Poison Tears

by Linu

Disclaimer: All the characters from Neverwinter Nights are owned by Obsidian. Nawen of Tears is mine as well as every other character that I didn't take from the game.

Author's Note: I am not English mother tongue and I'm sure there will be mistakes. Feel free to let me know so that I can correct them, I am writing to improve my English so it will help me, really. Also, I don't know much about Faerun and drow language, just what I learned from NWN and the net, so I'll look for some documentation about it, but I'm not sure that everything is correct. Let me know and I'll adapt the text if it's possible.

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Drow Vocabulary used in this chapter:

Yathrin: priestess of Lolth

Oloth zhan tuth abil lueth ogglin: Darkness can be both, a friend or an enemy

Dhalahir: daughter

Og'elend: traitor

SSussun: Light

Daewl: Wish

D'krik'vlicss: of Tears

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Chapter One: A white spider

I watched at that dirty tavern almost dazed by the light that the yellow walls reflected. It was almost painful. I hated the surface as I hated almost anything else, but the thing that I hated the most was light. I feared it. I couldn't see anything perfectly and that made me dangerously weak. At the same time I knew that travelling on the surface was my only choice, I wasn't free to choose my way because I was an instrument. An instrument of death and pain, and a useful healer. Too many weeks passed from the last time I saw the place I called home, and still I wasn't accustomed to light. I patiently learnt everything that I needed to know about human habits, their language was starting to sound less silly to me, and I was almost starting to like the way they looked at me, their scream of pain, when their glances were too offensive for my irritably mood, but I was sure I could never tolerate light. I grabbed my robe with my hand and lifted it a bit over my feet to walk easier the few steps that separated me from the entrance of the inn.

I didn't miss my home, I didn't miss my friends, because I didn't even have any friends, in fact. Things such as love, respect and friendship didn't even exist in my vocabulary. The only important thing in drow culture is strength, survival. Then there is lust, passion and bloodlust of course. At the moment, the only important thing in my life was to complete my Test.

I was accomplishing my routine duty as an apprentice priestess of Lolth, inside the huge subterranean halls that we used as a temple. I wasn't a Yathrin yet, I was too young to have this honor. Twenty years are too few, especially for an elf, I was considered a child, a precocious, powerful child, but still a child. I approached the bloodstained altar when something happened to me. I felt myself lose conscience, but I didn't actually fall on the floor or anything else. The temple just disappeared, swallowed by a deep darkness, too deep even for my drow eyes. I felt paralyzed, just as I couldn't move a finger if I wanted. But I didn't want to. Oloth zhan tuth abil lueth ogglin, I repeated to myself, trying to calm down and analyze the situation. Darkness can be both, a friend or an enemy. This time, darkness decided to be friendly, almost. A huge white glowing spider appeared in front of me, I fell on my knees, confused and astonished by the mesmerizing beauty of that creature. I didn't have the time to say anything, when She spoke, loud and clear, her voice full of danger, cruelty and vice.

"Nawen d'krik'vlicss, my dhalahir, you are an instrument of pain an death. As an instrument you will act and travel to the surface. There you will find the Og'elend and sacrifice him to me." Thousands of questions crossed my mind, I didn't understand anything of what she said to me, but I did not dare open my mouth to speak, and I didn't need it, because she added: "You will find the answers along the way. Show me your usefulness, dhalahir, or you will regret the day you were born." in the twinkling of an eye she disappeared, and the temple returned to it's normal comforting not-so-dark darkness. Then I understood it. Perfectly. I understood the look upon my pet face when I killed him last week, why all this was happening. It was my Test of Lolth. So young, so precocious, so honored.

As I looked in front of me, I saw the high priestess staring at me, with a severe expression on her face. I gasped, bending down because of the sudden pain I felt around my navel. I tore off my tunic, regardless of the high priestess, regardless of anything else on Toril, and I saw it. A white spider on my abdomen. It was the proof that I wasn't daydreaming. I was branded forever. The High Priestess shook her head and lay down a white cloak on my back to cover my naked body, and I fainted, falling in the deepest darkness and pain.

SSussun, I thought when I opened the door with an elegant move. It sounded almost as an insult to my drow ears. With a resignation sigh I entered the main room, hoping for some rest for my tired eyes.

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She was so beautiful, when I saw her for the first time in that tavern in Waterdeep territory that I almost forgot my usual distrust, just for a moment. But I was a fugitive, and couldn't allow myself to be weak for a woman. Maybe.

I already knew something about dark elves women, about their wild beauty and their lust, and I had met some of them in the past, who proved that legends about them were true, but she was different. You could see it at first glance. Her elegance, every move carefully chosen, the cruel but deep glance in her ruby eyes. Well, let's say that wench made me really want to taste another bit of drow legendary lust. At the same time, I knew that she was dangerous, and I was sure I couldn't get too involved with her. Not that I was worried about it. A drow woman will fascinate you, take your bed, than take your heart, rip it away from your chest and eat it, if you allowed her. But I wasn't that kind of man. I was never getting tied to anyone. Never. One night could be enough for her.

I was so tired of running away, hiding and above all sleeping alone. The woods can be so cold without a wench warming up your bedroll. I was far enough from both, Neverwinter and Luskan, I had some money from a smuggler that required my skills a week ago and the right amount of ale in my stomach. I could grant myself a night in a real room with that drow viper if I wanted. And I wanted it really, really bad.

I was just thinking about how to break the ice, observing her silver hair waving as she spoke with the innkeeper, who looked really scared about her, she was a drow after all. No one in the room dared to stare at her, except me. My eyes followed her curves, lingering upon her hips and then her legs. I smirked, hypnotized by her back. Then she turned towards me, walking slowly, staring at me directly. I arched my eyebrows in surprise. Was she really looking at me? Well, that meant that I had less work to do to take her to my bed.

"Are you a ranger?" She simply asked, not showing any kind of emotion. I frowned, irritated by her self-confidence. Obviously, she was a noble one. Very powerful, very dangerous, very frustrating prey.

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm just someone one that want to be left alone." I answered, while every thought of letting her into my bed slipped away. She has that almost amused and arrogant tone in her voice, as if she was the only capable people in the world, that reminded me of that red haired wench of a sorceress with that absurd name. Qira, Qera... No, it was Qara I guess. She was a friend of that little bitch, the all-mighty Knight Captain of Crossroad Keep, hero of Neverwinter and great fool. I hated that girl almost more than I hated that Duncan kin, if possible. She almost made me respect her, for a while, until that night. Almost. Then she went with that paladin. I still could see the disappointed look on her face, when I told her that I betrayed her. She didn't see my face, seeing her with that Casavir. Not that I really cared, though. The drow's voice brought me back to reality, shaking me and banishing those amethyst eyes from my mind.

"I'll pay you. I need an escort to Neverwinter territory and the innkeeper told me that you could know the way." What? How did he know that? "He was told by one of his costumers, Arlen, I think." Oh right, the smuggler. She anticipated my question, probably I wasn't able enough to hide my surprise. Or she was very good at guessing. I helped that fool to run away from there, and that's how he was paying me back. Revealing to anyone who I was. Thanks to him now I had every hound in the Coast chasing me.

"Listen, do I look like I care? No way I'm going back to Neverwinter, not for all the gold in Toril." Was she crazy or something? Why should I risk my life and go back there? I would have been hanged on the gallows in an hour. Besides, she had a strange accent. I didn't like it. The wench probably just got out of the hole where she lived and was untamed. Her drow bloodlust would have put my precious life at risk, and I couldn't allow it.

"Let's see..." she said searching her purse "What about 600 gold now, plus half the money we tear off the corpses on the way?" Corpses... That silly little girl was really sure to leave corpses behind her trail. A lot of corpses if she was going to give me half the money she got from them. I looked down at her, she was staring right into my eyes, with some kind of feeling inside her bloody glance. Desire maybe? I don't know how, but that turned me on. Besides, after that fool told everyone about me I couldn't just sit there and wait for some ambitious traveller from Neverwinter to come and get me.

"All right. But I want more for this." If I was to risk my life, at least I was going to make it interesting.

"What do you mean?" She asked, showing for the first time some kind of emotion behind that mask of indifference she wore. Surprise, maybe? Or was she just analyzing me? "If you mean more gold I fear I can't. I need it to buy provisions and equipment along the way." She said that with a grimace. Drows always think that any non-drow craft is inferior, and probably it's true, but I still couldn't tolerate that arrogant expression on her face.

"I was talking about something else. I'm not so interested in money, when my life's at stake. I was talking about a wish." There, this was going to make it really interesting. She bent her head, sincerely confused. Now that I managed to break her mask she was mine. I could do anything with her.

"A wish..." she repeated, slowly "Daewl..." I guess that was the word in her mother tongue, she repeated it again, maybe to be sure of the meaning. I was too focused on noticing how her tongue caressed the words, desiring that tongue to... Well, but if she did accept I could have her do anything with that tongue, anything... "What do you mean exactly?" I grinned, satisfied. I knew she was going to accept now.

"It means that I can ask you to do something for me, when I want, where I want, and you'll do it. That's quite simple, I think, dark elf." A few seconds of silence, maybe she was appraising the pros and cons of the situation. I perfectly knew that if we were in the Underdark, I would have ended up sacrificed on an altar, but we were at the Roosting Griffin Inn, and she was alone. Not even a capable noble drow priestess could do it to Neverwinter alone, if she didn't know the way there.

"All right, ranger, we leave tonight." as she said that and turned away from me I noticed something odd. Her shadow was different from the others. I already had noticed that it looked darker and its movements werent perfectly synchronized with hers. But when she walked away to sit by the fire I saw that there was more than that. I didn't understand it at first, but then I suddenly saw that and it really impressed me. Her shadow was looking at me.

I wasn't enthusiastic about travelling without the sunlight, but she didn't want to lose more time in the inn, and I agreed with that. There's something that annoys me every time I'm surrounded by walls. I feel like a trapped animal, and I just can't stand it. So, if leaving so soon meant less time in the tavern, it was good for me, even if it wasn't the wisest choice. Besides, it allowed us to travel quite unnoticed. I called Karnwyr with a whistle, hearing him join us almost immediately. He was waiting outside the Roosting Griffin. I observed her walking before me, hells, she was beautiful.

"By the way, what's your name?" she asked while we were heading out of the town, with her playful arrogant voice, so irritating.

"You can call me Bishop." I grunted, and the four of us disappeared into the darkness of the woods.