The Dark Fellowship
The Hatori Graveyard
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Prologue
They were prisoners. Freaks and monsters of every variety, captured somehow by a gifted wizard, brought to his multi-chambered vault and compelled by powerful magic to guard the enchanted treasures within. That magus had long vanished, his tower above defeated by time but his wizardry kept the inhabitants of this underground zoo bound, kept them young. Over the decades intruders sought the vault out to slay some of the beasts and plunder their charges; a few even succeeded. But the consequences of one such raid would prove farther-reaching than those before…
The mind flayer crumpled onto its back, a small crossbow bolt driven through each of its pupil-less eyes, the short tentacles drooping from its face twitching even in death. Its killers, two dark-skinned elves in armour withdrew from the entranceway, at which point a third strode inside, a bound spellbook hanging from his robe of rothe' wool, one of his gloved hands holding a staff made from the femur of an unknown horror that once stalked the caverns and tunnels deep in this world's crust.
This elf's name was Shoutanei, and he was a promising student from his home city's college of spellcraft. He scanned the shelves against the room's walls sagging with aged volumes before crouching over the corpse of the brain-eating freak that up until seconds before called this chamber home. Searching its pockets, he tossed aside a useless fluted instrument before opening a scroll tube to peruse the roll of parchment it hid.
The warriors and priestesses of the dark elves were too cloaked in delusions of racial superiority to see the worth in learning to speak or read any languages other than their own or that of their demon mistresses, but magi such as Shoutanei knew better. Upon examination he realized he held a scroll for a disintegrate spell; though he hadn't advanced enough to learn the spell in his studies, he could cast it from this folio, though attempting to do so carried risks.
One of his *superiors* from without barked his name, Shoutanei tucked the sheaf inside his robe before turning to see what the shrew wanted.
Ardulae, the wizard's eldest sister and the high priestess leading the expedition pointed down the corridor. A humanoid wrapped in featureless grey hide ran crashing into the walls, laughing manically and shifting its appearance to creatures of other races, with no obvious rhyme or reason to its actions.
"A doppelganger," Shoutanei whispered; he'd been taught such shape shifters existed but had never knowingly seen one until now.
"Such a freak," the priestess Molvayas, (another sister of Shoutanei) spat, "It is obviously insane." At her words Huylan, the head of the drow warriors stepped forward raising his sword.
Shoutanei moved to block the killer, "It could provide useful information- if its mind were healed." Ardulae pondered his words silently, then decided to risk it.
Shoutanei took the doppelganger by the arm, holding it still enough for Ardulae to cast the spell. When she finished, it looked toward the one who made its shattered mind whole, only to recoil as if sensing the contempt and malice within; which it did though only Shoutanei knew it could.
"Easy, easy," Shoutanei said in Surface Common, with a soothing tone. The doppelganger met his eyes and relaxed, sensing the wizard felt not the sheer loathing for it the other drow did, "What's your name?" the mage asked.
"Ga- Garadon," the doppelganger answered.
"While we're young, *dear brother*," Ardulae seethed.
Shoutanei fought down a retort, then told Garadon, again in Surface Common, "She and the others you see are neither your friends nor mine, should they plunder this place they will have no use for you. You must help me lure them to their deaths."
Garadon's eyes bulged at the elf's words, but nodded and told him what he needed to know. Shoutanei spoke to the other dark elves in drow, "He says there is a sealed entrance beyond a chamber once inhabited by cloakers; he doesn't know what it holds but its guardian is deadlier than any others here."
Garadon led the drow to said chamber. The cloakers had been long ago been slain and whatever they protected stolen. Shoutanei defeated the massive steel door with a rusting grasp spell before casting one of cloudkill toward the space on the other side; soon thirty small creatures even Shoutanei could not identify dropped dead from the ceiling. Once the poison cloud finally dissipated the other drow shoved Shoutanei aside, telling him to "Stay behind where you're useful." The wizard obeyed, only when they could not see his face did he smile.
Garadon followed them, though from a short distance. Somehow the chamber repelled all light, yet with their colourless darkvision the elves saw at the far wall a small chest beneath the form of a great cat cast from bronze- which abruptly turned to flesh and lunged toward the nearest dark elf, claws bared and hissing.
The battle was brutal, eight times they struck the creature down only for something else to tear out of the flesh of the one before and begin the fight anew. Though among the most skilled warriors and mightiest priestesses of their city, the drow gradually fell before this foe; until a dog-sized horned, scaly biped with a lashing tail and shell bristling with spikes, leapt to tackle the second-last drow standing- Ardulae herself.
Seeing his opportunity, Shoutanei brought out and read the scroll he claimed from the mind flayer's corpse. A green ray lancing from the page struck the combatants before him; as they turned to dust, so did the scroll. The wizard scanned the bodies of the other drow, relieved to see all of them truly dead.
Striding amidst the torn remains of those he had feared and despised all his days, Shoutanei focused on the chest in front of him. On saying the right words, the small chest unlocked itself with an audible click; yet as Shoutanei approached it the doppelganger bade him to stop.
"It might be trapped," Garadon backed out from the room, when it returned Shoutanei recognized burglar's tools in the shifter's hand.
"I used to make a living as a thief- that's actually how the mage who built this place got me," Garadon shrugged.
After Garadon detected and disabled several potentially deadly surprises Shoutanei peered into the chest, admittedly disappointed by what he saw. It seemed the architect of the vault had gone to so much trouble to guard a simple mace. Only when the elf picked up the weapon did he hear parchment rustling in the cudgel's hollow haft.
Breaking the mace in two, Shoutanei shook the parchment out of the haft; what he discovered brought out a shudder from him. He held two more spells- either one capable of bringing ruin to whole nations; compared to them the disintegrate hex he had cast was a candle to an inferno.
And yet the pragmatic part of his nature swayed him to hide the sheets in his robe in the prospect they might have some future use, though he couldn't imagine what at the moment.
Garadon gestured at the bloody bodies before it, "How will you explain all this when you return home?"
"I'm not *going* back! There's nothing there but another collar for my neck. No, I have a chance to escape that life and I'm taking it-" the wizard turned to the thief, "Though I would welcome your company, if it's possible."
Garadon considered the drow's offer. Long ago human thieves had left it for dead, claiming the enchanted armour it had been bound to protect; the failure of that task had driven it mad, but now perhaps that failure had released it from this age old prison as well, "Let me get my things".
Its things amounted to studded leather armour from with a shortsword and two daggers hanging from the belt, a bow in hand and quiver on its back. Together, the two sought an exit to the world above.