"Drustan agreed to leave for Silverymoon?" Sabal said impatiently, studying their halfling.
"This whole take-on-Holt-directly plan doesn't give him much choice," Linnan said with a shrug. "But yeah, he was packing when I left."
Sabal nodded. She had to hope that between Drustan and Niall, Alustriel would have enough evidence to cover their back. She didn't expect that the authorities in Waterdeep would be understanding, of course, no more than Matrons would be pleased with a disruption of this size in the power structure of their city. "Let's go," she said firmly.
"Are we certain this is wise?" Nendir asked even as he followed their scarred drowess down into the smugglers' tunnel.
"Nope," Storunn said, shouldering his axe. "But we're doin' it anyway, lad."
They descended into the dark, their way lit only by the grainy graveyard glow of Aly's magelight. Sabal was in the front to protect her eyes and give any attacker second thoughts while the mage followed along just behind her. Storunn was bringing up the rear. It was a passage about ten feet wide, though it narrowed in places. "I'm not detecting any undead," Camran said. "I think the rumors may have been just that: rumors."
"That passage connects with the Undermountain's depths," Sabal said, nodding her head to a fissure that lead down and to the left at a sharp angle. "I can smell cavern breezes."
"Holt's mansion will be in the Castle Ward. We've got a ways to go," Alystin said softly. "Gaining entrance to it may not be easy."
"Between you and Linnan, I think we'll manage," Nendir said with confidence. Now that they were actually committed and going, he felt a little bit of certainty coming back. Camran was feeling the same way.
It was probably for the best that neither one of them could see Sabal's expression, as the drowess was not convinced of their success in the slightest. This would not be a simple battle like those they'd had against bandits on the road. Holt would have magic at his disposal, powerful magic. Add to that the assistance of devils and his own fiendish boons, and it became clear that Holt was a formidable foe. She had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, but there was nothing to be done except soldier on. In her heart of hearts, Sabal knew that Holt would be waiting for them. An attack on Aly wasn't something that they could have ignored, even if she hadn't been the wilder's lover. That waiting meant that they were undoubtedly walking into an overwhelming force or at the very least an ambush. There were few things in the world worse than a prepared cultist.
The group was surprisingly quiet as they approached the Castle Ward. Above, it was night. Sabal had made certain they were moving when it was dark out, even if they were going underground. Warren-like passages led off on either side of them as they walked. Sabal navigated just as though it was the Underdark, though she was relying on Alystin's lodestone. The wizard had enchanted a smooth stone to point towards the mansion. Sabal let it dangle from a leather cord, following the turning of the rock. Nothing hindered them in their way, something that worried Sabal more than a little. It felt too easy. When things felt too easy, it was generally a sign that something unpleasant was to follow.
They emerged in the cellar of an inn and crept out through the door to the street, just a few blocks away from the mansion. The group hugged the shadows closely, hopefully evading the eyes of Holt's spies. "Is it warded?" Sabal asked as they approached Holt's expansive home.
"No," Alystin said, tension audible in her voice. "That worries me."
"He's expecting us," Linnan said quietly.
Sabal turned around to look at her group. "I cannot vouch for the safety of anyone going beyond this point. The odds are not in our favor here and now."
"We're coming," Nendir said firmly. "You aren't going this alone." He wasn't certain, but he could have sworn he saw the faintest flicker of relief on Sabal's face. Aly relaxed slightly, clearly appreciating their presence. Behind him, Camran and Linnan nodded their agreement.
Storunn just looked grim. "Expectin' us? Well, let's not keep the bastard waitin'," he said gruffly.
"Thank you," Alystin said with a grateful smile. She turned to her lover. "Let's go."
Sabal nodded and lead the way through the open gate. Holt's mansion was surrounded by a low wall that enclosed a stone courtyard. The house was dark except for the main hall and quiet, even the servants probably asleep…provided Holt kept any. The inquisitor felt that strange calm descend on her, the one that was always a prelude to battle. The front door wasn't even locked when she tried the handle. She took a deep breath and then pushed it open, revealing the interior of the house. It was lit only by a fire in the great fireplace at the far end of the hall, flickering flames casting strange shadows on the walls. As soon as all of them had stepped in, the door closed behind them with a muted click of a lock engaging.
Alystin threw up a barrier reflexively, sensing the spell before she was even aware of it consciously. The blast of fire was mostly absorbed by the shield, but the flare of light stung their eyes—particularly Sabal's—and the force knocked Linnan and Camran off their feet. The others managed to keep their balance, but just barely.
"Welcome to my humble home," a sonorous, baritone voice said. Holt detached from the shadows near the mantle gracefully as other figures stepped out of the two side halls. He was a dark haired, patrician man with hawkish features and intense dark eyes.
One of them was a limping figure recognizable even in the dim light: Elénaril. There was something hideously marred about his face that hadn't been there before, black veins of corruption creeping up from his neck. His right arm was twisted up and withered slightly like a claw, matching his limp on that side. The eyes of the group except for Aly and Sabal's went wide. "What happened to you?" Camran blurted out despite himself.
"Your friend, priest," Elénaril said, pointing at Alystin with his good hand. "I knew you were dangerous, Alystin, but Abyssal magics? You're so much darker than I ever thought. Congratulations on fooling me. It's a much more difficult task than fooling your little friends."
"Aly wouldn't—" Camran started to say.
"How well do you really know your friends here?" Holt said casually. He slammed the end of his staff against the floor, releasing a powerful pulse of magic. The ring of disguise on Alystin's finger exploded in response, prompting a cry of pain from their wizard as her real form was revealed. She clutched at her hand, flesh scorched where the ring's magic had been overloaded. "An inquisitor of Lloth, a disciple of a demon lord. Why else would drow come to the surface but to do harm in the service of the Abyss?"
Sabal's temper flared the moment she heard a noise of pain from her lover and she lashed out viciously at Holt, that banshee scream of psionics tearing the air. It wasn't her full force—she was holding back, waiting for the fiends to appear. She could smell the brimstone now.
Holt staggered back at the impact against his powerful will, then chuckled and straightened up. "I felt that. Congratulations, Inquisitor A'Daragon. You've done what few can do—a shot across my bows. I took the liberty of augmenting my will when Moloch told me what I would be facing." He gestured powerfully, conjuring up two barbed devils. "Kill the drow. Leave the others. Somehow, I think their convictions are…wavering."
Alystin hurled a bolt of lightning at the one of the creatures, earning a screech of rage from it. Storunn lunged forward, interposing himself between Aly and the devils as the fiends hurled itself at the wizard. "Got yer back!" he roared. He didn't believe the worst of his companions and he had already known Aly's true identity from their time in Menzoberranzan. The wizard was relieved and definitely grateful.
Camran, Linnan, and Nendir hesitated. They had not been prepared for Aly suddenly becoming a drow.
"We need you!" Aly shouted at them, unable to pull her eyes away from the devils. She was healing Storunn as quickly as he was being wounded, but it required all of her concentration.
Sabal dodged past the devils and went straight for Holt. As much as she didn't want to leave Alystin with just Storunn helping her, she had to press their enemy hard so he wouldn't be able to stay back and hurl spells at his leisure. He pitched a fireball at her as she charged, but Sabal dropped to one knee to dodge it. It was painful, but it worked. He threw up his black steel staff in a block as she brought her blade down at him. She lashed out psionically, battering at his will. He couldn't withstand the onslaught forever and she was more than happy to keep the pressure on. It was the best thing that she could do to protect Aly and the others.
"Lads, come on!" Storunn shouted. "We can't do this without ye!"
Holt's eyes flared with an infernal flame. There was a blast of eldritch energy from the direction of his battle with the inquisitor and Sabal went flying backwards. Their wilder hit the wall hard, ribs cracking on impact. For a moment, her vision went black, but then she was back in her battered body again. She heard Aly scream her name. A stream of vile epithets in Drow was her answer as she dragged herself back up to her feet. She wasn't certain, but she had a feeling some of her vertebrae were cracked as well.
It was enough to galvanize the others into action. Camran went sprinting over to Sabal while Nendir and Linnan stepped up to help Storunn and Aly with the devils that were almost shredding the dwarf to pieces. The priest wove his healing spell on Sabal and she felt her bones snap back into place. "Follow me," Sabal ground out, sprinting towards Holt again as he started to weave another fireball spell aimed at the rest of the group. Before he could finish the incantation, Sabal's armored body collided with him, smashing him against the wall.
He grabbed the drowess by the throat and squeezed as his fingernails twisted into a devil's claws. Sabal ignored the crushing, choking feeling and kicked out. She didn't break his knee, but she did drop him for a second. It wasn't enough to stop the next fireball spell from hitting her in the chest. The explosion of flame singed Camran as well, but Sabal soaked up the worst of it. The inquisitor was smoldering on the ground, armor blackened and scorched. The cleric could see a dull red glow from part of her breastplate. Camran rushed over, but as he knelt down by her side, Holt kicked him in the side of the head.
"You should have stayed out of it, priest," Holt said as Camran tried to pick himself up off the floor. He slammed his staff down hard on the cleric's ankle, breaking bone. "But I'll make you a deal. Surrender, and I will allow you to live. You have my word, and a man is only as good as his bargains."
Sabal was temporarily blind from the sudden flash in front of her sensitive eyes. All she could see was afterflash, but she could still—mercifully—hear. Her years of blindfighting were about to become very useful. She groped out blindly with her psionics, seizing a large log from the great fire roaring in the hearth with invisible force and then hurling it as hard as possible at the back of Holt's head. The wood broke on his skull and he staggered forward, but it didn't drop him the way it should have. His fiendish boons were in full effect.
Aly, we need reinforcements, Sabal said as she picked herself up off the ground.
The wizard heard the psionic call and knew what it meant. The gloves would have to come off. She took a step back and wove a conjuration spell, reaching through the planes down to the Abyss. The air ripped and a towering, four-armed demon appeared. Two of its arms ended in great pincers, while the smaller and more delicate ones were clawed. Twin horns swept back from its draconic head, eyes burning with an Abyssal hate as it looked at the other fiends. It grabbed one of the barbed devils and picked it up in its massive claws, grabbing one arm and then the other before ripping like it was pulling apart a wishbone. There was a horrible sound of gristle and meat tearing and then the summoned devil evaporated. The other devil forgot about the group of adventurers and hurled itself at its mortal foe, locking in combat with the more powerful demon.
"The hells is that?" Nendir shouted, wide-eyed. It was not hard to feel the evil emanating from the horrifying creature. A split second too late, he saw the twisted figure approaching their wizard from behind as she tried to weave another healing spell for Storunn, who was bleeding badly. "Aly!"
"Remember me?" a voice whispered in Aly's ear the moment before the dagger plunged into her back.
Alystin gasped, feeling more than just the knife in her back—cursed, infernal magic was pouring into her veins from the blade, torturing her already tainted soul even more. She sank to the ground, slumping into Storunn's arms. There was a soft hiss of her breath escaping around the blade that had pierced a lung. She and the dwarf were on the ground now. Storunn was bleeding badly from the wound to his head and she could feel the curse burning. She gasped out syllables of a healing spell, grabbing onto Storunn. His wound slowly started to close, but the pain was beyond anything that she could have ever imagined. Worse, the curse wasn't letting her fall unconscious. It was paralyzing agony. She couldn't even scream. Only more than a century of dedicated training kept her spell going.
Elénaril ripped the long, jagged black knife free just in time to parry Nendir's sword. The elf was a wrathful creature, because whatever Aly was, she was his friend. They were both blindsided by the demon that Alystin had just lost control of as the pain claimed her. The glazebru hurled them both into the wall, but its vile rage was focused on the nearest infernal thing it could see: Elénaril. It swung a powerful claw back and then slammed it down, crushing the half-elf's ribcage in.
Nendir found himself staring down the demon. "Aly!" he shouted, backing up.
She heard her name through the twisting black and managed to whisper out a banishment. The demon's form wavered and then vanished. "Camran, we need you!" Linnan shouted as he rolled Aly onto her side to look at the wound. There was a smell of brimstone and blood from it and a spreading pool of crimson. However, their wizard was alive—the curse wouldn't let her die. "Aly, hang in there. Can you do that for me?"
Over with Holt, Sabal was picking herself off the floor again after a second fireball had struck her square on. "Can you handle him?" Camran cried out even as he started the agonizing process of dragging himself towards the others. Nendir and Storunn were rushing forward towards Holt to help Sabal.
"Go!" she snarled. She dropped her sword and lunged at Holt, grabbing him and dragging him to the ground with her. He had fiendish strength, but she had technique. He was no grappler.
It was a brutal fight. He clawed at her and she battered away at his face with a gauntleted hand as they smashed each other into the ground. He managed to get ahold of her throat again, claws piercing the sides of her neck. As unconsciousness surged up to meet her, Sabal worked the strange, broken-bladed dagger that she always carried out of her belt. She drove it with both hands up under Holt's chin, not stopping until she heard the hilt connect with his jaw in a meaty thud. His life flashed away abruptly, but his hands didn't release her throat. Nendir and Storunn had to pry the claws off her, which left Sabal gasping blindly on the ground, her hand coming up to clutch at her bruised trachea.
Before they could do or say anything, she fumbled for Holt's body. She could feel magical energy pouring off the amulet he was wearing around his neck now that he was gone—ancient magic, divine magic. This was what they had come for, the map contained not in a scroll any longer, but in this. The moment she touched it, there was a sudden flaring of bright, white light.
She was standing in a beautiful, verdant garden that was beyond the compare of even Silverymoon's most beautiful greenery, surrounded by the melodies of songbirds and a surging feeling of peace. She could see again, the golden sunlight falling on emerald leaves. A pool of crystalline water gleamed off to her right, revealing sapphire depths.
"Welcome, Sabal," a melodic voice said. She turned, and there was a woman with long, flame-colored hair. She was so beautiful it was almost painful to look at her, like looking into the sun. Sabal dropped her eyes, not out of respect, but to avoid hurting herself. She could feel divine magic everywhere, flowing through her body like blood, but it was not the black and twisted kind she was accustomed to.
"You are Sune," Sabal said, her grip tightening on the pendant. "And I have what you want."
"If the Abyss is allowed to reclaim that map, they will march on the Upper Realms. I do not think that we can endure that," Sune said. "Think of what will happen to the planes as they drown in darkness. Think of what will happen to your lover. Isn't that what this is about? Love?"
The drowess stood silent, staring at the ground where delicate pink flowers were blooming. Finally, she forced herself to look up, into the blinding beauty that was Lady Firehair's cerulean eyes. It was gazing upon perfection. "I want to make a deal," Sabal said.
"I could take it from you," Sune said softly.
"But you won't," the wilder said. "Because you're good." She said the last word as if it was distasteful. "I'm not. So we're going to make a deal."
"Very well," Sune said, caution evident in her musical voice. "What is your price?"
"Alystin," Sabal said. There was not a shadow of doubt in your voice. "You claim her soul. You protect her. You don't let the Abyss have her."
A faint smile crossed those perfect lips. "Selfless, for an evil creature. I am sorry, Sabal. It was her choice to make a deal with a demon lord," Sune said gently. "I cannot undo the path she has taken. All power has its limits."
"But if she turned away from the dark, you could take her in," the drowess said coolly. "You could save her."
"She is tainted, Sabal. But…it is possible," the goddess said. "There is a chance, an almost infintestimally slim one, that I could wrest her away from the clutches of evil, if she was willing."
"I want your word that you will do everything in your power," Sabal insisted.
"You will take my word?" Sune said, surprised.
"You will lie?" the drowess countered.
The goddess bowed her head. "It will not be a guarantee."
"This is her only chance," Sabal said. "Promise me, and you can have your map."
"And what of you? What of Lloth? Have you considered this carefully, Sabal? You will pay a heavy price in this life for just a fraction of a chance that she will be safe in the next," Sune said warningly.
"You of all people should understand," Sabal said, holding out the pendant. "Do we have a deal?"
Sune smiled sorrowfully. "We have a deal," the goddess said as she took the trinket. Then everything went white again…
Sabal gasped when she came back to her body and looked down at her hand. The pendant was gone.
"Sabal, you have to come. Aly—" Nendir started.
The inquisitor dragged herself up to her feet, seizing him by the front of his shirt. "Is she alright?" Sabal said, her voice raw and gravelly from being choked.
"No," Nendir said. He slipped his shoulder under Sabal's to act as a crutch and helped the swaying wilder over to Aly. Their progress was slow until Storunn caught her other arm and helped prop her up as best he could, allowing her to catch her feet underneath her.
Sabal dropped to her knees next to her lover as Camran tried to heal the wound and touched her forehead to Aly's. She reached out psionically and tried to pull all of the pain into her own body. It wouldn't be something that she could sustain for very long, but she was willing to try it until she broke herself. She felt the wizard's hands frame her face and try to push her away weakly, but she didn't stop hurling herself mentally at the sharp walls erected by the curse, keeping them separated.
"I can't do anything," Camran said. "The wound won't close, but the curse is keeping her alive. We need Alustriel's help." He grabbed Sabal by the shoulder and shook her until he broke her concentration. "Sabal! We need Alustriel!"
It took her a moment to register his speech, but after a few seconds, she nodded wordlessly. She slipped her arms under Aly and rose to her feet, operating with the automaton-like rigidity that was her training to work through pain.
There was a pounding on the doors—the city watch. "Through the back!" Nendir shouted, leading the blinded drowess and her lover through one of the doorways, the others following hot on his heels.
It would be a desperate run to Silverymoon, but what else could they do?
"Aly. Aly. Aly," Sabal found herself saying, praying, as she tried to reach out psionically and find that familiar mind. What she found instead was an impenetrable wall of twisted black thorns of pain that kept her apart from her lover. She knew Aly was alone and in pain, but she couldn't reach the wizard.
It was the worst feeling in the world.
"Alustriel will help," Nendir said, grabbing Sabal's upper arm for a moment. Her head turned towards him, but her eyes were still unseeing. Her vision would return, albeit slowly. "She'll help Aly, Sabal." He and the others could sit down and try to process everything that had happened later, when they were safe. There would be a reckoning then, but not now.
They made their midnight run out of the city, shouts of the Watch fading in the distance.