Skullport,

Undermountain-Underdark Border

1375 DR, Year of Risen Elfkin,

Alturiak 'The Claw of Winter'

Years had passed since Mae'rillar had been to Skullport, and he could hardly admit to missing the place. It was reviled as a well of evil by the folk of Waterdeep, the mighty surface city hundreds of feet above, and not without good cause. Skullport was full of nefarious intent; that was for certain. Its inhabitants were populated by a villainous majority, heralding from both the surface world – Faerûn – and the Underdark, but everyone in this place had more than ill-intent in common.

Everyone who lived in Skullport had something to hide, or someone to hide from – probably both. Escaped Drow slaves – Orcs and humans, mostly – who had never seen the sun, raised entirely in the Underdark cities of Menzoberranzan, Ched Nasad and the like were a common sight. With nowhere to go in the surface world they found work where they could or begged on the filthy, dimly lit streets. Theft, brawling and murder were hardly rare here, and the executions were regular affairs. The burly Orc militia, serving under a set of suspiciously ancient ruling wizards, were cruel and corrupt, and Mae'rillar knew to stay out of their way. He no longer had a House to protect him.

Among the other denizens of Skullport, wizards of dubious origins were hardly rare, setting up alchemical or divinatory establishments to prey on the needs of others…or even necromantic practises, to prey on the gullibility of those who were less fortunate than they. These were Red Wizards of Thay or Zhentarim who had made too many enemies in their infamous homelands, or possibly scholars of the more sinister arts of wizardry from the goodly realms which could not stomach such things. Magic was an integral part of Skullport, and as such the city was a natural haven for the less reputable classes of wizard. After all, this place had been founded by exiled Netherese mages. The ghostly green skulls their warding magic had left behind had also left the city with its name –as well as the good fortune to be well protected against the magical searching of any would-be pursuers of those who hid within.

Skullport stood in the lowest reaches of the complex known as Undermountain, a complex owned and controlled, with the exception of the city, by its insane creator, the archmage Halaster Greycloak, and it was with him that those centuries-dead wizards had bargained to found the city. Mae'rillar shuddered at the memory of his brief excursions into the upper parts of Undermountain. An underground labyrinth built with the express purpose of challenging adventurers who hoped to gain fame and wealth from surviving its many tests and fearsome, monstrous guardians, it was inherently a place for bad memories. He had survived, of course, but then again he had also been born into a dangerously ambitious lower house of Menzoberranzan and brought up under the vicious and singularly heartless society of the Drow.

Luckily, flitting through its narrow witchlight-lit streets with silent purpose, Mae'rillar did not need Skullport to be a place of goodness, nor did he need to it to be welcoming. All he needed was to meet his contact, and maybe a bed for the night and some longed for Drow wine. He had already witnessed a handful of his own kind on his path through Skullport, but each of them had been alone and without any house insignias. They were clearly renegades like him, and they averted their eyes from his and slipped away into the shadows when he saw them. Such lost souls, cruel and untrustworthy as he had to assume that they were, could not be expected foes, as bad as the memories they triggered inevitably were.

Nearing his destination, Mae'rillar had been forced to cross through the vast market square close to the docks. By the time he left the press of the streets, as the bells tolled that it was the beginning of the third quarter of a Skullport day, he realised he had likely witnessed almost every race common to Faerûn and just as many of the Underdark.

Gnolls sold stinking, lice-infested animal skins on the roadside, necromancers ferried carts of dead bodies over the cobbles, Orcs brawled outside taverns or tried to sell wares in the markets while Underdark-paled humans, ragged Gnomes and Halflings begged for food or flitted through the crowds, lifting purses and disappearing into the gloom. Sprites, faeries, even imps and mephits, whizzed in the still, cool air above the heads of those travelling the streets, stealing out of cruel enjoyment or hurrying past on errands for their masters. At one point, not far from the establishment he sought, Mae'rillar had even espied a red-robed wizard leading a Pit Fiend onto a heavily warded barge, probably bound for some distant holdfast of malignant power. An ogre-sized devil wreathed in flame and chained with fearsomely strong magic, it had turned his thoughts back to certain unwanted, wrathful memories, of an eon of cold and constant fear. Cania, the Eighth – you will never forget.

At last the seasoned Drow warrior had reached his goal, tired of the stink and bustle of the city, and pushed through a heavy, groaning wooden door into a Goddess-blessedly dark tavern hall. The bartender, an impressively-tusked burly half-Orc, gave a grunt his way and gestured brusquely to an empty table. Ignoring the unfriendly glares of a trio of drunken Duergar by the bar, Mae'rillar ducked into his allocated seat and sat back, his arms resting with deceptive relaxation along the arms of his chair. Just a flick of his wrists and his longswords would be in his hands.

While the bartender ambled towards him, the Drow warrior surveyed the scene; five large, porcine-faced Orcs hunched around a table across the room playing a game of dice…and gods knew what the stakes might be. The Duergar were still staring at him, and he smirked at them. They were armed with poorly forged weaponry and even worse chainmail, not to mention the fog of strong drink, and were no threat to him – even if they did not realise it yet. He could hardly blame them for their hatred, even if he had no pity left in his heart for them; they were probably escaped Drow slaves. His Dark Elf kindred had a particular shared hatred with Duergar, the Grey Dwarves, and he represented uncountable horrors for them, Drow as he was.

A group of Halflings and Deep Gnomes, almost certainly a part of the city's extensive Thieves' Guild, sat around a number of other tables, drinking and eating prodigiously. Though they looked harmless enough, he knew to watch his purse and his backpack. And he did not doubt their meeting was one for scheming, not just for gorging themselves.

He had already observed as he stepped into his chair that a hooded creature sat in the corner nearby, enveloped in a deep-hooded velvet cloak, and the flicker of purplish tentacles from within that cowl told him all he needed to know; that patron was an Illithid, a 'Mind-Flayer', and he knew well to be on his guard. Such monsters were often egotistical and intellectually vain, as well as cruel and calculating…but their self-confidence was oft well placed. He would need to be careful once his contact arrived. He hoped she would be as glad to see him as he would be to see her. He had missed her ready laugh and dark, knowing eyes.

Placing his order for a bed to stay just one night, as well as for the best soup the inn provided and a glass of that Drow wine he had not tasted in too long, Mae'rillar's gaze shifted to the old, barred up door that stood so out of place at the foot of the stairs. He remembered all too well what lay that way, though in those years passed when he had been to the yard beyond the door he had known nothing of this inn. Sighing, he let his thoughts drift back to another time he had needed to spend a day and night in Skullport.

Skullport

Undermountain-Underdark Border

1362 DR, Year of the Helm,

Eleasis 'Highsun'

Matron Kilath had always liked to remind the young Mae'rillar that Skullport was to the Underdark what Sigil was to the Planescape; a place to link all others, and a hub of information. It did not need to be pleasant or even particularly bearable; as all things must for the Drow it would serve. Still, this latest mission to Skullport had an air of mystery that was particularly distasteful. Whenever Mae'rillar had been sent by his mother to this place in the past it had always been under the leadership of one of his sisters.

Now, Kirthel waited at a camp hidden in a narrow passageway just across the water from the city and he had been sent as leader of a mistrustful group of other male Drow. Ordinarily he would have been more than relieved to be free of his youngest sister's penchant for ready brutality, but could not understand his mother's thinking. He could not help but suspect that there was something awry. Ordinarily there was only one reason why Matron Kilath would send him in the stead of his sister, and that was because he was male and in the eyes of a Lolth-worshipping priestess such as his mother he was far more expendable than one of his devout sisters.

With the perpetual blue radiance of the witchlights along the streets burning his eyes and a group of hooded, cloaked and armoured Drow soldiers at his back, Mae'rillar was decidedly uneasy, especially here in Skullport. Give him the darkness of his homeland, the Underdark, and its endlessly twisting tunnels, and he would have – ironically, perhaps – felt far safer. It did not help that Matron Kilath's orders had been simultaneously painfully specific and pointedly vague. He was to meet a certain man in an abandoned yard by the docks when the bells tolled the third quarter of a Skullport day. She had told him little else, except that he was to hand over a heavy purse of gems and gold for…an item.

It irked the young Drow warrior that his mother had failed to inform him of what it was he would be collecting, but her expression had been typically hard when she had recognised his curiosity. With the threat of that snake-headed whip she carried ever by her side, he had been forced simply to bow his head and do as commanded. It irked him even more that his younger sister Kirthel, waiting at camp across the water, had given him a particularly gloating look as she had sent him off. He longed to see that self-satisfied smirk wiped from her pinched face.

"Here," the Orc guide grunted as the group of cloaked Drow rounded a corner to face a large iron door set in a mouldy mud-and-brick wall. The rancid porcine creature reached out a grey, tough-skinned hand and Mae'rillar pressed a few coppers into its hairy palm, careful that his own leather clad digits did not come into contact with its lice-ridden skin.

The Drow warrior was already moving for the door when he heard his comrades sniggering. He turned in time to see one of the younger males threatening the Orc with the glimmering blade of his longsword. Mae'rillar shot him a hard look, gesturing for the door as his comrade loosed in his grip on the guide, allowing him to dart away into the labyrinthine backstreets.

"A waste of copper, if you ask me," the reckless soldier complained, using the silent signing language of the Drow, a method of communication based around complex hand signals and facial expressions devised especially for such clandestine manoeuvers, "Better to cut its throat and be done with it. The slave was impudent to demand payment from Drow."

"He is no slave here," Mae'rillar reminded, setting his expression as he signed to best show his irritation, "His absence may have been missed. We come here cloaked and hooded for a reason."

"All the better to deal with it properly. None would have known it was a group of Drow who passed this way…"

"No. Your actions would betray your nature. Our 'disguise' merely buys us time to acquire what we need and return to camp."

"…Commander," the soldier acquiesced, nodding his head in a show of deference, but his pause and the murderous look in his red eyes showed a different mind-set. It suggested that Mae'rillar watch his back…as if he had not been doing so already.

For his part, the senior Drow just sneered and pointedly turned about, checking the door before him for traps before stepping through. Mae'rillar had bested every one of those who followed him a hundred times or more in training, and they knew better than to turn on him over an Orc. He may have been Matron Kilath's child, but he was also a male, and as such no amount of good standing would ever come to him automatically. He had earned his place here.

Still, he could fairly sense the silent scheming signals going on behind his back as they followed him into a foul-smelling yard full of barrels of rotting fish and surface-world vegetables. Across the ground a boat bobbed gently as if just moored in the narrow channel of water which had once no doubt been used to supply the shop whose back door now stood rusted shut.

"You come on behalf of Matron Kilath," a deep, flat voice intoned, and as one the group of Drow bristled, unsheathing swords and cocking miniature crossbows all in eerie silence unique to their stealthy race.

His own twin longswords already firmly in his hands, Mae'rillar looked about himself anxiously for a moment before his eyes settled upon the cloak-shrouded figure standing by the barrels a few strides away from the boat. He had to admit that it unsettled him to be taken so unawares; the yard was dark without any of those wretched witchlights, and it had only taken his eyes a second or two to adjust. Infravision was the favoured sight of the darkness-dwelling Drow; he should have been able to see his addressor immediately.

"We do," Mae'rillar replied at last, sheathing his blades and approaching cautiously until the cloaked figure before him held out one gloved hand. The gesture irritated him, and he pulled up short, glaring at the dark void within the unknown creature's hood, "You will receive no payment until I see what it is that I am to take in return," he denied, and when the figure before him shifted in response, he caught the briefest glimpse of a pair of leathery wings beneath the black cloak.

"This is the item your Matron requires," the creature told him, still as toneless as before, unconcernedly handing over a small golden medallion.

The bauble settled heavily in Mae'rillar's palm, fizzing with some unknown enchantment and stamped with an obscure ruby-dusted symbol. Staring at it, with his other hand closing around the bag of gold at his belt, it crossed Mae'rillar's mind that he could simply escape with the treasure and the medallion. His mother would never need to know that he had failed to pay the creature before him. A glance back around at his companions would have told him that they were thinking similar thoughts…but this winged figure before him was clearly no ordinary man. Mae'rillar had sensed strong magic at work since first he stepped into this reeking, boarded up yard.

With a sigh, the Drow warrior unhooked the gem bag from his belt and extended it towards the creature. Unexpectedly, the winged figure's hand closed around his wrist instead of the bag, lightning fast and strong as a vice, and a long, serrated knife materialised in his other hand. Cursing, Mae'rillar attempted to pull back, fumbling with the medallion in an attempt to unsheathe his sword, only to realise that the enchanted trinket would not budge from his palm no matter how hard he shook it. In these precious moments he head the whizz of miniature crossbow bolts and saw them bounce back from his attacker as if from a stone wall. He heard the soft ring of steel behind him, but no one moved to his aid.

"What is this treachery?" he demanded, not sure if he was speaking to his comrades or his aggressor, giving himself a moment to stall the creature so that he might right himself and lash out with a fist or boot. But his amber eyes were met with darkness, and in that void there dwelled some unknown magic which drifted into his sight and held him frozen, powerless as the figure pushed back Mae'rillar's sleeve.

"It is not gold that I require, but something of the flesh. I bear you no ill will, Mae'rillar Kilath, and you may thank me in time."

That hardly seemed likely as the serrated blade cut into his ebon-skinned forearm and he was powerless even to scream as he watched the creature before him pull free a chunk of his skin, blood welling up in a hot rush while his 'allies' turned and fled behind him. At that moment of betrayal his attacker dipped his head, breaking the spell of physical control, and Mae'rillar at last cried out, automatically reaching for the long, curved handle of the knife in the creature's hand even with the medallion still clinging to his own palm.

As soon as his fingertips touched the bone hilt, there followed a crackling burst of magic and the ground shifted beneath Mae'rillar's feet, throwing him momentarily into a dark vortex. A moment later he landed in a crouch, panting and light-headed, at last shaking free the maliciously enchanted medallion into a pouch on his belt and unsheathing his blade. Turning all about himself he saw that he had somehow been translated through space, the witchlights along the walls of the ramshackle houses ahead and the jagged rock roof far above him proving that he was at least yet in Skullport. He stood in a simple narrow backalley, deserted but for a single rotting rat, the uneven stone ground piled high with stinking rubbish.

Breathing deeply despite the foul smell, Mae'rillar dared a look at his injured arm. It blazed with pain, his blood flowing freely over his skin and pooling into his glove. Hissing half in pain and half in rage, he sheathed his blade and paused a moment to bind the ugly wound. He was just tying the last knot in his bandage and considering the swiftest way back to camp when he heard the ring of steel just out of sight.

In the months to come, Mae'rillar would never understand why he followed those sounds of battle. Perhaps he was already on edge after the strange, disorientating confrontation by the docks and needed a way to vent his rage, or perhaps he just wanted to imagine the look of outrage on Kirthel's face if she were to learn that he did not come scurrying straight back to camp. Either way, he turned the corner of the street and laid amber-eyed sight upon two particularly hulking half-Orc brutes artlessly bringing their identical war-axes to bear against a pair of lightly clad Drow priestesses. It looked like the brutes had taken them by surprise, waylaying some kind of trading cart which lay torn from its wheels nearby. Whatever creatures had been pulling the vehicle were already fled, and the scuffle had caused a group of passing human youths to stop and stare at the far end of the alleyway where it joined with a loud, bustling thoroughfare.

It took Mae'rillar only a few moments to take in what was wrong with this scene. The Orcs were clad in Drow piwafwi cloaks and expensive, matching armour, which meant some Dark Elf faction had sent them on this mission. This in itself was not unusual, but sending a pair of half-Orc slaves against two Drow priestesses was not only insulting – perhaps the intention – but also rather foolhardy. Naturally, Drow trained themselves more thoroughly than they did their slaves.

To add to the confusion of the scene, the priestesses were not adorned in the garb of any House Mae'rillar knew – and he was schooled in the law of all of the noble Houses of Menzoberranzan and Ched Nasad. Nor did they bear the symbols of Lolth, but instead the insignia of a different deity altogether, one whose silver horn and crescent moon they wore around their necks and stamped upon their shields. Both wore bows strapped to their backs, along with a quiver of arrows, after the fashion of the surface world hunters, and their garb was silver-threaded grey cloth and shimmering chainmail. With such attire, their long white hair pulled back into simple, practical tails, they were almost as uniform as the half-Orcs they faced.

Most strikingly of all, Mae'rillar saw that there crouched a rag-clad human boy beneath the upturned cart, cowering away from the fight behind the protective stances of the two priestesses. His large brown eyes were swimming with tears when he saw Mae'rillar step into the alley, meeting the warrior's gaze with a look of fear that was instantly chased away by innocent hope. The Drow male was momentarily at a loss. He had never seen Drow priestesses protect any child like that, and certainly never would have imagined a human boy might be given such favour.

In spite of the pity that welled in his heart unexpectedly to see the hope and the fear warring on that little boy's face, Mae'rillar never had to find out if his capacity for heroism stretched to such a situation, for one of the half-Orcs had seen him and the twin longswords he grasped. In truth, his left arm was all but useless even with its bandage, and it throbbed hotly with unhappily distracting pain, but he hefted his blades in warning, matching the creature's glare as it shoved away the priestess it faced and made for him. He met the half-Orc's clumsy swing with a well-timed dodge, scoring a long cut along his attacker's calf as he span around to face the half-Orc again. The priestess had clearly – and expectedly – weighed her allegiances and her priorities and turned to help her compatriot, barely giving Mae'rillar a second glance. He might have sighed at that, had he not been distracted by the large, armoured half-Orc rushing him with another broad swing of his waraxe.

Again Mae'rillar skipped out of reach, this time drawing a thin line of blood and a wrathful bellow from his foe. Not so porcine or bristle-covered as a full-blooded Orc, the brute was still remarkable ugly with an unhealthy grey tinge to his skin and numerous scars over his deeply lined cheeks, not to mention the two small tusks jutting from his prognathic lower jaw, distorting his mouth. His heavy brows hung over tiny black eyes, and his head looked to be balding and covered in sores. He was definitely a slave to some Drow House somewhere…but which house?

In the end it was the fall of the half-Orc's comrade that provided the split-second distraction Mae'rillar needed to run his enemy through. The Drow warrior was tired, pained and still more than a little confused and disorientated. As the slave fell choking on prodigious bouts of blood, he spared a moment to regret that he had not made a cleaner kill. But a moment was all he had, for in the next he felt the cool sting of a tiny Drow dagger at his throat, and non-too-gentle hands pushing him behind the cart, out of sight of the onlookers who had already begun to disperse with the end of the fight.

"Who are you? Where do you come from?" the priestess with her dagger at his throat demanded, her red eyes narrowed distrustfully, gleaming against her ebon skin in the half-light.

"I could ask you the same thing."

"We have your life in our hands, impudent m-," the priestess began, only to have her outburst quelled by a hard look from the other, calmer female. Mae'rillar made a point of meeting her eyes instead, raising his hands with their palms outwards in a gesture of peace.

"I just saved your lives, against my better judgement," he pointed out, "And the child's."

Hearing himself mentioned, the boy darted out from under the cart and wrapped his arms around the less aggressive of the two priestesses, who placed a protective hand on his shoulder and gave Mae'rillar a distrustful stare.

"You bring up a fair point," she noted, her voice soft and yet somehow still ringing with threat in a way only the Drow language could convey, "Why would you help us? How do I know you were not here to win us over before finishing the expendable slaves' job?"

"You cannot know that," Mae'rillar could not keep the frustration from his tone, and the priestess with her dagger at his throat gave the blade a little push, making him hiss in pain, "But I think I have proven to you that a simple dagger to my neck would not be the end of me – and no matter what you fear...I did just save you and your ward."

Doubt flickered across the calmer priestess's angular face, but she waved her comrade back, stepping out of reach as well with the boy still clinging to her leg.

"You speak truly," she admitted at last, her eyes falling to the two dead half-Orcs for a moment before looking back to Mae'rillar, "You will come with us. Our mistress can decide your fate."

The determination in her eyes showed to Mae'rillar that the struggle to escape would probably be one he could not win, especially not with an injured arm. He would have to hope that he could escape later, or broker his release. Perhaps he would be held to ransom for his House to buy him back…and he truly wondered what Matron Kilath would pay for his return. No matter the outcome, it pleased him that he would definitely be keeping Kirthel waiting all the same.

Skullport,

Undermountain-Underdark Border

1375 DR, Year of Risen Elfkin,

Alturiak 'The Claw of Winter'

Mae'rillar had begun to doubt whether or not his 'contact' would appear at all; his wine was drunk and his food all but gone when he heard the creak of the door behind him and the tell-tale scrape of boots over the smooth stone floor. He did not turn to face the newcomer, but saw the momentary look of surprise on the barkeeper's face.

A smile tugged at the corners of Mae'rillar's mouth, threatening to break his pretence of obliviousness. It was fun to play these games with old friends, but it was also a precaution – should those Duergar take it into their heads to follow him out of the inn in the morning, or that Illithid behind him prove to be some kind of spy for the one he sought, a feigned lack of interest might just save his old friend's life. For the purposes of the evening, she was his 'contact', but in truth she was a dear friend of years passed.

"Playing hard to get as always, are we?" the voice that mocked him in the Common Tongue was unmistakably carrying the accent of a noble-born surface-world human, and as Mae'rillar looked up in deliberate nonchalance his view was temporarily obscured by the large backpack that thumped onto the table between them.

"It makes the time pass swifter while I wait for you," the Drow warrior pushed aside the bag as the woman before him sat down with a graceful twist into the chair opposite. He tried not to catch his breath too obviously at the sight of her – not for his own sake, because she knew what effect she had on observers to her beauty, but again for her sake, "You always were late, Sharwyn." A quick glance across the room showed that the Duergar were, by the Maiden, looking very interested.

"It ensures I need not pass any time in waiting for you," she retaliated, arching a delicate, expressive eyebrow at him as his eyes settled upon her again.

She was dressed for the road, with a practical leather jerkin over finer cloth, and her dark cloak was worn with use. Still, even beneath all that plain attire he knew she hated, she carried herself like a woman who intended to use how people stared at her. Woe to those who mistook her, however, for she knew well how to use that longsword on her hip.

"You have come a long distance, I see," Mae'rillar noted softly, nodding to her state of dress, and the woman shrugged, a movement that allowed her long, lustrous brown hair to settle fluidly over her shoulder, catching the light just so. He grinned at her for her lack of subtlety and she had the grace to look a little bashful.

"No further than you, I don't doubt," Sharwyn shrugged again, more naturally this time, pulling free her simple little hand-harp and placing it flat on the table between them, holding his gaze with her own dark eyes as she strummed a simple little tune as if absent-mindedly toying with the instrument. In fact, her action brought Mae'rillar much relief, for he sensed the shimmer of magic in the air around them and knew she had summoned some kind of magical enchantment to distract those in the room with them from their real conversation.

"I assume we may discuss our….mutual summons…frankly now?"

"Of course," she gave him her most honest smile, shapely lips curving and lighting up her lovely eyes. If only it could have been us, old friend. She reached across the table then, placing one long-fingered hand upon his gloved one and squeezing gently, "I had a letter from Nathyrra as well, that's why I agreed to meet you here. Do you think it's for real? Has our lady really been attacked so brazenly?"

"It seems unlikely," Mae'rillar admitted, "But I fear at least something of what we have been told is true. Nathyrra would not pull us from our lives now if it were not for a good cause."

"You fear Meph-" Sharwyn paused, catching her words just in time, "That he has found a way to seek vengeance?"

"Possibly," Mae'rillar sighed, pulling his hand free and leaning back in his chair. If it were not for the message Nathyrra had sent, dragging him from northern climes in fear for the lost love of his life, he suspected he would have been gladder to see Sharwyn, "Where the Seer is concerned, you know I have a certain…lack of clarity. We must discover the truth, and soon."

"We should start by finding Nathyrra," Sharwyn nodded, a little too quickly, and when she caught Mae'rillar's expression she stopped and looked away guiltily. The unspoken question between them would have to wait.

"Nathyrra can look after herself…for now," the Drow corrected, perhaps a little too sharply, "We must head for the Promenade of the Dark Maiden and ascertain the truth. I suspect the Seer does not lie on her deathbed there, no matter what we have been told. One thing you must remember about the Underdark is that the layers of truth and lies are always intertwined. No truth is spoken without falsehood, Sharwyn. We must untangle it."

One thing was for certain: his Seer would never have been ambushed unawares by unknown attackers. But she might have let it happen, the fear of the truth gnawed at him, with the right motivations.