A stained blade

The dagger was small, slender and jet black.  A circular onyx stone was inset at the base of the hilt.  A narrow channel ran the length of the blade.  Aras knew what that channel could be used for.  The hit squad in his guild would create all manner of vile concoctions....elixers that would sap one's strength, mind or render the victim unconscious.  They would dress the blade in the poison and then quickly and painfully take down their target.  This blade however, was more interesting than anything he had seen in the guild.

With a practiced hand and a quick flick of his wrist he launched the blade.  It sank into the wood of the opposite wall in his tiny room at the Rusty Dragon.  Within a fraction of a second the dagger had magically returned to his palm.

"No stained blade to retrieve or leave as evidence" Aras thought, smiling to himself.

He was in the midst of adjusting and organizing his new gear.  The demon's dagger fit perfectly in his wrist sheath.  This was a dagger for special occasions, he thought.  It's size also made it the perfect weapon to sneak into places where weapons would not be permitted.

He sharpened his two other new blades.  The silver dagger he had pulled from the crypt was beautiful and deadly sharp.  He paired it with a new cold iron dagger that he had purchased that morning.  Both blades had been built by master craftsmen.  They fit comfortably in the sheaths running across his chest.  He adjusted the straps on his new leather armor.  His old set was worn, dirty and scarred from the acid of the goblin creature.  It was also guild make.  A keen eye would have picked up on that eventually.  His new leathers were beautifully made and would no longer give insight into his past affiliations.  The armor fit perfectly and felt much lighter than his old set.  He stood in the center of his room and in a flash executed a perfect standing backflip.  With catlike grace his soft footfall made little sound.

Aras smiled again.

Though not without difficulties, this trip had certainly been prosperous.  He even managed to negotiate a property from the mayor.  It sat right on the waterfront.  His part of town.  His kind of people.  The cleric had been a minor annoyance during the whole ordeal, but Aras paid it little mind.  Stubborn, zealous thinking is what makes them clerics in the first place, Aras mused.  As long as the man didn't overtly get in the way of his plans,  Aras had no problem with him.  Aras was growing fond of Skender and Cray.  Skender always had the look of someone with a scheme in mind.  That was something that Aras could appreciate.  Cray was brutishly efficient at what he did, but there was more to the half orc than he first thought.

Aras was born with the vision of a hawk and the ears of a mouse.  He noticed things that others did not.  Several times while looking in Cray's direction he had noticed odd goings on.  At first he thought them tricks of his mind because given a second glance, whatever he had seen before was gone.  He couldn't put words or images to what he thought he saw.  It had happened enough to see a pattern.  There was something going on there, but the rogue could not puzzle it out.

"Intriguing" thought Aras.