The Academy
It is the propagation of the lies that bind drow society together, the ultimate perpetration of falsehoods repeated so many times that they ring true against any contrary evidence. The lessons young drow are taught of truth and justice are so blatantly refuted by everyday life I wicked Menzoberranzan that it is hard to understand how any could believe them. Still they do.
Even now, decades removed, the thought of the place frightens me,
Not for any physical pain or the ever-present sense of possible death- I have trod down many roads equally dangerous in that way. The Academy of Menzoberranzan frightens me when I think of the survivors, the graduates, existing-reveling-within the evil fabrications That shape their world.
They believe that anything is acceptable if you can get
Away with it, that self-gratification is the most important aspect of existence, and that power comes only to she or he who is strong enough and cunning enough to snatch it from the failing hands of
Those who no longer deserve it. Compassion has no place in Menzoberranzan, and yet it is compassion, not fear, that brings harmony to most races. It is harmony, working toward shared goals, that precedes greatness.
Lies engulf the drow in fear and mistrust, refute friendship at the tip of a Lolth-blessed sword The gatred and ambition fostered by these amoral tenets are the doom of my people, a weakness that they perceive as strength. The result is a paralyzing, paranoid existence that he drow call the edge of readiness.
I do not know how I survived the academy, how I discovered the falsegoods early enough to use them in contrast, and thus strengthen, those ideals I most cherish.
It was Zaknafein, I must believe, my teacher. Through the experiences of Zak's long years, which embittered him and cost him so much, I came to hear the screams: the screams of rage from the leaders of drow society, the high priestess of the spider queen, echoing down the paths of my mind, ever to hold place within my mind, the screams of dying children.
-- Drizzt Do'Urden