The Rain Again"

The day was cloudy, dark and gloomy, the chilly wind whispering of upcoming storm was impossible to ignore. The cold was penetrating any layer of clothing, just as the depression tried with any shied of optimism. The worst possible weather for vampire hunting, at least for the hunters, but Daria and her companions couldn't afford to wait for better conditions, with elven city waiting for rescue. They have already lingered enough, spending two days to gather allies, buy new equipment and rest. The atmosphere didn't serve them, but after Underdark having sky over their heads was in itself a comfort.

It looked as if it was about to rain in just a minute, when the party gathered by the graveyard district gates at last, the elven diviner walking beside Anomen, a proud knight in full armor with a shiny symbol of his god and the order he was accepted to, adorning his chest. Six other knights, most of them more experienced than the swollen with pride priest of Helm, were following his lead, each with his armor polished like the holiest altar. This must have been the preparations Anomen mentioned, that took them two days. The thieves assigned by Aran Linvail to join the group were far from showing their presence so blatantly. Trap masters and assassins hid in the shadow of the marching group.

The last members of the risky venture into the vampiress' lair were already waiting for Daria's party. The famous Mielikki's ranger Drizzt and his comrades from the Mithral Hall were there not much more than by accident, or brought there by destiny, as a true adventurer, or a true fool, would say. The road they were walking crossed with Daria's when she was leading her distrustful companions to Athkatla, losing her way on the old roads of southern Amn. As suicidal as every experienced adventurer, they immediately agreed to join the attack on the coven of powerful vampiress.

Rainy, but it was the right time. Time for Imoen to regain her soul.

"Keep together inside…" the sun elf only managed to start instructing her allies gathered before the gates to the cemetery, when an unforeseen attack came. Daria was blind, completely useless as a diviner, her two eyes strongly limiting her view. How could she know that the vampires would wait for them on the surface of the sunless day?

The attack was vicious, but uncoordinated. A shadow dropped from the roof of a crypt just into a middle of their group. Only a second after more vampires leapt from their hideouts, one by one, lured by the sounds of their kin fighting, and zombies began to crawl from the muddy ground of the graveyard answering a call unheard by the living. In not much more than a moment the group was swarmed by the avalanche of rotting limbs and flesh, when the entire place stood up on its dead legs to face the invaders. The sheer number of the dead seemed improbable. How deep the crypts could be to spawn so many?

Daria raised her hands to the sky…

"Not magic!" Imoen threw herself at her sister, bringing her down to the ground in the process. "No magic in city limits!" The pink-head shrieked with panic, more afraid of the Cowled than the zombies that were now beginning to surround the pair on the ground. Daria covered Imoen with herself praying for her enchanted cloak to be enough to shield them both until someone noticed in the fray that they were in trouble. She didn't want to become the Slayer again, not with so many paladins around, not with Solaufein seeing it…

"In Helm's name, begone foul creatures!" Anomen shouted over their heads and as one rotting corpse the zombies shunned from them, some of the closer ones falling, the dark glow of magic that spawned them to the second life extinguishing quickly. "In Helm's name!" The priest turned his holy symbol to the other group of undead, making the weaker undead falter and die, no longer hiding vampires who used them as a cover to attack from surprise. "In Helm's name!" the Order's knights called in one voice charging at the blood-suckers, giving Daria enough time to gather to her feet and drag her sister to a safer spot. The sun elf almost forced a bow into Imoen's hands and pointed one of the undead. Pale thief nodded and began to shoot.

Many, there were still many, but now that Daria could watch from a safer place she realized most of the charging undead were just meat… slow, weak, and unable to do any serious damage by themselves. There were only six… seven vampires to lead the mass of thoughtless zombies. And she could see them all.

No magic. But that didn't mean no magic items, another loop-hole in Cowled Wizard's restrictions a clever mage could use. Daria drew a wand of fire by her belt and set it properly, to the lowest possible level. Seven precise streams of fire missed the vampires only barely, instead stopping over their heads signaling clearly where the main danger was. Minsc, Jaheira and Valygar, so far tenaciously hacking the bloated mass of corpses storming the gates of graveyard, almost immediately moved to the closest enemy, the next becoming a target of fire arrows the Shadow Thieves weren't saving on when preparing the assault. The knights were going well enough even without any help, somehow sensing all evil around them, and Drizzt's companions weren't that far behind. 'Xan!' Daria thought quickly, seeing the enchanter wasn't anywhere near, but then she noticed the purple clad elf making use of his own wand of fire, much more destructively than her, standing safely behind the wall of paladins. Only one person was missing.

"Solaufein!" she called through the noise of the battle and the groans of the dead. There was no answer. "Solaufein!" she called again and once again no one answered her. All around them people were fighting, the noise was impossible, the stench even worse. She strained her eyes as much she could, trying to sharpen her sight somehow, even without the divination magic, but she couldn't see him anywhere, he just wasn't anywhere.

Bodhi. Daria caught the sight of vampiress' smile on the other side of the battlefield and her eyes immediately darted to the spot. She was there, Irenicus' ally and his sister, watching the raging battle from the entrance to the lower crypts, smiling seeing her children die before her. And beside her someone was struggling to get free from another undead's hold. Daria couldn't see the face from this distance, but she could see the night-black skin of man's hand. A drow. Not Drizzt, he was fighting among his comrades. Solaufein was being dragged underground be the undead and Bodhi was already smiling, quietly contemplating his grim fate.

For a moment Daria's and Bodhi's eyes met and the sun elf felt an empty cry in her chest. There was no way for her to hear what the vampiress was saying so far away, even without the noises of the battle, but somehow through the movement of her lips she knew what the undead mistress was saying, when looking at the one who owned the soul her brother was using.

"I'll give him back soon, do not worry. I promise" Bodhi told her.

The stone door leading to the crypts closed with cold finality.

Her hands didn't tremble. She wouldn't allow it, she needed them stable to cast. Incantations she learned in the city of drow, from the scrolls she bought in Adventurer's Mart and those she only now was beginning to understand, would obediently crush all the vampires as long as she was controlled enough to be able to cast them. Now Daria was walking on the lead of her group scrupulously relieving Athkatla from undead infestation.

Another chamber protected by the heavy doors opened before when Imoen finished with the lock and hastily withdrew behind the line of the melee fighters. Daria sent forth a silver globe of her Light spell and marched in bluntly, not even sparing a glance at people standing behind her, not a habit of any kind of mage who wanted to keep breathing. Some vampires, five or six turned their heads at her, their faces red from the blood they were drinking directly from the pond in the corner of the grave chamber, primitive like animals by a waterhole. Solaufein wasn't there.

A dragon's head materialized just under the ceiling as she kneaded the air like a mass that needed to be shaped to sprout magic of the Weave. The fastest of vampires managed to make a step in her direction before the head spewed fire on its flammable body, leaving nothing more but ash. Daria stepped on the molten stone of the chamber not caring to stop and admire her handwork. The blast ruffled her robes and few locks escaped the tight bun on her head, but even the habit of correcting her hair all the time got lost in the icy concentration state her mind was frozen in. Impatiently she stared at the rest of her party waiting for the passage to cool a little after such fury wrought upon it. The only reason why Daria didn't leave them behind already to go and look for Solaufein on her own was because he could be in need of healing, of… resurrection. And what little of healing magic she possessed, after her spirit was taken, she wasn't capable of…

She was a diviner, not a healer. Even without her spells – the habits, specific way of thinking, considering the causes and reasons, and the memory, all she needed was there. She could save him. She would save him.

Daria clenched her fists. Her hands didn't tremble.

The last chamber of the lower crypts, the last place they cleared from undead when working for the thieves a while back. It was in a shape of hexagon with a pond of a sort, placed in its exact middle. During their last visit there were only few stains of dried blood on its bottom. Daria was certain that today there would be much more than that.

She pushed the stone door, putting her strength into it and entered like only an adventurer completely devoid of imagination and surviving instincts would, stepping straight into the last standing point of her enemy. The chamber was full of vampires and smell of blood, but neither put her off. Quickly she scanned the surroundings with her infravision, but there were no sources of heat, even the blood in the horrendous pond was already cold. Solaufein wasn't there.

There were two more rooms, adjacent to this one. He had to be there. But to get there all the vampires here had to die.

None of the monsters attacked her, not even when she fried the first one with a flame arrow. The cold crowd of pale flesh parted to make way for Bodhi, walking casually as if she was just making a stroll in the park, her minions kissing the ground before her feet. Daria heard her own min… allies step into the chamber behind her, forming a wall behind her back.

"We meet again, Daria."

"The fourth time. We must end it here or people might start saying we're friends" Daria answered charmingly, thinking of ripping Bodhi's throat.

"How shrewd. Why would you care of what meat is saying? We do have many things in common after all. Thirst for their blood, be it one."

"Cut the small talk, Bodhi. I am here for Rhynn Lanthorn, Solaufein and Imoen's soul. At least one of these you cannot give up without losing life. I don't mind and what you care for is of no importance to me."

"You are helping the elves? Those treacherous weaklings, who only can impose their will on those who show at least the tiniest bit of independent thought and ambition? And even then only if they can vastly outnumber them?" The vampiress hissed, but withheld her temper, her face once more becoming almost human, or… elven? "You will not have the Lanthorn back. It is their punishment for recanting us."

"I don't see how anyone should be punished for that." Daria tried not to care for the vampire's words, but they meant too much to be ignored. And had even greater meaning when she considered who was truly the reason for all her suffering.

"Fool" Bodhi laughed sensing the hesitation she had caused. "No elf would ever do what we did! No elf would ever…"

"Impossible!" Xan whispered louder than he should.

"Possible" the vampiress smiled. "And Daria. There's only one thing I will return to you tonight. I told you that… I will give him back." Bodhi's lean hand caressed the arm of one vampire standing by her side. She pushed him gently forward, closer to the sources of the light the living brought inside her crypts, so that all could see his features clearly.

"No…" a moan was the only sound Daria managed to produce. She looked and she saw what she had to, the only possible thing she could see, that wouldn't change, just wouldn't change! Her breathing hastened and she felt the choking despair when another tide of emotion almost knocked her off her feet. In the middle of the chamber full of vampires, separated from Bodhi just by a pond of blood, that some of could be his, she cried. Behind her stood people that just as well could be total strangers.

"How does it feel?" Bodhi asked, grinning like a torturer just using his favorite tool. "Tell me how does it feel?"

Daria's back straightened, she loosened her fingers that even now weren't trembling. And she glared at the vampiress with her pure gold eyes. The tide of emotions subdued leaving only cold fury behind.

"Even you, Bodhi…" Daria whispered, feeling many things that calmed since the last time she met eye to eye with the vampiress awaken. "…the lowest dirt of this world, are allowed to have this one last moment of satisfaction in your existence. Before you cease."

And then she bounced at Bodhi, transforming into the Slayer in the mid-jump. Paladins and priest released the spells they were preparing quietly – the only reason why air wasn't bristling with righteous curses so far. And the mayhem began.

In this mayhem Daria got to Bodhi. She tried to run away but the Slayer threw one of vampiress' own servants to knock her down and then drove its claw through her chest, tearing the heart out. But that wasn't enough. If that was to be the last thing she was to do Daria wanted to leave no more than a stain of blood that used to be Irenicus' sister.

Fires were roaring around her, holy energies swashing over her scales, cries of faith and pain alike, barely crowded in the chamber, but that all had no meaning for the Slayer, who with furious dedication was turning no longer moving vampiress into a piece of torn flesh. And then all of sudden Slayers talons dived only into an icy cold mist, when the vampire mistress began to retreat to the dark sanctuary of her coffin. All fury washed over Daria who was now watching her blood-covered hands, kneeling in a pool of cold crimson. They were shaking.

"Solaufein!" she looked around. A body was lying nearby, the same she used to knock Bodhi off her feet. Its skin was darker than that of most vampires, ashen, but not onyx black anymore. A huge spike was thrust through its chest, going through the heart. He was turning to dust before her very eves.

"No… Solaufein, no… I won't let you…" She touched the face that immediately crumbled under her hand. Drops of water, tears, genuine tears began to steam from her eyes when she grieved openly, not trying to hide from the world. "I won't let you, like the others… They left me, but you stayed, not to manipulate me, not to use me, Solaufe…" Her voice broke. He battle was finished, but her allies didn't sheathe their weapons yet. There tried to find out if she would be the one more enemy they would have to face.

It all didn't matter. There was no world exept for her and him. And he was fading away.

"I won't leave you, because you didn't leave me…" She whispered few words of a spell she wouldn't learn in the Candlekeep, a spell no good-natured wizard would ever want to learn. But Irenicus showed her much about manipulating spirits.

"You will stay like that, with me, until I find a way. I won't let you go to hell with Bodhi. I will restore you, even if I couldn't save you. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."

The ash that used to be the vampire reformed into a pearl she held in her palm, drawn from among her spell components. The pearl darkened, becoming black as the depths of Underdark. Daria clenched it her fist and run out of the chamber, the Shadow Thieves moving from her way, no one brave enough to try to stop her.

Anomen moved to go after her. He gave her this moment to say farewells to the fallen friend, but he wasn't going to let her be alone now. He was just crossing the door, when someone caught his arm in a steel grip.

"No, stop, you fool!" Someone pulled him back to the chamber where the last blessed cleansing, last massacre took place. Everybody who survived was watching him, the only person who tried to follow Daria. Watching with suspiciousness – the knights of the order who just witnessed the horror the elven woman held within; with reconciled anger – those who expected this to happen, the Shadow Thieves warned by their master, and Valygar, who seemed to know it would end like that sooner or later; with worry – Imoen, the only one. Jaheira held his arm, not letting him go after the Bhaalspawn.

"Leave her alone. She's not stable now." The druidess stated as if she was instructing a child.

"Lady Jaheira, what, by all gods, are you speaking about?" Anomen barely believed what he was seeing. And he saw a lot. He saw his friend becoming an avatar of a dead god, he saw her wail in pain over dead comrade's body, he saw her suffering. "Of course she's not stable! That's why she needs us!"

"Are you blind?" The druidess was half-surprised half-furious. "Did you somehow miss that she was the Slayer just a minute ago? Can't you see how much she changed? She wouldn't welcome your help anymore! She's not some little girl you can pat on a head and tell hug her till she stops crying. One wrong move and she'll tear you to shreds."

"No, I don't see how much she changed." Sir Anomen, knight of the order straightened his back and looked into Jaheira's furious green eyes looking every inch a knight, only plainly common anger visible on his face. "All I see how much you changed, lady Jaheira. You used to be Daria's support, someone she could always turn to, someone who would trust her. But now you are just a coward."

The druidess let go of his arm. Her eyes were flaring as if she was trying to fry the priest with her glare, for a seconds fury stuck in her throat.

"How… How dare you judge me? You have no idea what you are talking about, you weren't even there! How dare you assume you know anything, you…"

"Forgive me if my words are harsh, but I only speak of what I see. I do not know what was done to Daria, I have no mysterious knowledge about the soul that was stolen from her or her heritage. All I can say is that we should all go to see her. She needs her friends now, not more suspicions."

Jaheira closed her mouth before answering bitterly, viciously. There was more truth in Anomen's words than he knew, more than Jaheira wanted to accept, the truth she wanted hidden. The truth that she feared.

She feared, because Daria became the unnatural, and deep in her heart Jaheira knew she always fought the unnatural. But how could she stand against her Daria? The girl as stubborn as caring, shy and outgoing at the same time, unwaveringly loyal. It wasn't her fault that her spirit was torn from inside her, it wasn't her fault that the taint of her father was consuming her slowly. None of this was a mistake she made and yet it was her who had to suffer the consequences.

And a time came when Jaheira should have confronted the ward Gorion trusted her with, because it could have been too late to save her, but she couldn't do it. Daria was falling deeper and deeper, and the druidess more and more didn't want to see it, trying to muffle out her own voice urging her to act to preserve balance. Anomen's faith was very contrast to her lack of it.

And in the end it was just as the knight said. She left her chosen daughter, abandoned her, lost all faith both in the Balance and the one she loved. And Daria had to suffer alone.

"Anomen." She glared at the knight, but where in her glare there was fury, now was only hawkish sharpness. "Leave your knights to clean up the mess. Valygar, get the Lanthorn and meet us outside. The rest – let's go. We left Daria alone long enough."

They found her on the surface, sitting on the muddy ground among the graves, looking at the sky of fading evening, finally visible from under the last retreating clouds. The sun was setting slowly on the horizon, hiding behind the lines of buildings of Athkatla. It took them a day of fighting to cleanse the crypts.

"Why!" the strength of her scream stopped Jaheira in her tracks. The wail of despair wasn't meant for her to hear, she wasn't the one that had to, that could possibly answer that question.

"Why him, not me?" Daria never grew in her faith, never questioned her beliefs, she just accepted that she chosen someone to watch over her and didn't ponder on it any further. Looking back on it she might have chose Labelas Enoreth, the elven god of history and longevity for her patron to impress Xan, who thought of Erevan, the Trickster God a more appropriate deity for her. Not a very inspired reason. She was not an outstanding example of a faithful person either. Xan taught her one simple prayer, but she quickly forgot it. Keeping her eyes to the ground she gave no extraplanar meaning to the events around her, only guessing when her cursed parentage took control of the course of actions. Wherever there were the divine symbols, the setting sun before her, her heart knew it was no sign, no miracle. Nothing good ever came down to her from Heavens and she never expected it would. But this day she turned to the sky with her first prayer, a malediction.

"Answer me!" she dared the setting sun. She threw a lump of muddy ground as if trying to taint the red glow disappearing behind the line of horizon. "It was my fault, my choice from the very beginning, everything! I don't know what you are trying to prove and I don't care! Answer me, or I'll make you answer, I'll come and make all of you answer…"

The last beam of sun fell on her face and disappeared. The dusk leaked from the corners on the desecrated graveyard. Daria watched now barely lit horizon with determined hate.

"So you just go away? You – a god? Coward! Traitor! I am not perfect, I am not even good and I don't want to be, I never was meant to be! That's what I am – a Bhaalspawn! Tried to be a hero, but got defeated by my own self! I… Even a god would do better to stay away from me, I know, I…"

"If I can't… be good anymore, if you don't have any words for me… Could I at least end this the way of elves?" The silhouette of an elf shouting at the set sun seemed very little then, and very weak. No one could see her face, but even if someone could she didn't care that much about these shameful tears. There wasn't much she could do anymore, only whisper. "Labelas Enoreth, grant me my death…" The words slipped from her mouth, coming from somewhere inside her, where the last shred and torn pieces of her Spirit lied and now found a moment to ignite into this one last wish. Her last emotion – hope, woke and took her back to the moments when she was still complete, and died, leaving but emptiness in incomplete darkness of twilight.

And then the miracle happened.

Not from the spectacular ones, but perhaps even more unearthly because of it. The sun rose again from the west, it rose and shone a minute longer, taking a moment to retract the journey it already completed this day, a sunrise in the middle of Daria's night.

The elven woman closed her eyes, feeling as little warmth as a setting sun gave. The tears stopped and for a second everything halted to let her find the perfection in this moment.

"I can't die now, can I?" She could have said it, or maybe just thought. The world was so unreal… "There's a place in prophecy for me, and what I want bears no meaning. I have to stand up and fight evil, save the innocents… I… I don't want to protect anymore, I want to be protected…" Her endurance must have reached its limit then. On the eyes of her comrades, who dared not to come closer, she fell into the bloody mud, in the darkness jealous of the attention the light gave to the elf.

"No!" Xan screamed seeing her collapse after calling the death. Not death, only not death! They were too close now, Suldanessellar was only few steps away!

He rushed to her side, but his hand stopped in midair when he tried to take her in his arms and he couldn't move it any further. He told him, ordered him to never touch her again without her permission and he simply couldn't force his body to move any further.

"Daria!" he called her name desperately, but she didn't move, lying immobile before him, her tattered robes sprayed with dirt and blood, her face turned to the ground. Jaheira took the small elf in her arms, checking if she was still breathing.

"She's just unconscious." The sentence sounded and Xan found out he could breathe again.

"We need to go" Anomen kneeled by the druidess holding Daria, his face wearing a worried frown. "The knights saw Daria when she was… I mean the thi… the Slayer? I talked to them and they are not pleased. We need to leave Athkatla now. If we set a camp behind the city limits, there will be no pursuit. If you allow me to stay in the group."

Jaheira glanced at Anomen, at the worried face he would usually hide under mask of arrogance. Was that what Daria saw in him? The druidess nodded. Her ward needed all the friends she could get.