When Gabryael showed up for the team's meeting place there were a few raised eyebrows at his *appearance*. The team's leader gave him a slight smile, "Nice, you must be Gabrayel. I am your team leader, Iris. We will start scouting the surrounding area first since the assailants had to have been watching us from nearby. Then we'll continue on once we've figured out what we have or have not found. Everyone clear? Good. Now let's spread out and look for clues. Try not to disturb the ground just in case we can actually lift a foot print or two."

She nodded her head with an affirmative, "Let's move out."

It was rather obvious where they had been watching the city. What was even weirder is that they didn't bother to try and even hide their vantage spot. The trail to the outcropping stuck out so much that a blind human could have found it. Some of the prints didn't make any sense at all, others were obvious dwarves, human and elf...not doubt drow...but this one set of prints was very curious. Did a new sort of pack animal been tamed? 8...no 10...no wait how many legs did this thing have? It was very curious indeed.

Iris looked to her troops, "This screams trap since they didn't even bother to hide where they were watching the city from, plus they didn't hide their retreat either. Watch close and stay together, we don't need them picking us off one at a time. Let's head out."

The team moved farther into the Underdarke, away from the security of Babylon. It wasn't long before they came to the underground river, there the trail went cold. Now it was a choice of how to see if they went to the other side or if they went down river in a boat.

Iris watched him transform without so much as a twitch, she's seen people polymorph before and this didn't surprise her. It just confirmed he was a vampire and now she knew what to watch for. He'd have to prove himself just like the others in their party. She didn't hold anything against anymore and obviously the princess didn't either, but then again her father is a vampire too.

When he reappeared sometime later with his report it really didn't surprise her but they had to have a course of action and now they had one.

"Ok...we go with the river's flow. They went via boat, let's move out men, we are going to head north and Gabryael if you would from time to time fly to the other side to see if they disembarked from their boat that'll keep us on the right track."

"They must be a good distance from here to have traveled so far via boat. We could be out here a good while." Iris shook her head as Gabryael gave her another report showing they had not disembarked from the vessel at that time.

The party traveled another 4 days before they finally caught a break. As Gabryael was on the opposite bank, the effects of a camp was very obvious.

"Lovely, now we have to figure out how to cross to the other side."

When he came back with a boat, Iris blinked once...then twice and wondered just where it came from. "I'm shocked they would leave something so obvious for us to find them. You know...I'm not liking this one bit. It screams trap to me. Gabrayel, before we cross I'd like you to go further north and see if you can find anything out of the ordinary. Since you can fly you would be the safest of all of us for this mission. While you are doing that we will ferry across a few at a time, I don't trust the boat to hold us all...it's too easy and NOTHING is easy in the underdarke."

When he reported these findings to Iris her eyes flared bright red...such was the way of the drow when angered.

"Is there a way we can make them *think* we fell to the devices of these traps? Perhaps we can lure them out of hiding? No doubt they have some kind of spell to let them know when we have been entrapped." She tapped her finger against her chin while thinking. "Let's disable the first trap them set off the second trap if it's possible. Then we can wait for them to see if their prize is right where they want it!"

The commander paced back and forth for a couple more minutes before stopping and almost tripping over her own feet, "Let's break camp and move out...I don't want them to think anything is amiss, especially if someone is watching us."

Within the hour, the team continued northward...it wasn't long before the first trap was discovered and disabled. The second trap took some serious skills to disable, but after a short time it was finally accomplished, that and with a little help from Gabrayel's bat friends for cover.

"Now, we wait..." Iris said with their special sign language.

Gabryael shifted to mist form and rose into the air before morphing into a sea of bats. From above he could see the two drow scurring off like cockroaches in the night when the light has been shed on them. Silently he followed scouting ahead to see where his prey led him.

Gabryael misted inside and reformed in the shadows. The shades around him darkened and spread. He shielded himself by clouding the minds of the patrons inside rendering him invisible to their eyes. Using his preternatural senses he could hear the conversation between the two drow targets as if he were standing right next to them.

Gabryael was feeling a might peckish. Shifting to mist he followed the captain out into the alley way. There he reformed in front of him and gazing into his eyes, he waited for the tell tale "deer in the headlights" look and then sank his fangs deep into his neck. He only took enough to leave the captain a little woozy, with no memory of the last few minutes. What it did do as he streamed away was allow Gabryael to look into the mind of the captain and find out what their REAL goal was.

The princess was in danger!!!! Enemy deserve no mercy. He snapped th neck of the captain and allowed his body to drop right there in the alley way. Damn! I'm too far away to get to her. He thought as he felt something enter his pocket. Reaching in he found her transporter stone. Eidict memory is a good thing for a vampire to have as he remembered the words she said and concentrated on the room. Scotty... one to beam up... Energize...