In the Wake of Darkness

Delanor ReLako sat on a small balcony fashioned into a large stalactite. He wore the title of ReLako, denoting his noble birth. House ReLako was the sixteenth house of Denmorezbach. But then, no drow was ever content with their lot when it wasn’t first. Delanor was the second boy of House ReLako. Delanor was not like ordinary drow. He trusted his older brother, Tanfirim, as much as one drow can trust another, at least, and so Delanor did not seek to take Tanfirim’s place as elder boy, thinking it more valuable to have an ally than higher station. Tanfirim was also a fighter, and while they were close, this did not stay Tanfirim’s nervousness. It was not uncommon for a second boy to kill his older brother, if not in battle, then with a dagger or a poisoned crossbow bolt, to gain a better position in the house. Tanfirim made it his goal to spend little time with Delanor, and so he became a master at Magkron Golnii, where the art of combat was taught. The academy, Briechtal Namtre, was divided into three branches: Magkron Golnii for fighters, Arcanthere for spellcasters, and Arachthere for clerics. Delanor was left with many of the duties of the first boy anyway, with Tanfirim absent so often. Delanor personally trained every drow of the ReLako army, which consisted of no less than one hundred soldiers. Of course, most of the more powerful and prominent houses had a thousand or so soldiers, but ReLako was not such a house. Thus was the lot of the sixteenth house.

Delanor looked up from his contemplations to the group of young drow sparring before him. Each one could not yet be past his first century. Naturally, all of the fighters were males. Females afforded a much higher position in the drow society, and always attended Arachthere, where they learned to be powerful clerics. Only females went to Arachthere. The only time males were allowed in was to spend six months in each of the branches of the academy they had not attended to learn the basics. For males, the basics of Arachthere were to serve females and to serve Lolth, the goddess of the drow and lady of chaos.

Delanor focused on two younglings. One of the two was fighting brilliantly, but the other seemed to be slothful, his parries slow and his strikes even slower. From what Delanor could tell, the better fighter was lulling his opponent into a routine. It was a good strategy to use on a lesser, but it wouldn’t work on a real opponent. Still, Delanor felt that the lesser could use a lesson, and hoped that the better would strike him hard with the wooden mock-weapons Tanfirim worked so hard to acquire from Magkron Golnii now used in sparring. The routine continued for a few moments, ending when the better suddenly spun to the ground, sweeping the lesser’s legs out with a wooden long sword and jabbing him hard in the stomach with a wooden dagger.

“You are defeated!” the better announced to the lesser. The lesser, holding his stomach and attempting to stand, just gazed at the better, a mix of hatred and awe in his eyes.

“True, you defeated him. But was he a worthy opponent?” Delanor called to the better fighter. Rising, Delanor called upon his innate ability to levitate, slowly drifting down from the balcony to the floor. Walking over to the table where the wooden weapons were laid, Delanor chose two wooden dirks and a wooden longsword. “Let us fight, that you might learn a real challenge,” Delanor declared, slipping one wooden dirk into his already cluttered belt.

“If we must, then I will fight you!” the other called out, only the slightest tremor audible in his voice, readying his weapons. Delanor approached the fighter, stopping several feet short.

“Begin!” he shouted. Delanor came in hard and fast, starting with quick, high cuts, which the other managed to parry. Delanor then began to work separately with his two hands, his right hand coming in from above and the other coming in from the left. The other, to his credit, managed to continue parrying. The fighter tried a double-thrust low, a maneuver designed to stalemate a superior opponent. Delanor offered a double-cross-down, the only defense against the double-thrust low. With only a brief respite, Delanor came on again, slashing and chopping at the other fighter. Finally, Delanor flung the dirk from his left hand, catching his opponent off guard. He managed to deflect the impromptu missile and a hard downward chop with the wooden longsword, but Delanor had already drawn his other dirk, which connected solidly with the other fighter’s head, laying him low. In the end, the fight had only lasted a minute. “You learn to lead on lesser opponents, now you must learn to defeat equals and betters,” Delanor spat at the unconscious fighter. He turned to the small crowd that had gathered. He only gave them a sharp glare. The group dispersed and got back to training, spurred on by their weapons master’s cold eyes. Soon, these young drow would be attending Magkron Golnii, though Delanor wondered if some would be better off at Arcanthere. Delanor left the younglings to train. He had business to attend to: his sister and his mother always had work for him. He pushed his way through the lower halls, and then, exiting the lower levels, Delanor turned to look at his own house.

House ReLako was situated across two very large stalagmites that had a common base. Ringing the two stalagmites were series of adamantine and mithral balconies, with small catwalks spanning between the two stalagmites. The commoners and soldiers were relegated to the lower levels, and the nobles – Delanor, his brother, his sister, and his mother – kept mostly to the upper levels, where their quarters, a smaller armory, and training hall. The cavern that Denmorezbach was in slanted slightly across its three miles, and House ReLako was near the edge of the higher end, affording Delanor a wonderful view of the city. Delanor gazed out at the city, for it was magnificent.

Denmorezbach, the largest drow city in a system of underground caves collectively known as the Underdark, was situated in an elliptical cave, one mile wide and three miles across. There were seventy-eight recognized houses in the city, each with a rank. The top eight houses sat on a sort of ruling council, which was reminiscent to a government over the city. Houses were normally situated within giant stalagmites or stalactites, though a few were located in smaller caves along the walls of the city. Once, maybe twice, each decade, a drow house would feel that it could better its station by eliminating another house of higher rank. In drow society, there was only one rule: leave no nobles alive to bear witness, for only a noble had the right to accusation. Destroying another drow house and leaving no evidence or witnesses was something not just acceptable in drow society, but actually applauded, though never out loud. House ReLako had once been the eighteenth house, but over the years, two other houses had been eliminated, neither by House ReLako itself.

Delanor smiled wickedly, thinking of their slow rise in power. Soon, he felt, they would be fifteenth house. His mother, Matron Narsila, had a plan to eliminate House Kelind, fourteenth house in Denmorezbach. A daring move, Delanor thought to himself. House Kelind boasted almost two hundred soldiers, and two high priestesses. But they had fallen out of favor, Delanor reminded himself. Matron Narsila had not shared with him details, but many in the city knew that the house was out of Lolth’s favor, and this meant that they were weak, vulnerable. Delanor had his suspicions. It was rumored that House Kelind had not sacrificed the third born male to Lolth, as was the custom. It was common knowledge that the two noble males were fighters, and perhaps House Kelind desired a wizard. It was no wonder House Kelind was out of Lolth’s favor, Delanor reasoned. But he wondered if House Kelind knew yet. Often was it Lolth’s devious way to let the house no longer in her favor be the last to hear of it. Certainly, Delanor thought, they must realize that not sacrificing the third living male noble would upset Lolth. But if they had not seen any indication of her displeasure, perhaps they thought that they would soon have an advantage over the other houses. He smiled at the irony.

Delanor reflexively tightened his belt to reassure himself that he had his weapons: a beautifully crafted longsword and two dirks, all heavily enchanted to be the keenest, deadliest of weapons; drow were well known for carrying the sharpest of weapons. The reminder that he was armed spurred him on momentarily as he moved through the crowds of the open marketplace. While it might be a crowd, his piwafwi and hair cut marked him as a noble just as clearly as the seal of his house that he kept in his neck purse, and many wisely kept out of his way. Today, stealth was not necessary on his mission, and Delanor relished in watching the commoners, slaves, and merchants stumbling out of his way, knowing that nobles had a volatile temper for contempt, especially males, who had to be subservient within the house itself. As his destination came into view, Delanor could hardly contain his awe. He had seen Briechtal Namtre many times, but it still took his breath away. Briechtal Namtre was located on the only plateau in the entire cavern Denmorezbach was situated in. The three schools – Magkron Golnii, Arcanthere, and Arachthere – dominated the plateau, each constructed in a different manner. Magkron Golnii, the school of fighters, was a mundane building, built into a wide-based short stalagmite that resembled a pyramid. Arcanthere was obviously a feat of magic, as the stalagmite it was built in a corkscrew, separating it from the straighter stalagmites in the cave. Arachthere, however, was the most glorious; cut from the living stone, Arachthere resembled a giant spider. It was certainly an appropriate place to worship Lolth, the goddess of chaos.

Delanor had come this way many times over the last few weeks, establishing a routine. He would climb up the stairs carved out of the plateau’s side, head straight to Magkron Golnii, visit his brother’s chambers, tell him of the happenings at House ReLako, and then leave. It was not uncommon, by any means, for a noble to be sent to a sibling serving as a master at Briechtal Namtre bearing news of recent happenings, and that was just how Matron Narsila wanted others to perceive Delanor’s routine visits. But today, he bore something other than news. House Kelind had a budding young high priestess in her final year, studying melee combat from Tanfirim, as was the custom. She would be graduating soon. Graduating, Delanor thought, from this life. Tonight, they would strike at House Kelind and ascend to fifteenth house. Delanor moved through the hallways cut into the living stone of Magkron Golnii with ease, knowing each passageway well from when he himself had been a master. The death of House ReLako’s patron and weapons master had opened a position up for Delanor that he couldn’t resist, however, and so he had retired from the school of combat. As he approached his brother’s chambers, Delanor again straightened his belt. Their relationship had always been strained, to some degree. Tanfirim was first boy of House Delanor. Delanor was second boy. According to basic drow logic, Delanor should want to kill Tanfirim in order to achieve higher status within the house. Delanor, however, was not as ambitious as most drow. Second boy suited him just fine. But Tanfirim had every right to be nervous around Delanor, and Delanor wouldn’t be caught off guard if his brother had decided to stay his nervousness at the most inopportune of moments.

As Delanor raised his hand to the door to press his palm against it, Tanfirim opened it. Both had known the other was there, hearing each other moving long before they were ever standing on either side of the door, but they went through the motions anyway. Delanor feigned surprise, as did Tanfirim, explaining that he had just been heading out. Both retired to Tanfirim’s quarters to discuss the plan.

“What news do you bring, brother?” Tanfirim started.

“Only the usual,” Delanor began, going on to talk about the recent mundane happenings of the house. But Tanfirim wasn’t listening. He was watching intently as Delanor’s fingers and expressions transmitted the real message through the intricate sign language of the drow. <We strike tonight,> he signed. <Make sure that the girl never stands a chance. We can’t risk this for the pleasure of making her suffer. A poisoned crossbow bolt to the back will suffice.>

<I understand,> he signed back. <How am I to dispose of the body?>

Delanor reached into his pocket and produced a small scroll. <This will shrink her body to manageable size. Leave the city through a southern exit, wait for the spell to expire, weigh her down with stones, and toss her into the lake.> Tanfirim winced a little. A scroll meant that he’d have to light a candle to read it by, and he hated the light. They all lived their lives in the dark, having developed the ability to see in the infrared spectrum, called infravision. The underground tunnels, normally collectively referred to as the Underdark, were alive with volcanic and seismic activity, and so the walls of the city displayed an array of dull blues and greens, with red and orange spots and veins running their course, acting as shadows for the warm-blooded drow. But the words on a scroll did not appear any differently from the scroll upon which they were written. Drow eyes were very sensitive to light, and Tanfirim didn’t relish having to light a candle to read the scroll. But he understood that this matter was more important than his personal desires. Matron Narsila would never hear of the plan being altered or changed for a mere male’s comfort. Matron Narsila was not cruel, by drow standards, but neither was she kind. Devious was a better word to describe his mother.

“I understand. It is good to hear from you, brother,” Tanfirim offered as Delanor’s absent rambling about recent events came to an end. When they had first started this routine, they had practiced for hours at perfecting the ability to hold one meaningless conversation out loud while holding a more private, silent conversation at the same time. At first, it had been difficult, but by now, they did it with practiced ease. Delanor couldn’t even recall what they’d discussed, but it didn’t matter. Any unwanted ears could not link House ReLako to the passing of House Kelind. He nodded to his brother, then rose and left, returning from whence he had come.

As Delanor approached House ReLako, he took another moment to appreciate its beauty. “Fifteenth house,” he whispered to himself. He pushed through the front gate and into the complex itself. House ReLako was alive now. The bustle of everyday life seemed to escape Delanor. As a noble, he had responsibilities to the house. Most of the daily chores and duties were taken care of commoners or slaves. Indeed, easily seventy percent of Denmorezbach’s population consisted of slaves, ranging from goblins and orcs to bugbears and gnolls to duergar and even a few humans. House ReLako boasted a hundred slaves, mostly goblins. However, they were also blessed with a score of bugbears, who were very effective soldiers, and a clan of hobgoblins, which were quite uncommon in the depths of the Underdark, and much more proficient than goblins at every day chores and soldiering. Delanor called upon his innate ability to levitate without even really giving pause to think about it, rising slowly up to the upper most levels. Here, he stumbled into a particular hobgoblin, the only one allowed in the upper levels.

“You are getting out of hand, Acid Tongue. You know better than to wander the halls. It is a privilege that you are even allowed up here, let alone to allowed personal quarters,” Delanor remarked halfheartedly as he passed. He knew that it wasn’t just favor that had afforded Axeth of Clan Tunggyl such luxuries. Axeth was among the weakest of his clan. He was hardly fit for the daily chores around the house other than perhaps cleaning. And so, for a long time, those were his duties: scrubbing the stones clean of any dirt of filth. However, one day, Delanor had noted a small closet door slowly warming, indicating someone was inside. He opened it, and was certainly surprised to find Axeth reading from the tattered scraps of a book recounting the life of passed hobgoblin heroes, or rather, hero, for there was only one such hobgoblin that could even be possibly considered a hero of any sort. However, while Delanor disapproved of the subject matter, what was more notable was that Axeth could read. At that time, Delanor immediately realized a way to get himself out of his most hated duty as second boy: tending the family library. Matron Narsila insisted on hoarding books, tomes, scrolls, and all other types of reading material. She claimed that writing was knowledge, and knowledge was power, though she rarely visited the library itself. What Delanor so hated about it was that, in order to tend to the books properly, the entire library had to be illuminated, and Delanor hated the light.

“Good evening, Lord,” Axeth replied in the dry, cutting tones that had earned him his nickname. “It is a pleasure to see you.” While Axeth was a slave, he was the only one allowed in the upper levels of the complex, which had no mundane staircases or other means by which to grant access, other than by levitating. Axeth was a permanent resident of the upper levels, where the library was kept, and his constant presence had softened the nobles to him, some going as far as to consider him a member of House ReLako rather than a slave. He was allowed to do much of what he wanted, within reason. Delanor even planned to eventually teach the hobgoblin drow sign language. However, right now, Delanor wanted to get back to Matron Narsila right away. Any delays would be punished by the end of her five-headed snake whip. Delanor would have passed him by with that, but Axeth was grinning. Delanor paused.

“What brings you out of your libraries, Acid?” he inquired. Axeth’s smile widened as he pondered what to say, exactly. He so enjoyed getting under Delanor’s skin.

“Nothing so important as to interrupt your business, Lord,” Axeth replied smugly, baiting Delanor.

Delanor’s expression grew stern. He knew that Axeth was baiting him for just this sort of reaction, but he didn’t have time for such games: better to just give him what he wanted. “Don’t play coy with me, Acid. You know something. Tell me what it is!”

Axeth, appeased, spoke softly, “I have been given permission to study the arcane arts.” Delanor was quite surprised. Allowing a slave such free access to the upper levels of the complex was certainly unprecedented, but allowing a slave the freedom to become a sorcerer or wizard? It was just unheard of. However, it made sense, in the back of Delanor’s mind. House ReLako had two fighters and two high priestesses, but no wizard. It was a weakness other houses might seek to exploit. Allowing Axeth to practice the arcane arts wouldn’t deter any houses from attacking, but it would do, for now.

“Congratulations, Acid Tongue,” Delanor replied, exaggerating his contempt for magic. Wizards, he felt, were like archers: they could do plenty of damage from afar, but if one could get in close, they were helpless. Delanor was happy that he, like his older brother, had learned the art of combat, for truly it was an art, a dance of death. And with that, he was off. He didn’t wish to keep Matron Narsila waiting. He would be preparing the soldiers for their assault on House Kelind. He had given it much thought, and had decided on what he thought was their best course of action.

Tanfirim checked the hand crossbow again, to make sure the dart it was fitted with would fly straight and true. His target, a budding priestess named Derina Kelind, was a powerful foe, one that he would not relish facing in fair combat. He had selected a powerful poison for this job, one that would immediately shut down her nervous system and hopefully numb her whole body before she could cry out. Tanfirim would have preferred sticking a dagger in her back, but priestesses had a way of reading one’s thoughts, and Tanfirim couldn’t take any risks. Balancing precariously on a ledge above the main entrance to his chambers, Tanfirim waited. He had requested that Derina meet him in his chambers to discuss some business. He had even gone as far as to set up a dummy in a chair on the far end of the room, facing away from the door. She wouldn’t know what hit her until the dart bit into the back of her neck. He listened intently, focusing on the faint rustle approaching his door. Drow boots were designed not to make a sound, but a trained warrior could normally distinguish a foot step from a good deal away regardless. Tanfirim hoped that Derina, a female and of higher station than he, even if he was a master and she a student, would simply barge into his room rather than pressing her palm against the door, which would leave a heat signature on the other side; the drow equivalent of the surface dweller’s knock. Females had a tendency to do that.

The door silently swung open beneath him, and Derina entered. Tanfirim smiled at his luck as she quietly approached the dummy. Was that a blade in her hand? No time for questions, Tanfirim reminded himself. The click of a crossbow was the only warning she got that she was about to die. Her dying thought was that of wonderment at how Tanfirim had known that she meant to kill him. Her body convulsed as her nervous system shut down, and then she was still. Never being one to chance, Tanfirim dropped silently down, shut the door behind him, and then stuck his dagger into the base of her neck. The warm blood flowed out at a steady rate, confirming that she was indeed dead. If her heart was still beating, her blood would have sprayed out in jets. Satisfied that she was dead, Tanfirim wrapped her neck to stop the blood flow and save himself some cleaning, and then, wiping his hands on her piwafwi, he pulled out the scroll and unrolled it. He had memorized it before she arrived, and needed no candle light now as he recited the words, which faded from the scroll at each syllable. Her body shrunk down to the size of rat, and he quickly put her into a sack and left. He would clean up the blood later.

Outside of Magkron Golnii, Tanfirim found his riding lizard waiting. Mounting, he set it on a course up a nearby wall and off towards the southern exits. The lizard’s sticky feet allowed it to climb even along the ceiling, and by weaving a path along red veins in the wall, the heat left from the lizard’s feet wouldn’t be traceable for the short time it took the heat to die out. It also made him much harder to see, being warm-blooded and thus red in the infrared spectrum as well. Weaving his way along the red veins and occasionally across the ceiling, Tanfirim exited through a seldom used exit along the south edge of Denmorezbach. Here, in the narrow tunnels, he didn’t always have warm areas along the stone to hide his tracks, so he made sure he didn’t follow any regular pattern, varying from wall to ceiling to floor, sometimes jumping the lizard from wall to wall and such. He soon came upon the lake that supplied Denmorezbach with fresh water, a rare commodity in the Underdark. Kneeling, Tanfirim emptied the sack on the stone floor. This particular stretch of shore was broken and had never been turned into a dock for the fishing ships and water gatherers, and so he was alone, for now. It took half an hour for Derina’s body to resume its original form. Once it had, he tied it down with several rocks and then rolled it into the lake. The fish would eat well tonight.

Elsewhere, Delanor prepared the troops for the assault on House Kelind. He assumed the first blow had already been struck, and certainly the death of a soon-to-be high priestess was a hard blow indeed. Just within House ReLako’s compound, a hundred troops were formed up. To bolster their army, all of the slaves had been called upon to serve, except Axeth. He was too weak to serve as a soldier and too valuable to be thrown away in such an attack. Delanor had appointed several of the common soldiers, men he knew he could trust, to act as his lieutenants. The plan called for a three-pronged strike against House Kelind. Fifty soldiers would flank on either side with the slaves, lead by Delanor, coming up the middle. All they needed was the go ahead from Matron Narsila, and they would put the plan in motion. A few uneasy minutes went by, and then the matron mother herself came out onto a balcony.

“Lolth has surely blessed us against our enemies this night. The first blow was a success. Go, my army, and destroy House Kelind.” With that, the soldiers and slaves set out. Staying out of the main roads, the war party marched stealthily towards House Kelind. House Kelind was not too far from House ReLako, situated in one giant stalagmite. The war party arrived without incident, and Delanor went ahead to see where the best places for the three prongs to strike would be. His surprise was complete when he saw two hundred soldiers and an assortment of slaves, almost a mirror of his own force, though larger, exit through the main gate and head towards him. Had they learned of House ReLako’s plans? No, that couldn’t be it. Matron Narsila had said that Tanfirim had succeeded in his strike. A million thoughts raced through Delanor’s head. No matter, he decided. If House Kelind was on a war march to another house, he could turn this to his own benefit. Before he was spotted, he quickly raced back to the war parties, informing everyone of the development and giving them new orders.

The unsuspecting war party, outnumbering Delanor’s own two to one, was caught completely off guard. From both sides, the sound of hand crossbows could be heard clicking as darts rained into both flanks. As House Kelind’s troops turned to face the ambushers from both sides, Delanor and the slaves rushed in from in front, the bugbears leading the way. House Kelind’s front ranks were comprised almost entirely of slaves, and turning to see this new force rushing at them, many considered deserting. With the drow so distracted by the flanking parties, they wouldn’t notice, some hoped, as they dashed out of the way. Seeing that a few had gotten away, many other slaves deserted as well, leaving the rest of the party outflanked. The soldiers tried to turn as the rushing mob crashed into them, but as they did, the two flanking parties drew their melee weapons and charged into the fray. Realizing their situation, the entire House Kelind war party surrendered, each soldier taking a knee, except for one, near the back. Delanor recognized Grend Kelind immediately, and before the coward who lead from behind could get away, Delanor had whipped out his hand crossbow and put a poisoned dart into Grend’s back. Seventy or so drow lay dead, most commoners of House Kelind. But now, Delanor lead a party of two hundred thirty drow and at least a hundred slaves. He organized a small party of House ReLako soldiers to go round up the deserting slaves, and then, with two hundred soldiers, made his way towards House Kelind.

Matron Kassel, matron mother of House Kelind, and two of her daughters, both high priestesses, sat in a small circle in the chapel, praying to Lolth and waging a mental battle with Matron Narsila and her own daughter. While Kassel was out of Lolth’s favor, her force outnumbered Narsila’s, and she was winning. However, something was terribly wrong. Kassel suddenly realized it. The presence of Grend, whom she had melded with, was gone. Had he died? This distraction gave Narsila an edge in their long range mental battle, and, crying out for Lolth’s support, she focused all her energy into one heavy attack. The force of the blow knocked Kassel off balance. The sound of battle suddenly flooded into the chapel, as if for the first time, though it had been going on for a few minutes now. Matron Kassel couldn’t believe it. She had just sent her forces out moments ago, despite no word from her youngest daughter about the assassination of Tanfirim. As if to confirm her suspicions, Tanfirim – who had ridden back to join with the war party – burst into the chapel. Firing his hand crossbow at one of the seated high priestesses, Tanfirim drew his scimitar and kukri before the other two, one a matron mother, had a chance to regain their composure. Matron Kassel managed to rise to her feet before a kukri slipped under her ribs and into her heart. Spinning away from her, Tanfirim chopped down at the only remaining high priestess, who managed to get a mace up in defense before the scimitar found her head. Going on the offensive, she set Tanfirim back on his heels, parrying her expert blows. However, Tanfirim was a fighter, and she was a cleric. Deflecting the mace high, he spun in, reversing his grip on the kukri, and slit her throat over his shoulder. She let out a low gurgle as he spun away and kicked her down. Moving finally to the last high priestess, whom he had only paralyzed with his quarrel rather than killing, Tanfirim took his time in making her suffer, relishing every moment as her face contorted and she attempted to scream out. Throughout the rest of House Kelind, soldiers were hunting down the remaining nobles, primarily children too young to fight. Their screams filled the night, and Tanfirim couldn’t hide his smile as he wiped the blood from his kukri and sheathed both blades. He took a moment to spit on Matron Kassel’s body before leaving. Fifteenth house, he thought to himself. Fifteenth house.

Delanor arrived back at House ReLako with their new force of over two hundred soldiers and over three hundred fifty slaves. Matron Narsila would be pleased, he told himself. Up on a balcony, Axeth watched the returning troops. How fickle, these drow were. Leaving with one hundred and returning with two hundred. Axeth knew the drill. The commoners of House Kelind that had surrendered would be given new names and not allowed to leave the compound for a few weeks. Other houses knew the truth, but no one cared. Such success was applauded by the other drow. As long as there were no nobles to bear accusation, House ReLako had every right to destroy House Kelind. Those were the unspoken rules of Denmorezbach, and indeed most every drow city. However, Axeth had better things to attend to than watch the returning victors.

Ulyena attended to each of the new soldiers personally. Drow were not known to have any set loyalties, and so when House Kelind fell, a large number of their soldiers had changed sides. However, it was up to Ulyena – a high priestess of Lolth – to ensure that none of these new assets held any ill against House ReLako, for surely damage from within was much more dangerous than damage from without. The new soldiers were ushered into a large room in the lower levels of the stalagmite. The soldiers were then lined up in front of a door, entering one at a time. Ulyena would give them a series of questions concerning their loyalties, and read their thoughts as they answered. If each checked out, they were given a new name and asked to stay within House ReLako for a few weeks, but were then free to move about the city as they pleased.

The first drow came in, and she began with her first question, “Do you still have any loyalties to House Kelind?” It was a blunt question, but was almost a control question. No drow in their right mind would admit to such a thing, and almost no drow in their right mind would have to lie on this question.

“Of course not, and I think…”

“I ask, you answer. It is a simple process.”

“But…”

“Next question…”

“You really need to…”

“Did you…did you just interrupt me, a high priestess of Lolth?”

“I apologize, but…” The drow froze as Ulyena drew her whip, which featured five living snake heads rather than traditional braided leather tails.

“You do not interrupt a high priestess,” she stated coldly.

“Your house has fallen out of Lolth’s favor!” the drow practically screamed as fast as he could in fright. He cringed as she began to bring the whip down upon him, but her hand stuck in midair. Out of Lolth’s favor?

“Explain.”

“You may have heard that House Kelind’s troops were ambushed on the way out of the complex proper. We had been mobilized against this very house. The common soldiers were not told why, other than that House ReLako was or was about to be out of Lolth’s favor.” Ulyena lowered her whip.

“Your house, too, was out of Lolth’s favor.”

“We did not know.”

“As it always is with the Spider Queen. The house in question is always the last to learn. But perhaps Lolth smiles upon us now, having delivered you into our hands, and thus delivered this knowledge into our hands. It was wise of you to tell me of this.” She paused, and then an evil grin spread across her face. “But you still interrupted a high priestess.” The screams of the soldier could be heard in the next room as the whip fell repeatedly on him, designed not to kill, but rather to paralyze and cause excruciating pain. “Your new name is Relgda. Remember wisely your place in this house, male.” With that, she exited the room, cutting a path through the crowd of males, most scampering and tripping over each other to get out of the dangerous priestess’s way. As she left, she spoke loudly to the two guards at the only other doorway into the large chamber, “If any try to leave, kill them.” The guards only smiled and nodded as Ulyena, cruelest of the nobles, walked away, her piwafwi sweeping out behind her.

Only a few minutes later, Ulyena burst into the small chapel to Lolth in the lower region of the house. Her mother, Matron Narsila, turned to regard the sudden intrusion. Ulyena marched right up to her, undaunted.

“We are no longer in Lolth’s favor,” she declared. “You and I must find out why, and fix it. Lolth has allowed us to learn of her displeasure, that we might restore her favor.”

“How…” she stuttered, “House Kelind moved against us that night.”

“Indeed. They were equally unaware that their own house was not in Lolth’s favor. Truly, last night could have been disasterous.” Narsila nodded her accord.

“I have my suspicions as to what might be displeasing Lolth. Please have your brother, Delanor, meet me here in the chapel.” Ulyena nodded, and then swept about and left, leaving Narsila to her thoughts. Thus far, Delanor had not shown any signs of desiring to become first boy, much to Narsila’s distaste. It was the will of the Spider Queen that all drow should seek higher station above all things. And while it wasn’t the most common for a first boy to be trumped by his younger brother, every second boy desired to become first boy, to some degree. Every second boy, Narsila knew, except Delanor. It had come to a head, once, not long ago. Lolth was an unforgiving goddess, and Delanor’s strange behavior troubled Narsila. Might Lolth look unfavorably on House ReLako because of Delanor’s complacency? Delanor had assured her that it was beneficial to him for Tanfirim to be alive, and thus, there was no reason to kill him. His benefit outweighed those of being first boy, Delanor had explained. Narsila wasn’t so certain. And now, her greatest fear had been realized. Lolth looked unfavorably on her house. “I will not let you bring down this house,” Matron Narsila whispered to the empty chapel. “House ReLako will not fall because of one boy’s complacency!” She soon regained her composure, and just in time, as Delanor pushed his way through the chapel doors.

“You wished to see me, matron mother?” he asked politely.

“You remember our discussion about seeking higher station, second boy?” she replied coldly.

“Crystal, and, as I recall, I had already explained why I have no desire to ascend to first boy,” Delanor replied, quickly growing tired of his mother’s nagging. “If nothing else, you should be happy that I am not so consumed by desire for higher station that I rob our house of such a valuable asset as Tanfirim.”

“I would agree, Delanor, but things have become more…complicated.” Delanor froze at the word. His mother had provoked such a conversation before, but she had not done anything about it at the time. Narsila was neither the most angry or cruel matron mother in the city, and neither was she the most happy or forgiving, but she was certainly among the most devious. “You see, Delanor, it has just come to my attention that Lolth does not look favorably on our house. Might you have any idea why this is?”

“Why not ask the Spider Queen herself? Certainly a hand maiden…”

“No! The Spider Queen has allowed us to learn of her displeasure, and if she wished for us to know why, she would have already made it known. She has not told us why because we already know why.” Narsila stared cold and hard at her son. “You!” she declared. “You are the reason why. Your complacency goes beyond simply not trying. You have no desire to ascend to first boy. If a opportunity presented itself in which you could slip a dagger into your brothers heart without any consequence, you wouldn’t. Why?”

“Without consequence!? Do you realize the consequences this house would feel if one of its two greatest fighters were to die? If it is truly such a crime for me to have no desire to kill my brother, then why do we bother interviewing the soldiers from House Kelind to discern their loyalties? If damage from within is more dangerous than damage from without, why do you promote violence among your own children?” Delanor was shouting now, and he immediately bit his tongue when Narsila smiled.

“Kneel!” The magical weight behind the word compelled Delanor to the ground. “Remove your belt and weapons!” she commanded. Delanor felt his hands moving to loose the belt. He fought every inch, but, even out of Lolth’s favor, Narsila was more than a match for her youngest living son. “We drow survive. If Tanfirim dies, then he can be replaced. He is just a male. But you have done far more damage to your house than ever killing your brother could have, for you have robbed your mother and your sister of our highest Lolth-given powers. And surely, I must teach you respect to appease Lolth.” Narsila smiled. “You will learn respect at the end of a sacrificial dagger.”

Narsila and Ulyena stood in the chapel, almost nervous. The commoners of House ReLako slowly filtered into the round room and sat into the sloping benches all around. In the center of the room, Delanor was strapped to an alter. He had given up struggling as the long minutes passed; the bonds were magically strengthened and would not loosen regardless of how he twisted his wrists and ankles. He was gagged to prevent him from shouting out any blasphemies against Lolth or otherwise interrupting the ritual.

“Where is Tanfirim? We sent him a summons many minutes ago,” Ulyena complained. “We cannot begin the ceremony without him.” Matron Narsila gave her daughter an understanding look, silently agreeing.

“He will be here soon, I hope,” she finally stated, “or he will feel the end of my whip.” The matron mother let her hand wander down to the handle of her snake whip. As if on cue, the doors burst open. However, Narsila’s smile faded when the person entering was not Tanfirim, but rather Axeth.

“If Delanor dares get a drop of blood on the book I had him retrieve for me, I will have a cleric resurrect him that I might kill him myself!” Axeth practically screamed.

“Acid Tongue, how dare you interrupt the ritual!” Ulyena shouted, drawing her whip as if to strike him.

“Stay your hand, daughter. You know that the ritual has not yet begun,” Narsila bade. Ulyena lowered the whip, giving Axeth the deepest of glares. “Explain yourself, Axeth, or I will not be so kind.”

“I had sent Delanor to retrieve a book for me and bring it to my library, and when he did not return, I came down, which was no easy task, I might add, and learned of the sacrifice.” Axeth strode right up to Delanor’s bound and gagged form confidently, and receiving no orders otherwise, Ulyena did not bar his path. “Where is my book!” Axeth demanded at the still gagged Delanor, slapping him across the face as hard as he could. Delanor gave Axeth a confused look.

“You come unusually armed for such a meeting, Axeth,” Narsila commented, smiling. “Why do you wear Delanor’s weapons if you came here only for a book?” Axeth turned to her, his own smile matching hers.

“I must apologize, matron mother, but I need Delanor. You’ll have to forgive me, but,” Axeth reached into a pocket and produced a small orb, “I’ll be taking him with me.” Before Ulyena or Narsila could react, Axeth smashed the orb against the ground, filling the chapel with intolerable amounts of light and blinding all of the drow in the room. Axeth’s eyes, more accustomed to the light, took advantage of this moment to draw a scroll and read its inscription. The light died down, and the drow recovered their wits and looked about, but Axeth and Delanor were gone from the chapel. The ropes that had bound Delanor’s hands and feet remained unscathed, but there was no sign of either.

“Teleported,” Ulyena hissed, still trying to focus her eyesight, “but to where?”

Three miles away, Axeth neatly removed the gag from Delanor’s mouth. He brought his hand over Delanor’s mouth, indicating that neither should speak. They were on the opposite edge of the city in a dark alley. Axeth looked around to see if anyone had seen them teleport in.

“You are safe now, Lord,” Axeth quietly whispered.

“I am a renegade drow whose own house desires my blood. I am no safer than I was in the chapel facing the sacrificial dagger,” Delanor flatly declared. “We must flee the city immediately.” Axeth nodded his accord, having already come to the conclusion. Quickly, he unbuckled the belt around his waist and offered Delanor his weapons back.

“The Underdark is a dangerous place to venture alone and unarmed. We go together. I have brought enough supplies to last us a week in the wilds.” Delanor nodded, feeling a bit more secure with his weapons back. Axeth spun quickly and started down the alley, and Delanor followed unquestioningly. His life depended on Axeth knowing the way, after all. They quickly made it out of the western-most entrance to the city, one seldom used but once a year. There were only a few things down these tunnels: an illithid colony and tunnels leading to the surface included. Neither seemed to offer much prospect to the two rogues, but then, it would buy them time.

After many minutes, the tunnels seemed to begin to branch out a bit. They had traveled several miles from the city now, and Delanor was regaining his confidence. Perhaps his family wouldn’t find him, he mused. However, he came out of his thoughts quickly when he heard a quiet shuffle somewhere nearby. He reached forward and set his hand on Axeth’s shoulder, halting his progress.

“Something is about,” he whispered as quietly as he could. Drawing his longsword and a dirk, Delanor stepped in front of Axeth. He heard the shuffling sound again, but couldn’t discern its location; sounds echoed crazily off of the tunnel walls in the Underdark. Then something emerged from a smaller tunnel not too far ahead. “Troll!” Delanor whispered back to Axeth in surprise.

“Be glad there is but one,” Axeth sourly replied. Delanor did not respond. He charged the troll, instead, ducking under a swinging claw and cutting it across the chest with his longsword and stabbing his dirk quickly into one of its knees. The thing howled at him as he jumped back just in time to avoid another swinging claw. “Duck!” Axeth shouted to Delanor, who quickly complied just in time to avoid a ray of fire that struck the troll right in the chest. Delanor glanced back at Axeth, who discarded a now blank scroll. “I came prepared,” he offered. Delanor turned back to the troll, writhing and convulsing as it tried to put out the fire, its only true weakness. Not giving it the chance to recover, Delanor stepped in and cut across its leg with his longsword, severing the wretched limb. Then he cleaved down onto its head, ending its wild dance. Had it not been alight, it would have eventually recovered, even from these wounds, but the fire ate away at its body, wounds that would never heal. Delanor and Axeth stayed and watched to make sure the thing burnt to cinders before continuing their trek.

“What was a lone troll doing in the tunnels so close to the city?” Delanor asked himself.

“Perhaps it escaped from the illithid colony not too far from here?” Axeth considered. “It is of little consequence to us now. We have lost time. I can barely abide the smell of burnt troll.” With that, Axeth set off down the tunnels again. Delanor nodded to himself before turning to follow.

“We have lost time,” he finally said to himself quietly, “but time to where?” The question stung him. Where was Axeth leading him, anyway? The question would have to wait, Delanor decided. They could discuss it when they stopped to rest later on. The rest of their journey that day was uneventful. Axeth seemed to know where he was going, and Delanor didn’t question him.

“This looks like a good place for camp,” Axeth declared many hours later as they entered a small chamber. There was a small lake over in one corner, which Axeth went off to examine. “Fresh water, too,” he called happily. Delanor went over to him.

“I wish to know your intentions, Acid Tongue,” Delanor asked quietly, once they were out deep into the tunnels.

“I aim for the surface, Lord,” Axeth replied, ever confident in himself.

“The surface!” Delanor cried out. “Why would we desire to visit so vile a place?”

“When I was younger, my clan lived on the surface. I have few memories of that time, but I have read much and, despite what most drow seem to think, it is not nearly as bad as most make it out to be.” Axeth paused and gave Delanor a curious look. “Besides, who would pursue us to the surface? Do not doubt that we will be pursued. We are at risk as long as we remain in the wilds of the Underdark, both from the natural wild life and from your family. The surface is a place where such dangers are not so omnipresent.” Delanor nodded miserably. What choice did he have? Axeth’s logic was sound. There was nowhere in the Underdark where he could escape the grasp of his family, and certainly the only place he could hope to find refuge from the wilds would be in other drow cities, where he would be but a houseless male.

“To the surface, then,” he declared halfheartedly. Axeth only nodded, and then went back to setting up a small camp. “But what will we find there?” Delanor whispered to himself. Quieting his fears, Delanor went to help Axeth with the camp.

Delanor and Axeth sat about in their humble camp near the side of the very small lake of fresh water. Axeth was busy preparing food over a very small fire, something he had learned to do as a slave. Delanor knew how to survive, but not how to cook. He could kill a rothe and roast it over a fire, but it wouldn’t be tasty, only filling. Since they had settled down, the two hadn’t said a word. Delanor was still trying to come to terms with their destination, and Axeth was too busy fantasizing about his dream, the surface, to notice or care.

“Axeth,” Delanor called softly, snapping the hobgoblin from his daydreaming. “What is the surface like?” Axeth turned to regard Delanor. He understood that it must be hard, having lived for over forty years in fear of the surface, told of how evil it was, and then to have to journey there. Of course, Delanor was just a means to an end.

“From my studies, it is a wonderful place,” Axeth replied cheerily. “The sun, which is what they call the orb of fire your people so greatly fear, does not burn the flesh at all, or even the eyes of those who are used to it. There are many more creatures on the surface than here, and most are not openly hostile like those of the Underdark. The surface has seasons, half of the year being warm and half cold. The surface has weather in the form of wind, rain, and snow.”

“Rain?” Delanor asked.

“It is when water falls from the sky. And snow is when frozen water falls from the sky.”

“The surface is truly a strange place, Acid Tongue,” Delanor commented.

“Strange, but much safer than the Underdark,” Axeth replied. Delanor’s ears perked up. There was a shuffle down the corridor from whence they had come, barely perceptible, even to him. He held up his hand to Axeth to be ready. Axeth nodded and went for his bag of scrolls. Suddenly, everything went black. Axeth stumbled and nearly fell into the fire which had been engulfed in a magical globe of impenetrable darkness, which drow could summon innately. Even Delanor was caught off guard and found him and his companion suddenly surrounded by ten drow, crossbows aimed. One stepped forward.

“Brother,” Tanfirim offered, “you have upset Matron Narsila greatly. I have been ordered to capture you and bring you back.” A wicked smile found its way onto his face. “For sacrifice.”

“Tanfirim, this is mad! Do you not realize why I am to be sacrificed to Lolth? Matron Narsila believes that because I do not desire to kill you, it has upset the Spider Queen. How can you take part in my capture, then?” Tanfirim seemed to consider the idea for a moment.

“Because I stand to gain from your capture, but not from your escape,” he finally stated. “It is quite simple.”

“I am your brother, Tanfirim,” Delanor growled. “Does that mean nothing?”

“To us drow? No. Nothing at all. It is simply convenient to keep you around. However, you have outlived your usefulness to House ReLako, and so you are to be offered to Lolth. Certainly you can take joy in knowing that your death will aid House ReLako in its coming trials.”

“I cannot let you take me, Tanfirim. But neither can I kill you. Leave this place now, and you will save the lives of nine soldiers. Certainly that is a gain from my escape.” Delanor gave Tanfirim an evil glare.

“Nine lives for one? Ha! Even if you could kill all of these soldiers, it would still be worth the loss if it pleased the Spider Queen,” Tanfirim laughed. “But I’m afraid, dear Delanor, that you hardly stand a chance. Ten to one odds, and we all have crossbows trained on you.”

“Ten to two,” came an unexpected voice from the globe of darkness. Tanfirim turned just in time to duck a lightning bolt, which hit one of the other drow, shooting him back hard against the far wall. The drow turned towards the globe, launching a hail of poisoned darts. Delanor could hear the sound of quarrels skipping off stone, but he wasn’t focused on Axeth anymore. He had drawn his longsword and a dirk, and was charging at the distracted Tanfirim.

Fwoop! The mental assault caught Delanor and Tanfirim off guard. Delanor, so consumed with rage, managed to shake off its effects, but Tanfirim was knocked off his feet in a wave of disorientation. Delanor turned to see three mind flayers – an evil humanoid with a octopus-like head, complete with four tentacles, and milky eyes – entering the chamber. Fwoop! A drow soldier turned as his mind was assaulted, and also fell to the floor. Axeth emerged then from the globe of darkness, unscathed, and scrambled over to Delanor.

“How…?” Delanor started.

“Scroll of Stone Skin,” Axeth replied. “We have to get out of here.”

“We should stay and help my kin. Surely we can defeat them,” Delanor reasoned.

“Even if we could, we would still be in the same situation as before. Your brother will not hear reason. We should go while the illithids and drow are distracted.” Delanor nodded slowly, turned to regard his brother’s prone form, and then fled down a side corridor with Axeth. Discarding stealth, the pair ran for all they were worth, only pausing so that Axeth could read off a Scroll of Expeditious Retreat. Axeth chanced a glance over his shoulder to see if anything was following them. Seeing nothing, he slowed to a stop, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

“Acid Tongue, we must be gone from this place. If the illithid catch us…” Delanor left the threat hanging. Being captured by mind flayers was a fate many considered worse than death. Their potent psionic powers allowed them to enslave the mind, and so those capable of work or combat served either as slaves or gladiators. Those who were either not capable of no longer capable became food, for the illithids survived by eating the brains of their victims. “I will not be an illithid’s slave!” Delanor declared, taking up a brisk pace. Axeth tried to keep up as best he could, knowing that in his physical condition, he would surely be made a meal immediately.

“I had hoped that in taking this path, we would throw off our pursuers. But it seems that they tracked us down, probably through magical means. It was foolish of me to take us so close to the illithid colony.”

“It also saved our lives, Acid Tongue. Surely we could not hope to defeat the detachment of soldiers from House ReLako.” Delanor’s visage was grim. “My brother is dead….or worse. He will no longer give chase.”

“But of your sister? And your mother? And any other drow in House ReLako? The death of ten drow will hardly give your mother pause in her hunt. You have doomed your house by displeasing Lolth, and only your death at her hand will save it.” Delanor nodded. What choice did he have? Vengeance was something that a drow would go to the very pits of the Abyss to taste.

“Are we certain they won’t follow us to the surface?” Delanor asked.

“Perhaps they might even follow us there. But how far on the surface will they make it before they are overcome with fear? A few weeks of traveling on the surface and we will put your family behind you,” Axeth reassured. They continued their brisk walk, no longer conversing. Axeth had his bag of scrolls and Delanor his weapons, but they had left behind almost all of their supplies at the camp in their desperate flight.

“How many more days must we travel before we reach the surface, Acid?” Delanor finally ventured.

“Not many, Delanor. I have enough food on me to last us at least that. If we happen upon some rothe, perhaps we can have a better meal. But once we arrive at the surface, we’ll have to forage for our food.” Delanor nodded again. They continued on in silence, knowing that these mostly disused tunnels would generally be free of creatures, but that any creature they did encounter would almost certainly be dangerous. With little food, could they reach the surface between the two of them? Delanor could only hope.

Tanfirim came awake quite suddenly, but kept his eyes closed, listening. Anything he might have heard were drowned out by the screams of a nearby drow, screams of anguish that could only come from someone left conscious while his brains were devoured. Tanfirim didn’t need to reach down to know that he’d been disarmed. Likely, the illithids had subdued all of the drow and now were mopping up, finding the choicest to bring back to be enslaved and making meals of the rest. They’d taken his weapon belt, he noted, but they hadn’t searched him. Silently, he worked a dagger from a wrist sheath until his hands closed about its hilt. Peaking through one eye, he tried to get a bearing of where he was. Bad luck! He was facing a wall. He let out a soft groan and rolled over, feigning unconsciousness. The illithids didn’t seem to notice. Any movement or sound he had made couldn’t be heard over the dying screams as the drow slumped down, his eyes and face drained of color. The illithid that had been feasting upon him let him slump down, slowly wriggling his facial tentacles out from the drow’s scalp and face. They were called mind flayers for a reason.

Tanfirim didn’t have much time to act. If an illithid looked his way and focused, surely he would note the thoughts of a surprise attack. Illithids were telepathic, after all. He noted their positions and slung the dagger at the nearest monster. It died silently as the dagger pierced the back of its skull. Silently to Tanfirim, at least. As it died, it emitted a telepathic scream to its two comrades, who turned to regard the now standing drow. Tanfirim didn’t give them a chance to react. He fled out a side chamber as fast as he could. Illithids were not particularly fast creatures, and relied mostly on surprise and their latent psionic abilities to subdue opponents.

Tanfirim ran until he entered the city, standing just outside the colossal cave to catch his breath and regain his composure. Matron Narsila would be very upset about his failure to bring Delanor back for sacrifice, but at least she would take comfort in knowing that he was dead at the hands of mind flayers. Lolth would surely look favorably on House ReLako for delivering Delanor to a fate of either agonizing death or perhaps even mind-numbing servitude followed by agonizing death. Tanfirim couldn’t help but smile as he imagined that the drow whose screams he had heard was Delanor. Deep down, he knew that it had been another, just by the voice, but the image gave him strength. He would tell his mother that he had witnessed the illithids kill Delanor as he screamed out in absolute terror and pain, watched the bulges along his face as thick tentacles forced their way through skin and bone to find his soft, spongy brain. The mental image sent shudders down Tanfirim’s spine, but he wasn’t sure whether they were shudders of absolute disgust or of pure joy.

He walked through the main gates of the House ReLako complex, his stride confident. His first stop was to the training hall, where he rearmed himself, taking a dagger for his wrist sheath, a scimitar, a kukri, and a hand crossbow. He grabbed a small quiver and filled it with quarrels, and also grabbed a few vials of infamous drow sleeping poison. As he made his way up to his mother’s private quarters, he heard a loud explosion outside. There were shouts, and, looking over a balcony, he could see many drow scrambling around both within the complex and outside. Fighting was joined and the gate was breached.

“This is your fault,” came a hiss from behind him. Tanfirim spun to regard his sister. Before she could react, he plunged a scimitar into her heart.

“I was not at fault, fool,” he replied coldly. And then he was floating, higher and higher, away from the battlefield, using his piwafwi to try and cover his heat signature, lest anyone see the lone figure escaping, for surely he was an easy target as he made his ascent. Below, another explosion rocked the complex as a wizard’s fireball burst inside a chamber. Many of House ReLako’s common soldiers and slaves had changed sides now, as was the custom, and soon, one of the two stalagmites comprising the house had crumbled, killing any within it. Tanfirim smile could only barely contain his bitter rage. He realized the truth. Delanor had escaped – just as he had – and was still alive; Lolth was angry. Delanor had destroyed his house, killed his family, and most of all, he had doomed Tanfirim to a life as a houseless male, a very dangerous prospect in Denmorezbach, or any drow city. Tanfirim’s fingers closed over the small ring that he had pulled from his neck purse, the one his mother had enchanted to allow him to locate Delanor. “I will find you, cursed brother,” he whispered. “I will find you.”

Miles and miles away, Delanor felt a chill run down his spine. Shaking the strange feeling away, he turned to regard his hobgoblin traveling companion, Axeth. The two had been traveling along a particular tunnel with no side passages for several days now. Thus far, they had not encountered any other monsters. Axeth had assured him that this was a good thing, as he was running out of scrolls. Delanor could tell that they were traveling at a slight inclination, that they were closer to the surface than they had been before. He didn’t know if it was the taste of the air or a faint hint of wind, but he knew that they would very soon be emerging from some cave and onto the dreaded surface. Delanor shuddered again. The surface – the one place the drow truly feared and hated – was his destination. How had he let Axeth talk him into such a foolish quest? Axeth had, of course, assured him that the surface was not as bad as the drow made it out to be, but how should Axeth know? He had only been there as a very young child, and based almost everything he knew on books. Books written by surface dwellers! Books that would be filled with lies and deceit, by drow reckoning. The surface dwellers were the epitome of evil, from what Delanor had learned at Magkron Golnii. He did not relish having to travel there, but he again could find no alternative. Surely, his mother would hunt him to the very Abyss, but never would she look for him on the surface, for a rational dark elf would rather face the depths of the Nine Hells than the surface. And yet Delanor found himself doing just that: facing the surface.

Up ahead, Delanor and Axeth could clearly see a bright light shining through from around a corner, just barely illuminating the passage they were now in. Even this level of light was uncomfortable to Delanor, who shielded his eyes.

“It is what they call daytime on the surface. The sun is up and shining brightly,” Axeth explained.

“Then we should wait until the sun goes down before we continue our journey,” Delanor reasoned.

“We are far enough out of the Underdark that we should be safe for now,” Axeth nodded. “Let us just head a bit further, nearer the entrance to the cave. I will go out and forage for food, since we have none of our own. You rest up. You can see far better than I in the dark, and so I will need you alert tonight when we take our first steps out onto the surface world.”

“Why not stay here, where it is darker?” Delanor asked, honestly curious.

“The closer to the surface we are, the safer we are.” Delanor nodded his accord and followed Axeth further up the passage, shielding his eyes the whole way. When they had found the cave entrance, Axeth went out to get a lay of the land.

“Well, where are we?” Delanor more demanded than asked.

“We are in the foothills south of a mountain range. Far to the south, I can see the sea, which means that if we journey south, we will mostly be going downhill. East of us, I see a lake and a river that appears to run all the way to the sea. Based on maps, I would guess that we are in or near a region known as Milartef on the continent of Schorenbeln.”

“You had maps of the surface? Why aren’t you certain, then, of where we are? You plotted this course ahead of time, did you not?”

“I have maps of the surface, and some crude maps of the surrounding area around our city, but I had no idea where Denmorezbach was in respect to the surface. All I knew was that the west entrance led to a series of tunnels that lead to the surface somewhere. I knew we’d come up near a mountain range, but I had no idea which one. The surface is filled with mountains.” Delanor nodded again. Axeth then gathered some light underbrush, which he covered the entrance with. Satisfied, he went off to look for food while Delanor found a particularly dark corner, which was far brighter than even the library of House ReLako, and drifted into reverie. He awoke much later to find the cave was now darker, though he could see everything fine, even with his eyes shifted into the normal light spectrum. Ready to be on his way and make use of every hour of darkness that he could get, Delanor glanced around for Axeth.

“Acid Tongue, are you here?” he called quietly. A quick look around told him that Axeth was not. The underbrush screen he had put up earlier had not been disturbed, as far as Delanor could tell. “You’ve gotten yourself into trouble, haven’t you?” Delanor mumbled to himself. Sweeping aside the tangle of planets, Delanor emerged from the cave entrance. Axeth was not hard to track as he had not attempted to cover his path.

The tracks led into something Delanor could barely describe. It was like a mushroom field of his home, but instead of giant mushrooms, this plot of land was filled with strange, tall stalagmites that branched out and were covered with some kind of green moss. The ground was covered in similar moss, which was brown and didn’t appear to be growing. The strange brown and reddish moss seemed to be dry and paper-thin. The green moss was similarly shaped, but flexible and soft. The strange stalagmites were not made of stone or even the dirt that covered the ground, but of some different kind of material, which was a sharper brown compared to dull gray stone, and was certainly not smooth. Rather, the surface of these strange stalagmites was like a strange, abstract bass relief, with no discernable pattern other, though the strange cracks seemed to generally run up and down with a few circles hither and yon. Delanor ran his hand across the rough surface, only to discover that it broke away, revealing a soft tan inside, which was smooth, but had visible, tiny cracks running through it. Looking up, Delanor considered the strange and crazy angles at which the smaller stalagmites emerged from the main ones, which generally ran straight up. These smaller, thinner stalagmites seemed to go every which way, though always out from the main stalagmite, and from these branched even smaller stalagmites, and so on, until ending in extremely thin, smooth stalagmites and the strange green moss. On the ground, too, Delanor could see the tiny stalagmites, and even a few of the thicker ones. Delanor picked one up, and examined it. It was somewhat flexible, but snapped with little effort.

Delanor was shaken from his thoughts at the sound of a loud rustle. His eyes darted up to see a strange red creature, only the size of dirk and covered in short hair like a rothe dart up one of the strange stalagmites. Delanor noted that it had a long tail that was much bushier than the rest of its body. He didn’t see any obvious claws, though he had only gotten a brief glimpse of it, so he assumed it was likely poisonous. Then, there was another rustle, off to his left. He quickly turned to see another small furry creature, this one larger with brown fur and long ears, dash away from him. Again, the lack of claws indicated to Delanor that the creature was probably poisonous. Reminding himself that Axeth had said many of the surface creatures were docile, Delanor calmed and went back to inspecting the strange stalagmites. Satisfied that he knew all he could about the strange things, Delanor went back to tracking Axeth. Soon, he found himself in a small clearing, where strange green moss, different from the kind on the stalagmites, grew up like tiny spikes from the ground. Near the edge of the clearing, there were clear signs of a struggle. The strange moss was matted down in many places, and more importantly, an area was scorched, as if an orb of fire and suddenly appeared. A fireball, Delanor knew. One of Axeth’s scrolls, perhaps? Delanor took passing interest in the fact that the strange stalagmites, and not just the moss, appeared to be flammable, like cloth, but he was more focused on following the tracks of Axeth, which were now drag marks rather than footprints.

Up ahead, Delanor sighted a bright fire ahead. There were several forms around it, including one that Delanor could clearly identify as Axeth’s silhouette. The others appeared to be drow. The thought truly terrified Delanor. Drow, on the surface? Had they found him already? Had Axeth given up all he knew when they had tortured him? But then, as he neared the fire, his heart sank into his stomach. These were no drow, he realized; they were faeries, surface elves, their skin fair and their hair dark! This was far worse than he had originally thought, for the evils of the surface elf were the stuff of legend among his people. These were the very creatures that had driven his peaceful race into the depths of the Underdark. Delanor was honestly surprised they had bothered to leave Axeth alive.

Delanor silently slipped a poisoned quarrel onto his hand crossbow. One of the elves seemed to perk up as the dart clicked into position. He was Delanor’s first target, and first victim. He tried to shout a warning, which came out as a profound yawn, and then he slumped down on the overturned stalagmite he had been sitting on. The other elves, wise in the ways of the drow, had gotten all the warning they needed. They rose, some drawing shortbows and others drawing slender blades. However, none had ever fought a real dark elf before, and they were wholly unprepared when one seemed to step from a shadow right in their midst, longsword and dirk drawn. Delanor managed to stab one in the back before it could turn to see what its comrades had gasped at, and then turned quickly and flung the bloody dirk into another before it could react. Drawing his other dirk, he took to the offensive against the final faerie, his eyes burning in absolute hatred. Fighting so close to the firelight, Delanor was at a disadvantage, until Axeth bodily tackled the elf, allowing Delanor to slip in and slit its throat before it could get its defenses up.

“The creatures of the surface are mostly docile, Acid Tongue,” Delanor mocked, cutting the bindings holding Axeth’s hands behind his back.

“And so they are. I’m sure you saw the creatures of the forest, and none of them attacked you,” Axeth spat back.

“Forest?” Delanor began.

“These tall plants are called trees,” Axeth offered, indicating the tall stalagmites, “and the green paper-like objects growing from them leaves.” Axeth picked up some of the thin green moss. “Trees are covered in a hard shell called bark, and are made of wood. And on the ground, these soft, flexible spikes are called grass. This is a forest,” Axeth spread his arms wide to indicate their surroundings, “and most of the creatures in it are not dangerous.”

“Then the surface is covered in rothe?” Delanor questioned.

“Relatives of rothe, yes.” Axeth held his tongue, for in his studies, he had not expected to come across surface elves so quickly. It might indicate that they were more common than he had first suspected. “Let us travel south, along the riverbank, to the sea,” Axeth bade, discarding all thoughts of abandoning Delanor once they were out of the dangerous Underdark. Delanor nodded and went to retrieve his other dirk from the now dead elf. The two returned to the cave, gathered up what little supplies they had, and then set out for the distant lake, the closest landmark that could help them navigate. Axeth was right in his claim that it would mostly be downhill, and even across the broken and sometimes completely overgrown ground, the going was relatively easy. Axeth would sometimes stop and indicate smaller plants, which he called bushes, and tell Delanor whether they were poisonous or edible. Whenever they spotted a creature, Axeth would tell Delanor what it was called, and state whether it was hostile or docile. Even Delanor could not deny that a vast majority of the animals that they ran into were docile. So far, the only threat they had run into was a long, lizard-like creature with no legs, which Axeth had named a snake, and they had easily avoided that. A low growl told Delanor that their luck had run out, though it didn’t speak the volumes that Axeth’s sudden facial expression did.

“Bear…” Axeth whispered, barely audible. “They are as big and mean as trolls, though they can be killed with steel. If it is black, we can probably scare it away. If it is brown…” Axeth gave Delanor a very serious look, “we run.” A low growl sounded from behind them. Delanor spun to see a large grizzly bear emerge from a particularly thick copse of trees. Axeth started to stutter something as another emerged in front of them. “T-t-t-two? Delanor! Run!” And then they were off. Delanor didn’t need a second look at their massive, powerfully built bodies or their long, sharp claws to know that it was a wise decision. He could hear dead leaves and twigs snapping behind them as the bears gave chase. They were much faster than their large form had suggested.

“Should we perhaps try and climb one of these trees?” Delanor shouted to Axeth, who was already heaving for breath.

“No! Grizzly bears can climb better than most animals,” Axeth replied. Delanor, realizing that Axeth would not be able to keep this frantic pace up for much longer, spun around, and, calling upon an innate ability, lined one of the bears in light, green fire. The fire did not burn or give off any heat at all, but it had the desired effect of confusing the bear, which started to roll on the ground, trying to put out the flames it had not yet realized were not actually burning it. The other hardly regarded its companion, and so Delanor dropped a globe of darkness right in front of it, and then spun to catch up with Axeth, who had not stopped running. The bear seemed confused by the sudden darkness, and decided that its prey was not worth catching. As they reached the lake, Delanor and Axeth collapsed at its shore. Axeth greedily gulped water before Delanor could warn him of the dangers of poison. Axeth – seeing Delanor’s concerned look – turned to explain.

“Water on the surface is almost never poisonous. The only places where I would not drink the water freely would be in what is called a swamp or from the sea.” Delanor nodded, trying to see the bright side of plentiful fresh water rather than the down side of almost being mauled by viscous bears.

“What have I gotten myself into, Acid Tongue?” he mumbled to himself. Trying to forget his worries, he too reached down with cupped hands to drink.

“You never did tell me,” Delanor began, “why those faeries left you alive. The surface elves are the most vile, wicked, heartless creatures in existence. Did they mean to torture you for information? That just seems too…patient.” Axeth gave a snorting laugh.

“You spend too much time believing the propaganda of your kin,” he replied. “The surface elves are among the most noble of the ‘goodly’ races. They want nothing to do with members of the ‘lesser’ races, such as myself or you. As far as they are concerned, we are all evil. Elves are not cruel, like the drow, but they are stuck up, believing themselves above all other races.” Delanor gave Axeth a strange look.

“How can this be? The faeries forced our people down into the depths of the Underdark and left us there to die!” he shouted.

“You are more ignorant than you look, old friend. Your mother always said that books were knowledge and knowledge was power. I have read much, including tomes of surface dwellers, and I have looked into this particular event. Your goddess, Lolth, was once called Araushnee. She was the elven goddess of destiny, one of the most beautiful goddesses, and the matron goddess of dark elves such as yourself, who, at the time, lived in harmony with the surface elf. Araushnee was also the lover of Corellon Larethian, patron god of all elves and leader of the Seldarine, the elven pantheon. She planned to assassinate her lover. When this failed, she gathered many of the deities of the lesser races together to defeat the Seldarine. She confronted Corellon, but was defeated and cast into the Abyss with her son and daughter, Vhaeraun and Eilistraee, respectively. Corellon then cursed her by turning her into a bloated spider, so that she could no longer seduce him. Araushnee changed her name to Lolth and made the 66^th layer of the Abyss her new home. Then, she corrupted the dark elves, and turned them against the surface elves. The dark elves ultimately lost the war, and were driven into the depths of the Underdark. The surface elves thought that that would be the end of it, but it was exactly as Lolth had planned, and so she appeared and saved the condemned drow, regaining power as they worshipped her.”

“And so we find ourselves,” Delanor commented glumly. “Lolth is just another lie. I have heard of Eilistraee and how she has subverted some of the drow, but what became of Vhaeraun?”

“Vhaeraun lives in the Demonweb Pits with his mother Lolth, but the two hate each other. Vhaeraun, being male himself, wishes to reverse the order of drow society. He is a thief and an assassin.”

“He sounds like my sort of deity. I believe I will cast off the shackles of Lolth and embrace Vhaeraun. I will not add strength to the goddess that deemed my sacrifice as necessary to further my house! But, the surface elves, they are truly not evil?”

“On the contrary. As I said, faeries are a noble race. They believe in…I don’t actually think there is a word in the drow language…I think I’ll have to teach you Common. It will aid us on the surface, after all.”

“And perhaps soon I will teach you Drow Sign Language,” Delanor replied, some of his happiness restored. He pulled the cloak he wore around him tighter. It had taken him quite a while to wash the blood stain of its former owner off, and Axeth hadn’t stitched up the puncture in it yet. “The air grows so cold on the surface, Acid,” he complained.

“I know, comrade. This is what the surface dwellers call winter. According to the Calendar of Harptos, it is Alturiak, the end of the winter months. Soon, it will be Ches, and everything will become greener, the trees fuller, and the ground will not be littered with dead leaves. And soon, more bears will come out of hibernation. I am glad that we left that copse long behind us.” Delanor nodded. It had not been an easy journey, this last week. The going was relatively easy, but anyone who caught sight of Delanor, of his skin color, in particular, attacked immediately. That was how Delanor had acquired this fine cloak, after all. Some foolish human had charged him with an axe. Delanor had simply stabbed him once in the chest before he could even swing. Delanor had asked Axeth if all surface dwellers were so clumsy, and Axeth had assured him that most were, but certainly not all. Thinking of the incident made Delanor pull the cloak tighter about himself. He certainly was glad to have been so fortunate as to obtain such a nice cloak, what with the sun’s rays have practically disintegrated his piwafwi.

And certainly, Delanor hated the sun. Each day, they would rest and Delanor would find a shaded spot and slip into reverie, for his eyes could not stand the brightness of that ball of fire in the sky. It was hundreds of times worse than any spell of light he had ever come across in the Underdark. Delanor couldn’t understand why it didn’t burn his flesh from his bones, the brightness was so intense. How could anything stand living up here? Axeth seemed to be unbothered by it, though he normally slept during the day as well. They traveled by night, following along the western bank of some river that went from the base of the mountains to the very sea, something that Delanor had only seen far on the horizon before it was lost to the rolling hills.

Their journey took several weeks, but soon, they crested a hill and there, before them, was the sea, the river running out anxious to meet it. Both Delanor and Axeth paused a moment to regard it, for surely, neither was prepared for what they saw. No painting or mere description could match the breathtaking awe of seeing the vast expanse of seemingly endless water for the first time. In the dark of night, it seemed as if the world just ended and beyond it was nothingness. Even Delanor could not tell the sea from the sky. Finally, Delanor turned to Axeth.

“We have found the sea, but where from here?” Axeth didn’t reply. Instead, he reached back into his scroll bag, which was practically empty, and pulled forth a long case, sealed with a strange yellow paste on both ends. Axeth also pulled out a small knife and cut the strange paste, then removed a long scroll. Unfurling it, Delanor recognized it as a map of the entire surface. “Where are we, Acid Tongue?” he asked.

“Here,” Axeth indicated, pointing to a point where a particular river met the coast. “We came out of these mountains and followed this river. You may recall seeing the river split off a while back, which was here.” Axeth traced his finger up the river to where it split off into another river. There is a vast forest east of here, likely occupied by faeries. There is a desert west of here, where another river runs to sea. On the edge of that desert, there is a port city, where we can find passage out onto the sea.”

“We are going out there?” Delanor inquired. Axeth just pointed him back to the mouth. South of where he had indicated them as being, there was a whole series of small islands. Delanor peered out to the sea, but couldn’t make out the islands in the dark.

“We are traveling to the furthest island. There is another port city there, itself in a desert. From what I have read, it is a place of rogues and thieves. If there is anywhere where you can live without fear of being killed for the color of your skin, it is there, where your skill with the dagger might outweigh your skin color. Delanor nodded. They had only encountered a few surface dwellers so far, but none had ever asked questions. Apparently, when one encounters a drow, one kills first and asks questions later. Unfortunately for all of them, Delanor wasn’t some mewling babe or helpless child, and he cut them down without a second thought. However, he could sense that, like his piwafwi, his weapons were losing their edge. The magical enchantments that made them so keen and deadly were slowly withering under the light of the sun. Soon, they would be next to worthless in combat. But then, thus far, Delanor had not encountered any blades finer than his own. Perhaps the surface dwellers could not enchant their blades either, he mused. However, the rest of his equipment, primarily his clothing, almost all of which was enchanted, slowly had begun to degrade, and so he had been looting the corpses of those unfortunate enough to attack him, taking what he needed: a cloak here, a pair of boots there. He’d even managed to get a bit of surface money, gold coins about an inch and a half in diameter.

Delanor had taken well to Common, which he noted was not so different from Goblin, a language he had learned in order to better command the slaves, for certainly Axeth was among a slim minority of the slaves that could actually speak Undercommon. In the weeks to come, Delanor and Axeth trekked across the southern deserts known as Rontra to the port city of Lorn, where they stayed for a week to rest at a local tavern. Delanor kept in the background – his cowl pulled tight to hide his race – and listened. He actually picked up some Elven while in Lorn, which was not so different from Undercommon, having the same roots. Axeth bought them passage on a smuggling ship down to the southernmost island, to the port city of Priel. The city amazed Delanor, for never had he seen a city that so epitomized poverty. Most of the populous were homeless beggars, urchins, and cutpurses. The city was dominated by a lavish palace, where the noble family lived. Delanor sighed at the sight. This place was pathetic, but more importantly, it was a place that he now had to call home.

Alturiak gave way to Ches, but there were no plants to turn green in the deserts surrounding Priel, just vast stretches of endless sand and rocks. Life was certainly not easy in Priel for Delanor and Axeth. Delanor might have been less conspicuous alone, but even a hobgoblin such as Axeth drew stares from many of the beggars, who didn’t dare approach the two travelers. The two had set up in one of the small taverns, buying a room and rarely leaving it after that. Axeth went out to buy food while Delanor brooded. He hated this wretched city where he had to remain cooped up.

“So I am a drow!” he shouted at the walls of the empty room. “So what?!” Why did his skin color make him so hated? “Are my kind truly so different from your own?” He considered the prospect. Humans were a filthy race. They lived terribly short lives, and never stopped to enjoy anything. It was always work work work with them, bustling about hither and yon, never stopping. No matter if it was night or day, the streets were packed with people, beggars and otherwise. Delanor was confined to the tiny room with two cots and a small table. Every once in a while, Axeth would let him know that the bar down below was nearly empty, and Delanor would pull his cloak tight about him and find a seat in the darkest corner, where he would order something light and ask the server to leave him be after that. He hated this place. Perhaps he would find a better existence back in Denmorezbach. No, he would not be caught in the webs of deceit spun by Lolth. He was a servant of Vhaeraun now, he reminded himself. He was a thief and an assassin. And a city like this was where a thief or assassin could truly make a living. When Axeth returned, Delanor had a word or two for him.

“Acid,” he started, “is this to be our lives? Should we not try to expand?” Axeth shook his head. He knew such a question would come some day. Honestly, the surface was not the place he had imagined. It was a dirty, harsh life, just like the Underdark, and even he doubted the wisdom in coming here now.

“Perhaps it is best that we lay low for a while,” he reasoned.

“I will not be cooped up in this room for the next several centuries,” Delanor growled. “I know my way around a blade. I can walk as quietly as death itself. I can appear as but a shadow. I can see in the dark. If we are going to consign ourselves to this existence, let us at least enjoy it. Perhaps I could do dirty work for the local pasha?”

“And who, pray, would the pasha need assassinated? None among this city could threaten the pasha. He keeps it in disarray to prevent the need for such dirty work.” A wicked grin spread across Delanor’s face.

“Then perhaps we should threaten the pasha,” he replied, his smirk widening. Axeth considered the words. What could they possibly gain from killing the current pasha? The city would plunge into chaos and their little existence would be interrupted. They would likely have to flee the city. Already, it was whispered throughout the alleys that there was a drow among them within the city. Axeth had witnessed guards bashing down doors to do random searches. It was probably a matter of time before they were discovered.

“Perhaps you are right…” Axeth finally said at length. “I know who we could contact. While the pasha is the ruler of the city, there is another pasha, not so well known. He rules over the city’s thieves guild, and he is the true power on the streets. All of the merchants pay bribes to him to ensure the safe passage of their goods. If anyone was looking for a strong left hand, it would be a man such as Pasha Jhurlin.” Delanor let his smile fade, his face becoming serious.

“Then let us meet this man, and see what I can offer him,” he stated firmly. Axeth nodded and went straight back out the door. The night found a heavily cloaked Delanor following Axeth to a designated meeting place. They would not be meeting Jhurlin himself, but one of his lieutenants. They passed two homeless men into an oddly empty alley. Empty, except for a single homeless man sleeping against one wall. Delanor was about to speak when the hobo opened his eyes and regarded the two.

“Greetings,” he offered, standing to reveal that he was actually finely dressed under his garments. “I am Zrin. If you are to work for Pasha Jhurlin, you will work through me. Now, hobgoblin, you told me that you had a friend interested in doing assassin’s work?” Axeth nodded to Delanor, who lowered his cowl to reveal his dark heritage. Zrin stared for a few moments, caught off guard. “A drow?” he finally managed. “We…we have no dealings with the drow.”

“And why not? I’m just as fine with a dagger as any,” Delanor demanded.

“Your kind cannot be trusted,” Zrin replied, trying to regain his confidence.

“Any more than your own kind?” Delanor spat back.

“Fair enough. I will take your offer to Pasha Jhurlin. Perhaps he will consider your unique…expertise as an asset. We will contact you tomorrow.” Delanor wanted to go up and throttle the strange man, but he knew better. This man was his key to a slightly better existence. Turning, he walked away without a word, Axeth rushing to catch up with him.

“Do you think they will accept us?” Axeth finally asked when they had returned to their room.

“No. Zrin means to betray us. We must leave the city before the sun rises.” Axeth gave Delanor a strange look.

“How can you be so certain?”

“I am a drow. I have spent half a century studying the faces of people lying to me. I have gotten quite good at recognizing a lie for what it is. Zrin may be a good liar by his people’s standards, but he will never outsmart a drow.” Axeth nodded, trying to understand why Zrin would so quickly turn down proffered help from so skilled and feared a race. The two packed what little they had left silently. Axeth had pawned off his scrolls and maps to help pay for their food. Delanor had done a bit better. He still had his longsword and two dirks, though their magical keenness had long since departed, and his hand crossbow and ten bolts for it in a small quiver. He had his neckpurse, which contained a few vials of drow knockout poison, his house insignia, and seventy-three gold pieces, and a backpack with fifty feet of silk rope, a grappling hook, some flint and steel, and a set of tools he had bought back in Lorn used for breaking and entering, comprised mostly of lock picks, skeleton keys, and a few other tools.

They set out as the sun just began to peak over the eastern horizon. As they silently went down the stairs, they heard a loud crash and several screams of surprise. This was followed by the sounds of many footsteps, all heading towards the stairs. Delanor and Axeth looked at each other, neither needing the other to really confirm what was going on. Delanor called upon his innate abilities and dropped a globe of darkness at the bottom of the stairs and then began levitating up over it. However, the levitation faltered for reasons Delanor could not understand, and he dropped down hard onto the floor of the tavern in the middle of the darkness, and in the middle of ten angry and confused soldiers. Delanor wasted no time, drawing his longsword and a dirk and going to work on the blind opponents, who were not expecting such an onslaught in the dark. Calling out for Axeth, he rushed out the other end of the darkness and into another group of angry but less confused soldiers.

“DROW!” one shouted. Whatever else he was going to say was cut off by a gurgle as a dirk entered his throat. The others turned to regard their dying leader, which provided all the distraction Delanor needed to retrieve his bloodied dirk, wiping it down on the dead soldier’s tunic, and then flee out the door, Axeth close behind. With the sun to their backs, they fled for the port, pushing through the crowd, the word ‘drow’ echoing behind them. Delanor cut down any too slow to get out of their way. They raced up to the dock, pushing more than one unlucky sailor into the water in their rush. Delanor spotted a ship already making the pull out of the harbor. Without a word, the two plunged off the dockside and made a mad swim towards the boat. One of the crewman noted them and grabbed a boat hook and helped them aboard. They were quickly surrounded by the crew. The captain, a younger looking man, walked forward and regarded the two, noting the angry guards standing at the end of the wharf, waving swords and spears.

“We require passage,” Axeth started, gasping for breath and dripping wet.

“Where are you going?” the captain inquired.

“Wherever you are going,” Delanor replied matter-of-factly. “We’re going wherever you’ll take us.”

Delanor stared out at the sea. It was day, and the sun reflected harshly against his eyes, but he knew that if he was going to live on the surface, he would have to adapt. He knew that the captain, a man named Eric Vaughn, was watching his every move. Eric was a young man with blond hair and sharp green eyes, and while he was slightly more accepting of Delanor’s skin color than most, even he could not rationalize letting the devious drow out of his sight. The man carried himself lightly, having an almost friendly relationship with his crew, though there had been one or two angry outbursts since they had set out.

“Tell me again of this place we are going to,” he asked without turning.

“We know not its name, but we have heard many tales recently. Word has spread of a great war that tore the place apart. The place has always been surrounded by a navy of some sort, but we found an opening in their line far to the south, where we’ll make port in a small refugee camp.” Delanor thought on it some more.

“From what you have heard, who inhabits this small continent?” Delanor knew the answer, but he liked to hear it nonetheless.

“Humans. It is said that there are almost no elves, dwarves, or other members of the goodly races there.” Delanor smiled to himself. No faeries, he thought to himself. Well, almost none. The cabin door burst open to remind Delanor that he was confined on this ship with a couple of the damned things.

“There’s a drow aboard!” came a shout. A ridiculous looking elf pushed past several crewmembers, longsword drawn. “Let me cleanse this ship of its evil before the infestation grows!” Before the captain could react, he came at Delanor, who quickly dodged aside and drew his own longsword and a dirk.

“Stop this nonsense!” Eric shouted. “I will not have you two fighting aboard my ship. When we arrive at our destination, you may take this matter ashore.” The strange elf quickly turned and bowed to Eric.

“My apologies, good sir.” And then he was off.

“Strange, that one,” Delanor commented, sliding his weapons into his belt. Are all faeries so…”

“He’s a half-elf. They’re always a bit mixed up: rash like humans but noble like elves. Always seem just a bit out of place, if you ask me. That one’s called Calen Noranil. We picked him up in an elven port on the southern coast of Milartef. Seems the elves didn’t take to him either, if you know what I mean.” Delanor nodded, then went back to looking out to sea. Over the weeks, Delanor spent most of his time out on the deck near the aft of the ship, sometimes holding brief conversations with the captain, but usually just observing. He watched the deck as often as the sea, and noted all those aboard. The paladin, for that was what Calen was, only associated with Delanor at the end of an icy glare.

There were several elves on the ship: a shady faerie whose only visible weapon was a crossbow and a strangely tan elf that had a huge longbow and quiver over his back. There were also a few humans that were clearly not members of Eric’s crew, namely a tall fighter with hazel eyes that wielded a longsword and shield and a cleric of Thor, the chiefest of some human pantheon Delanor had never heard of. Only Eric and occasionally Axeth really spoke with Delanor, though Axeth kept mostly below deck, where he was studying magic again. He had even demonstrated a few of the spells he had mastered for Delanor, who was mildly impressed by the hobgoblin’s strange hobby.

Delanor never really bothered to learn any of their names. He recognized a few of the crew from listening to Eric shouting orders, but other than that, he really kept to himself. None wished to associate with a drow, and he really didn’t mind. He had managed to find solitude on this ship. No one liked him, but he had lived in a society like that for most of his life. More importantly, no one had attacked him since Calen’s brief outburst.

“We near our destination,” Eric announced one day. Delanor wasn’t sure how the man knew, but he trusted his judgment. While Eric was but a human, Delanor had actually learned to respect him. Delanor had determined that, in order to survive on the surface, he would have to change his perspective. In drow society, killing was acceptable, even praised, if done correctly. But, from what Delanor had learned, killing was rarely acceptable, and had to be done very tactfully. Killing was not silently praised, it was rooted out and punished. Delanor had witnessed punishment in Denmorezbach, and could only imagine what it was like on the surface, likely meted out much more often.

He had taken a liking to the strange tan elf, which had identified himself simply as Shamiel. While the faerie, a wood elf, he had later explained, had initially wanted nothing to do with Delanor, he had reluctantly agreed to teach Delanor to speak Elven. The language was quite similar to Undercommon, and Delanor soon mastered it as he had Common. While the two elves, drow and wood, certainly didn’t like each other, they had at least come to respect each other. That was certainly a start on Delanor’s part. A few days rolled by, and the ship had a small celebration called Greengrass, where everyone aboard came out and they cooked fish they had caught and drank rum. The celebration lasted two days.

“Alright sir, if we continue on this route, we should arrive tomorrow morning,” a crewmember named Pavel offered the next morning.

“Excellent, this far and no problems,” Eric replied. Delanor was excited to reach their destination. His new home.

O hay der! Chapters one and two are up! Also, could I get...like...some feedback?

Rotaretilbo wrote:

Prologue
Beginnings

Delanor ReLako sat on a small balcony fashioned into a large stalactite. He wore the title of ReLako, denoting his noble birth. House ReLako was the sixteenth house of Denmorezbach. But then, no drow was ever content with their lot when it wasn’t first. Delanor was the second boy of House ReLako. Delanor was not like ordinary drow. He trusted his older brother, Tanfirim, as much as one drow can trust another, at least, and so Delanor did not seek to take Tanfirim’s place as elder boy, thinking it more valuable to have an ally than higher station. Tanfirim was also a fighter, and while they were close, this did not stay Tanfirim’s nervousness. It was not uncommon for a second boy to kill his older brother, if not in battle, then with a dagger or a poisoned crossbow bolt, to gain a better position in the house. Tanfirim made it his goal to spend little time with Delanor, and so he became a master at Magkron Golnii, where the art of combat was taught. The academy, Briechtal Namtre, was divided into three branches: Magkron Golnii for fighters, Arcanthere for spellcasters, and Arachthere for clerics. Delanor was left with many of the duties of the first boy anyway, with Tanfirim absent so often. Delanor personally trained every drow of the ReLako army, which consisted of no less than one hundred soldiers. Of course, most of the more powerful and prominent houses had a thousand or so soldiers, but ReLako was not such a house. Thus was the lot of the sixteenth house.

Delanor looked up from his contemplations to the group of young drow sparring before him. Each one could not yet be past his first century. Naturally, all of the fighters were males. Females afforded a much higher position in the drow society, and always attended Arachthere, where they learned to be powerful clerics. Only females went to Arachthere. The only time males were allowed in was to spend six months in each of the branches of the academy they had not attended to learn the basics. For males, the basics of Arachthere were to serve females and to serve Lolth, the goddess of the drow and lady of chaos.

Delanor focused on two younglings. One of the two was fighting brilliantly, but the other seemed to be slothful, his parries slow and his strikes even slower. From what Delanor could tell, the better fighter was lulling his opponent into a routine. It was a good strategy to use on a lesser, but it wouldn’t work on a real opponent. Still, Delanor felt that the lesser could use a lesson, and hoped that the better would strike him hard with the wooden mock-weapons Tanfirim worked so hard to acquire from Magkron Golnii now used in sparring. The routine continued for a few moments, ending when the better suddenly spun to the ground, sweeping the lesser’s legs out with a wooden long sword and jabbing him hard in the stomach with a wooden dagger.

“You are defeated!” the better announced to the lesser. The lesser, holding his stomach and attempting to stand, just gazed at the better, a mix of hatred and awe in his eyes.

“True, you defeated him. But was he a worthy opponent?” Delanor called to the better fighter. Rising, Delanor called upon his innate ability to levitate, slowly drifting down from the balcony to the floor. Walking over to the table where the wooden weapons were laid, Delanor chose two wooden dirks and a wooden longsword. “Let us fight, that you might learn a real challenge,” Delanor declared, slipping one wooden dirk into his already cluttered belt.

“If we must, then I will fight you!” the other called out, only the slightest tremor audible in his voice, readying his weapons. Delanor approached the fighter, stopping several feet short.

“Begin!” he shouted. Delanor came in hard and fast, starting with quick, high cuts, which the other managed to parry. Delanor then began to work separately with his two hands, his right hand coming in from above and the other coming in from the left. The other, to his credit, managed to continue parrying. The fighter tried a double-thrust low, a maneuver designed to stalemate a superior opponent. Delanor offered a double-cross-down, the only defense against the double-thrust low. With only a brief respite, Delanor came on again, slashing and chopping at the other fighter. Finally, Delanor flung the dirk from his left hand, catching his opponent off guard. He managed to deflect the impromptu missile and a hard downward chop with the wooden longsword, but Delanor had already drawn his other dirk, which connected solidly with the other fighter’s head, laying him low. In the end, the fight had only lasted a minute. “You learn to lead on lesser opponents, now you must learn to defeat equals and betters,” Delanor spat at the unconscious fighter. He turned to the small crowd that had gathered. He only gave them a sharp glare. The group dispersed and got back to training, spurred on by their weapons master’s cold eyes. Soon, these young drow would be attending Magkron Golnii, though Delanor wondered if some would be better off at Arcanthere. Delanor left the younglings to train. He had business to attend to: his sister and his mother always had work for him. He pushed his way through the lower halls, and then, exiting the lower levels, Delanor turned to look at his own house.

House ReLako was situated across two very large stalagmites that had a common base. Ringing the two stalagmites were series of adamantine and mithral balconies, with small catwalks spanning between the two stalagmites. The commoners and soldiers were relegated to the lower levels, and the nobles – Delanor, his brother, his sister, and his mother – kept mostly to the upper levels, where their quarters, a smaller armory, and training hall. The cavern that Denmorezbach was in slanted slightly across its three miles, and House ReLako was near the edge of the higher end, affording Delanor a wonderful view of the city. Delanor gazed out at the city, for it was magnificent.

Denmorezbach, the largest drow city in a system of underground caves collectively known as the Underdark, was situated in an elliptical cave, one mile wide and three miles across. There were seventy-eight recognized houses in the city, each with a rank. The top eight houses sat on a sort of ruling council, which was reminiscent to a government over the city. Houses were normally situated within giant stalagmites or stalactites, though a few were located in smaller caves along the walls of the city. Once, maybe twice, each decade, a drow house would feel that it could better its station by eliminating another house of higher rank. In drow society, there was only one rule: leave no nobles alive to bear witness, for only a noble had the right to accusation. Destroying another drow house and leaving no evidence or witnesses was something not just acceptable in drow society, but actually applauded, though never out loud. House ReLako had once been the eighteenth house, but over the years, two other houses had been eliminated, neither by House ReLako itself.

Delanor smiled wickedly, thinking of their slow rise in power. Soon, he felt, they would be fifteenth house. His mother, Matron Narsila, had a plan to eliminate House Kelind, fourteenth house in Denmorezbach. A daring move, Delanor thought to himself. House Kelind boasted almost two hundred soldiers, and two high priestesses. But they had fallen out of favor, Delanor reminded himself. Matron Narsila had not shared with him details, but many in the city knew that the house was out of Lolth’s favor, and this meant that they were weak, vulnerable. Delanor had his suspicions. It was rumored that House Kelind had not sacrificed the third born male to Lolth, as was the custom. It was common knowledge that the two noble males were fighters, and perhaps House Kelind desired a wizard. It was no wonder House Kelind was out of Lolth’s favor, Delanor reasoned. But he wondered if House Kelind knew yet. Often was it Lolth’s devious way to let the house no longer in her favor be the last to hear of it. Certainly, Delanor thought, they must realize that not sacrificing the third living male noble would upset Lolth. But if they had not seen any indication of her displeasure, perhaps they thought that they would soon have an advantage over the other houses. He smiled at the irony.

Delanor reflexively tightened his belt to reassure himself that he had his weapons: a beautifully crafted longsword and two dirks, all heavily enchanted to be the keenest, deadliest of weapons; drow were well known for carrying the sharpest of weapons. The reminder that he was armed spurred him on momentarily as he moved through the crowds of the open marketplace. While it might be a crowd, his piwafwi and hair cut marked him as a noble just as clearly as the seal of his house that he kept in his neck purse, and many wisely kept out of his way. Today, stealth was not necessary on his mission, and Delanor relished in watching the commoners, slaves, and merchants stumbling out of his way, knowing that nobles had a volatile temper for contempt, especially males, who had to be subservient within the house itself. As his destination came into view, Delanor could hardly contain his awe. He had seen Briechtal Namtre many times, but it still took his breath away. Briechtal Namtre was located on the only plateau in the entire cavern Denmorezbach was situated in. The three schools – Magkron Golnii, Arcanthere, and Arachthere – dominated the plateau, each constructed in a different manner. Magkron Golnii, the school of fighters, was a mundane building, built into a wide-based short stalagmite that resembled a pyramid. Arcanthere was obviously a feat of magic, as the stalagmite it was built in a corkscrew, separating it from the straighter stalagmites in the cave. Arachthere, however, was the most glorious; cut from the living stone, Arachthere resembled a giant spider. It was certainly an appropriate place to worship Lolth, the goddess of chaos.

HHmmm... I'm reading the first book.

Chapter three is up. Thanks everyone for all the feedback. Oh wait, there hasn't been any.

This is a very bad place for feedback Rot.
If you want feedback I would head over to either FF.net or deviant art.
More FF.net though, they have an entire D&D section.

EDIT: sometimes you used <> insted of "", it happens mostly near the begining of Chapter One

Its good


When the guy killed the high priestess you should put more emphasis into it, I didn't even know it had happened till after.

It seemed that you were still describing the scene when she was killed.

The <> represent when the drow are speaking in sign language.

okay, that clears things up, lol.
You really should put this on FF.net or a site geared for FF. Alot more readers + reviewers there.

I would really only say that there is a slight sensory overload at some points... well, more that you describing the enviroment/whatever distracted from something important, such as the instance that LP pointed out.

Chapter four is up.

this is cool so are the drow human liek if i may ask?

Onyxknight wrote:this is cool so are the drow human liek if i may ask?

"Dark Elves". . . they are like elves, but black. They live underground in giant underground cities.

Hey Rot, have you read any of Salvatore's writings in the Forgotten Realms?

Naturally. I've read most of his writings, though I haven't gotten through his most recent stuff. He is the main source of my knowledge of the drow.

Rotaretilbo wrote:Naturally. I've read most of his writings, though I haven't gotten through his most recent stuff. He is the main source of my knowledge of the drow.

That's awesome. I have his entire series with Drizz't Do'Urden in it. 17 books. Then I have the sellswords trilogy. I wouldn't mind getting the Cleric Quintet next. Have you read the Quintet yet? Would you recommend it?

Edit* - So far im on chapter 2. Very good rot. Really impressed with your knowledge of it all. You should try to get some of your work published, even if by some minor company. You never know, they may think that you have some real potential.

I've read Homeland through Passage to Dawn twice and The Silent Blade through The Two Swords once. I also read Servant of the Sword while it was still considered part of Paths of Darkness and the entire War of the Spider Queen series. I haven't gotten a chance to read any of The Cleric Quintet yet, nor any of The Sellsword Trilogy (other than Servant of the Sword) or Transitions. Once they release The Sellsword Trilogy and Transitions as Collector's Edition single bound books, I'll buy them. I would have bought all of the books separately, but it would have cost a bit more. It was $20 per Collector's Edition (average three books, with two having four books), with the except of The Hunter's Blades Trilogy, which they only had in hard back, which cost $30, and $8 per single book.

Oh, by the way, chapters five and six are up.

I have both transitions so far and I was stupid enough to buy the 30$ hardbacks. I have all the Drizz't Do'Urden books besides Sea of Swords.

Edit* - The Sellswords trilogy is really good. It's a nice change of pace from the usual characters.