Author Note
I have not read anything involving Jarlaxle Baenre for some time, despite being a fan of the character so I do apologise if he's somewhat OC in this story. I'm doing the best I can using memory and wiki pages. He's a good character to experience the drow side of things from as while he is a dark elf he's very much an outsider among his people.
Slayer Gothic 2
D&D 4
Menzoberranzan. The Underdark.
Jarlaxle paced back and forth within the headquarters of his mercenary group. He kept running the numbers over in his head, wondering how many lives would be lost in taking Mithril Hall, assuming it could be taken at all. The loses among the slaves and the Drow houses didn't concern him, he was worried about Bregan D'aerthe, the
mercenary company of which he was the leader. The coming war could led to the end of Bregan D'aerthe if things were not handled carefully.
A member of that group suddenly walked into the room, and the leader saw that the male had a frown upon his face. Jarlaxle turned to acknowledge the presence of his subordinate, and arched an eyebrow.
"Matron Baenre wishes to meet with you" the drow reported.
There had been a noticeable quake in the dark elf's voice. It was not something that Jarlaxle would be used to hearing from the man. Something was up, and the leader of Bregan D'aerthe intended to go and find out what that was.
Unlike other Drow, Jarlaxle made noise as he walked the streets of Normally, such noise would be the sign of someone dangerously unwary. In the Underdark, noise was how many predators hunted.
In many ways Jarlaxle was the dandy of Menzoberranzan. He chose the brightest colours for his clothes and wore a cape that shone in every colour in both the visible and infrared spectra. He commonly wore high boots and bracelets that could be made to be clack loudly or be silent at his discretion. He also wore a magical eye patch that protected his mind from magical and psionic intrusions and allowed him to see through walls and other solid objects. He often shifted the patch from eye to eye to keep others guessing as to its powers. Another staple item was his wide-brimmed hat, plumed with a diatryma feather and worn atop his clean-shaven scalp, which was a symbol of his refusal to conform to society's expectations in Menzoberranzan, a society where rank and position were reflected by hair style
More than anything else, Jarlaxle was an opportunist. His wealth was considerable, but official station in drow society meant nothing to him. He observed that the best way for a male to survive and prosper in the matriarchal drow society was to be outside the system and to be too valuable to be eliminated, and he was audacious enough to take his life in that direction.
Always calm and graceful, Jarlaxle enjoyed flaunting his independence and he was proud of the fact that the noble houses come to him for aid. In the city of Menzoberranzan, intrigue and double-dealing were a way of life, and no one play this game better than Jarlaxle did.
As a male outsider who had no qualms dealing with the 'lesser races'. Jarlaxle had much information few others beyond Lolth's priestesses were likely to have access to. He was one of the most powerful males, if not individuals, in the city and the surrounding Underdark.
He benefited from the chaos of Menzoberranzan and was always able to align himself with the winning side in any conflict. Although he had thrived on the internal politics of Menzoberranzan, they had always disturbed him.
The Dark Elf had a very charismatic personality, he was always willing to talk his way out of situations rather than resort to force of arms. Moreover, talking was what Jarlaxle did best. His words easily worked past the handicap of his race's evil reputation, allowing him to turn potential enemies into allies. He loved irony, sarcasm, and wit. He was extremely intelligent and a brilliant tactician who was always prepared for any imaginable or unimaginable circumstances.
Jarlaxle preferred to avoid killing someone as long as that person could be manipulated to serve his interests, no matter how small his or her role might be. In fact, Jarlaxle didn't like to kill somebody unless he had to, an unusual trait in a drow. Several times, he had even played the hero just for the sake of it
The guards parted before Jarlaxle as he entered House Baenre. He could feel the magic that still faintly thrummed through these walls. It seemed somewhat more powerful than it had been a few days ago. Perhaps that was a sign that things were getting better? That the time of troubles was drawing to an end.
As he passed the ornate columns of the grand hall and entered the chapel of the House, he was met with the sight of the city's most important matrons, all eight of them.
Three hundred years of surviving in Menzobarranzan had prepared the mercenary captain well for the sight that lay before him. The matrons floated upon their thrones, discs of blue-white light supporting them. In their hands they clasped their scepters and other objects of power, while their loyal body guards surrounded them.
The female troops looked towards the male, and he could see their faces twist into masks of disdain. Jarlaxle ignored them, only one Matron Mother concerned him. When he gave a fancy bow he did so only for the the First Matron mother.
"Rise," Matron Baenre said.
The male did as he was commanded, and stood with his hands clasped behind his back. All eyes were upon him, and he could feel the weight of their gazes. His eye narrowed, and he wondered what they wanted from, it had to be important otherwise they would have sent him a simple message rather than summon him here.
"Are the Troubles are over?" Jarlaxle asked.
He received a lance of pain to his mind, a blow that nearly drove him to his knees.
"Does that answer your question" Baenre replied "My patience is short. I have plans that must be implemented, and alliances that have to be secured now that my house is back in order".
Somehow Jarlaxle was able to stay standing.
"My apologies, Matron Mother," he said with a gasp.
The ancient drow woman was not forgiving, however she was wise enough not to destroy what she saw as a valuable tool.
"It is well known that Bregan D'aerthe has spies even among those who walk upon the surface" Baenre stated "no doubt you have heard of the spelljammer ship that crashed near Mithral Hall. Tell me of them".
Jarlaxle did just that.
"They are humans" he said "but they are unlike those we know, there leader is a male and he is clad in a suit of armour that is unlike anything seen before".
Well that was the rumour going around and it had come from some orcs, which meant it might not be true.
"At least some of his allies are similarly equipped" the male dark elf was now saying "They have weapons that kill without warning, and no armour is proof against them".
The First Matron's gaze narrowed and Jarlaxle let out another gasp of pain as he felt the dark elf probe his mind despite his defences against such things. The fact that she could do this meant she was currently in Lolth's highest favour.
He managed to suppress his fear of what she might find, an action that probably saved his life. He could feel the First Matron poking around inside of his memories of when he had heard the report from one of his underlings.
"You speak the truth" Baenre said "At least as you know it. We may need yet more allies to deal with these new humans".
Jarlaxle had a feeling who knew what kind of allies the Matron Mother was taking about. The goddess wouldn't fight herself, there were rules about that sort of thing, but not all those who owed her allegiance were drow or even mortals for that matter. It would be demons who marched along side the drow when the war started, of that he was sure.
(Line Break)
Mithral Hall. The Forgotten Realms.
Within the chamber dwarves, and humans were all toiling to erect barricades as part of the defence of the hall. Meanwhile Fred and Willow were working hard to set up the electronic machinery required for a command centre.
The noise around me, which mostly involved a lot of tools banging, was nearly deafening. It was, however, a necessary evil. It might be only days since the Time of Troubles had ended, and while that was a good thing it meant the drow were on their way here.
Every second that past was another second that the enemy had to prepare to take dwarven stronghold as such the dwarves and their allies needed to spend that time preparing to protect the hall. Defences were being put into place, battle plans were being drawn up, and supplies were being gathered.
"I almost wish it was an army of vampires heading our way" I heard Fred say "I still haven't learned everything I want to about these Dark Elves."
While I'd explained what I could there were limits to my knowledge, and the events taking place this world were a little different than in the books I'd read, for example Wulfgar was still here rather than trapped in a demon realm, so I couldn't rely too much on what I knew.
"You seem excited" I said to Amy who was smiling about something she was reading in a book "Is that a naughty story?".
She blushed upon hearing that.
"Not its about the magic items they have here" she told me "In our world enchanting something is a lot of work its a big deal and normally its just to make cursed thing, here you can make good magic stuff, its just really expensive".
The magic of this world was working again, spell that used the weave and wicca, which was both good and bad news. Good because I had my Old One spells back, but it was also bad because the drow were really good at magic.
"Its very predictable" Amy was now saying "Its like art, but there's science in as well".
I wasn't sure she was right about that.
"Really" I replied "Isn't there some ritual involved, you can't take that stuff lightly the gods might get offended".
Judging by how my life was progressing I'd clearly annoyed some higher powers, and I didn't want any more of them messing with me. What I really wanted was for them to stop, but as of yet I hadn't figured out anyway of talking to them. And even I could I didn't have anything they wanted, at least as far as I knew, so I couldn't strike a deal with them.
"Holograms ready" Fred said, while pressing buttons which gave us a 3D map with of the Hall "This is a live feed so we know what's happening as it happens".
Mass Effect technology was really easy to use considering how advanced it was. The only down side so buying so much of the stuff and bringing it here was that we were bound to draw some attention. The last thing I wanted was a group like Cerberus to take notice of us, which was why once this had ended I didn't intend to visit the space station again for a while.
"Good to hear," King Bruenor said while leaning forward on his axe "Does it work because of those 'sensor' things?".
Indeed it did. Under Fred's guidance we'd placed sensors all over Mithral Hall, those devices would allow to track what was going on.
"Yep" replied the Texan "When the Drow bring their army into range of our sensors we'll know, we'll get about ten minutes warning before they reach the outer defences, and we'll know how many there are too".
The assembled natives nodded in approval.
"And it gets even better" Winifred went on to say "See these dots".
There were dots of different colours, most were green, and there were some blue and a red one in the part of the map that showed this very room.
"Green are dwarves, blue are humans, white are elves, and red is for drow" Fred explained "I used to Drizzit to get an idea how the drow move so I was able to fine tune the motion detectors".
She had a bit more to say.
"Anything else will come up as orange" she said.
In any war intelligence was key. Knowing more than your foe was a big plus.
"To be honest, I'm not really all that worried about the fighting inside of the hall itself" the Warden-Commander commented "King Bruenor's forces know this place like no one else, and with the guns we should be able to force the Drow to bleed for every centimetre of ground that they take, if they can take it at all".
He seemed overconfident to me, although to be fair he'd beaten great odds before. He'd rallied a nation during a civil war with only a handful of people to support him and then gone on to stop an army of monster who were commanded by a tainted dragon god. That sort of thing was bound make some believe that any battle could be won.
"Then what has ye concerned?" the King asked.
He spoke to Fred rather than the king.
"Can you show us the outside of the hall" he requested.
In response, Fred pulled the holomap back out, further and further, until the hall disappeared into the mountain that held it. Now we could see a load of blue dots, the people who lived in the nearby settlement, which was called Settlestone, and lots of more blue dots that were the allies of the dwarves from the nearby town and cites. Also there were a few white dots around showing where the elven rangers were scouting around the mountain.
Last of all there was a purple dot, which I knew was Ember, she was flying around judging by how fast her dot was moving.
"We were discussing this in our own meeting as well" Galen Firth , captain of the Riders of Nesmé, remarked.
He wasn't the only human leader here. There was another knight, whose name I hadn't heard, although I did know that he came from the nearby city of Silverymoon, a place I hoped to visit in the near future.
"The Knights of Silver have been able to spare five hundred of their number to help defend Mithral hall, and ten times that amount of standard Silverymoon infantry" the knight told us.
Galen Firth then spoke.
"I can bring about nine hundred mounted, perhaps four thousand on foot" he reported.
Which sounded like a lot, however the Drow would be bringing their own army, which could numbers thousand of Dark Elves and many times that in slaves. Also they might summon demons, which weren't like the demons back home. The infernal creatures of the Abyss made the average Sunnydale monster look like an angry puppy in comparison.
"That's more than ten thousand troops along with my raiders," the Warden said "not enough to turn back any dedicated attack. From what Drizzit has said there a 20,000 drow in Menzoberran that can fight and about 40,000 slaves".
Normally when the attackers outnumbered the defenders it could still go badly for the attackers because the people protecting a fortress like Mithral Hall had many advantages, like knowing the terrain, having a short supply line and fixed defences. However the drow were a sneaky lot and would happily send their slaves to die in the thousands. Loses like that should break an army, but the slaves were more afraid of failing their masters than they were of dying in battle.
Then there were Mind Flayers, creatures with strange mental powers that resembled humans with octopi for heads and a fondness for eating sentient people's brains. Also there were Gray Dwarves, who would be eager to get their hands on the hall's resources, and all too willing to mine the Mithral for the Drow. Even things like Dragons were not outside the realms of possibility.
"What of your vehicles?" the Silverymoon knight asked me.
One tank wasn't going to make a huge difference even with its mounted machine gun, but at least we had someone to drive the thing and it would be able to kill a lot of bad guys.
Liselle and her cousins had decided to fight with us, in exchange for decent pay. Thankfully her mother didn't know what was going on, if she ever found I'd never dare go to Omega again.
"With your permission, we'd like to use them to help support the infantry that will be deployed on the surface" I said the the king "the tank might help, and we have a shuttle that's armed".
It would have been nice if we could have moved even one of the gardian lasers to Settlestone, but they were part of the ship, and even they could be used once removed we didn't have the equipment to lug the things around.
"You don't have to be asking for my permission to help defend my home, lad " Bruenor said, with a warm smile upon his face. "We're strapped for allies as it is. Having someone step up and volunteer is never something to be turned down".
Plus he had promised a reward in the form of mithral, which I was sure would be worth a lot in metal poor Mareth, or even in the ME verse if it turned out be somewhat mystical like ebony from the Elder Scrolls verse.
"I've manged to get a lot of fun toys from Omega" I told everyone "They won't last long past the battle since you can't maintain the tech, and we don't have much time so we won't have time to train many of your people with them, but that could be a blessing since it means that if the drow capture our weapons there more likely to kill themselves with them than anyone else".
Portal travel was pretty easy for my group, most of the time it worked as expected, it hadn't always, but thankfully it had only happened twice. As such we'd been able to move a lot of goods from Omega to Mithral Hall very quickly.
"Our mortar teams will be stationed along this ridge" I told everyone.
Fred made the map pull back further still so everyone could see what I was pointing at
"Those of you who saw our fight with the orcs know how dangerous our explosive devices are, these mortars will send such devices a far distance were they will land where the enemy is thickest" I then said.
Not everyone understood what that meant, but it hardly mattered as my quarian engineers, who had also decided to stick around, would be manning those weapons. Both had served in the Migrant Fleets militia so they knew what they were doing.
They had senors up there to so all they had to do was aim at the red and orange dots, while avoiding hitting the blue, whites and the greens. That sounded simply, but battlefields were crazy places so they would have be careful. If the knights charged at the enemy at the wrong time the quarians could end up shelling our allies.
"Fred please show the trenches" I requested.
She did just that.
"The lines represent where our troops will be stationed. They are erecting barricades that can fire from behind " I went over "those nice blue ladies you met, the asari, they are training people to use our guns and will be there as well. Now since we can arm nearly a hundred people in time for the attack, maybe more if were allowed to, they will be able kill a lot of the enemy, but they won't win us the battle".
If the books were anything to go by the drow send could thousands of kolbolds in as the first wave, and follow them with thousands of gobins, orcs, bugbears, ogres, and even some minotaurs and trolls. Then the drow themselves would come, riding huge spiders, big lizards, both of which could climb really well so they could attack from unexpected angles.
The asari and those they were training to shoot simply wouldn't able to kill enough of them fast enough. They could however thin the heard and give the local infranty as easier time of it when the buggers got in close.
"They'll be supported by archers" I was now saying "but since it will a night time battle I'm sure how well they will do".
ME guns came with night vision as standard, bows did not. If it weren't the drow we were facing I'd say the guns would be enough to win the day, but those dark elves had lots of magical tricks they could use to counter technology. For example they could summon globes of darkness to protect themselves from asari with ranged weapons.
"Why won't they attack during the day?" Buffy wondered.
Despite what her hair and attitude might suggest my fellow Slayer was not stupid. Her test scores were enough to prove she had a brain, but she didn't have years of nerd knowledge like I did nor was she that good at research, she really wasn't a book person.
"Dark Elves and their slaves live underground and as such they are sensitive to light" I told her "if they attacked during the day they'd be blind, everyone we have on the surface can see fine when the sun is up so the bad guys will attack at night".
Buffy's face went from confused to thoughtful
"We're underground here so they can attack here during the day" she pointed out.
She wasn't wrong.
"They may attack here during the day, and then order a surface attack a few hours later" the Warden said "but I think they will time both attacks close together so that we are forced to spread out our defences. The drow are not stupid they won't want a long siege they haven't got the supplies for it".
I added some more information.
"Our supplies are right here" I said to Buffy "all our food, extra weapons and medical stuff, but the drow will have to bring enough to supply a big army, they can only get more from home and their city is far away so if they don't take Mithral Hall fast enough they will run out of food for their troops".
My fellow Slayer smiled.
"Oh so that's what 'an army marches on its stomach means'" she realised.
Someone else spoke next.
"Those stinking drow are likely to send their slaves in first, let them take the brunt of your weapons" King Bruenor said "You mentioned a little surprise for those fellows".
Indeed I had.
"I sent the mechs out to lay what are called landmines" I told everyone.
In Omega you could buy them in bumper packs of 12.
"They are scattered around Settlestone and hooked up to our sensors" I went on to say "What that means is that if any orange or red dot gets to close to land mine it will go off. They will not exploded if a blue, white or green dot is too close".
Since they were high tech I wasn't going to leave them here as they might malfunction later on. After the battle I'd have the mines remote detonated.
"The mines should be powerful enough to kill anything within fifteen meters when they go" I then said "It won't keep them away from the defences, but that's not their purpose. It will scare the shit out of them because from their perspective their friends will be blowing without them knowing why".
This was the Warden-Commander decided to speak.
"Additional defences include spike pits" he said "I've had my men set up a number of pits of varying depths and widths to keep the enemy guessing, and have disguised some with arcane means such as invisibility fields and the like, and others with more mundane objects such as wooden planks and turf. Those will hold the weight of one or two individuals, but if a group tromps across one, it breaks, and down they go".
He had more to say.
"We know where they are so afterwards we'll dismantle the traps" he was now saying "and they're well out of the way of our troops".
The drow and their slaves were going to lose a lot of people, sadly it wouldn't stop them we'd just be hurting them and slowing them down. Still a longer battle suited us better.
"Anything else" the King enquired.
Indeed there was.
"Some of the pits have been sloped and lined with proximity spells by my groups mages, to set off grease traps when groups of hostiles are too near to them" the Warden told us.
Fred then had something to say.
"I'm preparing our UAVs to drop flares and flash-bang grenades" she informed us "they won't kill anyone, but since dark elves have better hearing and are more sensitive to light than us, we will blind and deafen at a least of them on the surface".
It was then I realised that preparing for Lethice had been nothing compared to how much work was being done here. And while thinking about I really hoped that the demon-queen didn't attack Mareth while I was busy helping to bust drow heads.
"Now when the battle starts my group will be here" I told everyone one "We'll be using the radios we handed out to let the leaders know what's going on. If it looks like the drow and their slaves will overwhelm the any part of the defences Buffy and I will be able to reinforce them".
There were many underground passages in the stronghold, and some of them weren't very wide so a couple of Slayer could make a big difference in those places.
"My regiment and I will be outside" the Warden said "along with those from Silverymoon and Nesme".
That was when I spent a moment thinking about something important.
"We need to kill Matron Baenre" I stated "She's the one keeping the drow together, if she dies their alliance will fall apart".
That was easier said than done.
"She will be well protected" Drizzit told me "Not just magically, she'll have the greatest warriors of her house at her side".
They managed it in the books, so it could be done. I just had no idea how were going to do it.
