Disclaimer: Wait for it...

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"She really was a dragon, wasn't she?" Sashen's shaky voice crept into Mathis's reverie. The fighter turned and saw that both Zaiid and Sashen had come to stand next to him, similar expressions of shock painted across their faces.

"I suppose so," Zaiid said, quietly resigned. "How do we explain it to the Duke?"

"You say the dragon ate her," Bregan's melodic tenor cut across the trio's shock and their attention swung to the eye catching dark elf. The drow shrugged, "Why not? It has the charm of actually being the truth. Truly, why did you think she wanted me dead without an interrogation?" He turned back to investigating and poking at the oddball artifacts, examining each one thoroughly. Some ended up dropped in a sack, others were tossed aside.

"It does sound plausible," Zaiid whispered to Mathis. "We could gut the dragon and find out for certain." Sashen gagged a little and turned pale.

"Ghil zhah folbol whol dos," D'Aerthe's dark baritone called from by the dragon's tail, cutting into the humans' train of thought. The swords-elf had shrugged out the bloody grey duster and now stood in his vest and deep blue shirt with a couple of obvious daggers sheathed on his back in addition to the newly cleaned swords on his belt. In the interim, the lean drow had poked about the treasure piles and tossed something to his partner. Bregan caught it and shook into shape a wide brimmed, plum colored hat with a rather large, fluffy, dove grey feather stuck in the band. The flamboyant drow set it on his head and tipped it rakishly to one side.

"Why am I not surprised?" Mathis muttered, shaking his head. He turned back to Sashen and Zaiid, "We'll need to take the dragon's head as proof."

Zaiid blinked at the fighter, "But it's Branwe."

"It was a fiction." Sashen sounded numb. "A figment of the imagination. An illusion."

"You believe the drow then?" the thief asked, surprised.

"I'll cast a few divination spells tomorrow and we'll see if Bregan is lying or not," Sashen's mind started to work through her shock. "If she's still in the land of the living, I'll find her. Or we'll get really lucky and she's waiting outside for us."

"Not a chance," D'Aerthe sang out from the base of a treasure pile on the other side of the dead dragon.

"Nobody invited you into this discussion," Mathis yelled back, "Unless you're thinking of helping us remove the dragon's head."

The dark swords-elf held up a glittering crescent shaped sapphire pendant to the light to examine its facets and said, "Unless you are thinking of a payment in something more... interesting, there is far too much gold and jewels around to buy us off." He dropped the pendant into a pocket inside his vest and continued, "Besides, you don't need my help. Use the small blades to remove the scales, use the sword for the main slicing and cut between the backbones when you get to them. Easy as poaching rothe." D'Aerthe turned back to poking through the gems in his immediate vicinity.

"Well, that was useful," Mathis murmured, then spoke up, "Sashen, Zaiid? If you could start prying scales off?"

The wizard, thief and fighter fell to the slow and messy task of beheading a creature with tough scales and a neck as thick around as Mathis's chest. All of them kept part of their attention on the drow, who continued to ignore the humans as they combed through the treasure chamber.

As Mathis finally got through the last bit of sinew and bone holding the dragon's head in place, Zaiid pulled out the party's portable hole and dropped it over the gory prize. Sashen looked around and noted, "The dark elves are gone."

Zaiid looked up from the flattening hole and glanced around the chamber. "Good riddance," he murmured softly, then gave a small relieved laugh, "For a minute there, I thought they were going to kill all of us to avoid leaving witnesses."

The mage shrugged, "Witnesses to what? Them not living up to the exacting standards of vileness that drow are supposed to be?"

"Right," Mathis rolled his eyes and took a deep breath. Under normal circumstances he might have come up with an irritated remark regarding Sashen's wandering trail of thought, but he just felt tired. "Sashen, could you please cast something to detect magic and see if the drow managed to make off with everything holding an enchantment? I'll start collecting coins and gems. Zaiid..."

The swarthy thief gave a wan smile, "I'll keep an eye on Sashen and keep her out of trouble." The mage had already cast spells of detection, taken one of the sunrods out of Mathis's rucksack and now wandered past the headless wyrm corpse, holding the lit wand aloft. Zaiid followed after her as she poked about the treasure piles. Mathis watched for a moment then struck up one of the few remaining sunrods and went hunting among the precious metals.

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Bregan and D'Aerthe stalked down a tunnel leading towards an Underdark portal. The magic gate would take them within a few days hard travel to Mantol-Derith. From the trading outpost, they could hire on with any of the merchant caravans coming or going and get themselves back home to Menzoberranzan.

D'Aerthe carried his duster, stiff with dried bloodstains, slung over one shoulder. He walked through the smooth, open section of cavern with a spring in his step. Bregan noted his partner's cockiness and dryly remarked, "You are aware that she wasn't really a priestess, right?"

The swords-elf grinned in the dark, "Doesn't make it any less of a good kill if I do say so myself. By the way, you never told me what happened to the human priestess, just that she was dead."

"I didn't?" the fashionable dark elf smiled. "She valiantly threw herself in front of the dragon to save me."

"You mean you tripped her," D'Aerthe corrected.

"She may have had help in her fall to the ground," Bregan remarked blandly, "Dead clergy seem to bring out your better moods anyway. What of it? I'm just glad to get out of that fracas in one piece."

"Me too." D'Aerthe continued his light step through the tunnel.

"With regards to dead priestesses, no matter their shape," Bregan smirked, "You are a terrible liar."

"You can't prove it and even if you could, you've certainly benefited from it." The dark swords-elf sounded smug.

"So I have," the flamboyant drow mused, "I wonder if that talent of yours could be turned to more subtle arts..."

"If you are thinking of one of us trying to infiltrate a noble house, again, then you are dreaming big," D'Aerthe said seriously, his good humor draining away with every word. "I've got the wrong attitude and you are far too recognizable."

"You would be the best bet to do it though." The foppish dark elf continued thinking out loud, "It would have to be a fairly ambitious house that could benefit from your lack of inhibition concerning putting any and all of Lolth's servants to your blades... Well we'll just have to knife that goblin when it gets to us."

"Sure, past all the traps and pitfalls we'll leave for it," D'Aerthe laughed. Bregan tipped his new floppy hat and the pair continued on through the unrelieved darkness.

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Hours later, Mathis, Sashen and Zaiid stepped out into light noonday drizzle. The mage took a deep breath of the damp air and sighed, "I thought we'd never get out of there."

"It is good to have something other than rock overhead," Zaiid agreed heartily and continued in a more solemn tone, "Do you think that you can try that seeking spell again, Sashen? The one you cast earlier to see where Branwe had gotten to?"

"I could," Sashen said glumly, "but I think I'll get the same blank result. She's not on this plane anymore. I don't know any spells to tell us exactly how she died. I suppose all of the earth shaking was part of some trap system of some kind."

"I didn't notice any traps," the Calishite thief commented, then shrugged, "On the other hand, it is tough to notice such things when running for one's life."

"First order of business will be to tell the temple of Helm, then," Mathis resigned himself to the sad task. He glanced over at his sister, then smiled and shook his head. After all that had happened in the past two days, Sashen had unslung her shoulder bag, removed her leather bound journal and started to try to walk and write at the same time. Zaiid noticed as well and both men walked a little faster to keep up with the distracted mage. The thief caught at her as she tripped over her first root of the march back and stole a look at the open page of the field notebook. "Are you sketching those two dark elves?" Zaiid asked, surprised. "I would have thought that you would want to put all that behind you."

Embarrassed, Sashen said quietly, "Well how we lost Branwe and the whole story ought to be written down somewhere. As for the drow... well I know I'm not really any good at drawing, but you have to admit they were a bit odd and make for a good story."

Mathis looked at the sketch in question and commented, "It'd look better if you weren't trying to walk at the same time."

"But it'll be easiest to draw while the memory is still fresh," the mage protested, "I'm going to do one of Branwe too, even though she was a bit curt with me all the time."

"If you think you are going to forget that fight and the drow in the time it will take us to get somewhere where we can camp for the night, then I'm jealous," Zaiid smirked. "You obviously didn't have a few years scared out of you."

"Did so," Sashen grumped, "You try getting caught in the dark by a dark elf sometime."

"If you two would stop?" Mathis asked. "Sashen, it looks like you've got the basic figures framed out. May I suggest holding off until we camp for the night?"

"All right," The wizard reluctantly acquiesced, "But I'm still going to write everything down."

"I'll make sure you don't find any large rabbit holes to fall into," Zaiid volunteered, smiling.

"Sure, leave me with keeping an eye out for trouble and telling the bad news to the duke and Helm's clergy," Mathis heaved a sigh. "At least most of this trip is behind us. Between drow dropping in on us and a dragon incognito among us, even a drunken bard wouldn't believe this tale."

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Ghil zhah folbol whol dos – Here is something for you.

Author's note and the full disclaimer:

Sashen, Zaiid, Mathis, Branwe and the plot line were all figments of my imagination. I hope you all enjoyed sharing them.

Neither of the dark elves were mine.

"Bregan," as I'm sure most of you guessed, was used as an alias for Jarlaxle. If the initial description of him didn't tip you off, then I really hope the hat did. If that didn't do it... oh well, I hope you enjoyed this character anyway.

I have absolutely no idea how many of you guessed that "D'Aerthe" was an alias for Zaknafein Do'Urden, but it was intended as such. Clues were his overall attitude, his blades of choice, swordsmanship and the date in the little summary. 976 DR is way too early for Entrei or the annoying drow ranger who shall not be named to show up. I wanted to give a look at the weaponmaster, pre- House Do'Urden and offer an explanation to his alluded friendship with Jarlaxle.

I hope this was fun for you all and please zap a review to let me know what you thought, even if it isn't complimentary.

Good plotting and dark caverns.