Waterdeep smelled like burning wood, death, and despair, the dark streets lit by burning buildings. Shrayla cringed thinking what must have caused such havoc. She'd heard there was trouble, but…no town criers had mentioned quite the level of destruction in Waterdeep's streets. Rain fell, plastering her hair to her head and her clothes to her body, making her shiver. Her ears twitched to throw off the collected water dangling off the tips. Carefully she avoided stepping in a hole blasted through the cobblestones of Soothsayer Way. As she meandered around, looking for the Yawning Portal, she contemplated on how many friends she had, and how much she really missed that little kobold bard, Deekin. She and Deekin had been through a figurative hell and back in Undrentide, and he was one of the only two friends she had in the world, the other being her dire wolf companion.
Finally she found the Yawning Portal. When the innkeeper's daughter offered to find her a room, Shrayla agreed readily. She was tired, more tired than she had realized when she had been outside with cold water falling on her head and keeping her awake. The other woman – Tamsil, it seemed – helped Shrayla by drawing a hot bath and leaving a robe and towel nearby before leaving, politely shutting the door behind herself. Shrayla sighed. It was nice to be treated like a person for once. She struggled out of her wet clothing, which did not want to come off, and then she sunk into the hot bath with a quiet moan. The hot water felt so nice after the icy dousing she had gotten outside.
The water cooled. Shrayla sighed and heaved herself out of the wooden tub, narrowly avoiding splinters in her inner thighs as she did so. The exhaustion tugged at her insistently, and it was all she could do to at least dry off before falling onto the straw stuffed mattress and drifting to sleep. She forgot to dress herself first, but who was there to see her?
Insert Dream Sequence Here
With the dream drow Matron's final warning, Shrayla sat bolt upright in bed, chest heaving and sweat glistening on her body in the dim light of the bedside candle. It had all felt too real to be a dream, even down to the neutral temperature and musky scent of the Underdark. Incense burning in a temple decorated with spiders, the stench of wizards' spell components as the spellcasters stood by waiting for their queen's orders…blood. Old, new, no mistaking it either way, the smell of blood had pervaded everything. The queen's dusky perfume haunted Shrayla into the waking world, almost masking the newest scent in her room.
Beyond the perfume, and Shrayla's own sweat and the sharp tang of fear – the dream had terrified her – there was something else. Shrayla recognized the scents of leather and dark elf. Her eyes, poor in comparison to her nose, finally made out the silhouette of an elven form kneeling by the chest that Tamsil had presumably put her belongings in. A muted flash of light and the itchy smell of magic discharge heralded the chest's disappearance. Shrayla barely had time to grab the complementary dagger that the innkeeper provided under every pillow before the drow thief pounced on her.
Despite the dire circumstances, Shrayla was almost distracted by the absurdity of it all. Here she was, dressed only in an ornate silver collar – the kind a noblewoman might adorn her lapdog with – and fending off a drow thief with nothing more than a blunt dagger that didn't even belong to her. But it was time for the thief to learn what it meant to threaten Shrayla's life. There would be a price to pay in terms of Shrayla's soul, and in the dark elf's blood. Shrayla howled.
Her pseudo-half-elven form erupted, fur growing like grass seeds caught in a haste spell all over her body as her limbs and muzzle lengthened and strengthened. More than a skittish girl from the wilderness, Shrayla was a hound from the depths of hell. The dagger clattered to the floor.
The thief was clearly startled, but in the manner of all drow she handled it well, simply adapting to the new situation. The dark elf's dagger dripped a bright green substance that ate at the wooden floorboards of the inn. Shrayla snarled. An acidic blade perhaps, but unless it was enchanted, there was nothing doing against her thick, resistant pelt. She lunged at the dark elf, who parried expertly. It was impossible for the mundane blade to pierce Shrayla's hide, but the acid burned her all the same. It hurt like bloody hell too. If there was one thing guaranteed to irritate a werewolf, it was pain. Shrayla dug her claws into the dark elf's wrists, making any further parrying impossible, and caught the elf's throat between her teeth. She bit down, tearing a piece of the thief's throat away and swallowing the slick, bloody piece of meat with the satisfaction of a predator who had caught and bested superior quality prey. Drenched in arterial spray, Shrayla stepped back from her swiftly dying assailant and changed back to her approximation of a half-elven form. Her tail and ears remained lupine however.
Werewolves were not all born perfect, able to blend into the human societies like their bitten cousins no longer could. Shrayla was misborn, unable to blend in any society and not quite as powerful as her mother and former pack. The pack had blamed Shrayla's weakness on her moon elf father and cast her out as a pup. Not quite monster enough to directly slaughter one of their own pups, no matter how disgraceful the pup was, they had prayed that Malar would see fit to send death in Shrayla's general direction. The young, half-elven werewolf counted herself lucky that she had been too young to share her mother's fate. For breeding with prey, Shrayla's mother had been sacrificed in the name of Malar. Hunted like an elkenbeast by her own pack and slaughtered…slowly.
The door to Shrayla's room banged open, and Tamsil rushed in, bright eyes taking in the sight of the dead drow on the floor, and the naked Shrayla clothed in blood standing over the corpse.
"My goodness, are you alright?"
The acid burn had already healed. "Aye, I'm fine."
"And the drow…is she….?"
"Dead? Yes, I killed the thief. Is the inn under attack?"
"Uh, no, no. There have been other attacks, but never at the Yawning Portal. Mostly the people in charge of organizing the defense of Waterdeep. Their things were stolen and drow assassins slit their throats while they slept."
Shrayla arched a brow, scratching her chin. She kicked the acid dagger out of the thief's dead hand. "Well, they never could have killed me armed with just this. So, what now?"
"Um…I should leave while you get dressed…"
"Do you have anything I can borrow? All of my things are gone, including my extra clothing. I've no qualms about running around naked, but I hear you city folk take offense to that."
Tamsil looked away, blushing. "There's an armory in the next room. Things father collected in his adventuring days. It probably isn't as good as what you had, but it should serve. You're defending Waterdeep. Father shouldn't mind if you use the equipment. I'll be going now."
Tamsil hurried out of the room. Shrayla shook her head, chuffing with canine laughter. City folk were all the same. They acted like a little nudity would kill them. It was unnatural, their prudish attitudes. Plain unnatural.
Shrayla washed the blood off her body with the towel and water bowl provided for washing one's face. The light outside her window marked the time as an hour or two before dawn. Shrayla focused her thoughts and whistled, calling forth her companion from the realm of Selune.
Kytos appeared in a swirl of pure, blue light. He was a massive black wolf, his body covered with the bony plates and spines of a dire creature. The size of a plow horse, give or take, he dominated the room. He had to hunker down on his belly to escape the small doorway and follow Shrayla out of the room. Kytos waited outside as Shrayla perused the armory.
Her pack had been left to her, though most of her valuables had been in the chest. The pack contained the Relic of the Reaper, a single rogue stone, most of her gold, and a copy of Deekin's book, Shadows of Undrentide. Looking around, she found four more rogue stones, a fair bit of gold, and some other odds and ends. Protective jewelry, mildly enchanted leather armor, a pair of good boots. Several potions and kits of bandages. A nice longbow and a quiver of magic arrows. She searched several other rooms while she was at it, and pocketed a few gems for her efforts.
So equipped, she bounded down the stairs, the longbow slung over her shoulder. She was better with a pair of short swords, but she was a functional archer. Kytos followed behind at a slower pace, his boulder-sized paws a little larger than the stairs he was trying to put them on. Shrayla ducked to the side and Kytos skipped the last six steps, hopping right over them and landing with the grace of a six hundred and eighty pound puppy.
Kytos needed a few seconds to right himself after that impact. Shrayla took the opportunity to pick a hole in the grey and black leather armor she had acquired. She needed somewhere to pull her tail through, because it was itchy and uncomfortable trapped against her thigh. It was a painful process - her tail was not a flexible appendage, and she nearly had to fold it in half to feed it through the small, hand-made hole. Half of the fur on her tail was pulled in the wrong direction until she smoothed it out. Even then she fluffed out like a disgruntled cat. Some days, being a werewolf was simply not worth the effort. She envied the perfect wolves that could assume a genuine human form. Surely they didn't have the same problems.
The refugee shelter stank of acrid fear and heavy desperation. And blood. But everywhere seemed to smell like blood these days. There were several figures that stood out above the rest. An elven druid, strangely comfortable in her urban surroundings lounged at a nearby table, her eyes wandering from the drunken dwarf by the far door to the four adventurers standing in the center of the room.
It was those four that waved Shrayla down. Closest to the door was a moon elf in flowing blue cleric robes, the holy symbol of Sehanine Moonbow glinting in silver at the hollow of her throat. At her hip was a scruffy Halfling, who was staring blatantly at Shrayla's coin purse. Behind him was a stunning redheaded human woman who wore her travel-worn and threadbare cloak the same way kings and queens wore silken robes and golden crowns. Towering above the rest was a half-orc bristling with muscle and Uthgardt tribal tattoos, a massive double-headed axe propped easily on his shoulder. An eclectic collection. They didn't smell entirely untrustworthy - except for the Halfling - so Shrayla approached them with minimal caution. Her hand remained clenched around her coin purse, however.
"Well met," Shrayla greeted casually.
"I see you have finally decided to join the rest of us," sniped the half-orc.
"Indeed," agreed the human woman. "Everyone has been waiting with such anticipation for the great Shrayla, one has to wonder why the rest of us bothered to come at all."
The elven cleric shushed them. "Hush, you two. There is no need to be unkind. We are all here for the same reason."
"Are we?" the half-orc blurted. He turned his intense stare on Shrayla, who met his gaze unswervingly. "Tell me, Shrayla, why are you here?"
"I care about what happens to the people here," she answered evenly, "even if you don't."
The tension flowed out of the half-orc's shoulders, his greenish face looking relieved and a little abashed for his hostile behavior. "Durnan was right to wait for you then. You have a valiant heart."
There was an uncomfortable silence after that, until Shrayla broke it. "You all seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, who I am…I know nothing of you."
"I am Daelan, of the Red-Tiger tribe," the half-orc answered. "The Halfling rogue is Tomi Undergallows. Be careful - that one will pick your pocket without knowing he is doing so. The bard lass Sharwyn is little better, I'm afraid, though Linu keeps them both out of the worst of their trouble."
"Well met then. Ah…I should probably go speak to Durnan then. The drow aren't renowned for waiting for their prey to finish conversations before they attack."
It galled Shrayla to refer to herself as prey. She outranked the drow on the food chain. They were her prey. Still, it was likely that the attacking drow had no idea that they had attracted the attention of a predator with bigger teeth. She nodded to the four whose names she vaguely recognized from a book called Neverwinter Nights, and whistled to Kytos. The far door led into the tavern proper, filled with desperate people unable to return home due to the ban on the streets.
Durnan was a large, solid man with a receding hairline and a neatly trimmed beard. His brown hair was barely brushed with grey despite his age and the trials he had survived. He lacked armor, but carried a sword.
"Well met, Shrayla," the innkeeper greeted. "I trust your accommodations were adequate?"
Shrayla shrugged. "I have no complaints." She'd had a roof and blankets. There was nothing to complain about.
Durnan's expression darkened. "Tamsil tells me about your unwelcome visitor. You have my apologies; the drow never had the gall to attack inside the Yawning Portal before."
"I dealt with it fast enough. I'd just like to ask…"
Shrayla trailed off, ears swiveling toward the door to her left, the door down into the well room for which the Yawning Portal was named. She shrugged the bow off her shoulder and sighted an arrow.
"Father, I think I heard something," Tamsil whimpered.
"By all the gods, they come through the well!" Durnan shouted. It was the only warning anyone got before a fireball blasted through the door, slamming into a table and killing a patron instantly. Dark elves and deep dwarves poured up into the tavern. The patron's charred corpse dropped to the floor, still smoldering.
Shrayla ignored the shouted exchange between Durnan and the female drow that led the raiding party. She was caught in a mass hold spell, just like every other person in the tavern. Lightning struck the three adventurers closest to the door - the elven druid from before, a gnomish mage, and a human with the bearing of a warrior. They each had the time to scream before they dropped dead, bodies twitching with electrical current. Another spell by the drow, and magic darkness billowed about the room, blinding all but the drow and duergar. The hold spell expired and Shrayla closed her eyes. She let her nose and ears guide her arrows, letting them fly with accuracy that surprised her greatly.
The darkness fled and Shrayla opened her eyes, more comfortable using three of her senses to target instead of two. As she shot at the drow priestess who cast her spells from near the well room door, a duergar managed to swipe Shrayla with his axe. It was only mildly enchanted, but it was enough to harm her. She fell to her knees, bleeding from her lower back until healing magic washed over her. Shrayla nodded her thanks to Linu and got back up, finally putting an arrow through the drow priestess's throat.
The four adventurers from Neverwinter proved to be deadly efficient. Durnan and his paladin wife were no soft city dwellers either, though Tamsil took more hurting than she dished out. Eventually the drow and duergar all fell. Shrayla heaved a deep breath and looked about the room, catching a familiar scent as she did so.
"Deekin!"
Shrayla pounced on the little kobold bard, enveloping him in an almost bone-crushing embrace.
"Boss! You comes to big human city. Deekin thinks you would."
"Ah, Deek, I haven't seen you in ages. How have you been?"
"Deekin not do so bad. Book got published. Boss reads it?"
Shrayla grinned. "Read it? I bought a copy. It was better than the book I read about the plague in Neverwinter." She said the last part quietly, being fairly certain that the author of Neverwinter Nights was within earshot.
"Deekin reads that! It not got kobolds though, so it be boring. Dumb elven lady no substitute for good kobold."
It belatedly occurred to Shrayla that Durnan and the other adventurers were running down the stairs into the well room, and that she should be doing the same.
"Come on, Deekin, let's go play hero again, shall we?"
"Deekin thinks you never ask, Boss."
The metal stairway leading down into the cold, dark well room groaned under the weight of all the people scurrying down it. The chain-mesh barrier obscured Shrayla's view of the actual well, but she could smell dark elf and desperation. She leapt the last three steps and skidded on the limestone tile floor, aiming an arrow at the drow that had come up through the well. All of them were male. It explained the desperation; if they failed here they either died at the hands of the Yawning Portal's defenders, or at the hands of the vicious matrons behind the attack.
Deekin's scratchy, reedy voice lilted into the Doom Song, and Shrayla grinned fiercely as she felt the musical magic washing over her, bolstering her spirit, improving her aim, and making everyone else grimace.
Unused to archery, Shrayla's fingers bled on the bowstring. Still, she fired. Not many of the hits she scored were fatal wounds, but she could at least slow the dark elves until Durnan or Daelan cut them down, or until Deekin or Linu or Sharwyn came up with some kind of lethal magic. More drow came up the well to replace the ones that fell.
Daelan's double-headed axe seemed to swing in all directions at once, spraying gore when he hit, and splashing it when he didn't. The half-orc was horribly efficient, painting the room with drow blood until the dark elves themselves viewed his massive form with a degree of intimidation. The well room now smelled overpoweringly like blood and death .
Shrayla swallowed, her next arrow skittering embarrassingly across the floor four feet to the left of where she'd been aiming. Instinct roared in her veins. She was hungry, and she was surrounded with prey. Shrayla touched her collar, the dangling charm shaped like the holy symbol of Selune. She breathed. She raised her bow again and resumed raining arrows into the fight until finally, the last dark elf fell dead and no more appeared.
Durnan pulled a lever next to the well, causing a protective dome to rise and click into place, sealing the well shut and ensuring that nothing else came up unexpectedly. Shrayla and the adventurers gathered around, awaiting Durnan's next orders. They were effectively mercenaries now, and Durnan was employing them.
"It was a close thing, but I think we've managed to drive them back," the innkeeper breathed, his big shoulders relaxing now that the threat was gone. He pointed to Linu, Daelan, Tomi, and Sharwyn. "I'll need you four to stay here and guard the well until the…"
"Look out!" cried Sharwyn.
A misshapen lump of greyish flesh rose from the depths, bristling with too many eyestalks and one big eye in the middle set above a mouth with too many sharp teeth. A beholder. Rays of magic erupted from the eyestalks, blasting into the surprised humanoids. Shrayla and Durnan, the closest to the abomination, took the worst of it, struck down and paralyzed.
One eye to cause pain, huh? Shrayla wondered, every nerve in her body throbbing with agony. They wasn't kidding.
Linu and Daelan were also knocked down, while Sharwyn and Tomi charged the beholder with raised weapons. Sharwyn's two-bladed sword was just long enough to poke the beholder between its big eye and its mouth. A splash of black ichor, and the beholder ducked away, fleeing into the darkness below, fleeing into Undermountain.
"Follow that abomination, quickly!" Sharwyn ordered. She ran to the well, pulling the lever to open the dome. Linu and Daelan heaved themselves up off the bloody floor to follow the bard, and somehow Tomi was already on the well platform. Daelan nudged the lever with his axe to close the dome just before they descended.