"We can't just walk into Gracklstugh as we are. Not if we want to keep breathing," Val said, motioning for the others to halt. They were less than an hour away from the duergar metropolis after more than a week of travel. The drowess had an innate sense of time even though they had lost the light of the sun, but Cessair and Galen were completely dependent on her for indication. They were also relying on her magic to see, courtesy of a pair of enchanted rings she'd crafted out of spare jewelry and her own blood.
"What do you mean?" Galen asked. He had made a concerted effort to be kind to the masked woman, but she'd greeted his efforts with suspicion and more than a little discomfort. It wasn't entirely his fault. The holy aura he radiated as a paladin burned when it washed over her skin, sickening her when it mixed with her own demonic magics. The closest she could tolerate him comfortably was about ten feet away.
She pointed at Storunn. "Shield dwarf." She pointed at Galen. "Paladin."
"Aye," Storunn acknowledged gruffly. "Duergar ain't what ye might call friendly with my lot. Most of 'em are evil too, so they won't take kindly to a paladin."
"What about you and Cessair?" the paladin asked. He didn't like the idea of having to strip off his breastplate in favor of the unadorned one Val had secured from some traveling merchants on the surface. However, walking around wearing a symbol of Torm could get his companions killed and he knew it.
"I'm a scoundrel. I fit in everywhere," Cessair said, flipping her blond hair out of her face and flashing him a quick smile for reassurance. "Also, I agreed to wear a hood. That should solve our problems until we move into drow-held territory."
"I have my own precautions," Val said. She made a small gesture for show and then allowed her disguise spell to melt away. Now her natural appearance was on full display save for the mask she was still wearing, onyx skin and white hair in stark contrast to each other. It was a little twisted that they assumed the disguise was the real her and the real her was the disguise. The Goddess really did have a sense of humor. "The duergar and drow conduct trade and even engage in a certain level of diplomacy despite their mutual hatred. Life in the Underdark would be impossible if there was no cooperation at all."
"You've done this before. Passed as a drow, I mean," Galen said with a shrewdness that was normally foreign to his naive character. He definitely did not approve. If even a fraction of the stories were true, she had undoubtedly done all kinds of awful things in the name of keeping her identity secret.
"I spent a lot of time down here. Around two centuries, actually," Val said. It sounded about right, but she wasn't really certain of her age anymore. Binding demons tended to wreak havoc on one's sense of time. Some mornings she felt like she was thousands of years old, her soul tattered and threadbare. It was worse when she'd gone without binding for more than a few days-like now-because even keeping her connection to the Abyss part way open wasn't enough to satisfy the cravings. It never was.
"Galen, drop it," Cessair said sharply as soon as he opened his mouth. She loved her brother, but their guide had looked about ready to tear his head off last time they discussed Val's 'questionable ethics'. "What are we going to do about Storunn? Galen can probably just strip off the symbols of Torm and not smite anything."
"Well, we could make him look like a duergar," Val murmured, giving their fighter an appraising look.
Storunn gripped his battle axe a little tighter. "Not a chance in all nine hells."
"The alternative is for you to wear a slave collar," the arcanist said dryly. She was greeted by the fierce scowl she'd come to expect. Storunn was as rigid and inflexible as the stone around them, as firm in righteousness as their paladin. It made her want to crack their heads against each other sometimes. "I didn't craft duergar norms, dwarf. Whining won't change them either."
"I'd rather be me self," he grunted. "But don't think it makes me yer pet, drow." He clearly meant the mention of race to be an insult, but Val found it oddly comfortable.
Cessair tossed him a leather collar. She was trying to hide her smile at his stubborn grumbling, but the picture was just a little bit too amusing. "But I've always wanted a pet. We could call you 'Grumpy' and walk you on a leash and-"
"Still holding me axe, lass," Storunn said, hefting the weapon in a silent threat. He lowered it when the rogue looked appropriately chastised and buckled on his new collar. As soon as it was clasped, he felt a jolt and a hint of magic crackle across his skin. "What'd ye do?!"
"A slave wouldn't be allowed to wear armor or carry weapons unless their master had some kind of special control over them. And before you can start ranting and raving, I am not the one in command of you. Cessair is," Val explained. "Which, come to think of it, may be more of a curse than a blessing for you."
Galen frowned as he removed his breastplate with its holy symbol and replaced it with the blank battle-scarred one that their guide had purchased. He didn't like how casual she seemed or how comfortable she was with slavery, one of the foulest institutions that he'd ever borne witness to. "I don't like this," he said once the straps were cinched tight to hold his armor in place. He had to admit that it felt pretty good. For all her flaws, Val at least understood what to look for in armor.
The drowess shrugged a little. "No one is asking you to like it, paladin. We're just asking that you suffer in silence. While we are in a duergar city, we play by their rules. In Menzoberranzan, we'll extend the drow the same courtesy. If you don't, you die."
"Perfect," he grumbled.
Cessair just clapped her hands together in excitement, blue eyes bright. "Well, now that Grumpy and Judgy are ready to go, shall we?" she said lightly.
Val couldn't help the way her lips turned up at the corners in amusement behind her mask. The rogue had proven...tolerable, which was more than she'd ever expected from anyone who followed the Seldarine. The half elf seemed to go through life taking virtually nothing, including herself, particularly seriously. It was unfortunate that Cessair had taken it into her head to travel to Menzoberranzan. Nothing good would come of that.
"Don't call us that," Galen said in protest, frowning deeply at his half sister.
The rogue ignored him, pulling up her hood and falling in step beside Val. They were quiet for the next few minutes until they reached the end of the tunnel and the beginning of a cavern so massive that it was almost like being on the surface. Cessair couldn't even see the far walls. But below them lay a massive, dismal warren of a city polluted with the reeking smoke of foundries and armories, occupying much of the southwest shore of the Darklake. So this was Gracklstugh, the City of Blades. "Sune's mercy, it looks like the place where dreams go to die. Probably of stab wounds in a back alley," the half elf said. Her mouth had gone dry with a sudden burst of nerves.
"Are you certain you haven't been down here before? Because that's an incredibly accurate description," Val commented. She supposed it was her drow superiority talking, but she had always regarded the duergar with a mix of cautious respect and definite distaste. They were greedy, vicious little bastards that would take a mile if given an inch. However, the Deepkingdom did have one of the largest armies in the Northdark, so necessity dictated that things never come to open warfare between them and the drow. Instead, the duergar bristled with suspicion constantly and the drow made sure to secretly facilitate any attacks made on the gray dwarves by ancestral enemies.
Behind them, Galen and Storunn exchanged a pained look. This was not going to be enjoyable.
An hour later, they had made it into the heart of Gracklstugh. The city was every bit as filthy and alien as it had seemed from that vantage point above. Unfriendly dark eyes watched them with suspicion everywhere they went, particular hatred focused squarely on Storunn. Cessair had made sure to position herself close to her dwarven friend, staking ownership over her supposed slave. A couple of duergar had offered to buy him, probably so they could murder him in a particularly gruesome and slow manner. Galen was more worried about what kind of trouble his sister might find, so he stayed at her side whenever possible.
There were slaves everywhere, working in the foundries in one capacity or another. The ones that were too burned or broken to keep up with the demands of their labor had been tossed to the wayside like so much miserable trash. They crowded the slums, begging or performing even less savory tasks to try and earn enough to eat. Their desperation and misery seemed to have seeped into the stone itself. Currently, however, they were in the merchant's district, which was cleaner if no less packed with bodies. The only one who seemed to move through the area without being jostled was Val. She moved like someone important and powerful, not like some two-bit mercenary trash that had been scraped out of Eryndlyn's gutters.
The city itself glowed with the light of fires and hot metal, the air with steam, smoke, and the ringing of hammers. Massive pillars of stone stood throughout the city, hollowed out and filled with metalworks of all kinds. It was like an infernal forge worthy of Asmodeus himself.
"We'll find an inn soon. It'll be alright," Cessair said reassuringly to her brother in Common. She didn't look at him, however, her eyes fixed on the crowd. In a city, even a foreign one like this, she was in her element. "Val hasn't lead us astray so far."
"This would be a prime place for her to start," Galen muttered, almost falling over when a duergar shoulder-checked him powerfully. "Bastard. If we didn't need supplies, I would have never agreed to visit this place. Where are we going, anyway?"
"Here," Val said, abruptly veering off to the side at door marked by the sign of an ivory mace. It was clearly some kind of inn.
Cessair braced for the worst only to be pleasantly surprised. The tavern was cleaner inside than anywhere she'd seen outside and seemed to cater to foreigners, including others who had probably come from the surface. No half elves, but there were a couple of paranoid looking humans. She couldn't really blame them. A day in this city would make anyone suspicious of the world around them. There were only a few duergar in here, albeit they looked like mercenaries and did immediately glare belligerently at Storunn. The shield dwarf scowled at them and gripped his axe handle tightly.
"Storunn," the rogue said threateningly, elbowing him in the side forcefully enough to be felt through his scale armor. "You'll only encourage them."
Galen found them a table to the side before any violence could break out while Val headed to the counter and sorted out the business of rooms. Cessair immediately sat so she could have her back to the wall. This was one of the few places she'd ever been where casual stabbings seemed a realistic expectation. She wasn't going to make it easy for anyone to sneak attack her.
Their drinks arrived maybe a minute before Val returned and Storunn was the first to indulge. Anything to keep him distracted from the duergar, who had begun making some rather incendiary comments about his people. He wanted to go over and punch them into a paste. Unfortunately, as long as he was wearing this collar, he couldn't do anything like that without Cessair's express permission.
"I see you have a fan club," Val said, glancing over at the grey dwarves. They were ugly, scarred warriors with well-worn armor and keen weapons, save for the one furthest back who seemed to be in charge. As far as she was concerned, the noises coming out of their mouths might as well have been the cawing of particularly obnoxious crows. It certainly wasn't anything worth paying attention to.
Storunn grunted his acknowledgment. "They'll soon be chattin' to me axe."
One of the duergar across the room stood up and sauntered towards them. He looked different than the others of his kind, dressed in fine clothing and wearing a multitude of rings set with different gemstones. Storunn recognized him as a mage of some kind, those who embraced the arcane arts far more common among the gray dwarves than their nobler cousins. He certainly lacked the scars that distinguished the others. "Trouble," Galen said, his hand drifting over to rest on the hilt of his sword. Even Cessair had tensed almost imperceptibly.
"Lady Valyne," the duergar said with a smile that seemed less than wholly genuine, stopping at their table and giving the drowess a short bow. He spoke in Common for the benefit of her companions, who seemed equal parts unsettled and confused by him. The gray dwarf hadn't been certain who the drow was without any magical clues to go off of until he'd seen the ring and heard her speak. "I have heard much of your reputation but never considered that I might be fortunate enough to actually encounter you."
Val carefully kept her posture as open and relaxed as it had been before he approached, though she was prepared to cast offensively if he so much as breathed wrong. "And you are?" she said with a hint of boredom creeping into her tone. She left off the condescension drow normally treated duergar to since he was another mage and she didn't fancy getting into a fight here without an army at her back. The arrogance and disinterest served as a shield to keep him from catching a hint of her actual feelings.
"Thangardt Firehand," the duergar said. He was pointedly ignoring Storunn's presence at the table, though Cessair wasn't certain if it was because their warrior was a shield dwarf or pretending to be a slave. "A student of the arcane arts, though not one as accomplished as yourself."
The drowess narrowed her eyes slightly. Any time the normally hateful, churlish duergar started to throw around compliments like this, they were up to something. "Does this conversation have a point?" she asked flatly.
"Val, the least you can do is offer him a seat," Galen said, appalled by the lack of courtesy their companion was displaying.
Thangardt grinned, displaying surprisingly white teeth in contrast to his granite-colored skin. His black eyes were bright like a raven's and shone with equally surprising levels of intelligence. "Don't be too affronted, warrior. I find the lack of manipulation refreshing. Few drow are inclined to be so direct with my people. It's to her credit," the duergar said with confidence. He focused his attention squarely on Val again. "I speak to you on behalf of my employer, Durna Thuldark. No doubt you are acquainted with the name, Lady Val."
The arcanist had, in fact, run across it. Her mother had made it a point that she be well-read in the politics not only of her own homeland but of their enemies and allies alike as well. "She is the head of the Merchant's Council. A formidable woman," Val noted. She was somewhat surprised that the gray dwarf in question had even heard of her. "It's unfortunate that she hasn't risen to laird."
"Indeed," Thangardt said. The gleam in his black eyes suggested that she had correctly gotten to the heart of his employer's problem. "She would like to meet with you at your convenience before you leave the city. She has a problem that you may be able to assist with. You can find her at her home." He bowed slightly again and departed back to his own table.
Cessair sensed her brother's unease and made a pacifying gesture with both hands. "Look, working for a duergar would be sketchy, yes. But I don't dislike the idea of an influential one owing us a favor. If we are going to walk into Menzoberranzan, we might need it."
"A fair point," Val said. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop thoughtfully, weighing their options. It wouldn't do to simply ignore the invitation, not when slighted duergar held grudges with a tenacity that even most drow found somewhat excessive. "Insulting Durna is also not what I would call a wise move. Cessair, you and I should be the ones to talk to her. Galen and Storunn can wait here."
"What if ye come to blows?" Storunn focused on the tactical problem posed by this scenario, knowing it was an argument that Val wouldn't just discard out of hand like she would something that was principle-based.
"We'll run away," Cessair said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Give us some credit, Storunn. We're not idiots."
Galen gave their mage his best stern look. She seemed distinctly unimpressed. "If anything happens to my sister, I'm holding you responsible."
"If something untoward happens, I'll have much larger problems than one disgruntled human," Val pointed out, fighting down the urge to roll her eyes. "We'll leave in an hour or so. Jumping up right now might give Durna the idea we're eager to please and that's the last thing I want her thinking."
"And what do we do?" Storunn asked gruffly. "Cozy up to these bastards?"
"I wouldn't advise it. Familiarity breeds contempt," the drowess said smoothly even though her thoughts had already moved on. If she was going to walk into this meeting, she was going prepared.