"Phauran?"
"Yes?"
"What is that language?"
"Draconic. It is a language of great age and power, the secret language of many of the wizards and sorcerers of this world."
The book was small, with a simple, black, hard cover, and the hallowed leaves were stained and frayed from years of toil. The sharp, harsh characters escaped Kasia, though she was literate in the common letters, a skill of which she was mightily proud. The alien script seemed to dominate every page, with only the occasional annotation in common, the language of trade and diplomacy in Faerûn.
"The words have power in themselves?"
"When invoked. It is not difficult to perform magic for some, but it is hard to become a sorcerer or a wizard, or any arcane practitioner. Here is a draconic alphabet, the most common strand; and perhaps the most relatable."
The sounds were difficult, and the range of phonetic variations was diverse, and after some minutes of struggling, Phauran called a halt.
"You can't learn it all in one day," he said with a smile. "It took me three years to become familiar with the alphabets alone."
"It would take me a decade," Kasia responded, half jokingly, half gloomily.
"As it is for most," Phauran assured her. "but under the circumstances, my education was, in a word, accelerated."
"What circumstances?"
"I can't tell you," he said simply, matter-of-factly.
There was silence. The salt air licked their faces and rustled the pages between them, and the nocturnal beauty of the moonlit coast was complete and bore Kasia to a peaceful sleep.
She and Grummin were alone, but that did not give either of them ease as they looked up and down the alleyway. It seemed more like a chasm, for the walls sloped slightly away and stretched into the sky. A constant dull red glare was visible above, the part that was not in shadow.
Feeling a need to rest their legs, they sat against opposite walls, their knees almost meeting in the middle. They had not made it far before seeing someone in the gated district. They had not expected to. They had not caught a sufficient glimpse of the person to glean more than the vague image of a humanoid, but it did not take too much imagination to guess that it was one of the fell drow, of whom they had heard terrible things both in youth and on the road. Not to mention their limited firsthand experience.
"I'm tellin' ye," voiced Grummin under his breath, "I've had about enough of this city and we've been here for about an hour!"
"We need supplies," Kasia said, choosing not to reply. "Look in your pack; see if there is anything left that is not putrid from the days."
Grummin pulled off his pack and began to rummage through and discard chunks of mouldy bread and fruit and meat. Kasia stuck her arm in up to the elbow in hers and felt something that she did not remember ever having put there.
It was hard and slightly rough to the touch. She pulled the object out by the spine and found that she had been right in thinking that it was a book.
It was the book. Phauran's.
Grummin stopped turfing objects from his deflated pack and peered at her curiously. "And what's that?" he inquired, rather sharply, as if not quite recognizing it in the nigh darkness. "I didn't know you carried a… that's never!"
"Shhhh!" Kasia exclaimed, and opened the book in something like wonder.
"Don't do that!" he hissed, looking around as if expecting demons to descend upon them for daring to open the book.
But Kasia was not listening. She had found a familiar spell. It was titled in common, clearly one of the earlier and most basic ones.
It was headed, "A Spell for Autonomous Surveillance".
They both needed sleep, and they needed some means of staying safe during their stay.
She peered at the words for a moment, spikey and exotic, with no allusion to the common speech or its runes. Then, she hesitantly formed the words. They were difficult, especially to Kasia's tired lips, and when she stopped, there was clearly nothing different.
Kasia slumped back and closed the book with a snap. Her head thudded against the wall of black stone.
"I'll take first watch," Grummin said, not without sympathy. He seemed to have realized what she had just tried to do, was perhaps unsurprised the magic had not worked.
Kasia just nodded and spoke no more words, common or otherwise.
As Narbondel's ethereal light rose from the ground once more, Kasia found herself walking the streets on her own. She had insisted on this vehemently, for she surmised, from their encounters with the grey dwarves, that dwarves in general were not well received in Menzoberranyr society.
At first, her strategy had been one of dodging from building to building so as to avoid being seen entirely, but as she did this, she came to realize that she would eventually be caught, and when that happened, she would look very suspicious. She had seen humans and the like walking the streets often enough to surmise that this was not an uncommon occurrence.
However, as a precaution, she drew an arrow, gripped handfuls of hair, and cut them roughly off. It was not pretty, but it was different, and would serve as something of a disguise.
And so Kasia walked on her cautious way, trying not to look too shifty or step too quickly.
The street was wide, and cobbled in glistening black, as seemed the norm in Menzoberranzan, and cultivated with a healthy mix of humans, dark elves, and the odd goblinoid.
This street was particularly thick with pedestrians, and it was not hard to see why. It ran the length of what seemed to be a kind of subterranean bluff. This was dotted with openings that clearly afforded a glimpse of a network of rooms and tunnels that went far deeper. Through one ground-level opening in particular the flow of non-drow seemed thick. Judging by the rambunctious dispositions of the outgoing beings, this was something like a tavern.
This place was not at all in keeping with her idea of the drow city; it was loud, the cliff was craggy and wild, and all of it was generally crude.
However, she was not about to complain: this was precisely what she had been looking for. She had been intimidated by the smooth perfection and cool indifference of the indigenous people, but this rough setting was far more familiar to her. She joined the flow of traffic into the hole in the stone wall and immediately saw a low ceiling and sporadic tables. The room seemed, bizarrely, to end in a series of staircases leading both upwards and down. Minstrels played on a small stone stage to the left, and many were standing. One group of men in particular seemed to be enjoying themselves, all on their feet and huddled around a table. Those sitting at the table appeared to be playing a gambling game of some description, deep in concentration through the tangle of limbs and bodies surrounding them. The mirth, however, seemed of a wicked nature, though Kasia thought grimly that any who would trade or linger here would have to be competitively nasty in order to survive.
As the last of the coins was flipped, the human seated farthest away from Kasia covered his face in dismay, and his counterpart, a swarthy, bow-legged person who looked like he had a streak of goblin in his lineage, leapt up in triumph and promptly drenched his face in ale.
The crowd broke up, a few descending in to fights, no doubt over bets on the outcome of the match.
The man remaining at the table, the loser, was setting a coin on its side and flicking it to make it spin, catching it, and setting it down again, all with a very gloomy expression.
Kasia saw her chance at once, and turned.
The bar equivalent was a crude setup. Three recesses were cut into the stone with large barrels set in them. All along the walls were mugs that were hung on pegs of horn or some-such. Dividing this from the room was a simple bench, low enough to cater to the racial diversity that seemed to exist in this city.
Kasia approached the bar, suddenly conscious of her tattered clothes, but brave nonetheless. A goblin with a pinched, slightly scarred face and a greyish tinge to the normally green, leathery skin traded two barely half-full beers for her four silver pieces. She turned back to the table, still unoccupied but for the disgruntled human.
She approached, detecting his gaze as it swept up and down her body. The ambient noise of this place was considerable, such that barely a word of what she or he said would be heard from more than a few feet away.
She sat down at the small round table and slid a drink to him across the broad threads of its surface. "I know a man in need of a free drink when I see one," she said with, in her opinion, admirable matter-of-factness.
He sipped wordlessly, brooding over the coin, now appearing as a faded sphere in its spin. "I lost everything," he said simply after a few more moments' silent contemplation.
"Doesn't look like it to me," Kasia replied, observing the coin in turn.
He looked up, scowling. "Are you selling, or not?" he snapped. His gaze was unsteady, indicating that this was not his first drink of the night.
"Only if you are," she replied, though sitting back and crossing her legs mischievously. She did not like where this was going, and was determined not to let it get there if she could help it, but this was important.
He looked confused.
"I just need the word on the street," she said, pretending to take a sip of her mug, and blessing the lack of transparency of whatever mysterious material it was made of.
"I would know," he said, "and I do know. Things've been happening, and not all to do with them dwarves." He nodded impressively. "But I would require the safety of my room to divulge my information."
Kasia set down her drink and stood up. "Lead the way."
The man stood, drink in hand, strode around the table, and gripped Kasia, none too gently, by the forearm, to the back of the main room and one of the thin staircases. She saw a dead end ahead, no doubt where it switched back to join with another stair case or else simply to reach the second floor alone.
When they got to the second staircase with no hint at an intersection and then passed into an upper hallway, there was another tavern, filled with more of the same type of people, crude and vulgar, goblins, humans, and mixes.
They turned left, found another staircase on the wall to their left, and took that one, this time a spiral, to the next level. The third floor was a hall lined with doors a bit more than ten feet apart. This probably joined others like it, but she couldn't tell, it was so dark. They walked to the right, and the man opened the third door on their left with a rusty key. They were rough, rectangular doors, very reminiscent of the human preference.
He let go of her and walked around to lock the door, then tore off his tunic immediately to reveal a hairy torso. A hungry, desperate look was in his eye.
Kasia paled. The room was small and simple, with a cot in one corner, a chair and a bedside table in the other, and an ungodly coating of dust. She was back where she had started, a year and a half ago, and there was nothing she could do to stop him because she needed him.
She backed off quickly. The backs of her knees met the edge of the chair and she sat down hard.
"What are you doing?" said the man angrily, stopping halfway through fumbling with his belt clasp. "Don't you back away from me; we had a deal!"
Kasia was trembling now, and only one plan occurred to her, only one possibility of salvation.
She stood up, took a piece of her shirt, and tore it away to reveal her navel and a glimpse of her flat belly. "Tell me something."
He stopped advancing, a gleam returning subtly to his eye. "Alright, we'll play your game." He thought for a moment. "A regiment of high-house commoners marched through this very street not a day ago, scaring everyone away." He stepped closer. Kasia tore away the better part of her left sleeve. "The druergar ransacked seven buildings in this district since the drow reoccupied, and butchered all within." He stepped closer and Kasia tore free another part from her abdomen, fully revealing her stomach. This seemed to incense the drunken man even more and he made to step forward again, but Kasia raised her eyebrows in what she hoped was a warning manner and, thankfully, he stopped. "A two-legged being was seen flying over the city," the man said smugly. He stepped forward, but Kasia did not tear off another piece immediately. She was thinking, hoping.
"On wings?" she asked hopefully. It was the man's turn to raise his eyebrow threateningly, placing his fist in the opposite palm.
Kasia sat down, took off her shoes, and tore away the leg of her faded trousers below the knee. "On wings; gold hair, and holding another humanoid, with dark skin, but not black." Kasia tore off the other leg below the knee.
"Tell me more about that."
"They flew over Eastmyr, this part of the city, and probably ended up in the Braeryn to the East. The authorities never saw it, I thought, because no one else made inquiries."
Kasia's mind raced. There it was. Phauran's Wings of Flying. Of course! And he had described Kharyssa well enough, for the island skin was not common on the mainland and especially not here, or so she could imagine. She had to go and tell Grummin.
She stood up, picked up her shoes and walked forward.
But the man put up a hand to stop her. "I'm not finished yet." He pushed her back into the chair, and this time, he was much closer. "Let's have another one, eh?"
"I have to go. I've done what you've wanted," Kasia stammered. She gripped the sides of the chair very tightly.
He snorted, drew a knife from its scabbard on his belt, and slammed it into the table to his left, and Kasia jumped in shock, eyes downcast. The man then roughly picked her up by her shoulders and pulled her close, an agitated expression on his grey face, which was damp from, she could only assume, the effort of restraint. "I haven't got my money's worth yet missy," he whispered in her ear. "You do what I say or I'll cut you." He was now reaching around to the back of her shirt and fingering the laces that were there. "Now let's have another one."
Kasia stumbled almost blindly into a nearby alleyway. Her hands were shaking violently, her hair a mess. She fell to her knees which splashed in some kind of drainage trough. Her breath came in gasps and tears ran down her face in streams. Before she knew what was happening she began to whimper, her face screwed up tightly and trembling. Her whole body curled up there in that alley and would not move for a time that she did not care to measure.
Grummin's hand was what roused her and brought her mind back from the whirl of memory to the bleak sight of the wall of the building opposite the cliff. She felt the scratch of the threadbare but clean clothes she now wore, looked at the hand on her shoulder, broad and rough, and started, kicking her legs out.
Grummin's expression was one of mixed astonishment and relief. "How did ye get like this, girl?" he asked in bewilderment. She was dressed in a rough tunic and pair of pants that were both too large and ill-proportioned.
"How did you get here?" she inquired in turn with an expression of detached puzzlement. She shook her head dismissively. "I know where they are."
"Who? Phauran and Kharyssa?"
She nodded and got up on her feet.
"What's gotten into ye, Kasia?" said Grummin, still slightly flabbergasted by her suddenly calm attitude.
She bent down and set her pack on the ground in a sudden flurry of activity, drew out the spellbook, flipped through and found what she was looking for: Message.
This spell she had seen and heard Phauran use, and she remembered the syllables with more confidence than the Surveillance spell.
She focused her mind to what she approximated to be east. There were many minds, a teeming multitude of consciousnesses, some open and trailing evidences of power and secrets within, some closed and docile. Some were veiled, some strange, and one was eerily, inexplicably familiar. She closed in, and found it welcoming.
It was Phauran, she was sure, though she did not know. Somehow his mind signified for his way of speaking, his mannerisms; methodical but not slow. Purposeful.
Kasia, I feared the worst, came his voice, strong but quiet. He was whispering through the intervening space, not with his mind. Kasia found the sensation very strange.
"As did I," she spoke into the darkness.
We are in the Braeryn, and have secured lodgings. Is Grummin with you? Kharyssa is here.
"Yes."
Have you gained your bearings? He asked, now sounding prompt and efficient.
"No; we are underground," Kasia replied confusedly.
Ah, of course, Phauran whispered dismissively. Do you see a great pillar in the distance, lit from within?
"I have seen it," she said as Grummin's expression turned from puzzlement to mild annoyance.
That would be slightly south of west, depending on where you are.
Kasia paused, thinking. "I heard a man say it was 'the Eastmyr'. Does that sound right?" Kasia did not question his knowledge of this cavern. Her mind was far from suspicious thoughts at this moment.
Then you might not be too far away, gods be praised, Phauran responded with some relief. I know that we are right on the border of the Eastmyr. Our Inn is in the ground. As far as we can tell, there is a drop-off of some sort beyond the guard. Perhaps a cliff?
It became clear in their continued searches that the Braeryn was the warren of Menzoberranzan, except that the mud was replaced by cold stone. Ramshackle huts were made from rags blowing in a hollow, dead wind like the last breath of the earth upon the hopeless poor. They huddled, sometimes within simple partitions, sometimes bare upon the cavern floor. Though there were stains on the ground, there were few bodies, those visibly diseased or pestilent, or simply lucky enough not to have been devoured for their flesh and hide. There were goblins, some dwarves and humans, many orcs, and even the odd drow, defeated and no longer graceful.
The train of thought lead Phauran to an image of Luskan with all its mud made stone, the many consumed or trapped in the solidified muck, not knowing what to do.
No. It was not worth thinking about.
The gate was about half a mile south of their small inn. From what they could see, there were two stair cases that switched back and forth, weaving in and out of each other along the sheer cliff face. At the top there was a rickety platform, open to the cold air. Creatures of a similar variety gathered there. Those going out presented what seemed to be a crude form of chit to a pair of guards standing at the narrow gate. It was built into a wall that stretched in both directions topped with downward- and upward-facing spikes. A portcullis hung ominously from each gate ready to be dropped. Those incoming seemed not to have to present anything, as they entered at their own risk.
"Kasia," Phauran intoned quietly, "tell Grummin to cover his face with ash, or do something else to make his skin grey."
There was a pause. What?
"Just do it," he pressed. He kept a wary eye around him. As Kharyssa was hiding, he was apparently talking to himself. He was draped in rags with a crude hood, sitting cross-legged at the corner made between two lanes between the squat shacks of rubble.
In his peripheral vision Phauran saw a bow-legged goblin with a crumpled-looking face, as though it had been beaten brutally and allowed to heal, misshapen, back to semi-functionality. It approached, eyes blinking blearily, made to walk past, and stumbled across Phauran's outstretched knee.
"Hey," it snarled in a sibilant voice that issued from a broken hole of a mouth. "Watch where you sit, stranger. I'll have you for a bleedin' snack!"
Phauran didn't move.
The goblin turned around to observe him fully. It walked cautiously forward and prodded him with an outstretched foot. Phauran still did not move.
It cast a surreptitious look around it; there seemed to be no one watching. Then it stretched out its gnarled, dirty hands.
In a flash of steel, the hands flew free and it fell back, blood spraying with every attempted breath from a trachea laid bare.
As it moved no more, more goblins and humans sprang from grey obscurity and descended upon the corpse. Phauran did not care to watch, and took care to keep his longsword hidden from plain sight. No one had noticed how the pitiful creature had died; the guards didn't even cock an eye to observe the pathetic squabbles near to Phauran.
At length Kasia and Grummin passed into the Braeryn through the mouth of the incoming gate.
"Where are you?" Kasia did not like this place at all. Beneath the lights and flames of the city of spiders, the low-lying waste was far too familiar. Looking back, she could now see that the city from which they had just escaped was built mainly of pointed stalagmite towers, grouped in triangular sections and stretching out into the distance.
Look at the corner almost straight ahead from the gate. Keep moving, or you'll aggravate the guards and the customers.
She did as she was told and walked uncertainly forward. It all looked the same.
I am clothed in grey rags and sitting beside a sizeable bugbear, came his calm voice.
"I see you," she responded, and walked in his direction.
Slow down, he cautioned. Don't move your mouth so much. Start walking down the street on your right; I'll walk with you. You'll be alright.
A set of light footsteps joined theirs as they passed by the bugbear and Kasia let the spell drop at last. Only now did she realize the pressure it had been exerting on her mind and body alike. She felt suddenly lighter herself.
"Come," Phauran urged, leading her with a gentle hand on her back. "We must turn twice more and head the way we came. We can then enter the inn and rest."
They did so eventually, past the lines of slums and bedraggled inhabitants. They came to a low-rising building at the very lip of the cliff, made haphazardly of stones with square windows and squat doors lining its façade. There also seemed to be a larger set of double doors near the middle of the structure which, Kasia surmised, led deeper into the inn, perhaps to a common room. The cement was crumbling and the windows bore no glass or transparent material of any kind, but it was shelter, and looked far more luxurious next to the impromptu tents on the other side of the sluggish, dejected traffic. Phauran slowed for just a moment, seeming to search for a particular door, and then sped up again having located it, with Grummin and Kasia in tow.
There was no keyhole or latch, just a simple handle carved out of the same strange material as they had seen back in the dungeon. Phauran opened the door to reveal a very small room indeed. The floor was stone, polished by the passing of many feet, and there was no bed; instead there was a flat mattress in the back right corner.
And in the middle of the room sat Kharyssa, sheathing a dagger and rising.
Kasia stifled a panicked gesture. Kharyssa's dark, tropical skin had momentarily put her in mind of the skin of the drow, though the eyes were brown, and the hair black. She looked awkward, but graceful as ever in her unobtrusiveness.
As soon as the door was closed Kasia turned and threw her arms around Phauran. He started for a moment, halfway through pulling off his hood, and then patted her gently on the back, eyes fixed on the wall.
When she had broken away to exchange a glance of greeting with Kharyssa, Grummin walked forward, his beard lifted in a wry smile, clapped his hand upon the elf's elbow, and growled, "Always knew you couldn't die that easily, you old rascal."
Ixpie presently crawled forth to watch the proceedings with beady eyes, though they were not her primary mechanism of sight.
"How did you remember that spell?" inquired Phauran, now looking puzzled after the short-lived merriment.
Kasia now returned to the sombre mood of the past few days. She paled as she looked at Phauran's inquisitive glance. Slowly, she unshouldered her pack, drew it open at the top, and extracted the spellbook. It looked so ordinary in its rigid black coverings, and yet it was altogether sacred. Without looking up, she held it out on a shaking hand, the other balled into a fist at her side. She could feel the nails digging in and focussed on the sting as the book was taken from her hand, slowly at first, and then wrenched away. To her surprise, she heard a snicker of surprised glee, and she looked up. Phauran took her outstretched hand and held it up in the air, as if she had just came top in a race of mind-boggling distance.
"Hah!" he exclaimed, though carefully not too loud. He let the hand fall in limp surprise and flicked through the pages. "I thought I would never see this book again, Kasia. Blessed Kasia; by the gods, you have done well."
He looked up, a gleeful fire in his eyes, but checked slightly as he looked more intently. Her eyes were bright and even as he watched her blank expression crumbled and she succumbed to tears on the spot. She stood, sobs now wracking her shoulders and chest in the ill-fitting clothes. For a moment Phauran wavered, clearly lost for words, then, hesitating no longer, he stretched out his hands to hold her head and pressed it to his own chest. She wrapped her arms gratefully around his middle and continued for many minutes in this manner. Phauran knew, or guessed, the panic and the loss in her heart, for he had been there once. Few escaped Menzoberranzan undamaged or unphased, and Kasia was no different to him. Who knew what demons had disturbed her in the darkness and shaken her soul? Some became sick for home, some felt the utter absence in the still, cold air, some realized the full measures of their past cruelties or injustices, but always innocence was lost.
"Courage, Kasia. You are with friends. Do not despair when we may yet win to the world above."
At length she quietened and seated herself against the rough back wall, playing with her hands with an indecisive air.
Grummin and Kharyssa rose from where they had been waiting, the former with a slightly unsettled look on his tough face.
He told all that had transpired from the dungeons to the Eastmyr. They told of the drow they had met.
"Phauran, they were the same as we met at the Tor, and in Poisson, and in the Lurkwood," he said earnestly. "They've been doggin' our path since we set out in the first place. Even in their own house. What more do they think we have? They already have that darned crystal ball!"
"They obviously think that we're looking for the same thing," Kharyssa said, arms folded thoughtfully. "That crystal ball is a means to an end, or why would we have lived for so long? They would not have tortured us for that amount of time, and so rigorously, even for pleasure."
"They might've done me," Phauran said. No one commented on this, for it was by common opinion true. Elves were the principal enemy of the Drow.
Neither Phauran nor Kharyssa questioned Kasia on her part while she and Grummin had been separated; she was clearly not ready. They told their tale, and Grummin shuddered most grievously when he was told of the leap from the stalactite window.
A plan of escape was now needed. After some well-earned rest, at the dawn of the next day as near as they could guess, they rose with no food. That would be Grummin's job, they decided as they discussed their options. He would venture into the common room in his disguise of ashes and order as much food as their money could buy, for they had pooled the remaining coin from Grummin and Kasias' packs to find that they had one gold piece and thirty silvers remaining.
Phauran would don his hood and cloak and roam, hunchbacked, through the slums, and Kasia and Kharyssa would set out as they were, all looking for the way out. Phauran suggested they spread out northward, as the cavern's darkness held a reassuring solidity that way, according to him. Ixpie would also set out in search, though in the air, and keeping a safe distance, in case such things were watched for in the dark city.
So they departed the inn in higher spirits than before.
"The best we could do was to narrow their location down to the Braeryn, or possibly the Eastmyr," reported Solun helplessly. "They were said to have been seen last flying over that area, or at least the elf and the half-elf, and a human was killed on the Eastmyr side, though that might have nothing to do with the escapees."
"Then focus your search in the Braeryn."
"Can you not use the crystal ball to determine their location?" asked Solun, genuinely curious.
"I already have," Chlorr'yannah replied carelessly. "It has shown me their images, nothing more. I cannot say for sure, for there are many lowly places in this city, and they are indoors. Go now, gather a group from the militia, and scour the slums. I will be waiting for the prisoners."
Solun bowed respectfully and backed out of the open door of Chlorr-yannah's study. It was large and luxurious, of course, a significant chunk of the side of the stalactite. The window became narrower as it climbed and was curved, as per the building's conical shape, and the floor was something like a wedge, with the door near the point. It was a long walk. But back he walked against his better instincts.
When he had closed the door, he turned, and Roaki stood in the hallway that stretched out to the left. Other dark elves crossed in and out of sight, but it was quiet, hushed in the morning hours.
"Roaki," Solun murmured, and the bugbear leaned closer to hear, "we need to search the Braeryn. I shall gather five men and you another five. You have my authority, such as it is. Go and find them, and take them alive, if you can."
Roaki bowed and walked away down the hallway. Solun liked Roaki. Goblinoid though his species might be, he was smart, as smart as some of the drow he had met, though not half as coherent, but still it was rare. He knew why he fought, and when to fight and when to run. The latter was far more important and subtle, of course. Ideals were nothing if one could not fight for them, even the selfless ones, and those were few in the world of drow and goblins. It would be a shame if Roaki died. He thought that he could even sympathise with how Kishtoni had felt as Lo'ol had died, thrown from the tower of Sionaas, though her reaction had been far more zealous than the occasion had warranted. Lo'ol had not been nearly as intelligent, or useful. No, he decided, he didn't feel for Kishtoni. She, like many others, was the victim of ill fortune, though the religious orthodoxy would have said that it was the manifestation of Lolth's damnation on her weak soul. Kishtoni was very brooding, too withdrawn and cowed for his tastes. Solun was obedient, but not yet pathetic. His case had never warranted much force. He knew when to obey.
He strode away from Chlorr'yannah's room. It was not wise to dwell on such things so close to the study of a priestess.
They ventured that the exit might have been found within the day were it not for certain obstacles. The lanes were erratic and seemingly had no pattern or discernable grid. Therefore one could not make even a remotely straight line from the inn to the north, and also could not forge a path through the rickety shacks without creating an almighty uproar which might either get them caught or killed and eaten. And then there was getting caught. Drow patrolled throughout the streets, plainly or not so plainly. Phauran had cautioned that some might be disguised as he was, and all were adept in stealth and the well-practiced art of killing. As they memorized their paths forward for later retracing and delved further and further into the miles of cold waste, they grew to hate the place. The unchanging surroundings of gloom weighed on their hearts so that they longed to retreat to their little room and be in the company of their companions. However they fought bravely on.
And fighting was sometimes needed. Phauran killed two more goblins who tried to mug him, and Grummin even slew a bedraggled bugbear. He had wondered idly for a moment if this had been the one who had accompanied the drow party who had chased them so many times on the surface, but decided that it was not. This one's fur had had a coppery tone beneath the dirt, and the other one was pure black.
However, after days, they had penetrated far into the north.
Kasia stopped and drew aside, into the shadow (as much as there were shadows in this place) of a nearby structure of long, pale stems. What she saw was that the fairway opened out into a clearing in the sea of poverty. She caught her breath. Where she had only been looking straight ahead of her or down to navigate the warren, she now looked up in awe. Beyond a wall that had closed before her with an open gate directly ahead, the city suddenly ended. Spreading down from an unfathomable height, the wall descended smoothly with only a few stalactites. But three hundred yards or so from the ground, the wall retreated into darkness and created an inverted mantle that stretched out of sight in both directions. The space was lined with row upon row of natural pillars and smaller stalagmites and stalactites. It was as if a beast had swallowed the city whole, and Kasia peered through its teeth. A single fault she could see. Directly in line with the gate, a crack, or a high, pointed tunnel sliced the upper jaw for roughly five hundred yards and came to rest on two lines of truly gigantic pillars. These were hung with such torches as the drow could bear, blue and shadowy but sharp. The flickering quality foreboded doom both to those leaving and entering.
When she returned that day, she reported her findings to the others. Grummin and Phauran had both wandered too far east to see what Kasia had, but Kharyssa agreed that she had seen the same thing obliquely, though she described it with less awe and in far more technical detail. It was certainly not a formation of nature, or else the cavern of the city would not still be a cavern but solid rock, and a crater to the world above. It was a bustling road, she had said, though most of the traffic did not flow into the Braeryn but rather the Eastmyr, the more prestigious place for non-Drow or servants thereof. There was brighter light there than in any other place in the city, for the benefit of humans and others not innately gifted with the trick of seeing in near darkness. That was fortunately much the safest way. With the pack and with the light, though they would soon have to split away from both once outside. The tunnels did not lead onto the surface for thousands of miles in that direction, and not without passing many dangers, as Phauran's seemingly bottomless knowledge told them. However he did not seem forthcoming with any alternative.
They did not press him, as their business was first with the gate. This was a much larger gate than the one between Braeryn and Eastmyr, for it was a city entrance, despite its unsavoury contents. Thus it would be much more attentive, informed, and heavily guarded. They would be looking for insurgents, they would be informed of any who were wanted by the houses or other major establishments, and the guards contained wizards and warriors in their ranks. The gate was also flanked by shacks, which suggested reserves and relief, perhaps underground barracks.
They could not fight, and they would not, for it would attract an unprecedented amount of attention, and that they could not afford at any point or in any amount.
Their best hope was in disguise and guile.
Kharyssa noted that Grummin's druergar disguise wore off after mere minutes. He told her that he had simply burned one of Kasia's arrows in secret and caked the ashes to his face. Kharyssa found a pair of small igneous rocks and a limestone rock. She used the two harder rocks to strike up a blaze to burn another few of Kasia's arrows, crushed them, and then requested that Grummin piss on the resulting powder. Hesitantly he did so. Then to his disgust, Kharyssa took up the mixture and spread it mercilessly across his face and other exposed places of his body. She then ground the limestone until it too was a fine powder and simply threw it on Grummin. He coughed and spluttered and did not look pleased for at least an hour of grumbling, though, they all noted, the grey tinge held and did not drip with sweat.
As per the plan they had drawn up together, several items were still needed: two horses, and a cart. Poor Kasia was sent forth to retrieve the horses in the Eastmyr. Horses could not be found in the Braeryn; they would have all been eaten.
Kharyssa and Phauran succeeded in filching a small cart from a bewildered, seedy vendor in the somewhat more habitable section near the inn and hiding it beneath an improvised shelter similar to those that abounded already.
Kasia returned by a gate much farther down where the cliff met the ground below with two horses, stallions whose names were Joseph and Schrazz. She had bought them for a fair price from a caravan of humans who had lost their riders in the wilds. Their faces had been drawn and haunted, most of all when they had spoken of those untamed caverns.
Getting the horses back to the inn was a delicate business. Kasia invoked the message spell to alert Phauran that she would need support. Two cloaked figures, one with daggers drawn and another with a sword, had flanked her thereafter all the way to the inn deterring any who might have thought of killing the horses. From there they had to work quickly, for they could not hide the horses. They brought out the cart and Kharyssa, sheathing her daggers, slithered underneath it. Grummin tied her tightly to the chassis and, with one reapplication of dust, donned a simple smock and threw his pack and axe into the cart.
Kasia cut away much of her ill-fitting clothing to make it as whorish as possible, and then was roped to the cart. Phauran removed his tattered cloak and hood to reveal himself as a simply clad drow female. She had red eyes, white hair, and a taller frame than Phauran had previously sported, though also more shapely. She leapt forward to cover Grummin's cry of shock and panic. Grummin settled after a few wide-eyed seconds in which Phauran assured him that it really was him. "Peace, Grummin. I am your friend." The voice was changed, strong and even slightly butch, but not Phauran's. He (rather, "she") was now a lesser noble for all appearances, Grummin her slave, and Kasia her prostitute, not a particularly uncommon or persecuted occurrence. Grummin eyed Phauran askance.
"I could handle piss-potion, but this?" he shook his head in apparent distaste. "Let's just get on with it."
They attached the horses to the cart and lead them through the Braeryn with all of their supplies, both packs, and all weapons in the cart. All who saw them shied away instinctively from the group lead by the Drow female, and made no attempt on their horses or the contents of their covered wagon.
Finally they came out into the open area leading up to the gates. Narbondel was reaching its dimmest, the light at the top of the pillar. The cart bumped along on the occasional ridges or drop-offs in the unplanned ground, a conspicuous noise in combination with the staccato clip-clop of Joseph and Schrazz. They soon found themselves at the simple arch flanked by the two armed guards. Each was different. The one on the left wore scale mail of black and bore a sword and a dagger on his hips, along with a hand crossbow and a bandoleer of bolts across his chest. The other had two scimitars and nothing else and mail of chains wrought of similar metal and hanging in artful tatters beneath coverings emblazoned with the symbol of a pickaxe within a humanoid head. This one stepped forward, and Phauran stared him down.
"My slave, my whore, and my various other belongings," she said with a subtle note of impatience in her voice.
The guard looked around at them decisively. Grummin and Kasia cast their eyes down, not daring to meet the drow's. Fortunately this was the effect they wanted.
"You may pass," said the guard, and retreated to his position at the right side of the arch. Phauran cast her eyes for a brief moment to observe the passing boundary. They were on the other side after what seemed like much too long a time, and none of them felt like leaping for joy or whooping.
The sporadic stream of incoming creatures with various lights and torches arched away to their left from the huge opening and into the distant Eastmyr gate. That stream moved slowly, but the outgoing was noticeably quicker, indicating either that the guards cared much less what went out or that those people wanted much more to be on their way.
They made to join that lane of traffic.
Between them and their destination was a considerable gulf of space comprised of bare rock. This was sparsely peopled with those who were stopping to regroup after passing customs or before going in, and even a few stalls selling final rations of food or other supplies. They could not buy from these, however, as they no longer had any money.
They passed this with some hesitations but without fuss.
The light was almost blinding after the darkness of the city. They had not noticed after long exposure, but they had been straining to see in the deep gloom, their pupils dilated almost to their limits, and now the torches and lamps bobbed in rows ahead and behind. It stung badly.
The pillars on either side were sentinels, watching with their cold, blue eyes.
After several long hours of marching, they saw the ceiling emerge out of the blackness above. Before long, the travelers were funnelled into a space no more than twenty feet across, past those coming in.
Through this, it was a cavern of considerable size, maybe thirty feet high at its highest point, and much wider. It held a small lake in the middle, around which people were clustered, though they did not drink of the unknown waters very often.
Passages could be seen opening onto the cavern from all directions, ten in all, not counting the one through which they had entered, and every now and then a party or even the rare lone traveler would enter through one and either stop at the lakeside or continue through the road to the city.
"Which one do we take?" Grummin asked in a hushed voice. There was a very quiet, impatient snort from beneath the cart. She was safe, for the cavern rang with the dull roar of voices.
"We have no real choice but to go farther North," Phauran said with no enthusiasm. "We must turn south eventually, but now we should simply put some miles between us and this city."
They started again, though this time Kasia was untied.
The tunnel directly opposite the one to the city was much less inhabited, so Kasia donned her quiver, Grummin retrieved his axe, and Phauran refastened her longsword. Soon they came to a cavern that was completely deserted. It was much smaller, barely twenty feet across and fifteen high. This was where, to their good fortune, they felt it was safe to let Kharyssa go free.
Off to their right, the air wavered. A low rumble sounded and then a crack opened in space, wider and wider, into a yet more viscous, shifting darkness.
The three monstrosities that leapt forth were in the likeness of crocodiles, huge crocodiles, with cruel quartets of claws on each foot, and spiked ridges that might array into wings.
Phauran turned back into a male elf in an instant and drew his sword, and Kasia fumbled to bend her bow and string it.
They positioned themselves so as to flank them almost instantly and prowled inward.
Two immediately pounced on Grummin. He growled at their onset and sprang backward. The first nipped his retreating foot and he yelled in pain, but the second caught him far more firmly on the leg.
Stoically, he kicked the first in the snout and focused on the second one. He gripped the handle of his axe low, raised it above his head, and brought it down ferociously on the demon's head. It released him as cleanly as could be expected.
Kharyssa came to swipe the same one with her daggers, but only one blow sank beneath the scales, and it was wrenched away as the creature moved.
The last drake turned to Kasia. She stepped back as the teeth gnashed before her, and then ducked and twisted when the claws swept back and forth trying to snatch or slice her.
Phauran received three parallel wounds from the claw of the second one attacking Grummin, and blood dripped from his side and arm as he staggered. He drew upon his remaining magic and a fire kindled in his hands. This flame sprayed forth and washed upon the two demons before him. The creatures wailed and shrieked, for their scales withered and smoked at the touch of the fire. Slime burst into vapour and a truly revolting smell filled the cavern.
Through all of this Kharyssa noticed, as the wing-like spines snapped open and closed on their backs, that there was a fleshy opening along these. She drew her remaining dagger, jumped upon the monster closest, and drove it through this pink line at the opportune moment. The roar was deafening as green oozed from the wound. She drew the dagger along and it cut with sickening smoothness. The creature howled as the dagger traveled down its back and thrashed violently, but Kharyssa hung on. Finally it stopped, and was dead.
The first monster reared up before Grummin, ready to use its claws, but the dwarf set his feet and, with an enormous effort, drove his axe deep into what served as the neck. He saw Phauran some ten feet away scampering atop the last one and thrusting his longsword to the hilt into the same opening as Kharyssa had used, and that demon too was dead.
The vision flew from her mind at her will, and she threw a bundle of scrolls from her desk and onto the luminous floor. She had been the one to spot the escaping surface-dwellers; a hand hanging from beneath that wagon. She was surrounded by imbeciles, male vagabonds. And now her portal drakes were dead. What was more, she had seen the imp again. It had seen her with those eyes that she should not fear. She dared not delve back into the demonic plane until she was sure it was safe, though she would have to think up another story for those who could not read her mind. In the meantime, she decided, she would have one of the male commoners, and then whip him. Yes, that would calm her. She would let the matter rest until she could address it.
They had tended their wounds, donned their packs, disconnected the cart and uncollared the horses. These they mounted and rode a bit farther North. The Underdark lay all about them and enclosed their minds, but they were together, free, and breathing. It was an almost incomprehensible thing: they had escaped the stronghold of darkness, the place of which all spoke with fear, and were now heading away. They were by no means clear of danger, but Grummin, Kasia, Kharyssa, and Phauran followed the path into the eternal night with lighter hearts and higher heads.