Chapter Two

The Slave Pens

1485 DR / Day 1

Fraeya made a noise of protest as Jorlan roughly pulled her back to her feet.

"That was unwise," the disfigured elite hissed at her.

"You think I don't know that?" Fraeya responded, none too pleased at his cheek. "But she deserved it. Even you know that. Is the all-mighty Ilvara the one who gave you those scars?" Jorlan remained silent, but the uncontrolled anger in his eyes told Fraeya enough. "Hm, I thought so."

Though he wanted nothing more than to beat the impetuous female back down to the ground, Jorlan again held his tongue. It was not his place. And his resentment for Ilvara far outweighed any gall that this one might show him.

He needed her, whether he liked it or not.

She was wrong, anyhow. Ilvara had not given him the scars marring his face. It was her healing magic that had saved him. No, the scars the commander had given him ran much deeper. And they weren't the kind that could be just magicked away.

Jorlan looked to the remaining three guards and found them watching him carefully. Not out of suspicion but awaiting his signal. The elite gave a brief nod of his head. They moved to ready the other three prisoners.

The walk to the slave pens took several minutes. Longer than the drow would have preferred. Jorlan led them over a longer rope silk bridge that like the ones before it, swayed dangerously under the feet of the non-drow. Eventually, the party came upon a cave carved deep within the wall of the chasm. Two male warriors stood on either side of a heavy iron gate bolted into the stone. Their expressions were indifferent, bored. But at Jorlan's signal, they raised the gate.

Very little light came from within, but those with darkvision saw a group of diverse, shivering prisoners. The chains connecting Fraeya, Zelyra, Kazimir, and Balasar were removed, and they were swiftly shoved inside the cell alongside the others. The gate shut with a loud—clang—behind them. Jorlan said not another word. He turned on his heel and strode off, intent on returning to the elite barracks where he could recover from the journey and come up with a plan.

Ten curious pairs of eyes looked on as the new arrivals took in their surroundings. The cell was dank and dark. A few clay chamber pots were pushed off to one corner, but there were no other comforts. The floor beneath their feet was uneven stone. Kazimir frowned, already imagining how painful it would be to sleep upon it.

Balasar blindly squinted into the bleakness before him. His vision was not as keen as the others, but he still noted a dwarf, an orc, three deep gnomes, a quaggoth, a drow, a shriveled derro, and a myconid sprout. As his gaze landed upon the tenth prisoner, however, he startled. "Shuushar?" he breathed incredulously, immediately recognizing a kuo-toa in similar chains at one end of the pen. The dragonborn rushed for him, concern raw on his face.

The others saw a naked fish-like creature that reeked of rot and was covered in slimy grey scales with a yellowish undertone. Its body was bulbous. In odd contrast, the legs and arms originating from it were thin and scrawny. To further add to its alien features, it had a mouthful of razor teeth and bulging silver-black eyes that focused independently of one another. But Balasar immediately embraced it, and the two began to converse quietly.

Zelyra blinked, having never seen such a strange creature on the surface.

"What is that?" she asked.

"A kuo-toa," Fraeya answered, sounding thoughtful. "Strange that a dragonborn would be so friendly with one. Downright mad and unstable, they are. Don't usually associate with those outside of their kind."

The druid glanced at Fraeya out of the corner of her eye and saw now the true extent of the scourge's damage. Deep lash marks began on the drow's jawbone and extended down the side of her neck. They would become infected quite easily if not properly treated. Despite her hatred for the dark elves, Zelyra felt a rush of sympathy. She was no stranger to medicine. If she had access to the right herbs, she could help… But Ilvara's word had been clear.

Zelyra was not about to risk her skin over the fate of any drow.

It was then the druid realized that Fraeya was in fact, not the only drow in the cell. Fraeya had taken note of him too and now sauntered off in that direction. For huddled in the very furthermost corner was a male. Stringy, silvery hair hung in front of his face, initially shielding his features from view. But as if he felt their stares, he raised his head.

Even from twenty feet away, Zelyra could feel the waves of resentment radiating from him. He was caked in dirt and grime, leading her to believe he had been locked up for a long while. The druid could not help wondering—why? What had let these people to turn on not just one, but two of their kind?

As Zelyra was preoccupied with the drow, Kazimir alone saw the swift approach of a monstrous beast. The tiefling began frantically tapping the druid's arm. "Uh, hey—elf girl! What's it doing?" he cried, pointing towards the creature that madly rushed towards them.

It was of the same race as the hulking beasts that maned the lifts. Except this one walked purposely in an upright manner. Its arms were nearly the length of its legs…which told Zelyra that it was not its true nature to walk bipedal and yet for some reason, this one did. Its face reminded her of a werewolf but…not, more humanoid in appearance. Thick greyish-white fur covered the expanse of rippling muscle on its chest. Its toothy maw was curled into a frightening grin while dark emerald eyes glinted in the gloom of the cell as a cat's eyes would.

"Help!" Zelyra yelped, backing up into Kazimir.

But the creature called out to her in immaculate Elvish, "I cannot tell you how happy I am to see you!" Zelyra's jaw dropped in confusion. Meanwhile, the beast lowered to a formal bow. "Please do not be startled by this appearance. I am not what I appear to be."

"It talks?!" the tiefling squeaked in Common. "What's it saying?"

Zelyra barely heard him. Her heart hammered in her chest.

"Laucian?" she dared to ask.

She had never seen the elder druid take on this foreign form—not to mention one lost the ability to speak while shapeshifted—but perhaps this type of creature was special. There was still much about druidic magics that she did not understand, much that Laucian and the Masters had yet to impart to her.

To her chagrin, the creature shook its head. "Ah…no, I'm afraid. Prince Derendil of Nelrindenvane, at your service. I know that I do not look it, but I am an elf, like you."

His off-putting appearance was tempered by the soft way he spoke. There was a slight lilt to his Elvish phrasing that reminded Zelyra of Laucian and the other elves of her Circle. Nelrindenvane was unfamiliar to her. But the continent of Faerûn was quite big. He could have been from anywhere. Zelyra was only mildly familiar with the layout of the Sword Coast. Her upbringing had been quite secluded—for multiple reasons. So, rather than question his story, the druid asked, "Have any other surface elves passed through?"

Prince Derendil shook his head and replied, "None. You are the first that I have seen."

"Is it going to eat us?" Kazimir once again interrupted. "I don't understand either of you!"

Effortlessly switching to Common, the prince replied, "Why…why would I eat you?"

Kazimir theatrically gestured to the quaggoth's body.

"You just gestured to all of me…" Derendil said confusedly.

"Precisely!" Kazimir cried.

The prince's expression darkened with insult.

"Kazimir, this is the elf lord Derendil of Nelrindenvane," Zelyra mediated, taking a cautious step between the pair. Beast or not, the druid was not willing to test their luck. "He's not truly a qua—quay—gath." She stumbled over the word, having only heard it pronounced once in Jorlan's broken Common.

"Quaggoth," the prince corrected easily.

The claim was strange. But then again, Kazimir had heard stranger. He was well learned in the ways of the arcane, having spent many years studying at a prominent wizarding school in Waterdeep. Such a transformation could happen in an unfortunate accident—or on purpose. He recalled such a story about a mage from the Harpell family in Longsaddle. Bidderdoo was now the family dog.

"Nelrindenvane…" the wizard pondered. "Never heard of it."

"A great elven kingdom in the South," Derendil explained away lightly. Visions of sparkling white towers, grand banquet halls, and ballrooms decorated with blazing sun motifs filled his mind. The prince sadly shook his head and turned back to Zelyra. "You asked if any other surface elves had passed through. Is there someone you are searching for?"

Zelyra's desire to protect the secrets of her people got the better of her. "I was merely curious," she lied and then put a weary hand to her forehand. "My apologies, the poison the drow used on us has left my memory clouded."

Kazimir chimed in, "She doesn't even remember her name!"

"No," the druid corrected. "I do remember it now. My name is Zelyra."

"Zuh-lyre-ah," the wizard repeated, testing the enunciation. "What a mouthful."

Zelyra fondly shook her head. He was not the first to tell her that.

"Have you been here long?" she then asked Derendil.

The elf prince scratched his chin. "Without the sun, time is difficult here. A tenday, maybe two?" he replied uncertainly. "All I know is that contingent from Menzoberranzan is supposed to arrive soon to collect us."

"A contingent from—where?" Zelyra asked hesitantly, fearful of the answer.

"Menzoberranzan, the drow city," the prince clarified. "Where we will either be sold…or the worse alternative."

Kazimir shivered, "I don't want to go there."

"Trust me, devil. None of us do," Derendil replied bleakly.

None of the three noticed that a dwarf was keenly listening to their conversation.

Meanwhile, Fraeya slipped quietly across the shadows of the cell, intent on getting a better look at the other drow. Her greatest fear was that he was someone she knew. Fortunately, he was not. A glance told her the male was not of any of the ruling houses. He was no more than a commoner. Someone theoretically beneath her. But he could still have information that might be useful.

It would be easy enough to get him to talk.

She realized her mistake immediately. Rather than lower his gaze as was customary in the presence of one above his station, the male defiantly glared up at Fraeya as she came to stand before him. For in this cell, they were equals. Both were at the mercy of Ilvara and her cohorts.

Fraeya let the disrespect roll off her shoulders.

"What is your name?" she asked.

The male folded his arms across his chest and did not answer.

"I asked—what is your name?" she tried again, unconsciously channeling the biting voice of her sister. But still, the male remained silent. Fraeya growled in frustration. "What? Did Ilvara rip out your tongue? Or are you deaf?"

This time the male promptly stood up and walked away.

"Bet you a silver piece you won't get dark-and-broody to talk."

Fraeya jumped at the unexpected voice. She turned to address the Undercommon speaker but was forced to look down. Standing below her—truly below her; he was only three-foot-tall at best—was one of the svirfneblin, a deep gnome. Both his dark head and face were hairless. He had a bulbous nose that overwhelmed his smallish features and his dark eyes twinkled with untold mischief. Unlike their jovial and tricksy surface cousins, the deep gnomes were known to be a private and suspicious race. Yet this one had a roguish air about him that was different than any other svirfneblin Fraeya had come across—not that that was a high number. But it caught the drow's interest all the same.

"Who are you?" Fraeya demanded.

The deep gnome shrugged his shoulders. "I'll answer that in exchange for a wager."

"And what might that be?"

"I bet you two silver pieces that you can't catch that mouse," the gnome bartered, pointing a dark finger towards the gate.

Sure enough, Fraeya followed his finger and watched as a small grey mouse scurried into the cell. The drow didn't think twice about why the deep gnome would bet that she could not catch a mouse—she was simply not one to back down from a challenge when it was given. Her training at Melee-Magthere, the drow warrior school, came back in an instant. Fraeya whirled on her feet, crossing the length of the cell with the grace of a feline, but with even deadlier precision.

Faster than lightning, her nimble fingers closed around the tiny beast. It let out a startled shriek. The drow watched as the creature hopelessly struggled in her grasp. Like a fly caught in a web. So very small and frail it was. All it would take was a quick twist. The creature would expire by her deadly hand. But Fraeya was not a monster. She would not strike against something pathetic and weaker than her just because she could. Those in her house might, but not her. It was that kind of needless violence that led her to flee in the first place.

"Peanut!"

Zelyra now rushed towards Fraeya, alarmed gaze intent on the wriggling mouse and conversation with Kazimir and Derendil forgotten. The drow immediately loosened her hold on the animal, but Zelyra did not know that.

"Stop it! Don't hurt him, please."

"This is your mouse?" Fraeya asked pointedly.

Zelyra came to a hurried stop in front of her and nodded sheepishly.

Fraeya gingerly handed the creature over. "Keep a better eye on him. Else your pet might wind up being a spider's meal."

Peanut scurried up Zelyra's arm and promptly buried himself within her thick golden braid. Fraeya shuddered. Such a pet was not to her liking.

The half-elf offered a genuine look of thanks before returning to whatever it was that she had been doing before—the drow didn't care. She had already lost interest. For her perceptive hearing caught the faint jingle of coin. Looking down, she saw that the deep gnome had reappeared beside her. Carefully concealed in his left palm were two shiny silver pieces. Fraeya stared down at the near-naked gnome in confusion. Like the four prisoners, the others in the cell had been similarly stripped.

"Where could you possibly have been hiding that?" she hissed at the gnome. "They took everything of value!"

His impish smirk grew wider. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

"I don't think I want your coin," Fraeya responded, her face scrunching with distaste. "How about information instead?"

"The name's Jimjar."

"Fraeya," she recited after studying the peculiar gnome for a moment. "So, information?"

Jimjar tapped his finger to his chin. Like Zelyra before him, he too wondered why the dark elves had imprisoned not one but two of their kind—not to mention a female to boot. So very strange. "How's a female such as yourself wind up in a place like this," he daringly asked instead. "I didn't think your kind typically enslaved their precious priestesses."

"I'm no cleric of Lolth," Fraeya spat unthinkingly.

Jimjar's interest was further piqued. "Ah, that might be why!"

The drow refused to comment further.

"Information," she repeated. "A deal's a deal."

"We agreed to coin, which you refused," Jimjar argued, the knowing smile not slipping from his face. He'd struck a nerve and he knew it. "Information was not part of our bargain."

Fraeya angrily shook her head and turned to walk away.

Jimjar's voice came again. "What sort of information do you desire?"

"The junior priestess, Asha. How long has she been here?" Fraeya demanded.

"Do you think I'm intimate with the drows' schedule?" Jimjar asked incredulously, throwing his tiny arms up in the air. "We've been locked in this hell hole for a tenday or more!"

"Surely they release you at some point of the day. For chores perhaps?"

"Chores—bah!" the gnome cried, his expression darkening. "Cruel tasks for their amusement and nothing more. Fine! The first time I remember seeing the younger priestess was a few days ago. Had me coiling and uncoiling ropes for hours. As far as I could tell before then, the Commander was the only female of your kind here." Jimjar knew he'd hit another mark as soon as he witnessed the way Fraeya's silvery eyes lit up with the information, but he was not through. "I think you'd rather like to hear about the charges against dark-and-broody, though."

The drow considered the offer for a moment. The male was not high on her priority list but if Jimjar had something worthwhile and was offering it freely…

At her nod, Jimjar leaned forward and whispered, "His charge is murder. Murder of a fellow warrior."

"Murder," Fraeya mused quietly. "That is not so rare among my people."

Jimjar smiled grimly. "Still. Best watch your back."

—

The prisoners' sleep that night was fraught with nightmares. Dark shadows reached out towards Kazimir as he wandered through an endless maze of tunnels. Zelyra saw a crawling mass of maggots feasting upon rotting flesh. Oily tentacles brushed against Fraeya. And in each of their dreams, hoofbeats and vicious howls could be heard in the ever-encroaching darkness. Balasar alone remained awake for hours, uncomfortable on the bare stone floor and unable to shake the disturbing information that Shuushar had shared with him.

This was the second time the dragonborn had found himself in captivity. First to the duergar, the grey dwarves. This time to the drow. He wasn't sure which was worse.

Shuushar had found him after his first escape, malnourished and unconscious along the shores of the Dark Lake. In an act of rare compassion amongst his race, the odd kuo-toa rescued Balasar and brought him back to his village. His visit there had been short. Any extended stay of a non-kuo-toa was almost unheard of. They parted ways once the dragonborn had recovered his strength.

Now they both found themselves enslaved.

The barbaric village that had taken Balasar in was in peril, according to Shuushar. Wherein the village had always worshiped Blibdoolpoolp, the Sea Mother, a new faction had emerged in recent tendays hailing one called Leemooggoogoon, the Deep Father. The village was bitterly divided. Furthermore, Shuushar had been exiled for reasons he would not share, no matter how hard the dragonborn had pressed. But Balasar feared that somehow, he was to blame.

Balasar thought on those troubling matters for a very long while before finally succumbing to exhaustion.

Hours later Zelyra awoke in a cold sweat. Something was out there in the dark depths; she was sure of it. Something far worse than the drow. The druid looked around, unsure of the time, and saw the other prisoners still asleep around her. Only one was up, a shapely female dwarf. Zelyra had been around very few dwarves in her lifetime, so it was impossible to estimate age. The dwarf's red hair was pulled back into twin long braids, and her light blue eyes were trained perceptively on Zelyra.

"Ye can't sleep either?" the dwarf asked. "Nightmares?"

"Something isn't right down here," Zelyra whispered in reply.

"No, no it's not." The dwarf rose from her reclined position on the stone floor, deciding now was as good a time as any to ask the question she'd been pondering. "I heard ye earlier. Ye spoke a name."

Zelyra's brow furrowed. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Laucian," the redhead boldly replied. "And ye asked about elves."

The druid bit her lip nervously.

"Ye wouldn't seek an elf by the name of Laucian Erenaeth, would ye?"

Impossible, Zelyra thought, that a stranger in such a strange place could know his name without prompting. She was sure she had not shared Laucian's surname with Derendil.

"And if I were, what do you know of him?"

The dwarf watched Zelyra's face closely before revealing, "I've heard tale of a renowned adventurer by that name in my home city of Gauntlgrym. Many times, since the city's reclaiming, he has passed through on his travels."

Again, the information was accurate. Zelyra had been raised on those tales. Many years of Laucian's long life had been spent on the road. It had only been the past decade—after he had discovered Zelyra and her elder brother on the streets of Neverwinter—that he remained within the borders of his people. Before that, his travels had taken him to many places, including both Gauntlgrym and the Underdark. It was for that very reason that Zelyra had begun her search for the elder druid in the reclaimed dwarven city. Gauntlgrym was a gateway to the Underdark, after all, and located not too far from their home in Neverwinter Wood. It had been the most logical place to start.

After a moment of considering how much she was willing to reveal, Zelyra shakily replied, "Laucian was captured by drow some tendays ago. No one has heard from him since. I was sent by our people to search for him," she lied. For no one had sent her. But the debt that she owed was far too great…

The dwarf raised a singular red eyebrow. "A wee one like yerself? Alone in the Underdark? How foolish of yer people."

Zelyra squirmed indignantly on the spot. "Twenty-four winters is not so young."

"It is for an elf," the dwarf shot back.

"Half-elf," Zelyra corrected bitterly.

"Even better! Yer barely the equivalent of sixteen winters by human standard," the dwarf muttered under the breath, too quietly for Zelyra to hear. She sensed there was more to the story but did not press. "What's yer name?"

Zelyra murmured her first name. Only her first name.

"Eldeth Feldrun. Sorry to tell ye I've not seen the elf. I was merely curious if he and the legend were one and the same." When Zelyra's face fell, Eldeth kindly added, "Take heart that if the tales I've heard are true, he has what it takes to survive down here."

Zelyra did not doubt that, but worried all the same. It was impossible not to.

Eldeth cast a concerned gaze over the young druid. "Take rest while ye still can. The drow put us to work first thing in the morn."