Chosen of Eilistraee

by Anja Kidd

Far beneath the doomed city of Waterdeep, Eilistraee's unlucky Chosen (and his minions) find themselves set on a collision course with destiny. Rated M for language, sexual content, drow humor, and violence. This story is cross-posted on AO3 and WP. COMPLETE.

5. Hero

I'm operating under the assumption that Deekin's thoughts are more coherent than the noises that come out of his face and wanted to include his point of view.

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DEEKIN

The one big thing everyone got wrong about Undrentide is that Deekin killed Heurodis. In the book, Boss and orc-man had slain the evil medusa and destroyed the mythal and embarked upon a heroic escape at the last second by a Boss-made dimensional door back to the Anauroch. Deekin had written himself out of the tale almost entirely. The reality was that Xanos and Solaufein hadn't stood a chance going toe-to-toe with the medusa, and they were most certainly about to die until Deekin was able to use stone-skin and appear frozen by her gaze, to fool her into thinking he was. When she turned her back on Deekin and dismissed him as a threat, the fatal strike happened. The bard caught the obsessed sorceress entirely by surprise while she was monologuing like a storybook villain over her defeated foes. Boss was alive just long enough to help point orc-man's hands at the mythal and destroy it with mage fire; then, he had a laugh at the Heurodis' predicament and apologized for dragging Deekin into his messes before he fell unconscious. They had all died together like a team when the city fell. While he was dead and drifting in and out of Prime, Deekin had written the last verse of the Doom song when reflecting on how very doomed everything always seemed to be around the Boss. Waking up in the Reaper's realm next to orc-man and Boss, Deekin had never been more confused to be alive.

Aside from leaving out the secret of his resurrection, this was his biggest secret, because Boss was the hero of the book and that was the way it had to be. In the book, Solaufein killed the bad guy and got away just in time. People weren't going to buy a book without a handsome troubled hero on the front cover, and Deekin knew from all the stories of the Hero of the North that there was nothing people liked reading more than stories about morally challenged drow. The hatred people held of the drow was matched only by their morbid fascination. People naturally assumed 'Deekin Scalesinger' was ripping the Do'Urden saga off or lying outright about the whole story; he stated in his preface that it was 'based on true events.' If anything, the biggest problem for Deekin was figuring out how to cut down the details of Boss' insane life into a sensible narrative. So many things happened, and so many of them so very crazy. The entire fight at the end of the book was purely fiction, though some might argue that the entire book was. He wondered at his luck, running into a story head-first with Boss full of troubled drow. It was a bard's dream come to life, but he was struggling to try and outline it into a single story.

Truth was stranger than fiction could be. Deekin's hand was cramping up from all of the note taking that had gone down in the past couple weeks. Ever since they'd gone to Undermountain and found Binne to replace orc-man as a talky fire-slinger, more had happened in such a short space of time than Deekin had the ability to record. He was pretty sure this one would be a better book than the last one, if he could find a way to give it a successful conclusion. If they lived to see the happy ending. Then again, tragic stories sell just as much - though that book about the 'Hero of Neverwinter's' tragic romance was near absolute trash. The ending had been fun, when the 'Hero' set fire to Castle Never in protest for what happened to his lover Lady Aribeth, but Deekin highly doubted its legitimacy as a factual romantic gesture. By all reports, Lord Nasher was alive and well and had certainly not been assassinated. And if Ladybard Sharwyn's descriptions of the man were accurate, then the 'Hero' was hardly the sort of person a proud and chivalric figure like Aribeth would willingly associate with. And her supposed 'fall' to the dark side made so little sense - no, the story just had too many contextual holes for it to be accurate. Deekin had yet to encounter, nor perfect the authorial art of including a romantic sub-plot that enhanced the story rather than sabotaged it; even still troubling was finding the delicate balance of the real-life madness of Solaufein's adventures and conquests compared to their shorter, toned down, fictionalized versions.

He considered their current predicament. The Underdark, the drow city, and the avariel city would all make an excellent settings for their adventure - besieged by drow and cursed elves, it would be up to the heroes alone to liberate the day! Although the winged elves didn't really seem to want liberating, which was an unanticipated problem. And the smell.

The elves of the strange island had deteriorated in health to the point where the Underdark had started to seem like their home, and they smelled and looked so bad that Deekin suspected they wouldn't fit in with normal elves anymore. Bodies had fallen in the streets where they had lay down and died, and not even been swept aside. There was no upkeep, no market, no bustle, no . . . Anything. No life. Women with tattered wings held rags to their chest and cooed to them, but there were no children. One man was walking on his hands and dragging his bloodied, stumped wings on the ground. Though they all had wings, none of them were in use.

It was a very troubling sight even by Deekin's standards, and he'd once seen Old Boss have a bowel movement that almost killed the whole kobold clan with its stink. Deekin felt very sorry for the avariel for a little while before remembering how snooty most elves were to him to his face - sure, they weren't all bad, and if dark elves like Boss could be good guys than maybe other elves could be bad guys.

After taking a long sniff and wrinkling her nose, demon-lady remarked, "This troublingly reminds me of home."

"Funny, I was about to say the same thing," General Shadowbreath mused in a light tone, belied by his semi-permanent scowl.

And there was a lot for Valen to scowl at as they explored the fallen city and crossed paths with more strange, backward-talking winged elves. Deekin realized right away this was more than a simple adventure. There didn't seem to entirely be a liberation complete enough for these sad elf-angels - whatever had happened to them had forever changed them, if they even remembered what they endured under the curse. The few that wandered around did not outnumber the ones that had fallen in the dirty and unlit streets, once radiant under the light of the sun and moon. Avariel weren't meant to exist in the Underdark, that much was obvious. The drow had adapted well over eons, but not these elves. They were meant for the surface winds and high mountaintops. Deekin couldn't help but wonder: if the curse were removed from them, what of them would remain?

Deekin asked this to himself the first time when he was talking to the medusa-lady librarian, whom he tried very hard to pretend to not be scared of. She hadn't seemed anything like the last medusa he met. The last one was a real piece of work, trying to raise Netherese artifacts and return the world to a less enlightened age so she could enslave it to her will, or some such tripe. The librarian by contrast was in tears and seemed very anxious to burn all her books, even though it made her unhappy for reasons she couldn't quite understand. She didn't seem to know she was a medusa at all and was happy enough to be talked to as a person instead of ignored, like her husband who had to keep his distance to avoid her petrifying gaze. Nonetheless, when Deekin had asked politely, the librarian handed him the enchanted shard of the mirror. It meant little to her. She was quite calm and had promised Deekin upon parting that she'd maybe think about burning less books.

It was looking increasingly like there were more shards of the mirror around the city, but they clearly fit together in a way Deekin didn't know of. Without any way of knowing the size or shape of the finished piece, they were wandering blind even with Deekin's darkvision belt. Deekin supposed it was just as well Boss was leading them; infravision had its perks even if it seemed to pain Solaufein to use back home on the surface.

After leaving the smoky library, Boss had chased down another shard that a strange angel-elf merchant had tossed out with the trash . . . At least Deekin hoped it was only trash. Seeing Boss dig around in rubbish piles for magical artifacts wasn't exactly inspiring or heroic, so Deekin took the opportunity to sit down and catch up on his notes. So many things were always happening, he only hoped to keep track of them all.

Over his head, goat-lady and goat-man spoke in surprisingly civil tones. They would make a visually interesting pair at least, if the General could resist the urge to strangle her that he always seemed to be grappling with. That, or it was constipation - Deekin wasn't sure. The bard had a talk with the warlock when he noticed she seemed to have a lot of trouble talking to the goat-man, though why Binne was in knots about him was beyond the kobold's understanding. The tiefling was a force in battle, but decidedly lacking in personality, and insisted on calling Deekin a lizard sometimes despite clear and obvious evidence of his person-hood. He doubted the General would be able to pull his horns out of his backside long enough to realize Binne was just trying to be nice to him. He almost regretted encouraging her; Boss would have made a less difficult target, even if drow seemed generally immune to the entire concept of affection. Boss and the warlock had gotten along like egg-mates from the moment they'd met . . . Hmm, how much plot could Deekin stretch that relationship out into?

Though their discussion seemed heated, it passed over Deekin's head pleasantly enough while he described the avariel in his log. As Valen Shadowbreath walked away, Binne seemed to bounce on her feet in joy. Deekin looked up at the tall, horned woman and squinted. "That's the most words he's said to me yet!" She crowed and grinned down at the kobold with a hint of sharp, pearly canines. Rather than loom over him unpleasantly, he motioned for her to sit beside him. He'd been a little irritated at having to share space with her before, but that was mostly because she took up so much space. She was boisterous and treated Deekin consistently fairly, so it had stopped bothering him - unless she tried battering him with her tail again. That, he wouldn't tolerate. "I think it's working," the cambion went on, amber eyes glittering in humor as she sidled next to him on the ground. Deekin kept a careful eye on her fiendish tail, which kept its distance from him and curled around her leg happily. "You were right, master bard! I'm wearing him down like grated cheese!"

Deekin clucked in approval. "It be like Deekin tells you," he drawled out, not bothering to include syllables that his reptilian mouth found difficult to produce. It was nice to be recognized for his genius for a change, rather than treated like an idiot because of how he looked or spoke, and a small part of him basked in the warmth of the sanguine-skinned lady's regard. He'd had his doubts at first, but she'd definitely been one of Boss' better finds, right up there with the relic and Deekin himself. Plus, she made Boss smile and laugh a lot, so that meant she had to be okay. "You have to nag some peoples into liking you if they already not be likings you. That how Deekin and orc-man become friends and he be much grouchier than goat-man."

Binne sighed in relief. "Oh, it's lovely to have you here to help me. I feel as though I behave like an idiot around him!"

Deekin stared at her, wondering if she ever thought about the words that came out of her mouth before letting them escape. He always thought about his words carefully, due to the added difficulty of trying to say them in Common with a mostly serpentine mouth. "That be because you do be behaving like idiots around him," he informed her.

Rather than be insulted like most would, she took his criticism with appropriate mollification, indicative of the kind of person whose self-esteem was at the correct level for their lot in life. "Never known myself to stumble or be at a loss for words even when me mouth's runnin.' You're easily the smartest person I know, so there's no way that this can backfire. With your brains and my powers, imagine what else we could accomplish!"

Deekin closed his notebook with a thud and sighed contemplatively. It was nice to dream, but they were most certainly all doomed to a tragic, terrible, and timely end. It wouldn't hurt to appease her, though. "Eh, let's not gets ahead of ourselves. First things is getting goat-man to like you, then Deekin finishes his sequel and then maybe Deekin think about buying castle and settling downs on pile of riches that Deekin will get for having a much higher gross percentage of royalties from publishers." It was the dream, really.

Binne nodded fiercely and stood up, gazing into the distance like her eyes were fixed on the future. "Ooh! And after you get Sharwyn's help editing, you should get a good agent next time, and a good publicist like the one Volo has. I'll threaten him good for you if you like," she offered slyly. "I don't like the thought of you not getting a fair deal."

The bard thought about this as he strapped his journal to the back of his pack and straightened the straps so he could get back to carrying them. It seemed like Boss was nearly done, or at least was presently speaking to goat-man in undertone, so Deekin hoped he was close to done. "Threatening is good," he commented. "Deekin might be needings some horned backup—"

He was disrupted from his fantasies about the large demon-lady scowling down his former publishers by the reappearance of his extremely disgruntled Boss, with the fire-haired and aqua-eyed General twitching his tail in an antsy way at his side. Solaufein silently raised up a grimy shard in his hands and his face contorted in misery. Deekin abandoned his pack-efforts and extended his clawed hand out to examine it; the drow was all too happy to be rid of the smelly object. Deekin wiped the shard on his tunic and examined it closely.

"Fuck that fucking mal'ai for putting me through this," Boss grumbled, his burgundy eyes hardening into angry garnets.

Demon-lady wrinkled her nose. "Augh, you kinda stink," she criticized and waved a claws hand in front of her nose. "And I feel like you're overusing that word ever since I taught it to you."

"Do not. Start with me," Boss snapped, "not until I find a bath."

The tiefling had inched away from Boss and started to wrinkle his nose as well. "Well, he did find it in a pile of rotting food. At least I hope it was only rotting and not . . . previously digested."

Boss seemed even more miserable and even a little sad, at this. "I will never be clean again," Solaufein muttered pathetically. "It is all up in my nose, and under my fingernails . . ."

"Why didn't you just wear gloves?" Binne criticized.

Solaufein retorted somewhat heatedly: "Because I did not want iblith on my gloves!"

Deekin could empathize - his Old Boss had been a great deal less hygienic, but that was mostly due to the fact that Tymofarrar needed the kobolds help to clean himself after the white dragon got too fat. He was, however, trying to stop comparing his current Boss to his Old Boss so much since it sometimes made him nostalgic for faces and words just like his own. "Great, we have two!" Deekin crowed, trying to cheer Boss up instead as he began to clean the shard off with part of his tunic. The Underdark seemed to have a strange effect on Boss, in that he was rapidly cycling through more emotions than Deekin knew his Boss to have possessed before: Boss laughed a little easier, even joked more - but also seemed more irritable and even melancholy at odd times. He'd asked Boss about the place he'd come from once, and Solaufein had been curt about not wishing to discuss it. Deekin had respected that, despite his abundant curiosity.

A sudden thought occurred to Deekin as he looked down at the delicate, smelly, glass fragment. "Er, how big do you think this mirror be?" He didn't want to be the only one thinking about it, at the very least. "These pieces seem pretty big. How big mirrors usually be?" He'd only seen one and it had been large, at the Yawning Portal - nearly ceiling-to-floor length - a depressing comparison.

Solaufein scoffed gutturally, in the back of his throat, and replied, "I am afraid to guess in the event I am correct, and it is shattered into countless shards which have themselves become buried in shit."

The cambion seemed his opposite in temperament and equally determined to remain that way; her 'success' with goat-man had put a spring in her step. "Don't be a sourpuss, it'll be fine," she chided lightly.

Boss' response was a withering glare that seemed to bounce right off of Binne's radiant mood. "You should be less careless with your words. Halaster may still be yet listening! Who knows what you may have already wrought?!" Boss' hands rose up into the air as his eyes widened with frustration.

Demon-lady's eyes narrowed, and Deekin found his head whipping between the two in interest - he'd never seen anyone but the old dwarf manage to scold Boss before (and even that that was less of an actual scolding and more of a stern, 'I'm fine and I'm stubborn and old' talk), and Boss almost never lost his temper with anyone. Only Heurodis goading him about the old dwarf Drogan had managed to make him so much as twitch, and the gods all knew that Xanos had certainly tried every day to get under Solaufein's skin. The drow was always calm, measured, and sure in both his actions and words. Only now did Solaufein seem precariously close to losing his composure. Perhaps all the portal-traveling had finally gotten to him? "Oi, now you're starting to sound loony," Binne kept chiding gently in a fond but exasperated tone, earning herself one of Solaufein's most irritated glares. "Now you're just mad because you're stinky. As far as we know, this has nothing to do with any mad wizards."

Yes, Boss was definitely angry. "Of course it does!" He rasped out. His voice seemed to get raspier rather than louder with the loss of his composure; he had not ever raised it, that Deekin could remember. It struck Deekin that perhaps Solaufein did not know how to raise his voice, or perhaps couldn't - it had always held more growl than tone, perhaps due to damage. Deekin vividly recalled Akordia's whip where it now sat on its new owner's hip and cringed at the thought of it wrapped around their necks.

"It always does!" Solaufein continued to insist, drawing Deekin out of his recollection. "No avariel would enter the Underdark unless it involved some kind of-of wizardry! It is always the fault of some wizard. I will bet you my sword that Halaster himself has brought this calamity upon them." The calamity in question he gestured at with his hands splayed all around them.

At his belt, Enserric the Sword chimed in, "Not that I enjoy being the subject of a bet, but it does have the big goon written all over it." Deekin supposed the sword would know, having been in Undermountain longer than any of them.

Demon-lady went on, heedless of Solaufein. "We're already doing what he wanted us to - and he slapped up with a hard geas, so where else could we possibly go?" She reasoned. Deekin never ceased to be surprised when demon-lady made some kind of sense, but she had her moments. Perhaps his surprise was just because she, like him, didn't seem like the sort of source you'd expect genius from. "Only way out is forward, so there's no point in putting any blame on anyone. Besides, we can't let Varshalessy get these shards, can we?"

Solaufein didn't even blink. "Valsh—no," he cut himself off and bowed his head in self-admonishment. "You know you are wrong, why am I bothering to correct you?"

"Why do anything?" the cambion chirped back. "Look, Solaufein, the only thing I can think of worse than looting shit for valuables is getting through looting a pile o' shit only to find out at the end that someone else beat you to it!" Deekin suspected she was speaking from personal experience.

Boss grumbled. "Why do you make sense when you have no right to?" He complained.

Demon-lady's tone was firm. "Hey, that's enough grousin' out of you, or I'll kick you into the next, most coldest, most non-poisonous river I find!"

To Deekin's amazement, Boss took the berating and stalked off at a distance to grumble out-loud to himself in Ilythiiri about the myriad ways the entire universe could go fuck itself. "Huh, Deekin never see anyone boss arounds Boss like that," the bard blurted out in awe. He stared up at the cambion in surprise. "Maybe I should be callings you Boss-Lady now."

Binne's response was preceded by a derisive snort. "I'm no lady and just as surprised as you are that he listened."

Goat-man, who had been silent the entire time, decided it was time to chime in. He cleared his throat as Deekin did his best to wipe the smelly shard and stick it in his pack far away from his food. "Well, since he is preoccupied, where to now, milady?" Of course he had turned to Boss-Lady and not to Deekin; the bard sniffled a little but decided to let goat-man have this one. It hurt no one to pretend that Boss-Lady was in charge for a little while, especially because it was the nicest thing he'd heard come out of the tiefling's suspicious mouth so far.

Binne was just as baffled, but infinitely more pleased. "Milady?" She repeated dubiously, and her skin darkened somewhat subtly. "W-well, I suppose we should go fetch him before he kills someone else's son by accident," she reasoned even more reasonably, "and then maybe check out that temple over yon, as it smells a bit . . . Off." She had gestured to a domed building some distance away that reeked of feces, slime, and other things that reminded Deekin uncomfortably of home. He found it odd, that they should all feel so connected to a place for presumably several reasons, though why a cursed slime-hole felt like 'home' to the others was speculation. He had no idea what neighborhood Valen had grown up in, but if it was anything like the cursed island, Deekin was going to have to re-examine his judgment of the General.

The second that they even so much as set a toe into the temple, bad stuff started to doom them right away. It was probably some kind of new record-breaking level of doom. They stepped inside and suddenly demon-lady had collapsed into a heap and hooked her horn on Valen's armor from dizziness, and the tiefling practically tripped over Deekin to catch her from falling on top of them both. Deekin tumbled backwards, pack over tail, and scrambled to right himself.

Boss, seeing all of this, immediately drew Enserric to threaten a priest that stood in the center of the temple, standing on a dais, and pointing a dirty, shaking finger at the cambion. The strange elf man uttered something about Talona, whom Deekin knew off-hand to be a bad goddess, before the bard was preoccupied with simply trying to get out of everyone's underfoot. He needed to be where the action was, which was next to Boss who was threatening the sickly elven priest with his talking sword.

"Ooh, let's kill him!" Enserric was goading as the depths of his blade shined forth a blood-red light. The unlit temple took on an eerie glow as Enserric' red enthusiasm shone in the same hue as Boss' eyes in the spectrum of heat, making their eerie crimson light dance over the stonework and fallen and rotting bodies littering the temple floor. "I've never had poisonous avariel before!"

"Undo what you have done," Solaufein was demanding, his low rasp cutting under and also over Enserric's chiming.

"Wait, what happened?" Deekin wondered out loud, confused. "Deekin miss something. He did something to Boss-Lady?" All the doom had happened so suddenly that he'd had no time to process it.

"I feel runny," the one in question complained from behind them, still struggling to stand despite the General's support. "Am I in Undermountain?" She wondered blearily, looking all around her. "Did I die again? I f-fe-feel so c-co-cold."

Deekin turned back to Boss and the sick elf as Boss raised his sword so that it edged the elven cleric's throat. The elf had clearly once been an avariel, but his wings were . . . Missing. Or had been cut, it wasn't sure. The entire temple was a rotting, hideous monument to Talona full of decaying corpses of animals and people, and here at the center of it was the temple's sole tender. Sickly, slender, and grinning sadistically, the frail Talontar cut a fine malicious figure. What had happened to the others, when this one had been warped into serving poisonous Talona? Deekin shuddered to think.

"You," Solaufein commanded in a tone that chilled little Deekin's blood, which was impressive because he was a reptile. Boss was definitely getting into drow character: "will explain what you have done, and quickly fix it before I kill you and defile your corpse." His eyes reflected back Enserric's light, turning them into rubies. Deekin started making mental notes of his observations and started singing the Doom song in his head as Boss got serious. The bard had no doubt that this would be a great moment in the book.

The cleric smiled, but it was a toothy grimace - even worse than when Old Boss smiled. "She has been chosen by Talona to endure her Trials," the ragged elf spoke in a reedy, high keen. "This is a great honor. My Lady only picks the strongest of the Faithless, to test them."

Enserric cackled and sent his crimson depths churning and sputtering out light as Solaufein stepped in closer, but the elf gave off no indication of any fear. Deekin thought this wasn't very smart - it was good to be afraid of Boss sometimes. "My sword is quite bloodthirsty," Boss uttered quietly. "There is nothing more he loves than drinking the life from my enemies. You will die a slow, painful death if you do not remove this curse from her at once."

The elven Talontar blinked. "It cannot be done," he stated simply, even clinically. "She has been chosen by my goddess. No matter how slowly I die, her condition will only progress. Only Talona's will can spare her now!"

The cambion had begun to complain about the temperature and seemed to be clinging to the very uncomfortable goat-man for warmth. Deekin suspected she was hamming it up a little since it was the most attention she'd received from the tiefling - at least, the most positive attention yet. The General's tail betrayed his feelings, twitching anxiously back and forth as hers curled in misery. Deekin's own tail, he noticed, he used more for balance while demons tended to emote through them.

Solaufein lowered his sword slightly, to Enserric's disappointment. "A curse? Affliction? Poison?"

The Talontar's grimace became a subtle if sadistic grin. "An affliction of the mind, body, and the spirit. A cascade failure of every bodily and mental system that end in madness and final death." Behind them, the cambion sucked in a horrified breath and fell to the ground finally as the General got tired of propping her up. He hovered over her in anxiety while Boss grit his teeth; Boss' sword stayed steady as the priest continued: "The light of the Lady Silverhair surrounds you utterly, pale here in the dark but too careful a guard, deflecting any weakness from you . . . But your Faithless friend has drawn the Mistress of Poison's eye as a lighthouse draws in stray ships. She will be cured when she survives the Trials - if she survives them - and free to leave."

Enserric was a blur in the air for a moment as he drew blood at the priest's throat - there was actually panic in the Talontar's eyes when he clenched at his throat in alarm and stumbled back, but only a thin line of droplets spilled between his fingers, nowhere near a fatal wound. Boss' sneer was unimpressed, but Enserric was full of mirth. "Ah, the scent of elf-blood in the morning! This one's not too healthy though," the sword observed in a disappointed tone. Deekin made a mental note to ask Enserric what different kinds of blood tasted like. It wasn't a question he'd ever expected he'd have to ask of an intelligent sword, but he'd led an interesting life. "Tinge of some sort of bitter rot. Honestly wouldn't mind if the dagger took this one."

A sound somewhere between a shudder, cough, and sigh erupted behind them with some force. Binne had managed to stand on her own two feet, but her red skin had noticeably paled and developed a clammy sheen. She approached, unassisted by Valen just as the tiefling rested his hand on his flail and followed sedately. "That tickled fierce," she managed out in a hoarse voice. "Alright, you bleeding nincompoop, tell me about this here Trials."

Boss' tone was disappointed, and insistent. "There will be no Trials," he decreed. He rested Enserric's tip once again on the frail elf's bird-like collarbone. "You will cure her or die now."

"Or will be beaten to a pulp and then die," goat-man added threateningly, stepping up beside Boss with his heavy flail clinking in his hand.

"Or both," Boss tacked on, "and then I will resurrect you so he can kill you again."

Goat-man seemed to be on the same wavelength as Boss. "Sure, I'd say this detour is at least worth three deaths," Valen appraised. "Maybe even four."

"And at least one defiling," Solaufein added.

Deekin was rather impressed by the doubly intimidating duo - the pale, scarred, crimson-haired veteran tiefling in his gleaming green mithral and Boss, skin of midnight in a shock of white hair, in adamantine so dark it seemed to swallow light - both training their angry red-glowing glowers on the comparatively tiny elf. The Talontar was utterly unimpressed, though how he managed to so be beyond Deekin. "Killing me changes nothing," the elf repeated, spine straightening in defiance, although his thin fingers worried the slight wound Solaufein had given him at his throat, to Boss' amusement. "She must endure the Trials if she wishes to live."

Deekin doubted that very much, but without knowing what the disease was or what form the antidote took, he didn't see a way of getting Binne out alive without cooperating. She seemed to think the same thing, so she knocked Enserric aside lightly with a careful claw from one hand as she stepped up and nodded gruffly to the cleric. "Aye, aye, I'll do it!" She agreed begrudgingly, "though you should probably tell me what they actually are before I do them in case I do them wrong. Please don't say it's a riddle contest," she pleaded, "I'm rubbish at those."

"Deekin could help if it was," the bard added in encouragingly. It was a brave thing for her to step up and do, after all. "Deekin have to learn most riddles that there are just to keep Old Boss entertained enough to not eats little Deekin."

"You're a fountain of useless knowledge, master ba—" she had been about to say but dissolved into coughs. He patted her leg, not sure if he should be looking for potions to feed her or if they were a waste of time, with such a sudden illness.

Over her, the avariel voiced, "none may assist her in the Trials. She must endure them alone." Solaufein clucked his tongue against his teeth gently and raised the sword to the elf's collarbone when the priest tried to move so much as an inch by leaning away.

Goat-man was pretty incensed with goat-lady, though, and turned on her in frustration. "This is ridiculous," the tiefling ground out through gritted teeth. "You don't have to do this. What are you trying to prove? Playing into his game is a waste of our time! He probably has the antidote on him."

The cambion was angry when she regained her breath. "That I'm not willing to kill someone afflicted by a curse for cursing me in turn?" She stated this like it was the most obviously logical conclusion, and that goat-man was silly for not thinking of it in the first place. "That two wrongs don't make a right? That I can take care of my own messes? That hitting your problems should always be the last way you try to solve them, because it means they can't be solved any other way? That basic logic?" Now she wasn't making any sense at all and had lost Deekin. "Point me to your lousy trials, man!" She demanded of the elf. "Time's wasting, you heard the General!"

Boss looked very confused, and somewhat upset, but sheathed Enserric to the priest's visible relief. It seemed he'd done a decent job of pretending not to be rankled by the drow, but there was definitely something about Solaufein that intimidated him. Deekin wasn't sure if it was the big scary sword or not. "Why are you doing this?" Boss stressed of Boss-Lady with a frown of concern.

Rather than answer him, she directed her attention to the cleric with her bleary, but still fairly focused gaze. "You've got one of those shards, aye? The mirrored ones?"

The elf replied slowly. "One such came into my possession, shortly before my conversion to Talona," he explained. "Should you desire it, I can give it to you after the Trials. Or to your companions, should you fail. I certainly have no need of it."

She nodded, like she had suspected this. "This was once a temple of, who was it?" She looked down to Deekin, who had first spotted the logo on the outside of the temple before they'd entered.

"I will not speak her name!" The formerly good cleric hissed. "It is forbidden!"

"Oh, flying elf lady!" Deekin remembered. "Aerdrie Faenya. She's one of the good elf ones, I think, like drow moon lady."

"It is forbidden!" The elf cried, despairingly, and placed his hands dramatically over his ears.

"It's safe to say we're seeing him on an off day," the cambion easily assessed and rolled her shoulders back. "Now, onto some trials!"

The mangled elf pointed to his side where three pull-chains attached to bells were suspended from the ceiling some distance to his right and their left. "To begin," he instructed, "simply pull one of these bells and you will be transported - and only you - to the center of my circle." Behind the elf's dais was a cleared area of the temple floor, still filthy and covered with what looked like deep brown paint but was most likely dried blood. Around it was drawn a strange magical circle that itself was littered with what Deekin hoped was only the blood of his enemies. "That is all. There will be several subsequent Trials, between three and five, I think. You will fight a monster each time whose strength is chosen to be matched to yours, at your best. You must defeat them as you are at your worst."

"Lovely," the cambion bit out in a complimentary tone with a sarcastic grimace. "Let's get started!"

Boss had some objections to this and threw his arm in front of her to grab her attention. Binne had already reached forth a hand to pull one of the levers and as the bell rung, she disappeared in a pop of displaced air and flash of white light right before their eyes. She reappeared inside of the circle but a moment later. Angrily, Boss tried to step into the circle but was repelled repeatedly by an invisible force.

"I really don't understand her at all," Valen observed passively. "All of the time."

Solaufein cursed a lot in Ilythiiri and gave up trying to get in the circle just as Deekin pulled out his journal and started to record the events with wide eyes. Normally he'd look for a way to break the circle, but goat-lady seemed determined to die and the circle repelled even Boss . . . But then his Boss grew silent, so Deekin lifted his eyes from his journal.

Across from Binne's place in the circle had appeared a wicked looking hound with a hide so dark it might have been made from shadows, and so large its muzzle met her chest. Its mouth lolled open and its breath was steam, as if its insides were made of fire. Its teeth were long and wicked, like gleaming razors, and its eyes were hollow voids. As it lifted its snout to sniff at its newfound prey, it tilted its head up and let out deep and menacing growl that would've set Deekin's hair on end if he had any.

"That's a hell-hound," the General assessed in a clinical, detached voice. Deekin had found his legs unable to move after seeing the monstrous creature, but the tiefling walked calmly passed the bard and began to shout advice at the cambion in the ring. "It's too fast for spells," he called over, "just run! Try to hit it when it stops to use its breath!"

"Run where, Valen?!" She looked over at the tiefling incredulously and gestured to the circle, just as the hell-hound leapt into the air and toward her throat.

"Waela!" Solaufein snarled and slapped on the barrier with his fist to get her attention. Strangely, light skittered across the magic of the barrier, causing the priest and Solaufein to give a startled jump. The illness had clearly addled her senses, but Binne had enough wherewithal to duck in time and run away from the hell-hound's snapping, powerful jaws. It crouched low and barked as she rolled away and turned to face it again.

"None may assist with the trials! Verbally, or physically! I will not warn you again," the tiny, poisonous cleric threatened, earning himself a cascade of powerful glares.

Deekin panicked momentarily when he saw the cambion stumble and fall backward, but something brilliant happened. From the ground, she'd pulled out the whip they'd taken from that evil priestess and put it to clever use, striking the hound across the face and ear with a sharp crack and earning a pained howl. The enraged hell-hound lunged forward within predictable stabbing range and died, startlingly and suddenly in a cloud of dust as Binne clenched a spear of bright green entropic energy in her other hand and pierced the creature's hide right through its chest, and out of its throat.

As suddenly as it had begun, the first Trial ended and the hell-hound dissolved into a pile of black ash. The cambion was instantly teleported outside the circle, still covered in hell-hound soot, and sitting on her elbows. She blinked, breathed, and then sneezed repeatedly. Boss offered her a hand to help her stand up, but as she did a wave of dizziness caused her to falter back down to her knees. She groaned and clutched at her horns, shivering, and shaking. Boss knelt to her level and patted her back in a comforting gesture Deekin had only ever seen him do to Deekin himself before. "So you are aware," Boss told her, "should this progress beyond what I deem too far, I will kill the elf." It wasn't really a threat, more just an explanation of what was going to happen. Boss' threats and explanations often sounded like the same thing.

After catching her breath, demon-lady sighed. "I realize that," she croaked quietly.

He helped her stand again, though more slowly this time. "Do you?" He wondered. "Look around us." Deekin saw what Boss meant - the streets of the avariel city were nightmarish by themselves, but the Temple looked and smelled like one of the worst circles of Hell. Bodies of drow, monsters, and even a few winged corpses had piled in the corners. Flies, rot, and worse . . . Deekin had been breathing through his mouth the entire time out of necessity. Binne took it all in with bleary, wide, and trembling eyes. Whether it was because of her illness or what she was seeing, Deekin couldn't say. "There is no coming back from this, abbil," Solaufein finished gently when her eyes circled back to his.

She shook her head stubbornly. "Let me do my bloody thing and then you can do your bloody thing if mine doesn't work. If I die, I die," she decided firmly.

Boss' expression twisted into something between derision and amusement. "You may not care if you die," he pointed out dryly.

Her responding smile was watery. "Don't get soft on me now or I'll get emotional all over your new speedy boots." Boss took a step back from her immediately, as if daring her to try. Without even so much as a glance toward the Talontar, she pulled the next pull-chain and disappeared with the tinkling of a bell back into the circle.

Her next opponent was a sword spider smaller than the one Deekin had befriended. Being fast was its only advantage, as having eight legs only made it easier for her to stumble it with her whip and spear it through with another entropic bolt. It happened quite quickly and less dramatically than the previous fight that the bard was almost disappointed, knowing he'd have to stretch out the description of each fight for at least half a page if he wanted it to be any good.

He felt himself a little selfishly annoyed with the cambion when she teleported back, right up until she fell over and vomited her entire stomach's contents onto the grimy floor. Then, he felt bad for her all over again.

"This is just how you look on Seer's temple floor, Boss, only more vomit!" Deekin chimed to Solaufein, trying, and failing to find the bright side in all the grossness.

"I know," Solaufein stated dryly.

"Deekin just making sure you know how silly you looked."

Boss' eyes narrowed. "I know, Deekin. You have told me repeatedly. Stop telling me."

"Deekin just making sure."

As Binne finally stopped vomiting, Valen was the one who was unfortunately nearest to her and if Deekin wasn't mistaken - that was a look of concern, not constipation swimming in the tiefling's bright blues. A first for the prickly General, by the kobold's reckoning. He helped her up, since she seemed to be needing a lot of help with that in the past half hour. Deekin had never seen someone get so sick so quickly. "You can stop this any time," goat-man reminded her carefully. "Solaufein had a point."

Binne seemed to have found a point too, but it wasn't the same one everyone else had arrived at. She blinked one golden eye after the other and leaned somewhat to the left. "Youuu gan poyn me anywhar," she slurred flirtatiously, and tapped his chest armor with a claw. "You—an me—to the pub, an messr' fixin' ladle fur a ha'pint dun the boggie." She seemed to lose her train of thought halfway through whatever she was about to say, and only succeeded in making the General extremely uncomfortable and confused, probably setting back all the work she'd done wearing him down earlier, no doubt. Deekin couldn't resist the disappointed sigh; she'd asked for his help with this project, only to set back their work through no fault of her own.

Valen's practically translucent skin made the blood rushing to his face extremely obvious. "W-what?" Was all he could blurt out in his fluster. Boss had tried to approach Boss-Lady from behind and reached out to steady her as she had begun swaying in place, but Binne stumbled back and accidentally hit Solaufein on the forehead with her chipped horn, causing Boss to reel back hissing in pain. In between trying to reach the next pulley and apologizing to Boss' face looking very sorry, she couldn't seem to muster the right combination of sounds to form words. "Augh! Oh-uh-mm-ahm sorry, Solau-ff-fai-ah-furgot . . . Meh body dinnae . . ." At a loss or too delirious, it wasn't clear - but she reached for the next bell all the same before anyone could stop her and pulled it with enough force that the bell actually snapped and she swung backwards on it with her full weight. She disappeared into the air in a flash of light with a startled expression.

She teleported mid-fall to the ground in the middle of the circle, rolling directly into a spittling and howling ice troll. "Oooh, angry," she commented on the troll's disposition like it was artwork. The hungry and angry ice troll, seeing what looked like food delivered straight to it, swatted down at her with his fist like a baker trying to nab a rat with his pin.

Deekin's little heart leapt into his throat as he watched the troll deliver the fatal blow to the cambion. Her previous wins had been so quick and unexpected that the sudden gravity of her loss had glued the bard's feet to the ground in panic. Then, he let out a held-in breath of relief as it became clear that the troll had missed, or she'd moved enough for its fist to hit the empty ground, and then it reeled back in agony as its face became lit aflame by a spell from the warlock's fingers.

It was an abyssal chant that devolved into an insane cackle that set loose a jet of searing hot flame into the ice-troll's face, who panicked at the sight of its most hated enemy - fire - and began to flail about in agony. This presented a new problem for the cambion howling in deranged laughter who was just now realizing it as she stagged to her feet dizzily and seemed to calm down. Her eyes had taken on a pale glow in her sickness, and though she swayed in place, the bright fire from her spell still licked at her clawed hands in anticipation. As the troll reeled and screeched, trying to pat out the flames, it bounced off of the sides of the arena and back toward the cambion who slashed at it and stumbled sideways to make room for the lumbering monster.

She had begun to speak to someone invisible, or was just muttering to herself, as she stumbled around the circle away from the angry, on-fire troll. As it fell to the ground in an attempt to roll out the flames, the warlock collapsed against the edge of the crackling circle. She extended her hand toward it as if in a beckoning gesture, and then clenched her fist as the flames grew in size and became white-hot, quickly disintegrating the troll. Soon enough, it joined the hellhound's soot-pile.

Binne teleported and fell back. She quickly rolled over into a heap on the ground in a fit of coughing just as Enserric leapt back into Boss' hands. Boss approached the Talontar with deadly certainty. "The Trials are over," he declared.

The sickly, mangled elf sighed in disappointment. "That is a pity," he confessed. "There is but one more test for her. After this, she will have earned her cure. Her strength is great, so Talona's test must meet it. But, kill me if you must. It changes nothing, and she will permanently die."

Deekin had found himself trying to help the tired, sickly warlock stand and noted the blood that had spilled from her lips in bubbles to the floor. She'd not suffered terribly many wounds - mostly nicks, near scrapes, but the disease was taking its toll on her body and mind. He doubted that she could take much more without making a deadly mistake that would cost her life. Luck or skill, or some balance between the two had caused her to coast through the few battles with swift ferocity. Deekin was a bard, but he didn't have the words to reassure her, and her eyes were half-vacant and still glowing. At least the fire had stopped. "Boss-Lady a lot tougher than Deekin thought," he complimented instead.

Her responding smile was weak. "I'm a'right now, luv. 'Tis only the Wailing. Lil' shadow goblins are gone . . . And the grigs in me eye-corns twe're testin' me patience 'ave fled the coup."

Solaufein glanced over mid-threat in confusion at her statement. As usual Boss was distracted by the trivial things, like grammar. "Eye-corns?"

Binne stood with the kobold's support and straightened her spine, though her tail betrayed her state, lackadaisically swaying in place. "Never you mind that, prettypants!" She told him and smiled in spite of her condition. Solaufein predictably glanced down at his greaves in confusion. "I'll take the job, and don't you worry - I'll do her right!" Her words, as usual, only made half-sense to the bard, but her intention was clear. He didn't have the physical speed - even if he had speedy boots - to stop her from grabbing one of the last in-tact pull-chains, and Valen slid to intercept just as she teleported in his fingers. Both men uttered a loud curse toward the ceiling simultaneously. Deekin sighed wearily.

"Will the circle fall if I kill you?" Boss questioned, turning on the elf again menacingly.

Whatever the Talontar had been in his previous life, in this one he'd stopped caring about anything at all. That, or he was simply insane. "Feel free to find out," he offered, looking down Enserric's gleaming blade apathetically. He smiled at his death. "I do not fear you, for my goddess awaits me."

"Not yours," Boss promised and pressed in Enserric's point to the hollow of the avariel's throat. "Mine."

Meanwhile, Binne fell into a coughing fit in the arena as she faced down a mirror image of herself.

It took Deekin a second to figure out that it wasn't a mirror - that was an illusion - but a duplicate of what appeared to be herself. Enemy or not, it made no threatening moves and simply stood and watched her, with familiar yet distant eyes. The colors were the same in both of them, but the hair, the build - something about the image was decidedly off. Without proper lighting, Deekin couldn't see what, but Boss' stilled in his elf-murdering to watch.

As she bent over, wracked by loud coughs and spitting up blood through her fingers, the figure approached slowly, carefully, eyes darting around the room and taking in the details of its surroundings. It lingered on the angry, sword-drawn Solaufein facing down the cursed priest for a moment longer than the others, before swiftly bending down to Binne's level and . . .

Helped her stand up and supported her struggles with comforting familiarity. It patted her on the back fondly as she stood up, still lightly coughing. Deekin would have to search for a long time to describe his gut-wrenching feeling at that exact moment in the literature-edition of these adventures. It was a cardinal rule of adventuring: the worst monsters always took on the most comforting guises.

"What a fine state we're in na, ya daft bint," the mirror image spoke to Binne in a voice that was definitely not a mirror image. Too deep and masculine. Deekin instantly realized he'd made a mistake that he'd often made when presuming the gender of big two-legs - this wasn't a mirror image, but a male of similar characteristics. The asymmetrical copy was younger than her, but those were about the only differences - they stood at the same height and build with similar hair length and same colors, and what traits in her that seemed masculine seemed feminine on the other demon's face.

The mirror image's face twisted into annoyance. "Takin' on a god o' poison on her own turf - 'o does that? Only ye'd be mad enough. Now ye've gone an' gotten us both kilt, wit yer bull-dogged-back-arse-headed-ness!"

Binne seemed to be having some trouble believing what was in front of her. She muttered under her breath and reached to touch the other as she simultaneously stepped back in fear. "You're not here," she kept insisting. "Can't be. Can't be! They can't make you. They can't make me." She repeated herself, as if this mantra would make reality bend to her will. Deekin wasn't sure how exactly an elven cursed priest in the Underdark managed to find the one thing in all creation that was capable of unnerving Boss-Lady but found it indeed he had. He'd seen Binne look that scary whip-priestess in the eyes and unflinchingly call the woman a 'wankstain,' whatever that meant (Deekin assumed it had something to do with the big and hairy people and what went down in their pants, which they were often concerned about). He'd seen her stand up to Halaster on behalf of Boss straight from her most recent death (only to slip and fall in a pool of her own blood, but Deekin was considering leaving that bit out of the final edition even though it was terribly funny).

"I'm as real ye," the imperfect copy insisted, and Deekin - and Boss and goat-man, judging by the scrutinizing glares they'd formed - doubted this realism very much. "It hasn't been tha' long since I died. Dun tell me you've forgotten me." The copy tilted his head to the side. Binne continued shaking her head in denial, and in her refusal she bumped against the outer limit of the magical circle. The elven Talontar smiled sickly, pleased.

"She can't make me, she can't make you," she insisted deliriously and clutched at her throat desperately and shook her head. "You're not real."

The demonic copy shrugged. "I feel real enough. It's not personal. If ya die here instead of me, I get to finally be free to live again." Then, the copy grinned in perfect mimicry of Binne's own infectious smile. "But, it was good seein' ya, Bee! Missed ya, wouldn't wanna be ya."

A blade that hadn't been - it emerged out of air, seemingly from nothing, was in its hand. Faster than the ice troll or the hellhound, faster than the sick and delirious cambion could react, the imperfect copy's hand struck and drove a sharp length of curved dagger into the side of her ribs, straight through the leather and under the scales that had protected her. Binne let out a sharp cry and fell, her expression frozen in numb disbelief, to her knees.

Boss had been watching, waiting, eyes focused not on the Talontar but on the magic circle itself ever since the strange copy had appeared. The moment its hands struck, a furious snarl crossed the drow's face that Deekin had seen once before lit by a mythal above a floating city. Boss pointed Enserric at the circle and struck at it - once, then twice in two mighty heaves. Enserric seemed brighter in that moment, and there was but a flash of light and a victorious cry from the sword as the circle was dispelled with a powerful blow from the warrior's that seemed to finally get a surprised reaction out of the mangled elf. It was the only expression other than twisted amusement or apathy that had crossed the broken avariel's face.

The Talontar stumbled and swayed in place as his protection spell dissolved along with his concentration, as Solaufein leapt into the circle to the odd copycat that was kneeling over Binne's hyperventilating form. The creature had pulled the blade out and was backing away from the drow on dancing feet, with a grin. "So many choices!" It crowed in that strange voice, and then it changed. Deekin had met druids, shape-shifters before - two-legs who learned to grow more or change their appearances. Dragons did so often, so it wasn't a strange sight to watch something change form, but it still surprised him a little whenever it happened unexpectedly.

As the cambion shivered and crawled away from the circle in a steadily growing pool of her own blood, Solaufein charged the shifting shape-shifter striking just as the doppelganger solidified into a perfect mirror of the Seer, holding the dagger that elongated in its hands into a sword. His blow rang out as Enserric clashed against the creature, and a clarion clang echoed through the temple as their blades struck blow for blow.

A roar to Deekin's right alerted him to the enraged presence of goat-man, who had taken it upon himself to throttle the mangled elf for information. Deekin opened his mouth to criticize this plan (it hadn't worked very well for them the first time), but he felt his talents were best served in a less verbal arena - besides, given the General's eyes red-shifting, he didn't think the tiefling would be willing to listen to reason. As Boss battled the doppelganger, driving it from the circle but nonetheless it managed to match him even in the Seer's silken skirts, Deekin occupied himself with dragging the bleeding cambion out of harm's reach and somewhere they could treat her wound properly.

She was half conscious when the kobold got to her, but too heavy for him to move on his own and having her assist him seemed to only make the wound in her side bleed even more. "Th-th-th-th—" she was trying to say something but couldn't get it out. Between the haze of the illness and the wound, Deekin was sure that she wouldn't last long, and he realized there wasn't anything he could do with any of the supplies for this.

"Wish we'd broughts a real cleric," he mumbled to himself, feeling overwhelmed. "But no, Boss had to leave nice elf lady behind. 'Too clumsy,' he said. Bah! Like Boss-Lady be any better!"

Boss-Lady rambled incoherently; Deekin shushed her and put pressure on the wound. "Everything be workings out, Boss-Lady, if you just stays awake," the kobold assured with confidence he didn't have, but could successfully fake thanks to an enchanted ring he had on that helped him focus his bardic abilities. Peripherally he could hear the fight between the doppelganger wearing the Seer's face and Solaufein; he was sure it was suitably epic and felt a little bummed that he wouldn't be able to observe the fight for posterity from his position. He'd just have to make up a good sword fight for the audience in the book version. "Er, everything be just fine. See? Boss be beating doppelganger and goat-man is—" Deekin turned his head to glance over where Valen's red-headed form was bent over the fallen Talontar as he furiously rifled through the priest's robes. "Goat-man be busy," he summarized.

"Y-y-you're a b-bad l-liar," she somehow managed to spit out.

"Deekin!" The General suddenly called, and Deekin looked up only to be startled by goat-man's sudden near-ness. He would've leapt back in surprise for a few reasons (had the General actually used his name again? Wow - and was that actually concern on Valen's face? Wow!), but he had a patient in his lap to tend to and so only let out a startled 'AWK!'

"General! You scares little Deekin!" He chided. "You has the antidote? Ooh, gimme, gimme," he demanded, opening his scaled palm, and closing it a few times. The General placed a small white phial in Deekin's outstretched hand with an irritated expression. Warily, the tiefling stepped back as Deekin quickly examined the vial. "Well, it work or not, we finds out soon." Between the tiefling and the kobold, they managed to tilt Binne's shaking head back and poured the contents of the little vial down her throat. He could only hope that it was meant to be orally ingested and not administered some other strange way.

Her breathing evened out quite quickly, but the coughing didn't stop, and the blood continued to gush out of her side. "Well, at least she cans die of wound now and nots of poison," Deekin pointed out as his uniquely positive disposition forced him to find the upside in every situation. The bard caught Valen's uneasy gaze. "Deekin needs to get to heals from bag—"

"—I'll keep pressure on the wound, but hurry," the General immediately assured and moved to trade positions. The cambion winced but for a moment before Valen's gloved hand pressed down on top of her own, on top of the wound. "Don't move," Valen all but commanded her, but Deekin was pretty sure that Boss-Lady was too far gone to hear. She had begun to twitch and seemed unable to hold still, between her shivering and the spasms of pain.

As Deekin went up to his elbows in his bag of holding to get the potion, he briefly turned his attention to the doppelganger battle. Solaufein had pressed his opponent to the corner of the room. Though the doppelganger's physical resemblance to the Eilistraeen high priestess was uncanny, nothing else about the Seer's facsimile fitted with the tranquil lady that they'd all come to admire so quickly. The copy was vicious and ferocious where the Seer was graceful and gentle. It wasn't long before the doppelganger made a mistake when it changed form again, realizing perhaps that its current skin had no adverse effect on its superior opponent. Its hair grew out darker, more golden than white and hung down in braids just as the ears shortened and skin lightened. The transformation remained incomplete, between two people, and dissolved into a featureless gray mask as Enserric impaled the doppelganger from behind. Solaufein cleaved up with the sword, rending through the copy with a deep gash. It let out a surprised gasp before falling over, dead.

The kobold's claws found purchase on a bottle he'd haggled Gulhrys down from just as Solaufein kicked the gray humanoid off of his blade and rushed over to them. It all happened so quickly that the drow wound up at the dying cambion's side before Deekin did and assisted Valen in holding her down while Deekin administered the potion. She spat it back up and a bloody foam spilled out of her mouth as her eyes rolled back up in her head. "She must have bit her tongue," Valen commented on this like it was the weather, not that Deekin remembered what weather felt like down in the bowels of the earth.

As Solaufein knelt to their level while Valen and Deekin did their best to hold her still, the drow closed his eyes in concentration, and a light from his gloved hand generated at the ends of his fingertips that reminded Deekin of the Seer's healing spell. It was something the little bard knew Solaufein had learned while under Drogan's tutelage, though he'd only seen the drow use a handful of times - on the Bedine in the Anauroch, on Xanos after the lich, on Deekin himself in Undrentide, and twice now to Boss-Lady. When the drow pressed the light into the cambion's forehead, Binne tensed once and grimaced, but nonetheless stopped convulsing. After that, it was easy to shove the potion down her throat, and the bard found himself letting out a tired sigh of relief as Binne's breathing eased, and the bleeding in her side ceased under the General's hand.

"The mirrored shard," Solaufein's raspy voice was the first to break the silence. Valen nodded, though his bloody hand was still pressed firmly to the now-healing wound, and Boss-Lady breathed evenly. Rather than get up the General nodded to the elf's body, which Solaufein stood up to go ransack. Boss confirmed his find with a satisfied, "Xa," and held up the offending shard in the dim light. Without explanation, Solaufein started to drag the corpse of the Talontar toward the central altar and dropped it in front with a satisfied grunt. The drow turned his attention to the next body he saw, and then turned his head only once to regard the General. "Take her outside, will you?" It came out as more of a suggestion than request, but Valen acquiesced immediately and picked up the large woman with little effort. Judging from the tiefling's expression, he was as eager as the rest of them to be rid of the smelly temple finally.

"What Boss be doings? And why . . . be doings it at all?" Deekin had to ask.

Solaufein dropped the next body, which appeared to be a former avariel, with a twitch of his nose. "It is a task I will not leave to another,'" he said this like it was an explanation (which it wasn't, but Deekin wasn't going to correct the Boss). Deekin left the odd drow to his own devices, knowing he had plenty of story-notes to catch up on.

Being an adventurer's author was tiring, thankless work - he'd had to train himself to be ambidextrous for when his hands cramped up, his claws had become permanently ink-stained; the trade-off was that he didn't have to babysit a large and hungry white dragon all the time anymore. He'd discovered in his travels that it was very rare that anyone in the world - let alone a small kobold - was able to discover their true calling. One day, he hoped to retire from the hero and violence nonsense and stick to pure fiction. He couldn't imagine Boss in any other profession, or Boss-Lady. Solaufein and the Anauroch had not mixed well together, drawing a stern temper out of him even on nice and clouded days, when the sun didn't glare into his eyes as much. Here in the deep, however, he had begun to open up in spite of their very doomed circumstance. Deekin didn't really understand it. The more doomed things got, the less cheerful Deekin was. It was as if doom had the opposite effect on Boss and Boss-Lady that it did on normal people and made them happier to spite it.

"You're a bit tense, General," Boss-Lady remarked over Deekin's head to the tiefling. She'd woken up a little disoriented but in much better shape than a few minutes ago, despite a slightly swollen tongue. Engrossed in his work and thoughts, Deekin could only spare a glance at Valen whose posture seemed to indicate that he was either angry or that something very large and long had been shoved up his backside. His tail thrashed from side to side hitting the back of his leg, and the noise was terribly distracting.

"I'm confused," the General admitted after a few quiet seconds of thought, apparently settling on blunt admission. "I don't understand why you chose to go through with this reckless mess. He had the antidote on him the whole time."

A 'reckless mess' was a kind way to put it, Deekin thought, but 'outright miracle' was probably more accurate. Why the priest had happened to keep the antidote on his person was a question for the ages; Deekin was considering spelling it as a divine intervention in the novel, as a kind of nod from Lady Luck. "Oh," Binne was saying, "I guess I'm not sure. I felt as though the mirror was at fault and not him - the Talontar - that or knowing our luck it was Halaster's fault entirely." Deekin stared up at the ceiling as she uttered this name and hoped - even prayed to any god that was listening - that Halaster didn't somehow know they were talking about him. "And I suppose I felt a little sorry for them all when I thought of it that way," the warlock went on in a saddened tone. "I thought, if this elf's such a nasty arsehole now, surely he was a decent fella before this curse. Probably not even his fault he poisoned me. Who knows if the antidote would've worked while the doppelganger was still alive? What if it really was Talona that made the curse, not him? If he had it on him, maybe he always intended to give it to me, and instead we - or I ran away, and failed the Trial. And then I thought about - what if this had happened to the Seer and her people? If they were the ones that were cursed - can't have something like that. This mirror-thing needs to be kept out of vulnerable hands. But it can't be helped - Solaufein was right. And I'm lucky at all to be alive . . . and there's no coming back from something like this for someone like that man. It leaves an awful taste in my mouth to admit it, but maybe not for any of them."

The General's response was terse, but surprisingly diplomatic. "He had the antidote on his person all along," the red head explained with strained patience. "We could've easily knocked him out and taken it rather than let you face his game and nearly die. Or we could've put him out of his misery - before you got stabbed and bled all over your armor. Again."

Binne's leather and bluish scales creaked as she examined herself, and Deekin cursed them for distracting them from his project and started taking notes about them instead. "Aye," she admitted glumly. "I reasoned it'd be easier to follow through just as he promised to give us the shard in exchange. Felt like a fair deal, though that was probably the impending death talking. Gods are cheap, I thought. I didn't know it would get that bad that fast . . . And I only failed because I ran away."

"Doppelgangers are fearsome enemies," the General explained with miraculously more patience than before. "They steal the face they believe you to trust the most right from your clearest memory of them. They can pry your loved ones from your head." At this, Binne became downcast and unusually silent. The General continued without noticing: "Whatever that elf infected you with also made you hallucinate, and there's no shame in that. You fought well up until that point and defeated every enemy efficiently and quickly. Not many I have met could've have fought as well as you under the same conditions, let alone successfully conjure hellfire without lighting themselves on fire first. I've seen it get the better of many enemy warlocks in the heat of battle."

"Why are you trying to comfort me?" She demanded, sounding mystified.

Valen didn't sound sure of his own answer, and it was his turn to appear downcast and silent while he contemplated an answer. "I didn't expect to hear you say you felt sorry for him. I don't understand it at all. He tried to kill you. You were dying."

Deekin wondered, again, how he was going to expand that final fight into a few more pages of dramatizations and settled on an illustrative and very quick sketch of Solaufein battling the doppelganger as it was shaped like the Seer. It was better than remembering the other bits of the battle - such as Boss-Lady dying pretty horribly at his feet again. "Boss-Lady be dyings all the time," Deekin contributed to the discussion. "It not evens be three days since she die the last time!"

"Not all the time," Binne quickly defended herself, and quickly changed the subject. "General, did you catch the mirror-madness? I wish you'd go back to glaring at me, that was easier to handle."

Valen went back to square one, as he always seemed to when talking to Boss-Lady - confusion. "You want to be glared at?"

She snorted. "No, but I don't deserve to be comforted and I don't ever want anyone's pity. I'm a little low on blood, but I'm fine. I could've fought the bugger and won, but I ran. I let my brain do the talking and—I thought it was my brother. It looked and sounded, even smelled like him. I was addled, and I don't need a pat on the back for it."

The tiefling went back to glaring, but it didn't have any fire in it; his eyes only seemed to turn red in the heat of battle, or anger. "You confuse me almost as much as Deekin does."

Deekin thought about objecting to this but considered it to be a compliment because the General hadn't used the term 'kobold' and instead had used Deekin's name again. He let it slide, just the one time. Binne laughed brightly, like she hadn't almost died.

Solaufein re-emerged as a plume of smoke poured out of the temple, and slammed the doors shut behind them. Deekin barely had time to process what had just happened before it was time to pack up, move on, and try to find the next shard. "Ouf, the smell!" Binne whined, waving a hand in front of her nose. "Now you reek of a burning Zhent! What have you done?"

"Something better than leaving them to rot at the expense of another," the drow grumbled. He turned a critical red eye on her. "You are one to talk, you are covered in your own blood - again. Even Enserric thought it was a bad plan!"

"I got to kill a doppelganger," the sword in question chimed in from his position strapped with spare leather to Solaufein's thigh, "which was the equivalent of dessert wine for vampiric swords, so it evened out for me in the end."

"It couldn't have ended another way," Binne conceded with an indelicate shrug, "but we really ought to find a place to clean up soon."

"There's always the poison river, if he gets too rank," the General suggested in a surprisingly light tone, drawing a chuckle out of her and a faint grumble out of Solaufein. The incident was behind them, just like that.

Deekin bundled up his materials in his bag once more, and they were off. He hung back with the warlock and tried to find ways to make the shards fit together, with the understanding that they were both to keep their distance in future battles; the wound was sealed, but she would not recover from her blood loss until a few days without a potion of regeneration, which they did not have. They walked back to the avariel town led by Solaufein and avoided the townsfolk as they explored the farther reaches of the cavern.

They stopped as Solaufein motioned to halt; he'd been instructing them in quiet moments since Undermountain basic drow silent signals and seemed to have detected battle up ahead. They followed slowly, keeping low and to the cavern wall. Deekin's toes could feel the vibration of the spells in the next cavern before he heard or saw what was going on. Slowly the cavern came to a hill with a narrow opening at the top, seamlessly blending with avariel columns of marble and gold carved to look like wooden branches. It made Deekin quite a bit sad to see; he hoped one day to see an elven city in its prime.

Near the heart of the island and situated at its highest point, where a once-bright castle might have been and was now a dilapidated corpse. As if to complete the visual transformation of the no doubt once brilliant, golden, cloud-touched spires into dingy, half-rotten columns, a battle between drow and driders took place within its ruins. Something seemed to have blasted one of the halls open to the air, and the screeching dark shapes collided into globes of shadow as drow wizards, warriors, and bowman fought for their lives against their spidery counterparts.

"They will not hear us over the battle, but try to whisper," Solaufein whispered from in front of Deekin. "Except you, a'temra, you be silent."

"As if I could see anything over Deekin's rump," Binne grumbled quietly.

Valen crept up beside Solaufein, unsurprisingly silent in his drow-made mithril plate. "Driders," he reported grimly. "You're not missing much, it's a slaughter."

"They wear the imposter's colors," Solaufein observed. Deekin slowly crept up to get an even closer look next to Boss. "We might tip the odds in the driders' favor," the drow continued to muse morbidly, "or at least pick off the wizards . . ."

"What is it with you and wizards?" Binne wondered aloud, earning herself a shush for raising her voice slightly.

"Dhaerow wizards are the most dangerous of us all," was Boss' mysterious justification. "We could easily catch them unawares from here."

"I don't see any point in getting involved in a fight if we don't have to," the General spoke practically, with a note of tension. Deekin could understand why; it was an engrossing sight, like watching two shadowy, spidery hordes of mist and battle collide over one another through the ruins of the elven palace. There was no way they'd all survive being caught in the middle of that trap.

Solaufein stared at the battle longingly, the way he had when he'd seen Enserric in the skeleton king's lap. He seemed to turn to look at it in a moment of silent contemplation. After a moment, he sighed. "No, Enserric. Do not pout. We will return."

"We will?" Boss-Lady's voice rose in bewildered annoyance, and she was hushed once more.

They doubled back through the caverns through twisting and winding ways that Deekin had no hope of keeping track of. He made a mental note to make a map next time; it wouldn't do if they all relied on Boss only for Boss to get lost. If it had happened before, experience taught Deekin it would happen again, and they'd been well and truly lost in Undermountain without Deekin's makeshift map that at least pointed them back to the Well-Room. It'd been burnt by a fire trap shortly after he had made it, unfortunately.

It wasn't long before they were back near the avariel city. The temple was well and truly on fire at that point, and some of the smoke had made it to the town; true to form, the cursed avariel were ignoring the smelly pyre and going about their usual routines of milling about and doing nothing. Although, there was an improvement - one was at least bathing himself in the middle of the street.

"This is getting us nowhere," Valen complained in a valid way that no one could really argue with.

"I know," Solaufein demurred. His head turned from side to side as he sought something out. "Yet there are unexplored parts. I saw a tower . . . There." Where he pointed, Deekin could make out the faint outline of some kind of pointy shadow against a darker shadow, proving finally the superiority of infravision to darkvision.

"I don't see anything," Binne complained, "but anything at all is probably better than a horde of driders."

"I have a good feeling about it," Solaufein assured her confidently.

This had the opposite effect on her. "Now you've doomed us all, you fate-tempting bastard!"

The shadow that only Solaufein had been able to make out clearly turned out to be a stark, tall tower of blue stone that couldn't have been more out of place if it tried to be. It was the only building so far that hadn't been in complete disrepair, infested with driders, or (and) on fire. Sitting some distance outside of it in the faint light of a cantrip's glowing orb over his head was a gray-haired avariel by himself, picking dirt out from between his toes meticulously. His wings - still a radiant white - were molting fresh feathers on the ground as they seemed to move restlessly.

Boss approached first and toed the focused avariel with his boot gently when the elf didn't react visibly to his presence. Owlishly, the avariel squinted up at the drow. "Oh, er, hullo," he greeted somewhat awkwardly in the same stilted Common as all the others. "Can I help you?" The elf asked, irritated. His greasy gray hair fell in long, loose clumps that kept falling in front of his dull blue eyes.

Boss glanced back to Deekin and the others, and then back to the avariel and gestured as if to say, 'only with everything.' "What are you doing?" Solaufein wanted to know.

"Picking out the dirt from under my toenails, thought that was rather obvious," the elf explained dryly. It was a lucid and sarcastic remark that startled Deekin, expecting more nonsense or insane gibberish. He noted this avariel as semi-important since he was at least not repeating the same things over and over again like the ones up front were. The elf's nose twitched. "What smells like spell components?"

"There's a trash fire in town," Boss-Lady offered and stepped up with a smile, followed by Deekin and Valen - though the tiefling maintained a wary stance. "He means what are you doing in front of this tower," she clarified. "It's rather brisk for a toe-picking this morning, I would think."

The winged elf brushed some bits of dank hair out of his face and turned his nearly translucently pale face back to the tower, as if he had forgotten its existence. A series of conflicting emotions passed over his face before settling on apathy. "Oh. I'd rather not go inside. I've put that all behind me and decided to live simply out here. Really, it's not so bad."

"Just driders, poison rivers, and pyres to contend with," Binne helpfully recounted. "And mirror shards, let's not forget those. Have you seen any?"

The elf seemed think about this, even as he turned back to gazing at his dirty toes longingly. "The Queen used to have a mirror, but I don't know about any shards," the elf revealed. "Mirrors are vain. Bad luck. Maybe my apprentice would know - you should go bother him in the tower. And leave me alone. Forever."

"I want nothing more than to leave you alone forever," Boss agreed and guessed, "you used to live in the tower?"

The elf nodded and leaned back on his elbows languidly to stare up at the starless, black ceiling. "I used to own that tower when I was an arch-wizard. Now my apprentice runs it. I can't be bothered with any of that nonsense now - I've got plenty of mushrooms to eat, and lots of space to lay around, and all sorts of voices in my head to keep me entertained!"

"That is when the conversation ended," Binne chirped, as they all simultaneously decided that this avariel would be as - if not even less - helpful than all of the other ones. They left him back to his toe-picking and approached the tower's main doors, the only part of it that looked scorched and damaged.

"What are the odds there is a mirror shard in here?" Boss asked no one in particular aloud.

They thought about it. Valen answered, "Has to be. It's a wizard tower."

"Now, what are the odds one of us might die trying to get it?" Binne wondered with a little waver in her voice, even though she laughed - a lot had happened in one day for her, so Deekin could empathize. Boss didn't have an answer for her and opened the scorched and carved oaken doors.

Like half of the other buildings they'd been to in the cursed island, the inside was positively littered with strange dead bodies. Spidery legs were curled in some corners were investigating driders had been slain, alongside the plumed and bloodied feathers of great vrocks. Drow of the Valsharess' colors lay alongside mottled, reptilian slaadi and pale succubi - and what looked like piles of fallen jellies lay strewn about. It was worse than a catastrophe - it was some kind of wholesale slaughter.

"Augh!" Solaufein's deep guffaw of disgust summed up everyone's feelings about the scene pretty well.

"This is the worst island!" Binne cried despairingly at the ceiling. She plugged her nose with her gloved fingers and scowled. "Why is everything filled with rotting corpses?!"

Deekin's nose had been trained for such nonsense, living with Tymofarrar most of his life, but even he had to admit it was getting over the top. "Deekin not seeing any avariel bodies," he noted thoughtfully. "Some bad drow, but this mostly look like demons an—"

A flash of light split through the air like lightning and struck the ground near one of the slaadi corpses, causing it to glow and swell. Everyone shrunk back instinctively from it, but it faded in an instant and with a loud 'pop.' In the place of the slaadi was a small, red-plumed fat bird, very much alive and pecking at the ground absently.

"Is that a fucking chicken?" Boss-Lady spoke through her plugged nose, stuttering it out in disbelief.

It squawked and clucked, puttering its legs back and forth in place, looking very confused about its predicament. Deekin's mouth watered when he realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd had good chicken. It flapped its wings a few times but couldn't seem to lift off the ground. Almost grumpily, Binne approached the bird and nonchalantly picked it up in a practiced move under one arm, keeping it calm and immobile even as her other hand kept her nose pinched. The General let out a startled laugh, as if he were surprised to hear it come out of his own mouth.

"Uh, what just happen?" Deekin asked of the room and silently counted the number of ways he could cook the chicken (it'd been a while since they'd had any good meat).

Chicken in one arm, nose clenched with the other, Binne nasally explained: "had to be wild magic. I've seen it bef—"

A flash of lightning struck a drow body in the corner room, causing it to explode in a burst of bloody gore. The chicken squawked, blissfully ignorant of what had just happened having its back turned, but the noise clearly startled it. Everyone had managed to duck out of the way, but Solaufein was left picking pieces out of his hair with a frown.

"Wild magic," Binne reassured with wide eyes and jostled her underarm chicken, observing Valen slough off a piece of gray matter from his pauldron. "Deekin and I are useless in there. Anything we cast would be too unpredictable. An invisibility spell might as well turn us into dinner."

"We can investigate it," the General offered and looked to Boss, who nodded, still delicately picking pieces of out of his hair with a frown. "And hopefully not explode in the process. You two talk to the wizard, see if you can get anything else out of him."

"Yeah, and I'll stay here and guard the chicken," she offered generously. "It probably won't affect you too much if you move fast enough. Just run past any of its effects or summons' and get out as quick as you can. You have speedy boots and Valen's the fastest man in armor I've ever seen. It's entirely random, so the odds of something exploding twice are quite rare!" Deekin half-expected another corpse to explode to punctuate the end of her sentence - or at least the chicken - but all it did was gently cluck.

"Ssin'urne," Solaufein grumbled and pushed some fallen, grimy hair out of his eyes. "Now coated in iblith and worse, I can die in peace five minutes from now when wild magic explodes our livers."

Binne's eyes sparkled in recognition. "Save the sarcasm for trip back. I said it probably won't explode you if you're fast. Best hurry now!"

The warlock, the chicken, and the kobold parted ways with the warriors who ventured with twitching noses into the stinky tower and approached the ex-wizard. Binne was finally able to breathe through her nose again, to her relief. "Whoo! Glad we're not in there." She looked down to the bird under her arm and jostled it, making it cluck a little in protest. "I wonder how long the polymorph lasts . . ."

"We should plucks him and eats him before," Deekin suggested eagerly.

She seemed shocked by the suggestion. "But I've already named him Miffy! I cannae eat him now. Besides, what if he turned back into a dead slaadi halfway through eating him, while still in our stomachs? We might get sick. No, we'll just keep him for now until something changes. If he's still a chicken by the time we put this mirror back together, I'll figure it out then."

Deekin sighed forlornly but contented himself with the knowledge that she couldn't watch the chicken the entire time and would have to put him down eventually. "Should we talks with the wizard?" The bard and warlock turned as one to stare at the avariel still intently picking out the dirt between his toes, and then started experimentally eating the dirt he found. "Never minds," Deekin answered himself, "Deekin not wants the headache."

"There's more cavern up there to explore," Binne offered uncertainly, staring in the dark past the tower with squinted eyes, "though we should probably go slow, and run back if there's any combat. I don't want to take any chances with my life after that mess in the temple."

Still being able vividly recall the multiple instances where she had been nearly bleeding out at Deekin's feet, the kobold had to wonder if maybe she wasn't just cursed. Maybe she and Boss had the same curse? She ran back to put the brown-feathered, crimson-plumed chicken next to the oblivious avariel wizard, figuring that the worst that could happen would be ending of the polymorph. Deekin did his best to do a quiet spell of invisibility but it still required chanting and felt less effective without the cymbals. They kept quiet but still made noise as they crept along further into the cavern, and while it wasn't the stealthiest operation, Deekin was a little proud of Boss-Lady for not saying anything the entire time.

Mid-step, she grabbed the back of his jerkin, which jangled against the metal of her gauntlets. "I smell fresh water ahead," she whispered. Deekin took a few experimental sniffs in the air and noted the heaviness. His hearing wasn't the best, but there was something faint - a low rumble he'd only just now paid attention to. They kept low and stayed quiet, although the invisibility did wear off after a while and they clung to the edge of the wall for bearing so they might be able to find their way back. The rumble grew louder the further along into the pitch darkness they went, but Deekin wasn't sure if it was wise to hit a light.

Soon, the rumble became a rush, and Binne abandoned all notions of stealth. "I hear it! It's running water! Come on, Deekin!" She crowed and stood up and started to run off into the dark. Deekin slapped a hand to his forehead and sighed, absently wondering how many charges the resurrection rod had and if the Seer had any spare ones lying around.

Though he couldn't see Boss-Lady in the dark, he followed the sound of the water until a dim, pale blue light started to give way to a closing cavern roof over what appeared to be a smaller, phosphorescent cave. The inside was wide and large and out of the walls, running water had carved a path through in a natural stream. Binne was next to it, sniffing the water she had cupped in her hand with interest. There didn't seem to be any enemies nearby, and the glow of the mushrooms gave the grotto a peaceful feeling that hadn't been present in any other part of the cursed island.

It immediately set all of Deekin's instincts on alert. If he had hackles, they'd be raised. "That be poison water from the Dark River?" Deekin asked, just now remembering how dirty and thirsty he felt.

She sipped gently at the water in her hand. "If I start convulsing, I'll let you know by carefully screaming. In the meantime, I'm washing the demon gore out of my hair and hands."

Deekin wasn't so sure that was a good idea. "What if there be cave monster in here guarding precious water? Goat-lady not always think these things through," he grumbled, and readied his crossbow.

As if waiting for her cue, an imperious high voice cut into their peaceful banter. "How dare you put your grubby hands in my pristine river!" The voice shrieked. Deekin's crossbow aim worked faster than his brain did most of the time, so he was staring down a very affronted and surprisingly clean avariel woman from bolt-point before he knew what he was doing. She was taller than the others, and there was something elegant in her features that the other lackadaisical avariel lacked; was it lucidity, though, or madness that shined through her eyes? "Well this is a fine turn!" The woman snarled. Definitely madness, he decided. "I'm being robbed of my water by a couple of raggedy vagabonds! I suppose that's what I get for abolishing the guard force," the woman continued in strident tones. "Robbers coming in and out of my cave, pointing crossbows at my face - ugh! It never ends!"

Binne had paused only momentarily in her pseudo-bath and refreshment to regard the woman with a blunted glare. "Raggedy vagabonds?" She examined herself, and Deekin, and then nodded at her own assessment. "Sounds about right."

Deekin squinted at the angry avariel woman in the cave. A quick glance around confirmed that this elf had been living in that cave near the water - plentiful mushrooms and a water supply that she could hoard meant she likely lived better than anyone else in the city. Her clothes had once been white and bits of shining plates and jewels still adorned her chest and belt. Her hair fell in limp and clumped strands, but there were hints beneath the grime that like her clothing, her locks had once been regal and golden. Like the palace, something shined beneath the curse that couldn't be dimmed, only concealed by willful neglect. This was no ordinary avariel, and Deekin ventured a guess. "You be elf queen, from the palace?"

She didn't like this question - at all - and expressed her rage by screaming at the ceiling in what Deekin felt like was an unnecessary amount of rage. "IT NEVER ENDS!" She screamed. "Queen Shaori this, queen that! Can't you people just bugger off and leave me alone?! Why else do you think I've been living in this bloody cave! I refuse to be Queen of anything!"

Deekin lowered his crossbow and placed it back where it belonged on his back. Binne started to ring water out of her hair and splashed some on her face. "Oh, I like this queen," she laughed, and splashed some water from the river over at the cursed Queen Shaori. "I'd vote for 'er. Scram, you haggity nag! We're taking your water. You've plenty enough to share, and you're in no position to argue."

Queen Shaori's steely blue eyes bored into the cambion's back, but her rage was ineffectual. Deekin had no doubt that she could have tried to kick them out of her cave, but something in her gave in and caused her to slump in defeat. She threw up her gold-ringed hands and strolled further back into her hermitage and sat down on a dirty mat and began muttering to herself.

It was either curiosity or pity that moved him to the cursed queen. There was something terrible that drew him to its story - all the avariel that had been cursed, all that had died unknowing in their madness, and for what? And why? He had to know, and here was their leader - the one person who should have been able to help them, and she was hiding in a cave styling herself as a hermit.

"What do you want?" Shaori grumbled as Deekin approached, his little claws tapping on the ground.

Deekin sat down next to her, enduring the avariel's heartfelt scowl. "Deekin just wondering how all winged elves end up down here. It not be the best place for elves to live, unless they be dark elves," he reasoned mildly in spite of her tone.

Queen Shaori's eyes fell away from Deekin's and narrowed in conflict as she stared down at the ground. There was confusion in her features, as well as a deep kind of sadness that disappeared as quickly as it arrived. "It doesn't matter now," she snapped and went back to glaring at him. "There's no point in wondering about what might be or what was."

"Not very royal of you," he criticized. "That almosts sound guilty. Deekin now thinking maybe you knows something other avariels might not know."

"What do you know!" Queen Shaori snapped. Her wings fluttered behind her restlessly, spreading a few grimy feathers to the ground. "You're just a filthy kobold!"

"And the smartest person I know," Binne piped up from behind Deekin, backing him up. The bard grinned toothily at the praise while Shaori scowled even harder. Binne looked to Deekin with a sly grin. "How much would you like to bet queeny has a shard or two under her skirt?"

"Ugh!" Shaori scoffed in a very queenly way. "Wanting my skirts, my jewels - you sound just like those wretched drow who came here. Shard this, curse that, prowling around my city looking for valuables - robbers, all of you!" The avariel snarled and stood, coming up to only Binne's shoulder in height. She blinked up at the cambion as another peculiar mixture of emotions swirled through her countenance. Ultimately, Shaori's wings drooped and she stalked away, appearing confused. "I gave them what they wanted," the cursed elf wailed to no one, "I gave the one in red the only mirrored shard I had. I don't have any more things to give. Do you want my rings? Is that it? Take them!" She pulled off one of the ones on her left hand and tossed it in the general direction of the wall where it clinked gently on the ground, undercutting her temper. "Take it all, and a pox be on you! I have nothing! I want nothing! Go root around my old palace if you want valuables! I can't be bothered."

The bard and warlock watched the queen rant to herself before turning to one another in regard. "We kills that red-armored lady, yes?" Deekin confirmed, searching his memory.

"Mm-hm. Valen ripped her arm clean off," Binne recalled with a fond expression. "Remember?"

Deekin did, and if his nose could wrinkle, it would. "Oh yeah. Deekin wishes he didn't remembers that."

Binne's pupils dilated. "It was horrible and beautiful," she crooned. "Unless there's another priestess in red running around, that's at least one more shard we have accounted for. Surely this means we're nearing the end of this awful vacation!"

"I thinks Queen Shaori knows more than she is sayings," Deekin revealed. "But she not be wantings to talk to us. Maybe we go, gets Boss, and see if he and Enserric can get more?"

Binne shrugged and brushed her wait her behind her ears. "Fine by me. But wash your feet at least before we go," she instructed in a motherly tone. Deekin stared down at his scaled toes, wriggled them, and decided it would be nice to be clean for a little while, even if they would just get dirty later. "And then let's kick Solaufein into that creek when he gets here, he needs it more than anyone alive."

Strolling alongside Boss-Lady in the gloomy dark back to the Tower with clean feet, Deekin felt oddly comfortable. They were less concerned with bumping into constant predators on the way back and were able to trace their steps in the dirt back to the Tower and the still-toe-picking wizard. The red-plumed polymorphed chicken had decided to roost on the avariel's head. While they spared this sight a cursory glance, Deekin's ears alerted him to the metallic footsteps of the General and the Boss approaching from behind them.

Surprisingly, neither the tiefling or drow looked worse for wear after their venture. "Solaufein!" Binne greeted cheerily and appeared as if she wanted to hug him - though she seemed to reconsider when she eyed the still-present gore all over his armor. "General," she greeted in a more subdued voice. "Find any shards?"

Solaufein's gaze, and tone, were equally sour. "Yes," was all he offered and produced a large sliver of the mirror that he'd been clutching in his hands.

"No bloodshed this time," the tiefling reported with a rare, amused expression. "I'm surprised too."

Boss-Lady's eyebrows crawled up her forehead toward her horns. "The apprentice just handed it over?"

"We didn't exactly give him a choice," Valen elaborated. "He was naked on top of a succubus, and we're heavily armed."

"Another well-executed flail-point negotiation! Your diplomacy skills are legendary, General Shadowbreath," the warlock complimented delicately and took the mirror piece out of Solaufein's extended hand. She examined her reflection in the mirror for a moment before giving it to Deekin, who started pulling the other pieces out to examine them and see how they might fit. He had a possible arrangement in mind, but without the frame of the mirror, there was no way to be certain they had collected all the pieces left. "Master bard, do you think we're close?" She asked of him.

Deekin hummed. "Mmmmaybe? Deekin thinking queen lady might be sayings more if we show her the pieces."

Binne clapped in excitement. "That's right! We did some exploring while you were off threatening to smash the wizard's dangly bits. You'll want to see this."

Deekin had never seen his Boss so excited to see something before - a genuine smile of joy crossed the drow's face when he spotted the mineral creek and he didn't even spare a word in Common before running right to it and dunking his head in. Queen Shaori was even less pleased at this intrusion than before if that was even possible. They all took a moment to clean up and refresh themselves while the fallen queen sulked in a corner about more raggedy vagabonds stealing her water. She shouted quite a bit at Solaufein before he retaliated childishly by splashing water at her, calling her "elg'caress" in a move that mirrored Binne's a little earlier. As before, Shaori huffed away and sulked in her corner.

The Queen wasn't keen on talking to any of them, even less so than she was before. Her answers were clipped and her manner impossibly more brusque. "Show her the pieces," Boss instructed to Deekin. The bard carefully pulled out the individual pieces from his pack and started assembling the on the ground before Shaori, though the avariel was sitting faced away and staring stubbornly at the wall, refusing to regard any of the 'interlopers' that invaded her precious cave.

"Queen Shaori maybe want to look at this?" The kobold offered, not really expecting much.

She looked at him over her shoulder with the queen of all glares, and slowly turned back around with a heavy sigh. "If I do, will you all promise to go away and leave me alone forever?"

Deekin looked up to his Boss for confirmation. Solaufein nodded. "We promises to leave you alone if you look at mirror and tells us what you know," Deekin agreed reasonably.

The avariel queen turned about and stared down at the shards he'd assembled into a workable shape in the dirt. Her expression became shuttered, and her lips thinned. "Is that what I . . .?" She trailed off in her mutterings and seemed startled by her own reflection in the mirror. Abruptly, her expression became angry and withdrawn and she clenched a pile of dirt in her hands, tossing it over the shards and sending them into disarray. Deekin clucked and started collecting them, brushing off all the dirt.

"I hate it!" She shrieked. "I hate that mirror! Get it away! It's caused me nothing but misery! Talk to that bloody Fool in the throne room, he loves nothing more than prattling on about that horrid thing - but I'll not look at it anymore! Now get out, get out, GET OUT!" The Queen literally shrieked them all the way out of her cave, apparently having expended her last civil nerve fulfilling Deekin's small request.

"I'd still take her over the Valsharess," Binne chirped as they strolled out. "In a queenly competition."

The kobold frowned. "Deekin not so sure she be any better than bad drow lady. Deekin thinking maybe Queen Shaori be one who broke mirror in first place, and that why she not be happy looking at it."

Solaufein's eyes sought out his. "What makes you certain?"

Deekin shrugged. "Deekin not certain, but she be only avariel so far that recognizes it as mirror. And she not say whether or not she recognize it, but it seem pretty obvious to Deekin." The three big people around him considered this, and the bard couldn't help but wonder how they hadn't put it together themselves. It had seemed fairly obvious to him.

"She spoke of a Fool in the throne room," Valen recalled. "The palace is the only place we haven't explored yet . . ."

Binne's tone fell from chirpy to flat. "And it's covered in driders and drow."

Boss snorted. "Do not look at me, I wanted to pick them off hours ago."

Boss-Lady was unapologetically opposed to this idea. "I'd rather not fight through a small army of driders just to see if the queen's court jester is still alive and happens to have another shard on him. I almost died recently, and I'd rather not almost die again so soon."

"That was because you fought alone," Boss pointed out. "This curse causes queens to reject their thrones, merchants to reject wealth, and librarians to burn books. Perhaps it has turned this Fool into a sage."

The cambion sighed. "Fine. Off to certain doom we go."

Deekin pulled out his lute from his bag of holding with a toothy grin. "Deekin will sing the Doom song then, because we be so Doomed!"

The drow and cambion sighed while the General's brows knitted together in confusion. "Doom song?" He asked.

Deekin was about to launch into an explanation when he was cut off by Solaufein. "You will regret asking him."

"Ignorance is bliss," Binne agreed firmly.

"Doomy doom, DOOM doom! Doomy doom . . ." Deekin chanted and strummed arrhythmically; the doom song wasn't really about the beat, or the tune, but the transcendent feeling of hilarity that is induced when once accepts one's inevitable doom. This subtlety was often lost on big people, so Deekin forgave them their ignorance since that wasn't a crime. The doom song was just too real for some people. It was definitely too much for the General, who demanded Deekin stop upon pain of being fed to the driders.

The desolate palace had calmed down considerably since they had last slunk past it. It looked no more better or worse for wear but was engulfed in an impenetrable silence. The battle had clearly ended, but which side had won wasn't entirely clear in the dark. They watched the place for movement from afar before Solaufein declared it safe, and he led them down an incline to the broken palace' walls.

Through a hole that had been made by who knew what, they stumbled across the remains of some kind of sitting room that was - like all the other places on the cursed island - littered with the deceased. "These are fresh," Solaufein commented as his eyes gleamed in the spectrum of heat. "Most are still warm."

"But who won?" the General wondered.

His question was answered as Solaufein looked up to the ceiling of the voluminous cavern and cursed loudly. "Pholor'udoss!" He pointed and Deekin looked up and wished he hadn't. Darkvision was great until it gave you a better look at your impending spidery doom. Then, it was only a burden. "Inside!" He commanded, and there was a scramble to get over the remains of the fallen drow and massive spider limbs to the inner walls.

If the avariel palace had once been inhabited by people, there was little trace of it. However long it had been dwelling in the Underdark was enough time for an entire nest of driders to take root and cover every inch of it with webbing.

Binne didn't ask or warn anyone before conjuring up the same bright fire from her troll battle and flinging it like a whip at the silvery webbing ahead of them that blocked the way into the palace halls - it was stinky and cloying, but nonetheless burnt a quick and effective path through the webs, allowing them all to escape further into the palace away from the descending driders.

A combination between a screech and a keen set Deekin's little teeth on edge as he followed everyone into the mess of palace halls and webs, and his feet tickled beneath as they stuck to the remaining webbing. Some kind of skittering or clambering overhead and behind him alerted him to the impending death by dridery doom that surely awaited them further in.

Valen suddenly roared from behind, startling him further. Deekin didn't turn to look in time, but definitely heard the sickening squelch of flail meeting flesh, followed but a louder version of the keening screech from before. "There are too many!" The General shouted and flung his flail again.

Boss doubled back just as Boss-Lady turned to scorch something over their heads that let out another nigh-deafening wail by Deekin's ear. He finally got a good look at a drider up close when he turned to face the one she'd lashed out at and fired a bolt of ice he'd loaded earlier right into its face. It wasn't a sight he would forget for the rest of his life - legs as long as a sword spider's and black as night, with the torso and head of a malformed and bloated drow female snarling with a look of utmost pain and hatred. They were emitting the piercing cries of pain each time they were struck, unsettling his bones. He'd managed to get her in the face with the bolt, which spread like frost over a winter window over the rest of her face and body until she could only twitch in pain. One hit from Enserric to behead it, and the drider collapsed on the ground.

Deekin got a moment to glance at their doom - further into the palace they'd run into the tall hallways adorned with spires he'd seen from the outside, and every part of them seemed to be covered in driders and webbing. Faster than he could really process, they were skittering down the silvered-web walls and halls to meet the invaders of their nest. Deekin ducked further behind Boss and the General and fired out bolts as randomly as he could, trying to think of any spells or songs he knew that wouldn't just make their situation even more cramped and doomed than it already was.

The foursome pressed into each other as the driders narrowed in. From behind the General he could see the driders seething in the dark - twitching, inching closer, but each time they did, Valen would glare or rattle his flail and they'd take a step back. As if the driders and they had reached an impasse.

"They are not attacking anymore," Solaufein noted with some surprise. Deekin turned to look behind him and saw the same situation with their enemies facing down Enserric.

"Well, that's odd," Enserric chimed with a merry red glint in Solaufein's hands. "In this instance and this instance only, I recommend not killing them unless they try to kill us again. They taste bloody awful."

"Well, Valen, I'd say they won earlier," Boss-Lady determined. She was still standing in a battle-ready stance with a harrowing amount of hellfire licking her mailed fist. "Less wizards for us to kill, at least, eh?"

Deekin examined the ones that were closest a little further, and again wished he hadn't. He suspected these would be the fuel of many of his future nightmares. "Deekin not think that any court jester be alive long enough with these uglies around," he offered, since no one else was pitching any ideas.

They were pressed together tightly in an enclosing circle of drider death. Boss suddenly clanged Enserric against the ground and slashed at one of the ones in front of him, who let out a hiss and skittered back, uninjured. Two standing beside it followed suit and he stepped forward. "Inbau rath," he hissed out, and clanged the sword again, swiping at them with Enserric and making more room for them to maneuver.

"They be afraid of us," Deekin realized.

"Well I'm plenty afraid of them," Binne replied in a wavered tone. She and the General inched backward, keeping an eye on their surrounding enemies carefully as they followed Solaufein's movements.

It was true, by some miracle - the driders were actually afraid of them. All Deekin had to do after that was point his crossbow at any that got too close, and they backed away with those malicious, infra-glares that glowed with heat. By some miraculous providence, they were not as doomed as Deekin had previously thought.

They managed to inch their way through the palace, pressing through in a tight circle past the nest of incoming driders, who continued surrounding them and skittering away from their movements. They seemed most afraid of the flail and Binne's fire, so they kept the flank while Solaufein and Deekin pressed through the dark corridors.

"Erm, Boss know where we be going?" Deekin asked, about halfway through.

"More or less," was all the drow could offer as he kept his attention and gaze fixed on their impassive enemies.

By trial and error, or again by miracle, they found themselves corralled to a closed door that alone stood intact and untouched by spider webs. Backed to this wall with nowhere else to go that didn't spell dridery death, Deekin let the three big people guard him while he examined the door for handles or locks, which it did not appear to have. It was huge and double-doored, made out of wood - something Deekin hadn't seen since they came to the Underdark. Feeling the pressure of the moment on him, Deekin decided it was best to just knock.

"Really?" Was all the General had to say in a particular tone of voice to make Deekin feel embarrassed. When the door swung open after Deekin's third knock on creaky hinges, all the General could say again in a more incredulous tone was, "really?"

"Really," Deekin repeated cheerily, and stepped inside the only part of the island untouched by the curse.

The avariel queen's throne room. Alabaster columns limned with swirls of gold supported a looming ceiling of tiled and colorful stone depicting birds, flowers, and mountainous scenes that reminded Deekin of Hilltop. The floor was cut marble and clacked against his toe-claws as he stepped in, echoing into the larger chamber. It was lit with braziers that placed its full glory on display, alighting the numerous paintings and scrollwork lining the walls of the great hall. It was massive, at least as large as two of Lith My'athar's temples, and in no way did it belong in the Underdark where the sun could never shine.

As soon as the door had swung open and Deekin stepped in, Solaufein, Binne, and Valen quickly followed with relieved cries and ran in after, pressing the door shut behind them with as much force as all of them could muster combined. "Hopefully, this fucking thing holds," Boss-Lady growled as she pressed her back into it.

Deekin walked into the room, unafraid, taking it all in. How had the curse avoided touching this place? What had been special about it? The answer was in there, he was sure. The thing that would make sense of all of it. Past the fluted columns and delicate art, sitting in the throne, was the answer. It was a lackluster figure clad in stripes of blue, green, and red. He was decidedly unkinglike with asymmetrical features and two differently-shaped wings, slouched into a natural hunch as he had draped himself across the throne, clutching a scepter in his hands. The Fool's eyes - a clear and lucid blue - were fixed on Deekin, who found himself unable to look away from the sorrowful figure. His gaze had a weight to it that made Deekin uncomfortable, and he wondered if the Fool had been given the ability to read minds. Still, it was the only good news they'd encountered so far on the cursed island; so far, everything had been exclusively unwelcome news.

"Boss!" Deekin called back with genuine hope in his voice. "It's the Fool! He's still alive!"

Solaufein caught up with him at a slow in pensive pace, taking in their surroundings. There were no driders, no drow, just them, the Fool, and the throne. "Well would you look at that," Binne chirped, coming up to a stop beside the drow with Valen not far behind.

The Fool descended from his throne in one quick movement and put his scepter carefully on the ground as he dipped into an ungraceful bow. "Welcome," spoke the Fool. "I've been expecting you."

"Of course he has," the General scoffed quietly and folded his arms. Deekin wondered if there was anything the man didn't find suspicious; did he accuse his breakfast of trying to kill him every morning?

"You are the Fool?" Solaufein guessed, even though it was obvious. The jester stood from his bow and nodded, turning his unnaturally heavy gaze on the unperturbed drow. Deekin was a little grateful since the attention was uncomfortable.

"Settle a bet for us, would you?" Binne threw in, catching up to the group from the door. "Did Halaster curse you?" The Fool opened his mouth as if to speak but closed it and seemed to consider his reply further. After a moment, he nodded. "Fuck!" She cursed at the ceiling in annoyance. "Oi, does the Blackcloak get around."

"I knew it," Solaufein hissed in a weirdly victorious tone as his eyes narrowed at nothing in hatred.

Deekin cleared his throat to get the Fool's attention. "Erm, how Blackcloak curse you, and how does we be fixing it?" He asked politely, since asking polite questions had gotten him pretty far lately. "Deekin figurings it have something to do with mirror shards, so we gathered all the ones we find."

The Fool smiled; it was a broken upturn of lips that had clearly forgotten how to do so. "I know. I watched you from the Throne, through my own mirrored piece. Ever since you came to this island, I've watched your progress."

Binne's eyes narrowed. "You've 'watched' us? Did you watch us nearly get killed?"

The Fool sighed and climbed back up the steps to the raised throne and sat down in it wearily. "Part of my curse was that I was granted all the wisdom I lacked in life. You have seen how it affects the other avariel. Queen Shaori was holding the mirror when it broke and was most acutely affected. She rejected her rulership and devoted herself to an entirely selfish existence, opposite of what she was previously. I was near her physically when it happened - so, I became my opposite. So long as I remained here, in the throne room, I could have all the wisdom in the universe and the ability to change nothing in it without outside help. I watched through the mirror for someone who might be able to collect the shards. You could say I got lucky."

"You could say a lot of things about this situation," the General interjected, "but I wouldn't call any of it 'lucky.'"

"How did mirror break?" Deekin had to know. "Did Queen Shaori drop it?"

The Fool's smile came back when he turned to Deekin. "No. It is the Mirror of All-Seeing. It is an enchanted vanity she acquired as an heirloom which allowed one to gaze anywhere they desired. She made the mistake of turning it on someone who could see her back. Shaori had heard the stories of Waterdeep and used her mirror - she thought - to find the Blackcloak, to see to the heart of why he had grown silent. I do not know what happened next, except that the mirror had been broken and this curse was afflicted on us - to create in each of our people an opposing, reflected self. To be contrary. That is the curse. Why the Blackcloak inflicted it, or even if he was the one responsible for it is a mystery."

Solaufein nodded as if he had suspected this all along. "It is always the fault of some wizard."

"I really hate Halaster now," Valen admitted bitterly. "Not only does he geas you, but he does this. What did they do to deserve this?"

"He also turned me into a sword," Enserric pointed out bitterly. "Not to sound like I'm complaining or anything. I make a magnificent weapon if I do say so myself."

Binne raised a had to pat Valen familiarly on the shoulder, but before the tiefling noticed it, she withdrew it as if stung. "Well, maybe the Queen caught him on the Mirror while he was in the loo and he got embarrassed," she deflected. "It's not as if people haven't tried to kill him for things just like this—it's just not worth the effort."

"As I said before, perfectly in character for the big goon," Enserric confirmed cheerily from Solaufein's side.

It didn't seem fair to Deekin, though he was hard pressed to think of a time in his life when anything 'fair' had ever happened to anyone. The least he could do, he figured, was fix the curse. "Would puttings the mirror back together undo curse and helps your people?" He asked of the Fool.

The Fool pulled out of his hand a circular mirror frame, large enough to be held in two hands. It was the kind of mirror that wouldn't have been out of place mounted on a common vanity and seemed perfectly ordinary. In the frame was one small piece with a rounded edge. Wordlessly, Deekin took off his pack from his back and rummaged through his bag of holding for the mirror pieces. He'd wrapped them in some spare clothing to protect them from getting jostled or further broken and passed the pieces to the Fool.

With the frame in hand, it was an easy enough fix - just like a small jigsaw puzzle. It seemed to Deekin that there had been some method to the curse in where it had placed the broken shards - scattered throughout the people of the avariel city, it would have been impossible for any one of the cursed citizens to gather enough wherewithal to put it together. Only the Fool had any sure knowledge of the curse, and he was forbidden from leaving the throne room. As much as it had hurt his heart to watch the elf-angels mill aimlessly about their lives in the market, it only really struck Deekin in that moment that the Fool was the saddest one of them all.

Before the last piece was about to be fitted into place, Deekin paused to speak to the Fool one last time. "Are you ready?" He wondered.

The Fool seemed hesitant but smiled. "This isn't me," the little avariel decided. "I might wish it was, but it just isn't. I wish to be me again."

Deekin nodded and turned to his big people. "Everyone be ready?" He asked them.

"What'll happen to us and the city?" Binne wondered, drawing the Fool's attention.

"The city will return to the surface," the Fool explained. "You will not return with it, but we will."

"What about the mirror?" Boss queried.

"I suspect it will remain behind," the Fool guessed, "but I cannot know."

Binne sighed. "Not much of a fix if it leaves us as drider-food."

"I think they were a part of the curse as well," Boss intuited with a little uncertain edge to his voice. "I have to wonder what became of the castle's tenders."

"You think the curse turned them into the driders?" Valen put that leap together before anyone else did.

Boss shrugged, and twirled Enserric in his hands. "If they are not, we can handle them."

"Sure, I'll just set them all on fire. What could go wrong?" Deekin wasn't always able to tell when Boss-Lady was being sarcastic, but this seemed like one of those times.

With all the positive affirmation needed and out of the way, Deekin clicked the final mirror piece into its place in the mirror, and everything changed.

It began with a light behind his reflection in the mirror, as the last little edge clinked into place, and soon the light erupted into a stream of white that blinded him to everything else. It wasn't painful, but it was disorienting. He heard the cries of Boss, goat-man, and Boss-Lady who were similarly affected, and in confusion he clung to the mirror and stumbled back into the others. There was some cursing and tripping involved, but he landed flat on his butt and covered the mirror with his body to protect it from any clumsiness. "Deekin sorry," he tried apologetically and squeezed his eyes shut to hopefully blink away all the whiteness.

It faded after but a moment into complete, blissful dark and silence. He heard weapons drawn and a flail's chain clink, but no sound of alarm. Slowly, he opened one eye and then another, to see what had happened.

Slowly he became aware of a dim light overhead in the form of the queen's cave's glowing mushrooms, and the gentle sound of a babbling brook. Next to it of all things, standing claw-deep in shallow water, was the polymorphed chicken clucking gently. No howling driders, no skittering limbs. He clenched the mirror against his chest to assure himself that it was real, too, and that it all hadn't been some wizard's trick or a strange dream.

"Be welcome," a familiar voice greeted, belonging to the once begrudging Queen Shaori. Beside her was the Fool with an even more lackluster appearance than before, and his blank eyes and mindless smile seemed to finally reflect this. Deekin was confused until he turned around and realized the Queen was looking at and speaking directly to him. She looked the same as before but bore herself with a nobler air. Her spine was straighter, and her shoulders thrown back. She did not look as small, or squat, or petulant. She wore a gentle, if tearful smile and seemed to him to be an entirely different person with a familiar face. "I fear I've treated you all rather ungracefully," Queen Shaori admitted softly. "From the bottom of my heart, I apologize." She bowed formally and knelt to the ground before them all.

"Deekin never see a queen bow before," he admitted uneasily. "Um, it is okays, Queen Shaori. Deekin not minds at all. You all be cursed, so it not really be your fault you be actings so nasty before."

"I could do with a little more bowing and scraping," Binne felt the need to add. "She shouted at me earlier. It might have hurt my feelings!"

Queen Shaori stood to regard the cambion with a small smile. "It has been a long time since I've been able to identify humor. I think I've bowed enough."

Boss-Lady chuckled. "Good to see you have a spine after all."

"Where did everything go?" Deekin wondered. "Is flying elf city intact? What about temples? And librarys?"

Queen Shaori's luminous blue eyes became downcast. Her posture did not slump, but her previously noble air took on a decided burden. "It is back where it should be. My people will recover. They are strong. I will recover. I wanted to thank you, personally, for all that you have done. And on my jester's behalf." For the first time she turned to regard the Fool and knelt down to the shorter elf's almost comical level. He preened at the attention she gave him and stroked his hair as one would a child.

Deekin considered what to do or say in situation. "What happen to Fool? He go back to normal too?"

"For whatever normal is. He will be taken care of. It is all I can do," was all she could say on the matter. "Before you go, I have a request." This time, she knelt to Deekin's level and eyed the mirror clutched in his hands with a wary expression. "Keep it, take it somewhere far away from the Cloud Peaks," she pleaded. "Use it or dispose of it, as you will. Keep it in one piece, whatever you do. And absolutely do not attempt to use it to spy on any wizards, especially if they are known to be mentally unstable. That's all the advice I can give. May it do you all the good it never did me."

Shaori, now that she was in her right mind, turned out to be a mage of some power herself, and opened a portal back to her city. Before leaving, she turned back to Deekin and placed a gentle kiss on the kobold's forehead that startled him into letting out a reflexive 'eep'! She smiled at his fluster. "Thank you, hero," and with these parting words she took the Fool by hand and led him back to their homeland, most likely to never be seen by Deekin again.

And just like that, it was over. The cursed island was no more. They were all relieved for varied reasons; Deekin, for doing his part and fixing the island, Binne for seeing that the chicken somehow didn't disappear with the city and was standing in the little creek, Solaufein for the little creek not disappearing as well, and Valen for it just finally being over so he could get a good nap in on the boat.

Boss availed himself liberally of the river again while Deekin debated what to do with the mirror that had been entrusted to him. Boss unexpectedly declared, "it is up to Deekin. He is the one who recovered it." So, Deekin - ever the diplomat - decided to put it up to a vote. All of them ended up unanimously voting that it should go the Seer when Valen suggested it. It made the most sense, and collectively they did not trust themselves (or Solaufein) not to use it to piss off Halaster again and accidentally curse Lith My'athar this time. (Although considering it turned avariel into their opposites, Deekin wasn't sure exactly what that would mean for an entire city of drow and was a little curious. Would they all turn into flying avariel?)

The island, as it turned out, had not changed in size since they ended the curse, but all of the avariel and refuse had disappeared, leaving it a strange and barren island of rocks and random mushrooms. The four heroes and their chicken were able to meander their way, even without the previous landmarks, to the dock where Cavallas' boat still sat waiting at the Poison River, mysteriously hovering still despite the choppy waves. "Creepy as ever," Binne summed up their feelings quite well about the boatman who stood still in the same position that they had left him in, on the boat's deck where he had given Deekin a parting wave. They all nodded and hummed in agreement. Even the chicken, tucked under arm, gave a gentle cluck.

"Greetings, Wayfarer," Cavallas intoned as they approached, as usually only addressing Solaufein.

"Did you stand there this entire time?" Solaufein wanted to know, trying to peer up into Cavallas' blank hood. Whatever he saw made him frown, but that could have meant anything; Deekin had been quaking in his armor during the drider attack while all it did to Boss was make him mildly annoyed. "Did you move from this spot?"

Cavallas, disturbingly, gave no answer. "Let's just go," Binne grumbled and hobbled on board with Miffy the chicken under her arm. Deekin followed, eying the chicken hungrily, hoping Boss-Lady had brought it to eat and not to keep as some kind of demented pet.

The chicken was either psychic or suicidal, it wasn't clear - what was clear was that as soon as it stepped on board Cavallas' boat and got a solid look at the boatman with one bleary yellow eye, it let out a loud 'BUCK-AWWK' like the kind Deekin had made once when he was really scared and started flapping its silly, useless wings. It startled Boss-Lady so much that she let go of the chicken, who actually flew for a few moments in the air before dive-bombing forward into the Dark River and disappearing with a pained 'AAWWWK' into a pile of feathers and bloody fluff.

Binne stood still and watched the poisoned water where it had disappeared in speechless horror. Deekin's stomach rumbled while he watched where it had disappeared with a similar expression, for an entirely different reason. "Oh no!" was all she could say and covered her mouth.

The laughter that erupted out of Solaufein's mouth was both infectious and awful. There was nothing really funny about the situation, but Deekin was starting to understand drow humor the more time he spent in the Underdark; it wasn't that it was funny, it was that it was horrible, and all you really do in the face of horrors was laugh uproariously at them. Boss took it a step further and pointed at the bubbling chicken remains, doubling over in laughter until he was practically breathless, and even the General couldn't help the chuckles that started escaping from his mouth as a result.

"That's not funny!" Binne crowed, uncovering her mouth for a moment to regard the still-in-the-throes-of-laughter drow. Helplessly, a few chuckles emerged from her until she slapped her hand over her mouth again with wide eyes. After a few seconds of trying to contain herself, she couldn't hold it back any longer and they all ended up doubled over on the edge of hilarity right there on the deck.

It did die down after a few minutes, and after a final round of guffaws, there was a collective sigh. "Deekin wishes we had eatens Miffy before he does that," the bard lamented. "Oh well. At least we store food on boat before we leaves drow city."

"Maybe we should set up camp on the island, then," the General offered, ever the pragmatist. "Hardly enough room on the boat. I don't think Cavallas would mind."

Binne peered up at the boatman from her spot sitting on the deck. "Do you eat, boatman?" She asked. Cavallas stared down at her and was unresponsive. "I don't think he likes me."

"He does not eat," was all Solaufein would confirm when they looked to him. He'd been the only one brave enough to get a good look inside of Cavallas' hood and wasn't in the sharing mood to describe what he had found. Deekin figured that could work in the final edition anyway; the unknown was always more horrifying than the known, and what people didn't know about the boatman would be more interesting than what they did.

After the kind of day they'd had, it didn't take long for everyone to realize how tired they really all were. They'd left their camping supplies on the boat, not knowing how long they'd be on the island, and there was a small scramble to assemble everything fast enough so they could have soft mats to lay on and pass out. They agreed to take turns for watch, and Deekin volunteered first so he could catch up on his notes and finish a few sketches. He was touching up the sketch of the drider he had pierced with his ice bolt when it was time to wake up Boss-Lady for her shift three hours later, judging by candle mark. She puttered about quietly as Deekin nodded off, grateful and absently praying to Boss' moon-dream-lady-goddess that he didn't have any drider nightmares.

If he had any dreams at all, they were forgotten immediately upon awakening to the camp being torn down. He was still yawning by the time they get on Cavallas' boat, and was chewing on jerky, hoping the taste would help clear his head faster.

"I could use some mead," Boss-Lady bemoaned to the boards of the boat, laying cheek-down on them as Cavallas' silently directed the craft into the waters with an invisible push. The boatman's arm raised and they turned around, slowly veering off into the fathomless dark.

"I could use some morimatra," Solaufein bemoaned in sympathy with her. The drow sighed and sat down next to Deekin near the aft, who was wrapping the Mirror of All-Seeing into even more spare clothing he had found in the bag of holding for safekeeping. "Good work, Deekin," he complimented. "I should have said that before."

Deekin would have flushed if he had been warm-blooded. "It be no big deals, Boss."

Solaufein turned his glowing gaze to the dark. "It is a powerful tool. I would entrust no one else to keep it safe until we can get it to the Seer."

Deekin nodded and shoved it as gently as he could into his bag. "Ya-hum. Deekin keeps it nice and safe for Seer."

Binne flipped over and turned to regard them both on her other side. The boat was small enough that no matter where they stood or lounged, it seemed they were in each other's space. "You're a right hero, Master Scalesinger!" She grinned. "A proper one called so by an elven queen and everything."

He accepted her compliment with dignity. "Deekin knows you is not making fun of him when you says that, so thank you."

The never-chipper General sighed from the stern. "I'm just relieved to be out of there. Are we returning to Lith My'athar?"

It suddenly occurred to Deekin that he had no idea where they were going either. "Soon," Solaufein explained, "Cavallas will take you there if you require it. Currently he is taking us to the Isle of the Maker, the golem isle you spoke of. You have a duty to the Seer's forces, and I will not keep you from that."

Valen gave the drow a considering look. "She decreed that I aid you and do my best to keep you safe," he decided after a moment of contemplative silence. "I'll not leave while there's work to be done."

Solaufein bowed his head in thanks. "Your presence has been invaluable. Cavallas has mentioned that duergar frequent this isle, so we might trade there. The mirror is an excellent find, but I would prefer to return to Malla Seer with something more substantial than a dangerous magical artifact. Such as golem allies if any survive in this Maker's laboratory with an intact control rod."

"Failing that, I'm sure there's shinies to salvage for some dangerous folks like us," Binne rationalized, and blew at a piece of hair that had fallen out of her braid into her eyes. "Though a magic mirror that can scry anything anywhere is still very nice. Basically negates the whole need for enemy intelligence."

"Unless it breaks again," Valen reminded with a dark expression.

"I suspect, like Halaster, the Valsharess and arch-devil might be immune to its power," Solaufein mused.

"Only one way to find out," Binne chirped.

Deekin wasn't so sure the big people were thinking this one through again. "Maybe we not be pressings our luck. We gots the magic mirror, and as usual lotsa people die. Maybe we all should be beings glad that it not be us dead this time. At least it not in bad drow lady's hands."

"You have a point, master Scalesinger," Valen conceded and Deekin was surprised to hear a title and actual name come out of his mouth. Could it be Valen had grown his polite glands? Or were those not a thing that big people had? Valen seemed to realize the oddity of the moment those words left his mouth just as Deekin did. "Huh, I think this is the first time I've agreed with something Deekin has said," the General admitted.

Binne grinned at him. "You get used to it after a while."

Valen's crimson brows knitted together. "That's exactly what Nathyrra said." Boss chuckled.

As Cavallas' strange boat meandered them through the Dark River's choppy waters toward a distant shore, Deekin had to admit to a feeling of nostalgia in the never-ending cavern. It felt like being right back at home, the more time Deekin spent in the Underdark. Though he didn't miss Old Boss, there was a warmth to the cavern that he had always missed since he left. He had often felt alone even surrounded by his fellow clan, but since joining Boss - despite the constant Doom - he didn't feel lonely whatsoever.

---

Drow-to-Common Dictionary:

Waela . . . someone who is being an idiot and needs to know it
Ssin . . . the verbal equivalent of the slow-clap
Inbau . . . fuck off!
Elg'caress . . . Nagging hag