlight gathers in your palms and you shout, “Fuck you! When you aim to do a job, you spineless piece of shit, you’d best make sure you finish it!”

As if to punctuate your rage, that power streaks across the room, all cold darkness and impossible, flickering light, and catches Cason square in the chest. It punches a hole in his ribs, and with a pathetic, wet cough, he slumps against the desk, then falls to the floor. He doesn’t get back up.

Kaira, from her place behind the desk, watches him fall. Her eyes flick back up to you, gaze assessing. Briefly, you wonder if perhaps she’ll turn on you next, seek to repay blood with blood. Eventually, the corner of her lips quirk. “Welcome home. It seems we have much to discuss.”