Emile stood with seven others in a opulent temple. This is what it all had been leading up to.
Eight weeks of debauchery, with every whim and pleasure catered to by very willing priestesses had all come with a prize for himself and his fellow chosen.
The old Drow that had been presiding over this entire deal was walking around in the center of the circle formed by him and his fellows. Every exit was covered by armed and armored guards, so even if he wanted to back out, it was far too late now.
Then again…
“…By drinking in the essence of our goddess, you eight will all have the privilege to serve the spider-queen as her mortal tools. The living embodiment of her divine will.
“Look about you, each of you eight have been chosen by prophecy, and each of you have accepted the role given unto you. Be glad. You are soon to be one with greatness.”
…If there was something more to the old woman’s words than delusion – which there very much may be, the deal would be entirely in their favour.
When he had been singled out for sacrifice, he thought his days were over. When they had offered him eight more weeks of glorious life, the chance of immortality, and beautiful willing women aplenty, he thought his prayers had been answered.
Well. They very well may have been. If this wasn’t all some big joke on the old crone’s part.
Though even if it was, he didn’t regret anything.
“You are the first.” the crone said, holding out a goblet for Emile. The golden vessel carried motifs of spiders, which one could expect considering the environment in which it is used.
No point in resisting now. If this was his stop, he’s done everything he could.
He takes the vessel.
“You are the second.” The crone said, handing another goblet to the woman on Emile’s left.
Then the crone continued in order to each of Emile’s fellow humans.
“Your path lies ahead, spiders of Lolth. Take her into yourselves.”
Here goes nothing.
Emile put the goblet to his lips, and swallowed the bitter liquid inside.
Immediately, he felt his mouth go numb. His tongue started swelling in his mouth. It felt big, cold and raspy in his mouth.
He could hardly breathe.
There was the clattering of metal on stone, and as he turned to look he could see that number two had dropped her goblet to the ground. Her lips were blue. She was gasping for air same as him.
Well.
Seemed like it was all just a big trick after all.
Damn those drow.
Well, at least he had enjoyed his last time on this world.
Emile felt cold.
As he opened his eyes, all he could see was a vast… nothing.
A black space he could impossibly penetrate with his gaze. Not a star or light of any kind to be seen.
Then there was the web.
He couldn’t see it at first, but the void had webbing stretching from one side to the other. Far beyond what he could see, no matter how far he turned his head.
He was himself tied up in it.
He could feel it stuck to him. Not his skin. Not his hair. No, it was stuck to him in a far more direct fashion. He couldn’t describe what it felt like, but it was as if the web was a part of him.
Greetings, human. The voice was a skittering, a vibration in the web that he was attached to.
“Lolth… my master.” He could tell she liked that. There was a pleased hum in the web.
You know how to address your betters. Good. You know why you are here.
“Yes. I am here to dedicate myself to you, body and soul.”
Tell me, mortal. Why do you so eagerly dedicate your soul to me?
Emile smiled. The old crone hadn’t lied, and that left him with an unmistakable opportunity. An opportunity he had secretly wished for when the details of the deal had been explained to him. And there was no use lying to a god.
“I want to be the master of Drow.”
A moment of silence, then a screeching, skittering laughter.
Ah, you will do nicely. Now draw your first breath, my first. Be reborn in my glory!
Denis stood knee-deep in clay. The grayish sludge was a familiar sensation on his feet and legs, but it still stank to high heavens. It reminded him of the manure he had been using back at the mushroom-farm, but it had a very distinctively different texture.
He shoveled another handful of the clay into his bucket. He’d already been at it for a couple of hours at this point, and his shoulders and back were burning with exhaustion.
He filled the bucket with the purest stuff he could find. He didn’t particularly feel the urge to speed up his gathering. Working too quickly made you sloppy. And he couldn’t afford being sloppy.
He knew the consequences if the masters found out.
Poor Joel.
He cleared his mind of such drab thoughts and went back about his work.
He just needed to fill this bucket, and then there’d be lunch…
Speaking of.
He cast his gaze back towards the shore, and could see a fresh face carrying the lunch basket today. Strange. Usually it was always the same woman that brought the food every day. A nice old lady who had worked there longer than any of the rest of the slaves.
A few of the other collectors had already started their precious few minutes of food break for the day.
Denis was fairly hungry himself.
He hoisted up his bucket and headed back to solid ground just in time to greet the woman bringing the food.
“Good day, miss. Is Jenine sick?” He greeted her with a slightly worried smile.
There were scarce few reasons that the masters would let someone off of work. Most were due to serious injury, severe illness, death… or worse.
And this was the first time Jenine wasn’t the one delivering lunch.
He wished that nothing bad had befallen the sweet old woman.
“Oh, no, Jenine was told told to run some errands for the masters.” The woman said reassuringly, and patted Denis on the shoulder.
“I’ll be sure to tell her you were worried about her!” the new girl spoke with a musical voice that was almost… intoxicating. She was damn pretty, too. Her eyes were big blue pools, and she had almost this aura of warmth around her.
“Say, what’s your name beau-” Denis was interrupted part way through his pick-up line by the woman’s eyes snapping onto something behind him.
“Gods, there’s a woman in the river!”
Denis was surprised, and spun to look in the direction of the woman’s gaze. And indeed, in the most turbulent part of the river he could see splashing.
Denis dropped his bucket, and a half-formed curse slipped past his lips.
Denis his body into motion. As swiftly as humanly possible, he crossed the clay-field in between solid land and the river proper.
As he reached the river, the shape and splashing had already passed him by, but he dove in after it anyway.
His swimming form definitely left something to be desired, and now that he was out of the clay-field the freely flowing water was damn cold, but he caught up to the shape. As he closed in on it, he noticed that the food-girl had indeed been right. It was a woman, but how the hell she had noticed that from such a distance is beyond him.
The woman was, also, a drow.
Unusual to see a drow fighting the river, looking more like a drowning rat than a decadent asshole, but he didn’t let her race stop him from doing what was right.
As he grabbed a hold of her tunic, the woman looked at him with notable panic in her eyes, and tried to leveraging him beneath her to bring herself out of the water.
Denis felt himself pushed below, but before she managed to get them both killed, he slapped her across the face.
This seemed to bring her back to her senses, and she relaxed enough to let him drag her back towards the shore.
It was still a struggle, but he could manage.
As they reached the shallows of the river, he could get a good look at her.
The woman had hair that someone clearly had butchered with a straight razor, and very roughly so. He could see small cuts and nicks on her scalp. Her clothes were far too big for her, and hung down like water-filled burlap sacks. And they were covered with blood. Not a good sign.
And she was visibly pregnant.
What the shitfuck had he just gotten himself into?
Lyssia gasped for air and shivered madly as she finally felt firm ground beneath her. She was cold, her teeth were clattering, and she had lost sensation in her fingers.
She had been extremely close to passing out multiple times, and when she had gotten out of the underwater passage she had already exhausted herself enough that she had been at the river’s mercy.
And the mercy of bystanders.
She looked at the red-haired human standing beside her as she coughed up water.
“T-thank-” her attempted show of gratitude was cut short by another fit of coughing.
That escape was not nearly well planned enough for her liking, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“No problem, madam.” The man answered. From the way he looked, slightly like a deer that just noticed the nocked arrow aimed at its’ chest, she could tell he really wanted to be away from here.
Lyssia resolved to not attempt to talk further, instead just giving him a grateful nod.
She then stumbled up onto the shore.
But as she did, she felt the whole world swimming around her as if she had never left the river; her vision became unsteady, and she felt herself stumble and fall.
Dammit, not now, she’s so close-
Caught.
She felt strong arms catching her from her fall, holding her up off of the ground. She felt herself being carried.
But she didn’t see it, as her consciousness faded.
Well shit.
Despite her condition, the Drow didn’t weigh all that much. And she looked so vulnerable in Denis’ arms.
What is he supposed to do now?
He couldn’t exactly bring her to the masters. He didn’t know if she was a fugitive, or what she was.
And he didn’t particularly want to be the reason someone was hauled off and killed by the Drow. Even if that person was a Drow.
He sighed.
Well. Only one thing to do. He had to bring her back to the camp and keep her away from spying eyes until he learned what the crap this was all about.
It was the decent thing to do.
He thought.
She might be a murderous psychopath that’d cut his throat in the night, though.
He didn’t particularly enjoy that prospect.
Well. If he was going to die, which he might be any day anyway, he might as well go doing the right thing.
It had been three days since they had set off on this journey into the dark, and Anders sat very, very still on the back of his Dragon. Uther hadn’t seen him move since he sent the undead out into the tunnels.
It was a testament to the stamina of the undead that he had been at it unceasingly for hours. Even Yvonne, seated behind Anders, looked on the verge of fainting due to exhaustion.
“Right next tunnel. Leads to a well-maintained path. Left is abandoned and is covered in spiderwebs.”
Uther didn’t think that spiderwebs sounded like much of a hurdle. He wasn’t particularly afraid of Spiders, but he knew better than to argue about it.
Maybe Spiders in the underdark were especially poisonous or something?
Either way, he steered the expedition right.
Uther slowed down to come up alongside the two mages.
“Yvonne, come down here.”
“Ah, finally.”
Yvonne carefully climbed down, avoiding to disturb Anders as best she could.
When she was clear of both the Dragon and Anders, Uther reached over to touch her. For a moment, the light in the tunnel increased significantly, flowing out of Uther and pouring into Yvonne like cascading water.
He could see the tiredness disappearing from her face, and the vigor returning to her.
“Your strange magic really is something, Uther.”
Uther nodded. “Let’s keep the pace up.”
Yvonne climbed back up onto the undead dragon, and retook her seat behind the Necromancer.
Anders felt the wind flowing past him as he ran through the tunnels.
Well, it wasn’t quite right. The proper term would probably be winds? He didn’t know for sure. His current action couldn’t really be done by anyone else, making his current state of mind quite unique.
He was running with several bodies, each one barreling down a different tunnel, each a fair distance from the others.
It was the first time he was controlling several undead so directly.
The information he was taking in from several sources at the same time was quite dizzying, and it required his full attention to both control the undead and assimilate what they saw, felt and heard.
One zombie was running through droves of dead spiders.
From the look of them, they had been dead for a while, and scavengers were eating away at their flesh regularly.
Briefly, he considers if it may be worth the effort raising them as Undead. He dismisses the idea. They are far too damaged to be of any use. Several of them seem… cut? He hands off that information to Yvonne. Might be a clue left behind by Freidrich.
His attention moves on, and he can see what seems to be a Drow outpost through the eyes of another Zombie.
The Drow seem startled by the undead barreling into their little fort, and he can see them run for their arms. But before they manage, his puppet has already exited out the other side of the fort.
He hands this information off to Yvonne to handle as his attention moves on….
As Lyssia woke up, her whole body ached.
She felt a pressure in her head and her nose. She felt too warm and too cold at the same time, and her eyes stung, yet she forced them open.
She’s in a bed in what looked to be some sort of tent. As she stirred in the bed, she felt someone removing a wet cloth from her forehead. There’s the faint sound of water dripping, and Lyssia felt a burning thirst.
Which is strange, since the last thing she remembered is having far, far too much water.
She looked around, and she can see a human sitting on a stool, wringing water out of a rag.
“Ssh, ssh, you’re safe here. Don’t- don’t scream. Please.”
It’s the redhead.
Lyssia slumped back down into the bed. Her head throbbing.
“Where… am I?”
Her voice came out as a croak.
“You’re in the slave camp of the artisans’ workshop, madame. Here, drink this..”
A wooden ladle was held up to her lips, and Lyssia drank.
The water felt heavenly.
“How long…?”
“Two night-cycles, now. Since I, you know, fished you out of the water. Don’t talk. You have a fever, and after what you’ve been through, you probably need the rest.”
Lyssia groaned, but did as he asked.
It wasn’t long until she drifted off back to sleep.
Denis looked down on the woman as she fell back asleep.
She really looked like she’d had a rough time. And she needed medical attention he couldn’t provide.
But he still didn’t know how she happened to end up in the river, so he needed to bring her to someone he trusted.
He put the ladle back into the bucket, and stood up, wiping his hands on his shirt.
This was all more pressure than he had any desire to be in.
He stepped out of his home and out into the camp.
Everyone that worked during the day-cycle had come back home by now. Which meant the camp was fairly busy.
He took a deep breath.
Ah, home sweet home.
His muscles still burned from today’s work, and his neck ached from sleeping on the ground, but he wasn’t dead yet. That was a plus.
He could see Jenine marching towards him, a determined expression on her face.
“Finally!” she exclaims as she approached him.
“Finally what, miss?” This was a bit unexpected. What had he done wrong now.
“Finally I find you. Have you been avoiding me, young man?”
“No, miss. I have been, ah, busy.”
“Busy, yes.” She had a small frown. “Two days ago, some strange woman went on my lunch round before me, without being sent. Then you are too busy to talk to me, after being the last one that woman was seen talking to. What do you know, boy?”
He could hear that she wasn’t angry as much as… perplexed.
“Wait one second right there.” Denis held up a finger. “You say some strange woman? The lunch-girl? She doesn’t work for the masters?”
“Well, I thought she did, but no one has seen her before or since, and I want to know what this is all about.”
“Well, Jeanine, all I can tell you is that she has very beautiful blue eyes and- uh.”
He just realized that he didn’t really… remember anything else about the girl. Except two things. “Her voice was very musical, and she had a very sharp gaze.”
“…sharp gaze?”
“Yes. She, uh, saw things.”
“What are you hiding, Denis?”
“Nothing!”
The older woman eyes him sternly.
“You are a terrible liar, Denis. I like that about you. Don’t make me angry by lying to my face.”
Denis sighed.
“Give me your word, Jenine, that you will speak to no one of this.”
“…what are you talking about, Denis?”
“Your word. Please.”
“…I won’t tell anyone, but I won’t lie for you.”
Denis sighed. “That’ll have to do. Come.”
He turned around, and led Jenine back into his tent.
Denis sat on his stool, attending the Drow while his heart was playing skip-rope in his chest.
It had been nearly half an hour since Jenine scurried off, ordering him to stay with the Drow after finding out his secret.
He really, really hoped she hadn’t run off to tattle on him to the masters.
That would be bad.
Very bad.
There was a rustle as the tent-flap was pushed aside.
“Get in! Get in!” He heard Jenine’s voice before she had set foot in the tent, and when he turned, he could also see what looked to be an older Elven man, furrowed face and half-moon shaped glasses.
He looked very bemused about being pushed around by Jenine.
“What is this all-” he started off in a whining tone, before stopping as he laid eyes on the drow. “Oh.” His eyes moved to her stomach, the outline of which was visible through the lousy blanket that Denis had wrapped her up in. “Oh…” Then he looked to Denis. “Oh!”
“Well!” He started out, crooked smile spreading across his lips. “Isn’t this quite the situation!”
Denis sighed. He figured what the old man was thinking. “Are you a healer?”
The old man removes his glasses, and rubs them with a dirty cloth that probably ended up dirtying them more than they already were.
“Well, I was, once, yes. I am a student of Medicine from the great empire of-”
Denis cut him off. “And now you’re a slave here like the rest of us.”
The comment deflated the elf.
“Well. Yes.”
“The important question is, can you help her?”
The old man looks at her. “Well. It’s a bit late for-”
“Not the pregnancy, idiot. She’s sick.”
“Ah.” The elf places the glasses back on his nose. “I may be of more help there.”
Denis makes way for the old man to approach.
“Also, for clarification, I am not the father, nor am I her lover. I’m just the guy that fished her out of the river.”
The old man places his middle finger on the Drow’s wrist, closing his eyes.
“I see. A saviour of the needy, eh? You won’t live long down here, but it’s admirable.”
He moves his hand to her forehead.
“I’ll need to ‘acquire’ some reagents from the apothecary. It’ll be risky, but can be done. And I don’t work for free…”
Denis just watched the old man for a second. “I’m a slave. I don’t have money.”
“Ah, I’m well aware of that. Let’s say half your lunches for the next three months?”
“Three months?! Are you trying to starve me?”
“I think I’m being very generous here. Take it or leave it.”
“You’re a leech.”
“An indispensable leech. The name’s Orrian, by the way.”
Lyssia woke up as she felt a light touch on her shoulder.
Looking up, the first thing she saw was the wrinkled face of an old man. After her eyes regained a measure of focus, she realized that the wrinkled face belonged to an Elf. Which was strange, as Elves normally didn’t grow wrinkly.
“Good morning, miss. Here. Drink this. A fair warning, it’s bitter.” The old man had a nasal voice, and was handing her a cup of liquid.
She noted that it smelled pungently, but as it was she was entirely at this stranger’s mercy.
She wasn’t strong enough to put up more than a token resistance, so she allowed him to pour the foul stuff down her mouth.
It tasted terrible, but she recognized the herb.
Dragonweed.
It was a strong and reliable remedy for fever. The man seemed to be a healer of some kind if he knew of, and had access to Dragonweed.
But if he had access to such a herb this far beneath the surface… who else knew she was here?
“Who are….?”
“I’m Orrian, at your service. Now, if you’re feeling up to it, we have some questions for you.”
Lyssia didn’t respond.
This was the moment of truth. If she answered these questions incorrectly, she’d be back in her cell before she could stumble out of bed on her own.
She looked around the room.
Two humans and a surface elf.
No Drow.
That was a sign in her favour.
The redhead looked disgruntled, though.
“…very well. Ask.”
She didn’t really feel like answering questions. As a matter of fact, all she wanted was to fall back asleep.
But these people had helped her, or at least that’s what it looked like, this far.
“What’s your name, dear?” The old man asked.
“Lyssia.”
He nodded, and the redhead stepped forwards.
“How’d you end up in the river?”
And there it was.
“…”
She could lie. Make something up. Avoid having these people run to the Temple for some reward.
But lying could also hurt her. What if these people were against the temple?
It was likely, seeing as they were slaves. Most slaves were afraid of the temple. But she could be used as leverage to ensure their own survival….
What to do?
“You’re a fugitive, aren’t you?” The old man said, slight smile on his face. “Otherwise you’d be eager to tell us the story. That, or it’s really embarrassing. Either or.”
He was smart, no two ways about it.
Fuck it. Truth.
“Fugitive.”
The old man nods. “What’d you do?”
“Rebel. Work with… Human rebels. On surface.”
The old man drew a deep breath.
“Oh boy.”
His surprised face turned into a grin.
“Good news, boy. I won’t take your food after all.”
He leaned down close to Lyssia.
“Say. Let’s make a trade, you and I.”
Lyssia said nothing in response.
“I want in.”
Ginva rubbed at a particularly insistent stain on her armor.
“Hey, Qil. What do you think this even is? I can’t- I can’t seem to get it to go away.”
Qilue, Ginva’s partner in the city guard scratched the base of his nose. “No idea. Not too keen on finding out, either.” He wiped the blood off of her sword, and gave a thumbs up to the guards positioned on top of the wall. “After all, that’s some goblin gunk, and you never know where those things have been, y’know?”
Ginva stopped. “Ugh. Ew. Yeah. Why are we the ones cleaning up this mess? Don’t we have slaves for this?”
She poked one of the dead goblin raiders with the tip of her boot. The little, yellow, greasy troglodyte lay face-up with an arrow sticking him firmly to the cavern’s floor.
“Because there’s been three escape attempts, already, Gin. Brass don’t want the monkeys this close to the tunnels.” Qilue made no move to help his partner.
“Are you going to help me with this or what?!” Ginva held the goblin by the wrists, and was about to pull the thing off into the tunnels.
Qilue laughed. “Nah, you have that under control. I believe in you!”
Ginva frowned. “You’re terrible, you know that? And you’re buying the drinks when we’re off shift.”
The second drow snickered. “Sure thing, boss. Just as long as I don’t have to touch those creatures.”
Ginva disappeared around the corner. “You owe me! BIG TIME!”
“Heh, yeah. Sure do.”
Qilue looks around. Five left to go. No idea why the little things thought they could sneak in unnoticed. The smell alone was enough to give them away. Well, no one could accuse them of being smart.
Qilue looks in the direction his partner went off in.
Shouldn’t take so long to dump a body now, should it?
“Gin?”
Qilue took his spear and started off after Ginva.
“Ginny? You there?” Okay, he was starting to freak out.
He waved up at the guards on the wall.
“We have a situation down here!”
The guardswoman on the wall nodded, and started off towards the warning bell, but three steps later and she seemed to be hit by something and disappeared from view.
“What the shit!?”
Qil snapped around, and saw a monkey with some sort of bow-on-a-stick contraption in his hands.
“Fucking shitbuckets! The monkeys are attacking!” Qilue ran back to the gate, and pounded on the construction.
“Hey! I’m out here! Let me in, dammit!” He turned her head back towards the monkey just in time to see they had multiplied.
There were now several of them, and they were all wearing shiny, silver-like armor.
“Help me, lolth damn it!” He turned around, raising his shield and spear against the attackers.
Then he spotted Ginva, held in front of one of the humans at swordpoint.
“Guys…”
The six humans pressed on, the bowstick-man shooting a couple more arrows up over the wall, but eventually Qilue could hear the alarm bell being struck.
Reinforcements were coming.
“If you know what’s good for you, you get out of here and let go of Ginva this instant!”
The humans didn’t seem to listen to him, and one armed with a shield and sword came right at him.
Qilue braced himself, and thrust with his spear at the man. And with practiced ease, his spear flowed over the human’s shield, but failed to find the slit in the man’s helmet. Instead, the spear tip sparked against the helmet uselessly before the human’s shield met Qilue’s. And with the much greater weight and momentum of the human crashing into him, Qilue was knocked back, the air blown out of his lungs as he was crushed between the gate and the human. Falling to his knees as the human relents, Qilue’s face is instead greeted by the human’s knee.
The last thing he sees before going unconscious is a brilliant display of stars streaking over his vision.
“Amett! I want you breaking down that wall! Doubletime!” Freidrich shouted to his axe-wielding subordinate, and the man obeyed unquestioningly.
They had a precious small window of opportunity before they would be flooded by drow guards and the defences of this gate went unmanned.
It seemed the Drow hadn’t expected a determined assault today.
The killing ground had been crossed without much resistance, and there was no one to shoot arrows out of the various slits. The one issue were the Drow up on the wall. “Garen! Cover him!”
A stone fell down from one of the pits going from the ramparts down into the area housing the gate itself, but luckily Amett had managed to dodge the obvious attack. The wooden gate was splintering under his axe, but he still needed time.
They had finally done it. They had found the lair of their enemy. Now all that separated them from the city of the drow was this one, puny gate.
At least… he hoped it was the right place.
How many cities did the drow have?
With the vast expanse of these tunnels, there could be dozens.
He hoped not.
“Emmet! Keep it up!”
The young man was furiously applying the lever to reload his crossbow. He was putting in a truly admirable effort. Especially now as Drow were shooting back at them. Arrows were raining down on them.
Freidrich could see that the drow didn’t seem to worried about hitting their own, and moved his prisoner back behind the corner.
“Don’t try anything.” he commanded the drow woman, who nodded in agreement to him.
The door started to buckle.
It hadn’t taken much. Only a few blows from Amett’s axe.
“Emmet, you are rear guard! The rest of you! With me!”
Freidrich released the woman from his grip just as Emmet stepped back behind cover. Freidrich started the charge over the killing ground as arrows rained down around him, sword in hand.
He could feel a couple of arrows sliding uselessly over his armor, and a flash of pain as one finds a chink in his armor just by his elbow.
It just grazed his skin, but he can feel warm blood dripping out of the wound.
Not near enough to stop him!
He enters the gatehouse where Amett’s lining up one last blow.
The axe comes crashing down, and the door slides open. Freidrich gives it a kick as encouragement.
As the door opened, he can see the rest of the drow garrison charging towards the gate.
Freidrich grinned as he felt the fire burning in his chest.
Too late for them now.
He was already through.
“Spearhead formation! We take the fight to them!”