STATUS Alive, in custody – talking, eventually
RANK High-ranking member, the Zhakarov Brotherhood
OCCUPATION Druid; personal enforcer operating outside the Brotherhood’s usual muscle
ACCESS LEVEL None
AGE Unrecorded
ORIGINS Unconfirmed
YEARS OF SERVICE N/A
FIRST ON RECORD Session 12 – ambush at the Northcoast Chandlery

Section 18 already had Saarkh’s description on file before the Chandlery – a pale, bald, snake-tattooed woman tied by eyewitnesses to a string of Chuza Cutter deaths earlier in the year, each one written up as a snake bite. She’d been pursued once before and vanished into an alleyway before anyone got close. The tattoo across her scalp is near-identical to the one Marek wears – the same Brotherhood ink, the same cell.

She laid her trap properly: a poisoned “beggar” corpse as bait, a snake companion coiled beside it, thorn caltrops across the doorway, and a hidden sniper on the floor above. She herself lay prone among the bodies, playing dead until the Agents were committed. When she rose, it wasn’t for the ambush – it was for Raven specifically. “You took away someone dear to me,” she said, and started casting.

FILE NOTES

Whoever she lost, and to which of Raven’s prior kills, never made it onto the record – Saarkh didn’t say, and nobody has since worked out who she meant. What is recorded is the fight itself: a second viper summoned to back the first, a flaming sphere sent after Raven, a sniper keeping up steady fire from above while Saarkh worked to finish a flameblade spell. Raven broke her concentration before it formed. Crowe ended her part in the fight a moment later with a single sneak attack that dropped her outright.

She very nearly didn’t survive it. Hawke administered a dose from his own healing wand afterward – down to her last couple of hit points, but stable, and eventually willing to talk. The sniper covering her didn’t fare as well; Raven finished him at the top of the stairs once Crowe cannoned him from below.

“Agent Raven, you took away someone dear to me. It is time to pay for your sin.”

Saarkh, breaking cover at the Northcoast Chandlery

STATUS: Filed under The Bad. High-ranking enough in the Brotherhood to operate alone, outside Zhakarov’s usual muscle, and motivated by something Section 18 still can’t identify. Currently in custody. Whatever grudge put her in that warehouse doorway is still an open line in the file.