(A/N: Thanks to everyone for the reviews! To Dragoon of Light: The idea of Enserric the golem terrifies me, too. To everyone who thought my version of the Maker was cool: Thanks! To everyone who asked about Umbra: You'll just have to wait and see...

Disclaimer: Neverwinter Nights not mine.)

Chapter Twelve

"And I sssee you. I sssee how death clingsss to you, how the shadowsss cling to you. Your life hasss long been over..." Deekin awoke to those words clinging to his mind. As his eyes adjusted to his surroundings, he remembered that those had been Heurodis's words to Umbra, shortly before the medusa's death and Undrentide's second fall. To this day, they puzzled him, and the way Umbra had acted last night (last day? It was impossible to keep track in the Underdark) only made him wonder all the more what Heurodis had meant.

"About time you woke up." It took the kobold a few moments to realized Valen had spoken. Deekin looked over to see the tiefling sitting cross-legged on a blanket opposite him.

"How long you be awake?" Deekin asked, stretching his short limbs and climbing into a standing position.

"Long enough to figure out where we are," the tiefling responded with a satisfied smile, unfurling a piece of parchment and turning the written side toward Deekin. The kobold studied it for a moment so before meeting Valen's gaze with some puzzlement.

"That be bunch of dots, mean goat man," the kobold noticed. Valen sighed, but had gotten somewhat used to Deekin's Deekinness by now. Besides, he was in a good mood.

"The black dots are stalagmites," he explained. "The green ones are stalactites."

"Right... ummm... which ones hangs from ceilings again?"

"Stalactites. Stalagmites are the ones on the ground."

"Oh, okies." Deekin had already gotten out his notebook, and wrote this down. "Why there be dots on map, though?"

"It's harder to tell terrain apart in the Underdark than it is on the surface, so subterranean cartographers use these dots to distinguish areas." Valen tapped a spot on the odd map, then ran his finger in a small circle around it. "Do you see these dots?"

"Deekin not be blind," Deekin scoffed, looking up briefly from writing. Valen couldn't help but wonder how the kobold could already have so much writing material. Unless, of course, he was recording yesterday's events from memory, in which case Valen doubted the tale's accuracy. Regardless, the tiefling pointed in order to several stalactites and stalagmites in the surrounding area, then pointed in the same order to identically aligned dots on the map.

"That's where we are," he informed with some pride. Deekin was quiet, though his pen was not.

"Why you not uses map earlier?" he asked at last.

"Because we weren't anywhere near being on the map then," Valen answered. His finger trailed much farther down to another part of the map. "The cave of beholders serving the Valsharess is down here. Obviously, that should be our next goal. We'll set off" - his voice turned to a grumble - "as soon as your master decides to show up. Do you have any idea where she might be?"

"With Boss, nobody knows," Deekin shrugged. "She just wander off sometimes, as long as Deekin know her. Deekin not knows why." This answer clearly didn't please Valen, who rolled up the map and returned it to a satchel on his belt. Deekin reached into his own pack, got a piece of jerky and started to gnaw on it. Valen shot him a deadly glare that halted the kobold in mid-chew.

"I wouldn't recommend that," he advised. "Gods know how long we could be out here, and the wild Underdark isn't a bountiful place. We should preserve our food supplies."

"But Deekin be hungry!" the kobold whined.

"You ate last night," Valen said coolly. "If you wanted breakfast, you shouldn't have eaten dinner." Deekin had read many books, and though epic tales usually polished over the parts about limited rations, he knew the tiefling was right. He returned the meat jerky to his pack, but the growling of his stomach didn't make it any easier.

"Oh, there you are Umbra," Valen said suddenly.

"Huh?" Deekin turned his head to see Umbra standing directly behind him and started, though he knew he should be used to her sudden appearances by now.

"This one has brought food," she told them, reaching into her pack.

"Oh?" Valen brightened, just before Umbra dropped a cat-sized black spider carcass to the ground. "...oh."

"Yippee!" Deekin cheered, breaking off a limb and crunching on the foot. Noticing Valen's obvious distaste, Deekin assured him, "No worries, Valen. Spider be dead, see?" He picked the spider up by a leg and shook it; the leg broke off, letting the spider fall again.

"I see," Valen replied. "You can have my share. I'm... not hungry."

"You isn't?" The kobold looked to Umbra. "Is you hungry, Boss?"

"This one is not," Umbra refused politely.

"You never is," Deekin sighed. "Oh well. All the more for Deekin." He resumed munching on the leg while Valen gave Umbra a confused look. She didn't seem to notice, not that that stiff face told much of anything; Valen decided against saying anything, and instead watched Deekin eat until it occurred to him that he'd rather not.

When Deekin had eaten his fill, he broke the spider corpse up into little pieces and stored it in his pack, chattering something about Lolth and driders that Valen didn't bother to acknowledge. Valen briefly explained to Umbra what the map's dots meant and where they should be headed next, during which she was attentively silent, waiting until he had finished to speak.

"Beholders?" Umbra was thoughtful. "This one encountered a beholder once. Remember, Deekin?" Deekin did. "They can see through invisibility spells. A shame."

"Not really," Valen frowned. "If you rely too heavily on hiding from trouble, you won't be prepared for trouble when it comes your way." Deekin tensed.

"Boss not be coward, Valen," he said. "Boss fights powerful monsters before. It just be good idea to stays out of trouble sometimes, right Boss?"

"Yes, Deekin," she replied. "Though Valen does pose a point as well. Nonetheless, the Valsharess will not wait. We should be off now."

"Indeed," Valen agreed. Deekin sighed, put his notebook away and scrabbled after the other two as they started off. They wove around a few stalactite-stalagmite mergings, wandered over irregular, bumpy ground, avoided some steep drop-offs and scaled others. After some time they came to a stream, which was fortunate. After all that spider-meat (which turned out to be burnt, due to Umbra's fondness of fire spells) Deekin was terribly thirsty. Valen wasn't as parched, but drank anyway, splashing some water on his face as well to wash off accumulated sweat and grime. After this, the two dumped out the stale water out of their canteens and filled them in the stream, and all the while Umbra just stood back and watched. Valen thought this more than a little suspicious, but didn't comment on it. They continued on.

It was a ridiculously long walk to the beholder caves. Valen consulted his map regularly, to make sure they were on the right track, while Deekin wrote off and on. When he couldn't think of anything to write, he added details to his Valen caricature, which was so mutilated by now he suspected he would soon have to start a new one. He started to whistle the Doom Song, found himself incapable of whistling, and hummed it instead. Humming wore into chanting, chanting wore into singing, and before long he was playing his much-neglected lute (there just wasn't much time to play a lute on an epic adventure) and belting the Doom Song full-pitch. A sharp look from Valen egged him on, but a sharper look efficiently convinced him to stop. There was a long silence after that.

"Kobold, I have a question for you," Valen said at last.

Deekin turned and stared at Valen with wide, surprised eyes. "You gots question for Deekin?"

Valen gritted his teeth. "Yes, but it is one question and one question only. If you attempt to sidetrack me into some tangent with your inanity I shall be forced to behead you."

"Uhh... holds on," Deekin stalled, writing this down. "Tangent... with... inanity... that be good. Deekin remembers that for later." He looked back up at Valen, expression changing with comprehension of what had just been said, fancy wording or no. "You know, mean goat man, Deekin not gets to answers your question if you takes off his head."

"Yes, well... that is a risk I shall have to take," Valen muttered. His good mood had fallen the instant Deekin started singing. "My question is this: this song you're so fond of, where did you learn it?"

"You means the Doom Song?"

"Yes, that's the one. If it keeps running through my head, I swear it'll drive me mad! Where did you learn it? Is it a bardic trick meant to lure the enemy into a crazed frenzy?"

"Uhh... not really. Deekin makes it up one day when he be in desert. Deekin and boss be doomed, he thinking." Valen stared at Deekin for a long moment. The grinding of his teeth was audible.

"And... that's it?"

Deekin quirked a scaly brow. "You gots more than one question?"

"No." Valen stepped back, an act that pleased Deekin greatly in that it distanced him from Umbra. "No, I don't. Forget I said anything at all."

"Deekin forgets already," the kobold promised, writing it down. Valen sighed, shook his head and looked off at the cavelike landscape that abounded around them. It would have been quiet... but for Deekin quietly singing what could only be the Doom Song. Valen swiftly attempted to counter this with a song of his own:

"They say that a lass born in Sigil
will place her heart in a box
the key don't you see
it comes with a fee
la-ta-ta-la-ta-ta..."

Undeterred, Deekin kept on with the Doom Song. Not one to back down from a challenge, Valen quickly thought of another song:

"Death is the gift
a blade shall bring
Death is the gift,
a blade shall sing..."

Deekin persisted, and Valen found himself repeating those same four lyrics incessantly just to drown the damned kobold's singing out. Deekin, in turn, continued to sing the Doom Song for precisely the same reasons. This must have gone on for five minutes before Umbra broke in.

"This one is suddenly reminded of a human, a half-orc and a dwarf she once knew," she recalled.

"Ooh! This be a joke, Boss?" Deekin wondered.

"No," Umbra said, adding thoughtfully, "but they were." There was another silence after that, as no one could think of anything worthwhile to say.

Then, so quietly no one could hear, Umbra sang:

"I am the unbeliever,
a shadow on the planes,
a whisper true, a song to you,
my lover's soul refrains..."

The rocky ground grew up into a bluff before them, bearing a single round hole in its center. Nothing too impressive; if the map hadn't told them so, the trio wouldn't have recognized this as the beholder hive.

"Here we are," Valen noted as they arrived.

"FINALLY!" Deekin collapsed of exaggerated exhaustion. Valen quickly clamped the kobold's mouth shut and pulled him behind a large rock. Umbra hid as well.

"Keep your voice down!" Valen hissed, pointing over at the hive before Deekin could ask why. A beholder had drifted out of the hole. It checked the area around it briefly before floating back in, failing to notice the threesome.

"They gots no ears," Deekin said. "You be sure they hears us?"

"I'd rather not find out," Valen said dryly, shoving to his feet.

"Why we hides?" Deekin asked. "You says earlier we shouldn't hides behind invisibility spells. Deekin not sees how rock be any better."

"I just don't want the whole hive there waiting for us when we go in," Valen retorted, bounding over to the acclivity. Leaping up, he latched onto the mouth of the entrance and pulled himself in, drawing his flail and motioning for the others to follow. Umbra was next to reel herself up, Deekin following shortly after. He was too short to jump up as the others had, but managed to climb up. It didn't take long for their eyes to adjust. The cave's interior was dark, but luminous mushrooms gave off just enough light for them to see three beholders hovering toward them, eye stalks swiveling and needle teeth gnashing. Perfect; each adventurer took on a beholder. Valen smashed his enemy into a wet pulp, Deekin burst out his opponent's central eye with a sonic attack and then stabbed its odd guts with his rapier, while Umbra roasted her foe with a fire spell. All three beholders fell dead before they could use their treacherous eye spells, or even alert the rest of the hive.

Wiping beholder fluid off his face, Valen glanced about. Assured there was no immediate threat, he remarked, "Their leader, the Eye Tyrant, is going to be somewhere in these tunnels. We need to kill it."

"Deekin keeps his eyes peeled," Deekin replied.

"So will the beholders," Valen grinned. "All dozen or so of them."

"Oh ho ho," Deekin chortled falsely as the party started down the tunnel leading farther in. He could hear odd noises echoing up and down the tunnel's length, but put them out of his head as best he could. Drops of calcite-infused water dripped down on his head; brushing them off with the back of his hand, Deekin decided this was one of many reasons why he'd never missed living in a cave.

"There is an old drow saying about the Underdark, I hear: 'Only death awaits the unwary within its shadows,'" Valen remarked suddenly.

"On the Shadow Plane, that goes without saying," Umbra noted.

"Yes, I suppose it would," Valen agreed. "But at any rate, don't get lost down here. Finding your bearings once you are lost in the shadows is far from simple." There was a long pause. "Oh... you probably know that."

"You would not last for long on the Plane of Shadow, Valen," Umbra said. Deekin smirked to himself; but to his surprise, Valen's reply was not venomous. Rather, he chuckled lightly.

"Maybe not," he said. "But I am a veteran of the Blood Wars. I think I could last for a while, before I died of starvation."

"You would be surprised," Umbra replied. "The Shadows can do strange things to mortals." Before Valen could remind her of his demon blood, she added, "In the Shadows, any of flesh are considered mortal."

"I suppose you would know," the tiefling conceded. "When did you come to Toril?"

"This one had lingered on Toril for many a year, but returned to the Shadows for a time," Umbra noted, unknowingly striking Deekin with a pang of guilt, "so quite recently."

"Interesting," Valen nodded. "I arrived on the Prime some years ago. I must admit, though, I'm curious about your beliefs. Many Shadovar are worshippers of Shar... are you among them?"

"Shar does more harm than good," Umbra told him. Was it just Deekin, or was there a trace of bitterness in her voice? "No, this one does not worship her."

"I have seen my share of greater beings during my time in the planes, or heard about them," Valen commented. " And I know that there are many who have faded away or died... or even been killed at the hands of mortals. To me, this makes them too... familiar to honor in such a personal way, despite the power that I know they have to grant to others." He glanced at Umbra. "I hope that does not sound offensive."

"Not at all, Valen."

"That's good," he smiled. "The Seer has spoken to me often about Eilistraee, the drow goddess that she places her faith in." He frowned. "I cannot feel the same. I do not think she expects me to, yet..." He shrugged helplessly. "Part of me believes I should become more accustomed to the ways of this world. The other part of me says I will always be a planar and I should not try to change that. As a fellow planar... what do you think?" Umbra quietly pondered the question put to her.

"This one has found adapting to Prime as best she can makes things simpler," she replied at last. "Do not force yourself, but do not hesitate to adapt where you can."

Valen nodded slowly. "I suppose it is time that I learned more about this world. Part of the trouble is that I have never been to any of the cities." He looked at Umbra suddenly, getting an idea. "This Waterdeep, the city that the Valsharess is attacking... perhaps I could join you when you return there. Would that be acceptable?" Before Umbra could respond, Deekin broke in.

"Oh, Waterdeep be horrible city!" the kobold told Valen. "Mean people chases Deekin all over, just because he be kobold! They probably be even worse to you. No, you not wants to goes there." There was an awkward silence. Deekin congratulated himself for breaking the moment, but felt a little guilty. The group moved on as normal, but out the corner of his eye, Deekin thought he could see Valen flashing him a glare.

They hadn't gone far before something hit Deekin's head. "Ow!" the kobold muttered, rubbing between his horns and looking up. A bunch of rocks, rubble and dust dropped down from above, which Deekin shut his eyes against just in time. Umbra and Valen, too, noticed this, and drew their weapons. More rubble rained down, and out of the ceiling burst a dozen beholders. Umbra instantly retaliated, roasting quite a few with a fireball spell. Valen smashed two more together in one swing and narrowly avoided an eye laser. A large beholder attempted to scoop Deekin up into its mouth, but the kobold grabbed his rapier and slashed its main eye. The beholder howled, oozing humer, as Deekin finished it off.

"GAH!" Valen cried as he was hit in the shins by an eye spell. His legs were guarded by his armor, but the armor that was struck quickly turned to stone, making walking an increasingly difficult task as the tiefling was forced to drag the stone parts with him. Umbra quickly remedied this with a spell, returning the stone to metal, but not before Deekin saw. He'd been turned to stone before, and would rather not be stone again. Again, a beholder tried to grab Deekin in its mouth; lost in thought, Deekin failed to evade and the beholder succeeded. Needle teeth sinking into his abdomen, Deekin gritted his own teeth and wriggled to get free, but the teeth only dug deeper. Deekin managed to free an arm and slashed upward, striking this beholder in the eye as well. The beholder roared in pain, opening its mouth just enough for the kobold to squirm free.

The distance to the ground was twice Deekin's height. Thinking better of it, he instead crawled on top of the beholder's head. The eye stalks swiveled, neatly arranging themselves around the surmounted kobold and glowing as they prepared to fire. Deekin panicked as he realized what was about to happen, and struck out. His rapier cleaved half the eye stalks, and he jumped up just as those remaining blasted. Landing on the beholder again after the prepared shots had been fired, Deekin sliced these eye stalks off as well. Finding he was on to something, Deekin noticed that another beholder hovered not one foot away. The beholder he was currently perched on swerved and spun, racked with pain, confusion and blindness, making it hard to hold on to. Deekin leapt off just as Valen took advantage of this and smashed the beholder dead, landing again on the next beholder. Now that he knew what he was doing, Deekin made short work of it, easily slicing this beholder's eye stalks off as well. When this was accomplished, he leapt onto the closest and did the same. In this fashion, Deekin stripped the beholders of all their eye stalks. Not only was it easier for Umbra and Valen to avoid shots when each beholder had only one eye to be concerned about, the beholders were so distressed by the loss of their eyes that they were easy targets. At this rate, it didn't take the trio long to defeat them.

Valen clattered to the ground, leaning against the tunnel's wall and laying his flail to the side as he rested. Summoning his magics, Deekin healed over the spots where the tiefling and himself had been hit - mostly just cauterized wounds, the beholders were very fond of those lasers. When Deekin had successfully healed them up, he looked over to Umbra. She stood just in front of them, examining the tunnel ahead, behind, above and below for signs of more beholders. She didn't act wounded... but then, when did she ever? It was impossible to tell if she was hurt under that thick, self-mending robe. Deekin cast a healing spell on her, just in case.

"What is - " Umbra cut herself off, collapsing and convulsing and twisting at painful-looking angles. The episode was brief - over by the time a worried Valen and Deekin made it to her side - but disturbing.

"What happened!" Valen demanded. Umbra swiftly stood up.

"It was nothing," she dismissed. For a moment, her voice sounded strange, faded. "Let us continue."

"You sure you be alright, Boss?" Deekin looked at her with concern. She had reacted just as he cast the healing spell, and he couldn't help but feel it was some fault of his own.

"This one is fine," she insisted, starting ahead. "Come." Uneasily, Deekin did so. Valen stood his ground.

"What happened?" Valen repeated, calmly this time. His tail switched. "Or don't you know?"

"This one does not know," Umbra replied. Her face was still as ever, but her voice did not cloak the lie.

"You do know," Valen said, then sighed and joined the others. "But you obviously don't want to tell us. I'll respect that."

"Thank-you," Umbra said gratefully. After that, all three were silent, though their thoughts were far from it. Valen ran over the previous event in his head, nitpicking it suspiciously, while Deekin was terrified that something had been wrong with his spell and he'd horribly injured the Boss. As for Umbra? Her only fear was that her secret was being revealed.

(I hope you enjoyed that chapter. And yes, I know that last song was originally Valen's, but thought it was better suited to Umbra.)