It was the start of another "day" in the dark city of the Drow. Whether the sun was up did not matter to the Drow. They had no need for sunlight or the other substances the surface provided after being driven underground eons ago by their Wood and High elven counterparts. The Drow eventually adapted to their underground surroundings and turned to the spider Goddess Lolth for guidance. Lolth told the Drow to build cities, great magnificent cities in the ground, unheaded by the civilizations that thrived on the surface. Everyone had a place in Drow society with the Priestesses being the leaders. If you could fight you would be a soldier. If you could not fight you would be a mage. If you could not study sorcery you would be a laborer. And if you could not labor you would be cast out. Only those worthy to Lolth would be allowed to live in her cities.
Drow society began its cycle early and was never dormant for long as all Drow would get up to do their tasks to keep the fragile civilization alive but one Drow was up even earlier. He was a frail fellow who had no use for swords or anything of the such. Fighting was never his strong suit. He was a young mage of only 80 or so years (considerably young for Elf standards) and was hard at work in his room, bent over a piece of parchment. His desk was cluttered with all sorts of unusual tidbits and materials, a spider eye there, a vial of worm juice there. A small lantern glistened in the dark with a blue hue from a purplish flame, obviously not kindled from mere oil or cinder. The Drow brushed aside his long copper hair and adjusted his cloak to examine his work.
It was a small vial painstakingly carved out of bone instead of glass. The elf sighed. Bags were over his eyes for he barely had slept all night. Now all to do was administer the final touch. The elf briskly walked over to his cabinet. The rest of Drow society was waking up. The last thing he needed was them to discover his...project. He had to finish it.
Quickly but quietly, the elf opened the cabinet full of different mixtures of sorts. He eventually found the substance he was looking for, purple worm venom. Normally this substance was rare and expensive on the surface bu purple worms were in abundance in the underground so this poison was commonplace. It was all he needed.
Carefully unscrewing the lid. The elf took a sniff of the liquid. Yup, definitely purple worm poison. Its stark and sour smell was just a hint of how toxic the poison really was, one sip of this and your body would instantly shut down and you would die in horrible agony. The elf shuddered at the thought, for this would be the key ingredient in his potion and he would have to be very careful of how he would have to administer it. With utmost care, he slowly poured the liquid into the container. The next step would have have to be done with utmost precision or all this would be for nothing.
The elf quietly muttered an enchantment and the liquid inside the vial as well as his his right hand immediately began to glow a bright blue. He immediately clenched his hand in a fist and the liquid began to glow a dark shade of crimson and swirl violently. The elf began to sweat as his dark colored hand started to pale and turn white from how hard he was clenching his fist. The elf's eyes were completely focused on the liquid, waiting for the right moment. Now! The elf immediately unclenched his fist and collapsed onto his desk from the effort. Panting, he looked up and checked his concoction. It was bubbling softly and was now a deep shade of crimson that resembled blood. Success!
The elf slammed the cork on the vial and he could here the mixture hiss and then complete and utter silence. He had done it.
The elf then began to dislodge the loose stone in the floor of his laboratory. Carefully, he put the vial in the hole left in the stone when he heard a voice.
"Berglyn!"
The elf immediately fumbled with the stone to cover the vial as the door to his office opened.
"Berglyn! Have you been up here all night?" said a slick feminine voice. The visitor was a tall female elf with bleach white hair.
Berglyn immediately recognized the figure, "Kiala, I take it you rested well?" Berglyn struggled to hide the venom in his voice as much as he would like to punch the hell out of Kiala. Besides she was a member of the Guard and much stronger than him. Behind the jet black cloak she was wearing concealed leather armor, a longsword, and strong arms that could break him in two like a twig. All that was behind his cloak was a dagger and some swamp weed.
"What are you doing up this early?" said Kiala accusingly. She was obviously suspicious.
Berglyn reacted quickly, "What I have been doing would be far to complex for a simple foot soldier to understand." He silently swore to himself. He was doing the equivalent to poking a dragon.
"You mages are ignorant fools!" Kiala said with fury. "It is the Guard who provide you with protection from the outside world so you can stay up late and work on Lolth knows what!"
"Get out of my office before I turn you into spider dung!" Berglyn shouted.
Kiala spat at his feet before turning away and saying with one foot already out the door, "Watch your step Berglyn. Just you wait! One day you will get what's coming for you. Just you wait!" And with that she slammed the door.
Berglyn sighed as he slumped over in his stool. He truly hated her. In fact, he hated the entire Guard. Not because they were all arrogant brutes. No, for a much deeper reason. They were killers. No better than pirates or bandits. On the quietest of nights, they would sneak up to the surface and pillage nearby settlements, making slaves of those they didn't kill. Occasionally, he would hear the cries and pleas of new prisoners being tortured until they lost every once of their free will.
It was horrible and made him want to throw up just at the thought. Those brought down from the surface were truly innocent. Even if their ancestors did banish the Drow down here eons ago they had nothing do with it. "The entire surface world hardly concerns themselves with us anymore." he thought to himself. Berglyn was no fool, it was the Drow who held the grudge, not the surface dwellers. Justifying their actions was a fools game.
Berglyn wisely kept these thoughts to himself. He was living in no democracy. Anyone who defied Lolth's word would be silenced and with little explanation. Berglyn saw it all. A neighbor would disappear without a trace. A captain would die in a raid with no body to reclaim. Berglyn was always a step ahead of the fountain of lies that plagued the underground realm, using his magic to go where must couldn't go and to see what must couldn't see.
He was through with this madness. Tonight, he would brave the dangers of the underground to reach the surface and then he would begin his new life. Weeks of preparation had lead him to this point. He must make sure nothing goes wrong.
Normally, Berglyn would be working right now, creating various poisons for the Drow to use on their weapons. He was an expert alchemist and worked day and night on his creations. The times he seldom went out he would always have his wand in reach and he was seldom out for long. Wide open areas made him nervous, vulnerable. In his laboratory, he was in control. Every ingredient and spell bended to his whim and under his expert eye things would always go smoothly as long as he was present.
However, his upcoming scheme was different. His plan was extremely risky and a lot of it was dependent on the proficiency of others, not himself. That's what made him nervous. Even if everything did go to plan what would happen when he reached the surface? How would he integrate with a society that universally hated his kind? For all he knew he would be killed on the spot.
As Berglyn was thinking these things he felt a sudden tap on his shoulder. Immediately and with lightning quick speed Berglyn drew his wand on the intruder, preparing to incinerate them before they could call the authorities. To his surprise this intruder was laughing.
"Hahahahaha! What a jest! You looked like you were about to blow your own sister out of the sky!" laughed a tall female elf in a long dark cloak.
"I was," Berglyn stated as he looked up to his older sister. "Do you realize how incredibly stupid it is to attempt to sneak into a room such as this?"
"Ay, but I have snuck in rooms far more dangerous than this one," stated Bergylyn's sister as she took of her unusually large cape. Berglyn could see her more clearly now that she wasn't wearing that ridiculous cape. She was wearing a jet black set of leather armor that had all sorts of terrifying equipment on it. Her arms held several rings of sheaths wrapped around them like bangles that concealed a variety of sharp looking daggers and knives. Her belt was just as deadly and contained several foul smelling vials, probably poison, as well as a long dirty piece of cloth that seemed to be an improvised gag of some sort. Even her boots contained weapons as Berglyn could see the thin outline of a dagger's hilt just barely peeking out of one.
"Talk about dressed to kill," Berglyn thought. "So, Inra, I take it you are ready for this evening," he stated as he tried to calm his nerves after he just thought there was a squad of drow in his office a second ago.
"Oh trust me brother, I'm as eager to escape this place as you are. Do you know how high my bounty is now?" She could not have been anymore correct. Berglyn's sister was as much as a fugitive as she was an assassin. Berglyn had heard all these rumors of high ranking Drow being murdered in their sleep. Many speculated who the murderer was but Berglyn knew the truth. It was Inra. She was always willing to do anything for money, even if it meant killing someone. Berglyn hardly kept in touch. It sometimes surprised him that Inra had such a flamboyant and somewhat flirty personality when she had killed more people than he had fingers for without batting an eye.
"My God, Berglyn you look horrible! How much rest did you get?" said Inra.
"None," said Berglyn plainly. "Nevermind that, how did you get in here."
"Your girlfriend is a terrible housekeeper," stated Inra a matter of factly. "She didn't even lock the door."
"Say she is my girlfriend one more time and I will blow you out of the sky," Berglyn fumed as he pointed his wand at Inra.
"Your dead." Inra responded flatly.
Berglyn put down his wand, "I beg your pardon."
"Your dead. If you act like your usual sociopathic self to those on the surface you will be dead before you can even blink."
"They'll have a hard time trying to do so. A very hard time." retorted Berglyn.
"What folly! You think your magic makes you invincible? Why I just snuck in here not a moment ago and could have just easily stuck a dagger in your back!" said Inra with a hint of warning in her voice.
Berglyn was silent. Inra had a point. He was no archmage. He knew some magic but not enough to fend off an army of surface dwellers. Power like that required a devoted life of study and experience. He was just a minor in the world of magic. The only people he had seen that had come close to anything resembling an archmage were the Priestesses, the rulers of drow society, the speakers of Lolth. The Priestesses tapped into powerful demonic magic that made his look like a joke. Of all drow society he feared the priestesses the most for they were the eyes and ears of Lolth Herself and were just as cruel. Even a mage like he could not hold his own against a priestess and that was what truly scared him.
"Thinking?" questioned Inra.
Berglyn sighed, "Yes, I am Inra. Yes I am. I am thinking of all the ways our plan could go wrong. All the ways we could be punished."
"Well look at it this way, by preparing yourself for the worst, there's no way it could possibly go worse than you think it will be." said Inra.
Inra was never so wrong.