Chapter Thirteen
They ducked low behind a rock formation near the wall as soon as the candle light and eerie glow of faerie fire hit them upon turning a corner. Nirra stumbled behind the other two, whose reflexes were much more polished than hers, but the drow was quick to grab and steady her, then pulled her into hiding. Near Solaufein, a fierce Torri, hands firmly placed on the hilts of her swords, looked ready to attack as soon as anything looked suspicious about what he was doing. Nothing did happen, though, and she relaxed again, at least halfway through to perfection.
"Remain hidden," the drow male whispered, his voice perceptible only so barely that it would have seemed a figment of their imagination, hadn't he actually been standing right before them. "I'll do the necessary scouting."
Torri wanted to hiss her defiance and total disagreement back at him, but she thought better and kept it to herself. She wasn't sure her voice could even begin to sink to that quiet a tone, and she didn't want to test it until it was really needed. Giving Nirra's hand a comforting squeeze, the moon elf just waited, while the drow's slender form slunk soundlessly along the rocks, towards the dangerously lit edge, and he peeked beyond.
A few moments fleeted past, full of a burdening lack of action and events, but finally Solaufein returned to the two, the same way he'd gone, seemingly unnoticed by anyone. How do we know he's not signaled everything to those drow out there? Torri thought to herself, biting her lower lip in the process of waiting for any explanation.
"It's a small circular cavern," the drow didn't waste any more time and began exposing the known facts. "There's no other exit from it than this one. Your mage friend is conscious and caged at the back of it, opposite from here, but they've made the mistake of not warding his prison against spells. They probably thought they were safe, having him outnumbered, but once we're in the fray, he may be able to help."
He made a small break there, weighing facts and composing a further mental summary, but both surface elves knew better than to speak, so they allowed him to take time. Finally, he continued. "As I predicted, the handmaiden is there; she's at the very center of the cavern. Two male fighter guards are posted by the cage, and there are four more of them scattered about the nearby wall. All are dual-wielders. They have their own mage, who is hidden in shadows, just left of the entrance."
Torri and Nirra nodded. It was pretty easy to judge the situation. They were outnumbered, but not greatly so – evenly divided, they could have composed two-on-one matches. Of course, that wasn't the advised tactic to adopt. What the drow party had tried to do when planning their defenses was to lure the whole number of whoever would attack them into the cavern, for an apparent melee battle, then have their mage appear from behind and make it much easier for them. Aware of the mage's presence, the three – or four, if Knave would indeed be able to help – could easily twist that to their own advantage.
"I should be the front line," Torri dared to finally say something, her breath contained and the words barely put out. Any less than that and she wouldn't have been speaking at all, and still the drow's words had been far quieter and better suited. However, hers were fine too, and that was what mattered.
"Agreed," Solaufein replied after a short study he gave her, then looked to Nirra. "As much as I can tell, you are a mage. Am I correct?" Nirra nodded, and so he continued. "We should deal with the males quite easily, as long as you keep the mage busy and we both charge the fighters. The only problem would be the handmaiden."
"The handmaiden is mine," Torri interjected. "If the rest of you concentrate on holding the others away long enough, I can destroy her."
The drow looked at her, as if weighing her words and estimating how capable she was to do as she had said, exactly. Finally, he shook his head. "We have the surprise element. Twice. They don't know we're here, so you and I could easily dispatch one fighter each before they rally correctly. Most likely, they will forget about your imprisoned friend, so HE may be able to rid us of the handmaiden. We just have to let him know that's what we need. On the other hand, if you go straight at the handmaiden, they will encircle you, and I won't be able to help much until too late."
"I wasn't bargaining with you, drow," Torri replied, although she had sat patiently through his speech. Then, she bolted so unexpectedly that none of them was able to stop her, and she stalked rapidly straight into the cavern, the dim lights of the camp revealing the hateful expression carved into her features.
"Stupid surfacer," Solaufein cursed, then darted after her, and Nirra did not need any other prodding to follow right behind. They both put their intentions of scolding Torri aside, for later... IF there was going to be a later time.
As Solaufein had predicted accurately, at first the fighters allowed Torri to close in on the handmaiden, who readied her mace for the confrontation, glancing furtively at the tentacle rod she had brought with her. The female had been stupid enough to place it away, but she wasn't even stupider, to now think that the moon elf wouldn't kill her the first moment she should even attempt to turn around and grab it from the floor. The two came to face each other, none any less determined to win this battle, while the male fighters closed in from all sides; even the two had left their posts by the cage and were approaching. By all semblances, Torri didn't stand the faintest chance.
Just as the drow party's male mage was stepping out of the shadows, oblivious to the two other figures closing in from behind him, a stone-calm Solaufein darted right past him, and, before he could do anything to stop or harm him, he became conscious of another presence, that of a female already chanting a spell behind him. He had made a terrible mistake, and when he turned, not one, but four identical gold elven mages were smiling at him from the corridor. Three were nothing but mirror images, but he could no longer know which was the real one, for he hadn't seen her alone. The drow mage did the only effective thing he could do – he raised his hands and began tracing the runes and chanting for a countering spell, one that would deny hers and scatter the mirror images into thin air.
Nirra was satisfied enough with him losing time with that, and she looked to the combat scene before her, which had gotten dangerously close to starting. Her next spell was aimed at the fighter Solaufein was quickly closing in on, and it rendered the male helpless as it engulfed and held him still, unable to move. Solaufein did not hesitate, and he stepped in quickly, spinning a full 360 degrees, his two-handed sword elegantly held above; the blade fell quickly and decapitated the would-be opponent in a flash. The head tumbled to the floor, and the body only followed later, with a thud that went unheard by any, given the circumstances. Nirra and Torri's newest ally paid him no more attention, and moved in to engage another fighter, whom Torri had casually shoved out of her way with a well-placed pommel-hit, and one of his companions joined in quickly, trapping Solaufein there. The moon elf was left to fend off the rest and the handmaiden by herself, as he had warned her.
A bit further, but in the chaos of the same few moments, red light flared to life inside the cage, where Knave was effectively casting his own little spell – the two guards who had departed from their posts soon found themselves trapped by huge webs emerging from the floor, and they struggled futilely to cleave their way through. The mage would now only need to cast something else to finish them off. All in all, it left three others for Torri to still worry about.
However, Nirra's mirror images died down right that instant, crumbling into nothingness right at her sides, and she could see no more. She had to properly concentrate on her own one-on-one duel now.
Torri had paid only too little attention to the male fighters; she only saw them as minor impediments which she could simply shove out of the way and forget about, certain that Solaufein, close behind her, would deal with them from there. Once one of her swords furiously snapped at the handmaiden's mace, however, she was conscious of her mistake, when she had to turn and fend off two attackers, all too well aware that a third was closing in quickly. That did a total of four opponents – not so good.
The moon elf swung about, and, taking a moment to parry and deflect a vicious thrust from a side, she drifted past through the last opening, avoiding another attack and not allowing them to close the circle around her. Spinning, she returned to the same opponent, who was just turning to follow her move; she gave him no quarter, and went in, but a slashing sword coming from the left had her retreating before she could score any hit there.
The fight's speed was insane; she barely had time to think and plan, and all she could do was retreat mechanically, parrying and diverting attacks out of reflex, unable to start any of her own. She saw the handmaiden for a split-second, the female having tossed her mace aside and grabbed the rod. Things did not look good at all, and without realizing it Torri wished she had listened to Solaufein. Continuing to back away, she flailed both her weapons about handily, her hips swinging from one side to the other in determined thrusts, which kept her balance always on the edge, near to collapsing, but allowed her an uncanny amount of mobility. However, she knew she would need a long moment's pause if she were to stop, so she had basically trapped herself in this state of continual movement until she would find a way to rest for a second.
She gained that momentum the only safe way she could think of, by returning to Solaufein's side; their backs met steadily without any second thoughts – as much as Torri didn't like it, there was no time for whims and turning up your nose in combat. They allowed the adversaries to encircle them and led them to believe that they'd stay there, but as the five reunited drow fighters gained confidence, the pair split up again, taking them by surprise, each concentrating on one opponent as they broke through the circle.
Torri chose to do so in a whirl, picking two small hits aimed at two different drow, rather than a devastating blow at one. A magic missile from Knave flared past her, casting its red glow about her hair in the proximity, but what it touched was another of her opponents, who staggered behind her under the shock of the multiple blasts. However, the only thing the spell did was slow him down and heat up his armor, and the next moment, the male was pursuing Torri again, just like her other two opponents had done when they'd recovered from her hits.
This time, however, the moon elf did not back away; she had had time enough to prepare, and she snarled, then dove forward, viciously whipping her sword at the closest one's face. The blade cut a clean line along, the eye included in its extent, and the drow growled in pain. The other two left him behind, coming in quickly, and the battle raged on.
As oblivious to the handmaiden as Torri herself, Solaufein had drifted to the other side, followed by the other two drow males, and was handily fending them off, and inflicting significantly more damage with his rare but concentrated blows than the moon elf's quick series of hack and slash. He pulled the solid blade free of its new victim's belly, the armor-plates having done too little to protect it from that strong a thrust, and he was conscious that his own armor had just deflected an ill-placed strike from the behind, where he'd left the other opponent. He had been careless, but lucky. Spinning, he only froze in place when his eyes fell upon the handmaiden, her confident smirk perfectly understandable, given the nine-tailed rod coming to life in her hand.
Solaufein retreated quickly, as the remaining fighter withdrew to his superior's side, grinning viciously at him. Both the handmaiden and the fighter advanced on him the very next instant, and he kept backing away much faster, buying precious time to think of a new tactic.
The moment the mirror images vanished, Nirra and the drow mage were left standing as equals, facing each other with caution. For the next few moments, both of them tensely awaited for the other to make a first move, but that didn't happen. Finally, they both moved at the same time, each of them determined to be the first to finish the spell.
Mage duels were quite simple, where protection spells weren't involved, and this was the case. The first one of them to attempt and cast one was possibly doomed, for if the other finished first, they had a chance to hit before the shield was up. This way, they were both left with no alternative than to attack. The way they chose to do so, however, was vital.
Nirra was the smarter one. She picked a simple Magic Missile for a start, and cast the four small globes before the mage's more complicated incantation, for whatever it was, had even begun to gain a definite shape. His begun spell fizzled as he could no longer concentrate on anything else but batting at the reddish fire his robe's folds had caught.
By the time he was done extinguishing it, he was left with little else to do than watch her finish another spell. However, something went wrong with what appeared like a call on Melf's Minute Meteors, for instead of forming into flaming pebbles in her hand, the dazzling mass of sparks spread out and disappeared all too quickly.
The drow mage snickered, and was already chanting before she could even think of another spell. Left with crude, primitive methods to elude being killed, Nirra waited until the last moment, then dove away to the side, tumbling to the floor. She bruised her elbows and forehead, but at least the magically conjured acid arrow had missed her.
The male was young and, though powerful, he lacked the experience of too many fights. His surprise got the best of him and he just froze, blinking at her in disbelief. He had thought she was dead for sure.
Nirra brushed herself up, ready to take advantage of this unexpected, but definitely not unwelcome delay. Once again, she chose a simple spell quickly, and advanced on the drow mage, who began to chant something right after she had started. Holding out her hands, thumbs touching each other and the rest of her fingers spread out like a fan, she was done and fire shot away from each fingertip, aimed directly at the opponent's face. His hair was ablaze in a matter of seconds, and skin crumpled and tore off his features most horribly, under the action of such immense heat.
The gold elf didn't look; turning her head, she sought Knave, who was just finishing another spell, apparently aimed at one of Torri's opponents. She didn't track that, for her own magic was over right at that moment, and she proceeded to sneaking along the wall and making her way towards the cage. Behind her, a thud resounded eerily when the male, with his scorched head, fell to the floor.
Torri leaped away with cat's grace, not allowing herself to be trapped and cornered into the wall, and even as she did so she parried an attack aimed for her head, by bringing up one of her swords. The other weapon had to quickly descend to meet a chop from another opponent, and then she threw her arms apart as much as possible, venting both of them away, just in time to duck below the third's clumsy attempt.
Now they were all left behind, and she spun quickly, scoring a kick at the last one, which sent him tumbling into the others. As expected of such loving and compassionate beings, they shoved their own companion away brutally, and he hit the wall in full flight, head cracking against the rock.
"Thank you," Torri grinned, and bowed most graciously, before they got close enough and she had to resume whirling about and crossing with them. "I know I could count on your help," she didn't renounce her sarcasm, even as she forcefully pushed her way between them, separating one from the other.
Things seemed to be sorting out for the moon elf; Knave's spells hadn't managed to hurt the drow, but they had distracted them and given her time to plan ahead and switch tactics. Just as she beamed with the certainty that she was surely the winner here, her eyes met the scene of Solaufein backing off from the handmaiden, with her tentacle rod, and the other fighter.
That was enough to drive the moon elf senseless with anger and rage, and she darted from her own fight, coming in from the side. She's mine, she thought to herself, a concern that subdued all others.
The fighter continued towards Solaufein, but the handmaiden stopped, and snarled at the moon elf's vicious approach. The latter did not waste a moment, and fiercely slashed away at the drow female, but one of the tentacles snapped up by its own accord, and wrapped about the attacking blade; soon, two more followed, and they tugged at the sword so abruptly that Torri would have been pulled behind, but she let go. The weapon was cast aside, too far away for her to reach it promptly.
Torri's former opponents had given chase, but the handmaiden gestured them to join their comrade in battling Solaufein. She barked an order at them, in drow, and the moon elf could only understand the bit where the female was referring to her as 'the fool'. Blindly, she gripped her remaining sword with both hands, and lurched forward, slashing forcefully for the drow female's head. This time, the tentacle rod acted on the handmaiden's own command, and dove forward, but Torri knew better than to let it perform the same trick again. She averted the attack over to the other side in the last split second, but that made it far less effective and it just bounced off the strong armor plates.
For a moment, the two faced each other, none of them fond of what they were seeing, both defiant and sure that they would win.
"Why haven't you cast 'Knock' on the door?" Nirra hurriedly asked Knave once she was by the cage, and then began to do so herself, now that she was there.
"I'm an Abjurer," he replied absently. "Alteration spells are denied to me." All that time, his eyes never left the melee field – his spells hadn't done much damage, aside from the two he had webbed and killed, but they had helped Torri a great deal. The moon elf, however, had chosen to throw away her clear advantage and go for the handmaiden.
"Think she can deal with that?" he pointed Nirra the right direction.
The gold elf looked over, shortly. "Yes," she nodded, then her eyes fell to the other scene, one that didn't look as good. "Let's go help Solaufein."
Knave made the logical connection, and followed her as she stalked off determinedly.
Solaufein didn't like the way things looked for him at all, but he had no time to curse Torri's second display of foolishness; he could only fight. The fact that he was a two-handed fighter and they were dual-wielders did not come much to his aid – on contrary. He was stronger and more experienced, but at such a pace, he was also forced to dodge, and block where he could, so often that there was no time for anything else.
A sword came from the right, and he ducked, then its counterpart slashed from the left, followed immediately by a double stab from a second fighter. All he could do was roll away, an inch from instant death all the time, and he breathed deeply when he was back up a few feet further. The third was the only one able to follow him immediately, and Solaufein blocked his first strike easily, blades clashing with a crude sound of metal on metal. He thrust all of his strength into that, and drove the adversary backwards, then sent him staggering with a kick. Dropping back to the floor just in time, he whirled, throwing his leg to the side and causing another to stumble, but not fall.
Edging away once more, Solaufein stood back up, and turned, to see he had been too late; fortunately, his move had shifted the angle, and the attack only reached his arm, a blade plunging deeply into muscular tissue. Tugging forcefully backwards, he managed to relieve the weapon from the opponent's hand, at the cost of only so much more pain for him. He grimaced as he pulled it out, then dodged another attack, and parried a third with his remaining hand. Retreating some more, he gained a pause, and used it to rest for a moment.
If it had been difficult so far, now it would be hell – bearing a two-handed blade in just your left hand wasn't something he liked to do on a regular basis. Breathing heavily, he got ready to face the charge again, but instead, as the screams of warning finally reached his ears, he immediately dove to a side, behind a rock, dropping his weapon and crouching desperately for protection. A quick-following huge flash of light on the other side told him he had seen and evaded the fireball just in time.
He picked his sword back up and came out, almost slipping on the blackened floor, to meet Nirra and Knave as they stopped to check that the two burnt bodies were truly dead. Solaufein was quick to spot his third opponent, cradled against the wall, the feather-adorned back of a magically conjured arrow sticking out of his head. Nodding his thanks, he scanned the room for Torri.
The tentacles were vicious, powerful, and nine in number, while she only had one sword to defend against them. The priestess whipped them about skillfully and effortlessly, her mind ordering their every move to a millimeter's perfection. With that in stock, Torri could only remotely even hope to score a hit on her.
That only made the hate grow...
Blindly, a machine possessed by reflex and instinct, the moon elf slashed and snapped at anything that approached her, drove the tendrils away as soon as they began to close in. There was no room in her mind for anything but these fierce blows; she spun, she tried a hit, backed away to bat a tendril that had gotten too close back, avoided another, slashed at a third, and then all went on repeat, the speed increasing, until she failed and had to withdraw another step. She was losing ground, and fast.
A triumphant grin spread upon her face when a lucky hack split a snake-headed end away from its tentacle, and the others quivered eerily and withdrew. Eager to score a hit, she failed to see the trick for what it was and stabbed forward, at the priestess' stomach. The shield, which the drow female had never ceased to hold, but had merely not used so far, came hard against her temple.
Torri jerked back, her head throbbing, as blood trickled down the side of her head in great drops, staining her shoulder plate. Before she even remembered that she couldn't just stop and wait, she was conscious of the grease-like touch, the snake curling around her wrist. For only a second, that was all, but then the flash of pain so familiar to her surged through her entire body, and she felt her muscles curl and compress as she fell to her knees. The sensation was so acute, so undeniable, almost as if everything was shrinking around her bones, and they would soon snap like twigs and all would shatter inside of her, crumbling to dust.
Everything went black – even blacker than the unlit Underdark itself could ever be. It was not this one touch that ate at her so, but the memory of a hundred more like it, and even more, the vivid recollection of things ten times worse that had followed the pain. That part of her mind, which she had thought sealed away, opened again, surfaced immediately, and all she could feel was fear, despair. Her own spirit was helping intensify the suffering, was making it countless times worse than it truly was.
The moon elf fought to shake the sensation off, fought for control over her body acerbically. Another tendril came to join the first, and then a third, they advanced along her forearm. Inching their way. Caressing. Killing. Convulsive fits shook her, their strength beyond any means of control, as she crumbled away to the floor, unable to even draw breath.
And then, slowly, it all eased away... it became distant. Her body felt like it was ceasing to be hers, gradually, and the spirit distanced itself, so eager to escape that it did not care about what it left behind anymore, its will broken completely. The pain diminished, fell away into welcome numbness and an indefinite combination of warmth and cold. It was so much easier, this path... so much easier to be a coward and run.
An insane, absent smile curled the still shaking body's lips, when the last tentacle wrapped itself about her neck, and began to strangle. Did it matter? She was no longer breathing anyway.
Torri's wake-up call was anything but gentle, just another great surge of pain that felt like it threatened, for a moment, to split her in two. And yet, as she sat up so quickly, room and everything spinning about her in an amalgam of shades, the pain diminished; she was alive.
Someone was talking, but the sound of it was covered and echoed by the pounding in her own head, too far away for now. She waited for what seemed to her altered perception like ages, until her vision cleared slightly and the pressure inside her, heaving on every fiber of her being, eased away.
The first image to hit her eyes was that of a concerned Nirra hovering about her, a worried, shaking frown causing ripples to cross the delicate golden skin on her forehead. The two frightened green eyes that looked at her incessantly had the strange effect of making her smile, as her friend fell forward into her embrace.
Torri's weary and still aching arms wrapped about Nirra, and the two closed their eyes, sharing a moment with the realization that they had been closer than ever from losing each other. Finally, they broke free of each other slowly, and the gold elf helped her friend up patiently.
"Good to have you back, Torri," Knave's ever-cheerful voice resounded from the right, and when the moon elf smiled faintly his way, he winked. Apparently, a playful approach was what he saw best, and Torri couldn't deny the fact that it was... encouraging, somehow.
"You were foolish, surfacer, and terribly so," some less benevolent third person greeted her harshly. "Maybe this lesson will serve you well."
Torri would have glared, but she felt exhausted, so she merely gave a shrug, as she parted with Nirra and attempted to stand on her own. Her legs held her only barely, shakily even, but they did and that was all she could ask. She refused Nirra's offer to support her again. "I believe I can feel my failure ten times more than you can, drow," she replied, her voice a bit hoarse, which only accentuated the indifferent sorrow.
"You deserved ALL that has happened here," Solaufein retorted coldly.
"Please," Nirra interfered, pleadingly defending her friend despite the fact that she could not totally deny the drow's logic. "This isn't the time."
"Enough," Knave cut the argument short, then smirked ironically "...children." He took a small break and glared at them all severely, until he was sure both Torri and the drow would be silent and obedient. "Now. Torri, save your strength. Solaufein, would you be kind enough to start pointing the way BEFORE the rest return?"
The drow nodded, and started off cautiously towards the cavern's exit/entrance and the tunnels they had come from. Knave handed Torri her two swords, which they had sought and picked up, and the moon elf begrudgingly relieved him of the weapons and sheathed them, all the time eyeing him with the hostile resignation of a caged animal.
"You're welcome," Knave snickered at her, then turned around. "Now, let's follow."
They did so, Knave and Nirra at Torri's sides, despite the fact that her sustained glares told them clearly they weren't welcome there. Finally, the moon elf just shrugged and pretended to be ignoring both of them. A least they were heading for an exit from this place... theoretically. The moon elf eyed the drow, and she almost wished he would betray them, only so that she could stab that back she was seeing.