Light on The Eyes of a Drow
For how long had I been walking? I did not know. Perhaps at one point I had been keeping track, but now the notion of time was as far behind me as the city I'd left. In a place where sunlight and moonlight have never reached, the concept of 'day' and 'night' are subjective, implemented by a people, recorded by appliances they created and which lost all significance when one was wondering the endless tunnels, grottos and caves of the underdark alone. There was only the endless trudging of heavy boots upon rocks and more rocks, and then weariness. Weariness blurring into exhaustion, exhaustion plunging into a fitful reverie from which one awoke as one had fallen - alone. Utterly alone, in the unnatural darkness of the caves.
Loneliness, for all its unfortunate connotation, came to be a blessing at many times. For there were other creatures dwelling here, other horrors so terrible and deadly that being alone was growing to be a synonym for being safe. I had killed my share of fiends ever since I started working my way through the tunnels, and my garments still carried the blood of a few of them. I did not mind - I was and always had been a warrior. I had killed before, and was well versed in it, too. But I was also cunning and knowledgeable, which separated me from the rest and combined with my previous 'quality' ensured me with the survival skills I had depended on up to now.
I believe a certain introduction is in order, so that although we will probably never meet, we may still be acquainted. I stand about 5'7" - tall for an elf; exceptionally so for what I am. A dark elf, a Drow. My skin is blackened like the dark marble towers of Menzoberranzan, and my long tangled hair, silver as the moon I have but read about. I am broad- shouldered and well built, as was expected of the militia, but possessing of a litheness they lacked. My eyes are large and midnight black, seeing through the unnatural darkness as a human would see on a bright day. The comparison, however, causes a shiver to run down your storyteller's spine, for I was certain that if I were exposed to broad daylight my eyes would be seared as with spellfire and blindness would descend on me forever. For that purpose have I crafted the lenses. The dark lenses I spent so much time working on, so that if I reached the outside, just if -
Forgive me, I cannot bring myself to follow this line of thought any further. It was the work of a madman, insane, folly. Understand, I had to act without thinking. To block out the "when" and the "if" to focus on the "how".
As aforesaid, I was astute. 'More than your fellow Drow', at least, I have many times added with a smirk. I had everything prepared, everything taken care of. Maps, stolen books detailing the caverns, a journal on which I recorded every turn I took and drew the schematics of the places where I had been, provisions and a couple of magical items (including this very tome) which might come in handy. But I had gotten nowhere. My escape had proved fruitless as my maps merely crowded over pages and pages of my journals. I had seen many things on my way, certainly, I now knew more of the underdark than any other - except perhaps the first person to carry out this mad escape, and on whose travels I now modeled my own. Rock formations to dazzle your most experienced ranger, crystals and gems to drive any gnome insane, caves within caves unfolding in unending labyrinths, halls so great one could raise a castle inside them - some through which rivers of liquid fire coursed. Not all had been wonder however. I had faced near starvation, I had engaged in battle with some of the foulest creatures and been left on the brink of death. Where these fiends formed a society I pillaged for food, where they were irrational, I avoided them and when they were beasts and animals I hunted them for their flesh. I had grown old down here. A hermit, a wanderer of the underdark drawing empty maps which led nowhere, sometimes thinking I would somehow end up back in Menzoberranzan and be condemned to a lifetime of hellish tortures for my treachery.
Until I found the spring. It happened two days ago, while I was in reverie in one of these huge halls of which I spoke. If I looked up and strained my eyes I still could not see the domed ceiling of where I was. All that appeared were the jagged and erratic stalactites, plunging down from the ceiling in all manner of shapes and formations so that they seemed to me ethereal white fingers, descending from the depths of the void as if to beckon me into it. I was awakened by a feeling of unease. Wariness had taught me to draw my sword at the slightest sign that anything was wrong. Slowly, as my ears adjusted back to wakefulness, I began to hear a humming. A low, soft humming which made the entire cavern resonate. Like a hunted beast I sprung to my feet and looked around me. Stillness. I began to advance slowly, eyeing every nook and cranny in the rock. The cave was far too large, there were simply too many hiding places. I narrowed my eyes and focused my will. With a quick gesture of my hand, a myriad of points of light now filled the air, casting a blueish glow upon the previously unlighted areas of the cavern. With my will I commanded them this way and that, until I saw it - two rocks which I had previously accounted to be one were an exit. There was a gap between them, through which one might pass. And from there came that humming. Humming which I now could be sure was harmonious, premeditated, as part of a song. My soul burning within me, I began to rush towards it, sword in hand.
Wedging my way through the rocks, I found myself in a narrow tunnel, low ceilinged and moist. Moist, I mused. But I had no time to consider this as I rushed through it, acting purely on intuition. My dancing lights had been left behind. And yet - there appeared to be another source of illumination radiating through this tunnel, bluer in hue than my own. My heart pounded furiously until at last the rock vein opened up into a chamber that mad me fall to my knees and weep. A lake. A great lake, from which shone forth an indigo luminescence refracted through the water and which filled the chamber with its unearthly tint. My eyes hurt looking at it, but there was no need for anyone to tell me anything, no need to consult any journals, for I knew that the light must be traveling through some underwater channel. More than this.. that the light must be coming from outside.
I so swooned by this discovery that I had entirely forgotten about the music. When I was finally drawn back to reality, I found myself turning to face its source - and what a source it was. An elven girl, perched on one of the rocks by the lake, singing to herself. Or to the mountains, to the lake perhaps. Her skin was unlike my own, but it was also not the of the elves we Drow are born hating. It was blue as the lake beside her, upon her shoulders cascaded long wet tresses of hair, like glimmering gold. Though her body was bare of any clothing, it was covered in artistic markings and paintings so that the general effect was more of water nymph than elf.
This was all too much. I was entranced by the magnetism of lake, light and she, unable to move, merely standing there, sword in hand - a killer who for a moment forgets death. I swallowed dryly. What was an armed Drow to say to such a being so as to convince her that I meant no harm? She made the first move.
Jumping swiftly off the rock where she was perched, she approached me softly, with the careful steps of one who is not fully accustomed to walking. Then she smiled, and it was as if all my years of loneliness and darkness had been swallowed up into the earth together with the whole of the underdark. She embraced me as if we had known each other for years. I was motionless, certain that I had not yet awoken from my last reverie. And then I felt the sharp pain, the coolness of a blade being inserted into my side, sinking into my dark flesh. My vision clouded. The room appeared to spin, and then to blur. A girl who swims in the underdark is conscious of its threats and must be prepared to defend herself. I fell to the ground with a heavy thud as the poison ran like fire in my veins.
Somehow.. I managed to crawl back, and I have been losing my strengths for the past two days. I made it my last goal to record this which is now written in these magical pages, the account of my last days, for I know that I am too weak to swim through the channel. I enclose also all my journals, maps and schematics, having finally been able to identify the route I took up to this point and which will lead
".which will lead one out. I have stated that the volume I write in is magical in itself. As the ink finally dries and the book is closed shut, it will transport itself and all pages herein included to the place last named in its pages. At times the poison gets worse, the fever soars, my vision becomes reddened and I am certain that death will come and claim me. I feel I shall not survive another of these waves of sickness, so I finally write my last page. I have failed in that which I spent so many years striving after, ending despairingly close. I can only make it my dying wish that this book will find itself into the hands of someone worthy and with a will such as my own - a will to defy a city. To him I leave the following words: Light on the eyes of a Drow is blindness.
-The great library of Menzoberranzan"
The young musician closed the ancient volume and clutched at it with all his might, his heart pounding in anxiety. Hands trembling, he sat down to one of the large stone tables in the library and began to write a list of supplies he would need.
For how long had I been walking? I did not know. Perhaps at one point I had been keeping track, but now the notion of time was as far behind me as the city I'd left. In a place where sunlight and moonlight have never reached, the concept of 'day' and 'night' are subjective, implemented by a people, recorded by appliances they created and which lost all significance when one was wondering the endless tunnels, grottos and caves of the underdark alone. There was only the endless trudging of heavy boots upon rocks and more rocks, and then weariness. Weariness blurring into exhaustion, exhaustion plunging into a fitful reverie from which one awoke as one had fallen - alone. Utterly alone, in the unnatural darkness of the caves.
Loneliness, for all its unfortunate connotation, came to be a blessing at many times. For there were other creatures dwelling here, other horrors so terrible and deadly that being alone was growing to be a synonym for being safe. I had killed my share of fiends ever since I started working my way through the tunnels, and my garments still carried the blood of a few of them. I did not mind - I was and always had been a warrior. I had killed before, and was well versed in it, too. But I was also cunning and knowledgeable, which separated me from the rest and combined with my previous 'quality' ensured me with the survival skills I had depended on up to now.
I believe a certain introduction is in order, so that although we will probably never meet, we may still be acquainted. I stand about 5'7" - tall for an elf; exceptionally so for what I am. A dark elf, a Drow. My skin is blackened like the dark marble towers of Menzoberranzan, and my long tangled hair, silver as the moon I have but read about. I am broad- shouldered and well built, as was expected of the militia, but possessing of a litheness they lacked. My eyes are large and midnight black, seeing through the unnatural darkness as a human would see on a bright day. The comparison, however, causes a shiver to run down your storyteller's spine, for I was certain that if I were exposed to broad daylight my eyes would be seared as with spellfire and blindness would descend on me forever. For that purpose have I crafted the lenses. The dark lenses I spent so much time working on, so that if I reached the outside, just if -
Forgive me, I cannot bring myself to follow this line of thought any further. It was the work of a madman, insane, folly. Understand, I had to act without thinking. To block out the "when" and the "if" to focus on the "how".
As aforesaid, I was astute. 'More than your fellow Drow', at least, I have many times added with a smirk. I had everything prepared, everything taken care of. Maps, stolen books detailing the caverns, a journal on which I recorded every turn I took and drew the schematics of the places where I had been, provisions and a couple of magical items (including this very tome) which might come in handy. But I had gotten nowhere. My escape had proved fruitless as my maps merely crowded over pages and pages of my journals. I had seen many things on my way, certainly, I now knew more of the underdark than any other - except perhaps the first person to carry out this mad escape, and on whose travels I now modeled my own. Rock formations to dazzle your most experienced ranger, crystals and gems to drive any gnome insane, caves within caves unfolding in unending labyrinths, halls so great one could raise a castle inside them - some through which rivers of liquid fire coursed. Not all had been wonder however. I had faced near starvation, I had engaged in battle with some of the foulest creatures and been left on the brink of death. Where these fiends formed a society I pillaged for food, where they were irrational, I avoided them and when they were beasts and animals I hunted them for their flesh. I had grown old down here. A hermit, a wanderer of the underdark drawing empty maps which led nowhere, sometimes thinking I would somehow end up back in Menzoberranzan and be condemned to a lifetime of hellish tortures for my treachery.
Until I found the spring. It happened two days ago, while I was in reverie in one of these huge halls of which I spoke. If I looked up and strained my eyes I still could not see the domed ceiling of where I was. All that appeared were the jagged and erratic stalactites, plunging down from the ceiling in all manner of shapes and formations so that they seemed to me ethereal white fingers, descending from the depths of the void as if to beckon me into it. I was awakened by a feeling of unease. Wariness had taught me to draw my sword at the slightest sign that anything was wrong. Slowly, as my ears adjusted back to wakefulness, I began to hear a humming. A low, soft humming which made the entire cavern resonate. Like a hunted beast I sprung to my feet and looked around me. Stillness. I began to advance slowly, eyeing every nook and cranny in the rock. The cave was far too large, there were simply too many hiding places. I narrowed my eyes and focused my will. With a quick gesture of my hand, a myriad of points of light now filled the air, casting a blueish glow upon the previously unlighted areas of the cavern. With my will I commanded them this way and that, until I saw it - two rocks which I had previously accounted to be one were an exit. There was a gap between them, through which one might pass. And from there came that humming. Humming which I now could be sure was harmonious, premeditated, as part of a song. My soul burning within me, I began to rush towards it, sword in hand.
Wedging my way through the rocks, I found myself in a narrow tunnel, low ceilinged and moist. Moist, I mused. But I had no time to consider this as I rushed through it, acting purely on intuition. My dancing lights had been left behind. And yet - there appeared to be another source of illumination radiating through this tunnel, bluer in hue than my own. My heart pounded furiously until at last the rock vein opened up into a chamber that mad me fall to my knees and weep. A lake. A great lake, from which shone forth an indigo luminescence refracted through the water and which filled the chamber with its unearthly tint. My eyes hurt looking at it, but there was no need for anyone to tell me anything, no need to consult any journals, for I knew that the light must be traveling through some underwater channel. More than this.. that the light must be coming from outside.
I so swooned by this discovery that I had entirely forgotten about the music. When I was finally drawn back to reality, I found myself turning to face its source - and what a source it was. An elven girl, perched on one of the rocks by the lake, singing to herself. Or to the mountains, to the lake perhaps. Her skin was unlike my own, but it was also not the of the elves we Drow are born hating. It was blue as the lake beside her, upon her shoulders cascaded long wet tresses of hair, like glimmering gold. Though her body was bare of any clothing, it was covered in artistic markings and paintings so that the general effect was more of water nymph than elf.
This was all too much. I was entranced by the magnetism of lake, light and she, unable to move, merely standing there, sword in hand - a killer who for a moment forgets death. I swallowed dryly. What was an armed Drow to say to such a being so as to convince her that I meant no harm? She made the first move.
Jumping swiftly off the rock where she was perched, she approached me softly, with the careful steps of one who is not fully accustomed to walking. Then she smiled, and it was as if all my years of loneliness and darkness had been swallowed up into the earth together with the whole of the underdark. She embraced me as if we had known each other for years. I was motionless, certain that I had not yet awoken from my last reverie. And then I felt the sharp pain, the coolness of a blade being inserted into my side, sinking into my dark flesh. My vision clouded. The room appeared to spin, and then to blur. A girl who swims in the underdark is conscious of its threats and must be prepared to defend herself. I fell to the ground with a heavy thud as the poison ran like fire in my veins.
Somehow.. I managed to crawl back, and I have been losing my strengths for the past two days. I made it my last goal to record this which is now written in these magical pages, the account of my last days, for I know that I am too weak to swim through the channel. I enclose also all my journals, maps and schematics, having finally been able to identify the route I took up to this point and which will lead
".which will lead one out. I have stated that the volume I write in is magical in itself. As the ink finally dries and the book is closed shut, it will transport itself and all pages herein included to the place last named in its pages. At times the poison gets worse, the fever soars, my vision becomes reddened and I am certain that death will come and claim me. I feel I shall not survive another of these waves of sickness, so I finally write my last page. I have failed in that which I spent so many years striving after, ending despairingly close. I can only make it my dying wish that this book will find itself into the hands of someone worthy and with a will such as my own - a will to defy a city. To him I leave the following words: Light on the eyes of a Drow is blindness.
-The great library of Menzoberranzan"
The young musician closed the ancient volume and clutched at it with all his might, his heart pounding in anxiety. Hands trembling, he sat down to one of the large stone tables in the library and began to write a list of supplies he would need.