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.

6. Diplomacy

BINNE

Beshaba must have smiled on me the moment I set foot on that forsaken golem isle. Not an hour after waking from a much needed nap on Solaufein's comfortable leg and I was being tossed into walls like a child's toy. The bloodstained adamantine scales I had upgraded to wearing for protection didn't help soften the blow none, but it did make a hell of a jangling that set my ears ringing for probably the next month. A clay golem had gotten a hold of me in its mitts and flung me about like I was a rug it needed to beat the dust out of. For not the first and probably not the last time, I cursed the fact that no one designed helmets with extremely horned girls in mind.

Amidst the chaos of the clay man fight ending, I managed to sit upright and immediately held my head in my hands and groaned. I couldn't hear, think, or see straight because everything was spinning on different axes. "Boss-Lady now kinda look like Boss whens Hala—"

Solaufein cut off the kobold bard with a curt tone. "Deekin, enough. I am armed and I will end you."

"Yes Boss. Sorry Boss." It was a passionless admonishment met with an equally insincere apology. I doubted Deekin would ever let Solaufein live that one down.

Solaufein's face swam in my vision as a midnight blur, and my head felt wet when I touched it. Someone managed to shove a healing potion down my throat, which helped with the tilting and the swirling but not so much with concussion I definitely had and the ringing in my ears that was there to stay. "I need a bigger weapon," I immediately decided as I took Solaufein's kindly offered arm and stood up on less-wobbly feet.

"And training," the drow added - not snidely, just observantly. He was right, I'd not had any proper training aside from my father Drak Black-Raven whose Uthgardt philosophy toward personal violence was more poetic than useful. 'Hit 'em 'til they bleed out th' hayed, twice if'n thar be risn' dead!' Drak's sage advice on fighting automatons was most practical and floated through my mind: 'run if they're bigger than ye an' let the clerics sort th' lot!' I'd mostly coasted by through my nearly thirty years on a combination of luck and firepower, and during the war there wasn't exactly proper time for training what with all the death, drinking, and getting my arse shot full of arrows.

"I could certainly use that too," I agreed with no shame. I'd never had a problem accepting proper criticism when it was well-warranted. "I'll stick to spells until I find something big enough to whop them at a distance with. Och, my head . . ." I rubbed my brow and winced at the throbbing pain, which was beginning to resemble someone taking a mining pick to the inside of my horns.

Valen flicked the equivalent of golem innards off of his flail on the ground. The General had gotten through the entire fight without a scratch, still looking perfectly tempting-yet-consternated. I'd been thrown around like a sack of grain by the golem that he'd dismantled, and I would bet good money I looked very much like that sack of grain. "Polearm?" the tiefling affirmed in a questioning tone in my vague direction. Solaufein didn't follow the same line of thought the tiefling had and raised a confused white brow, while I got it and felt a little sheepish.

I wasn't used to close-quarters fighting and was impossibly more at ease in an open battlefield, but I could definitely kill when backed into a corner as I'd proven on the cursed elf isle. I had plenty of practice dismantling Zhents in close quarters, but they weren't the size of golems. A massive golem looming over me, of course I'd be inexperienced. How many folks spend their careers battling those sorts of monsters? I'd be properly squished if I tried anything up close as the General had done.

"Poleaxe," I admitted as this was undoubtedly his question - the first weapon I'd actually trained with. It was a smattering of mixed techniques I'd absorbed while I was stationed in the north from the Greycloaks, filtered with the odd technique from my father and whatever I picked up from the folks surrounding me. "Though to be honest, I'm better with a spear or a scythe than anything. I had a big one in the war I loved until it broke. You see any gardening or farming equipment? Keep an eye out. I'm fierce with a shovel too." It was about the only decent skill I'd developed as a result of all the farm chores as a girl. I could cut quite a bloody swathe through a field of grain or flesh with a proper scythe. This at least got a smile out of the General, which brightened up my headache.

"Stay close to Deekin for now," Solaufein commanded in that simple, suggestive way of his that somehow made it seem like it was my idea in the first place. I agreed enthusiastically. The last thing I wanted to be was on the front lines while we delved into this ancient golem factory, setting off all the traps and alerting all the enemies with my clonking boots. Aside from a few small emergency blades strapped to me outside my armor, all I had to fight with in a melee was a whip that was more useful as a distraction and disarming tool than as an actual weapon, despite its heavy enchantment that Deekin finally got around to identifying as a lacerating effect. Ugly thing made you bleed more and faster when you got lashed with it. I remembered, quite vividly, how it felt clenched and pulsing around my throat. I kept it mostly because it gave me joy to handle in knowing Akordia would never touch it again, though it was obviously of no help against something with rocks for skin.

Once first setting foot on the isle from Cavallas' boat, we'd run into a camp of duergar scavengers willing to trade with us who honestly had little to offer beyond warning us off of their bounty. They gave us some spare potions in exchange for us promising to clear the first level for them, so they could harvest any metal remnants Valen didn't smash into countless irreparable shards. Without a proper rapscallion in our employ, we had to rely on Deekin's senses (and our own noses and ears) to detect traps. For the first time in ever I caught myself wishing Bishop and his pesky wolf were here to sniff out traps ahead. Solaufein seemed confident of our good chances (but whoever heard of a drow optimist?) and Valen had a surprisingly keen eye for traps, so we were able to avoid the bulk of them without getting singed.

Avoiding the golems who apparently had orders to smash every intruder was another matter, and every time we tried to run away from them and hide in a side room, that room was also full of golems looking to pummel us. The disrepair of the walls screamed 'inactive wizard lab, come raid me' while the insides full of traps and mindless servants seemed to indicate that it was still a fully functional mage's laboratory. I had mixed feelings about setting my first toe in there; while I liked the Seer, and she seemed like she was the sort who could use a golem army, she wasn't the one getting thrown into walls for the sake of it. I was safer as an ogre slave.

We'd taken to using a spare quarterstaff to pat the walls and floors ahead of us, at the cost of taking any of our enemies by surprise. The first corner of the underground lab, which visually reminded me intensely of Undermountain in a very bad way, golems had manifested. At first they were just the clay variety, already worn-down and covered in battle scars from skirmishes with the duergar and other attempted raiders. They fell apart easily under the weapon master's flail-heads. The automatons had clearly been patrolling the corridors on the master's orders and emitted only strange sounds that none of us could identify; repetitive names I had guessed, or perhaps their command spell had begun to decay and their speech had devolved into gibberish. I'd fallen asleep in my academy lessons on transmutation.

Aside from the one that managed to rattle me, I kept my distance and made entropic and hellfiery holes in their forms while Solaufein and Valen tore them apart. It was a functional system that had kept everyone from dying and severe maiming so far. Every side door that we could manage to break open or happened to be left unlocked was filled with even more hostile mistakes of nature, which started to present a problem when we began to tire out from the constant surprises and hitting things. It'd essentially been a non-stop fight as soon as we started descending, and the idea of fighting more of them down to the heart of whatever was producing them was beginning to fill us all with dread. Especially Deekin, who had taken to humming his Doom song under his breath.

While my head was still pounding and I was rubbing my brow, we continued onward through the winding dungeon's halls. There was dim, blue-tinted mage light suspended from globes on ceiling chains that reflected back the grime on the floors and walls that had accumulated over the countless years they'd been left uncleaned. It was so shiny that it was almost pretty, and quite distracting, so I might be forgiven for nearly running into the back of Valen's armor again. At a moment I noticed we had all gone alert, and after a split second of silence it was clear why - something was coming toward us in the dark, creeping through the halls ahead.

It was a shuffle, or drag - not quite a gait, so it clearly wasn't one of the Maker's children. The steps were too irregular, too unique. My ears weren't as good as an elf's, so I looked to Solaufein who had gained a somewhat pained, or constipated expression that made me want to laugh. I caught his eye with my stare and quirked up an eyebrow to silently question it, but the news wafted to me before he could utter it. A slight breeze brushed past my nose carrying the smell of sweat and death - specifically of rotted, old flesh.

"Smells like Berger," Deekin piped up, taking the words right out of my mouth.

"Sinthesti," a tired, hollow voice rasped out from around the corner. The shuffle became a shamble of limbs as none other than a flesh golem flopped around the corner, dragging one limp and malfunctioning leg behind it. Green, brown, and black, it was somehow even more disgusting than Halaster's pseudo-son, but I didn't want to take the chance that this one was also adopted by a wizard so I flung an arm out in front of Solaufein who had already drawn Enserric in preparation.

"Don't kill it!" I practically begged with suppressed sarcasm. "My arse can't take another arch-wizard's angry geas!"

The drow gave me withering look that I completely earned and deserved. "The taste of flesh golem is truly revolting," Enserric agreed with me, "no thank you, wielder mine."

"It's not attacking," the General spoke up, sounding surprised.

I looked over to our colorful addition and then back to the approaching golem around the corner. The golem continued shambling as if it hadn't noticed us in its approach. Its pace neither slowed nor sped up, and it made no kind of acknowledgment or threat. "It looks like it's malfunctioning," I pointed out aloud. "It might not be able to hear or see us."

The rotting flesh heap continued on its way and we all stepped aside to let it pass right through us. It continued its heaving, limp-legged way until it stopped short of the remains of the clay golem that had thrashed me. It didn't do anything other than stop and seemed to stare into the silence. Slowly, painfully, it raised one trembling arm in front of its body to hover with its peeling, green-and gray palm facing down toward the remnants of its fellow. Its mouth opened to croak out the same thing it had said before, "Sinthesti." A nonsensical, obsessive mantra. I racked my brain for everything I knew about beast languages and the arcane, but nothing came to mind.

"What gross-fleshy be doing?" Deekin asked aloud in confusion. One arm-extended and the golem simply stood there, trembling in place on its gimp leg.

The pieces of the clay golem beneath our boots began to move of their own accord, rolling forward against reason to the flesh golem. Without warning or pre-emptive remark, Enserric became a shining red blur in the air as it sliced through the flesh golem's arm and swung back to cut off the creature's head. The golem all tumbled down into pieces of a heap of stink, drawing a reflexive cringey whine from Enserric and nose-plugging from Deekin and I. "This one must be repairing the phindari," Solaufein reasoned and sheathed his sword before Enserric could talk back or complain about golem stank. He'd been teaching me Ilythiiri in down moments, and I knew phindar was one of those funny drow words that could mean anything from 'fucking garbage' to 'you guys' depending on its context.

"Quick thinking," the General complimented despite his nose still being wrinkled. He shook it off far easier than I. "I'd hate to have to fight any of these things twice. What do you think it was saying?"

Solaufein scratched his head in a rather adorable way that I carefully didn't comment upon. "It is dismembered . . . I do not see how we would ask it."

"I think we can agree this is Deekin's fault," I announced. "So he should definitely get the next geas."

Solaufein's teeth flashed white in the din in a quick grin. "But what are the odds of running into another mad wizard?" He dared to ask aloud.

I glared at him, but he probably couldn't see it. I hoped my eyes were glowing because he needed to know how mad I was. "Stop tempting fate! You're going to get us both killed. Then what will Valen tell the Seer?"

"Oh, I'd just leave you here and say the golems got to you if it came down to it," the General assured us nonchalantly and a little too quickly to sound entirely innocent.

"You've clearly given it some thought," I observed politely.

"Clearly I have." Gods damn him, I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

Solaufein's eyes slipped into the spectrum of heat and took on a glowing red sheen once more. It was the only way that I was able to detect his eye-roll, this time. "You are being dramatic."

Someone had said that to me once a while ago. He'd said it right before the incident that resulted in my assignment to dump escorts for the duration of the Luskan conflict. I didn't remember for the life of me what happened except a lot of liquor must have been involved, and those druids had been very angry. I knew Bishop'd gone and cursed me, and I vividly recalled being so thoroughly annoyed in the moment that I'd kicked him repeatedly in the shin. I might have been Bishop's only actual friend (meaning that I wasn't getting paid to hang around him), but it had stung in the moment that he hadn't listened to my instincts. I faulted him entirely for that dragon swooping in later, and he deserved all the shin injuries he could stand. I didn't possess enough nerve to kick Solaufein, plus I actually liked him unlike that other useless hairy arse, so I just snorted about it. Neither he, nor Solaufein understood how downright ridiculous my luck was. It wasn't superstition, but it might have been an actual curse. I don't know why these things always happen to me, they simply do. I was starting to understand that these sort of things only tend to happen around certain types of people. You don't run into madmen conducting experiments with causality in the wilderness, or a dungeon, unless you're the mad sort to wander into wildernesses and dungeons in the first place.

I didn't want to die again (especially not so soon), so I maintained my distance from Solaufein down the hall a bit after that and kept a close eye on him from afar since it worried me that he was so cavalier about these matters at times. Then again, he'd held my hand while I was dying twice so far within the span of roughly two weeks and together we'd been through so much, much worse - and he'd survived as I had, arse-up and humor intact. Worrying about him felt strange since I knew he was more than capable of watching out for himself, but it was as if I couldn't help myself. I just worried, uselessly, about the next thing coming around the corner that would come charging at him because he'd tempted Beshaba. (I didn't worship any gods, but I was justifiably afraid of several.)

The tunnels got smaller, and then wider at several points and seemed to go in what felt like loops. Solaufein was certain we were making progress and the air smelled different even if the halls looked to same, so we were definitely going deeper in - and further down. We did go in a loop at one point, and then found the proper corridor - but there was a massive metal adamant door blocking the way. It looked like it hadn't been used in some time, so we were puzzled as to the necessity or location of the key - and additionally, there was no keyhole that any of us could find.

For a few moments we had to sit back and take a break from the mystery, and admit we were stumped. Well, they took a break. I took a brief nap, until another small breeze through the halls hit my nose and put me on the alert. Increasingly these tunnels were reminding me of Undermountain - and the smell of dark elven poison and sweat brought me right back to Akordia's camp. "Drow coming," I announced, only to find everyone had gone on simultaneous alert having figured out the same thing.

By habit now, the motion was fluid as I pulled the aspect of the spider in my head from my memory and planted it into my palm, ready to slap the spell on Solaufein's back. "Give it to Valen," the drow commanded instead. He looked to the kobold next. "After she is done, spell us into invisibility," he told Deekin who nodded and started to hum.

I looked to the tiefling with a raised eyebrow and glowing, open palm. I wasn't sure how the General felt about me touching him - he'd been very much on edge around me most of the time - but he didn't flinch when I placed my hand on his green mithral pauldron and let the spell release into him. "Give 'em a taste of the Hells, aye?" I grinned at him and drew my whip with one hand and let some hellfire slip into my other. A moment later we disappeared, and a drow patrol rounded the corner making their careful way around the traps just as we had.

The circle we'd gone in had been a loop around a defunct golem laboratory, where we found most of the recent duergar and unmentionables' corpses. It was a strange room accessible from a single unlocked door that we decided would make the best spot to wait in ambush, after the patrol passed us by. Deekin had stopped humming and hid and as long as we held still in the room, Solaufein was certain our heat signatures would be so confused to enemy eyes that there was no way for them to be certain of where we were. They'd slip into the visible spectrum to assess the scene, and then we would strike.

It was a good plan, up until the point where it involved me. I couldn't blame anyone else for what happened. Something was tickling my nose the entire time - just dust from the air, most likely. It hadn't been the first time that I'd had to sneeze down there, and while I did everything in my power to physically stop myself - it's just not possible to stop a sneeze when it's coming. It was small, even dainty because I'd tried to muffle it. Not my usual earth-shattering sneezes. It came out almost like a quiet little feminine snort, and while I felt relieved in the seconds that followed it since I heard nothing, I could practically feel everyone's invisible glowers.

I couldn't understand what the drow patrol in the corridor were saying since they did it in their language, but it was clear that they'd heard something since they started shuffling around. A part of me just wanted to say, 'fuck it' and charge in, but my most recent near death experience had awakened my long-missing survival instinct.

Then, the oddest thing happened. From further away, far down the hall a strange noise echoed and drew the patrol into silence. If I didn't know better, I'd say it was the sound of steam escaping a kettle. Suddenly the sounds of the drow patrol's voices rose in volume and became panicked, and there was a loud shuffle. The floor vibrated as whatever the steam-sounding thing was shook the ground it stepped upon.

The sounds of battle suddenly erupted, metal clashing on metal, feet scrambling and pained and bloody cries. We waited a collective three seconds before the door opened and a team of five drow warriors and one female diviner poured inside in a panic. We didn't wait before striking - I went for the healer first out of habit and tripped her up with the whip, going for my knife as I came out of invisibility. She managed to roll away before I could get her, but the whip held leg in place despite its armoring and she quickly became one of Enserric's victims in a shining crimson throat-slash. Solaufein immediately engaged another two, focusing on defensive movements and deflections in a blur of swordplay while Valen finished off one and then climbed up and over the wall to get another, and Deekin managed to hit the last with an ice-bolt that spread frost so fast it impeded his enemy's ability to walk. That one I got with a neck-stab with the kukri instead.

There was still the matter of the thing they had been fleeing from, however.

I may have fallen asleep in the academy class on transmogrificationorwhateveritscalled, but I knew golems could be made of any substance and in any shape whatsoever. Why someone in their right or left mind would create one to resemble a minotaur is perhaps one of the questions I slept through; implausibly, a massive metal minotaur ducked into the doorway of the dark room and let out a puff of steam from its nostrils, opening its mouth to reveal an inner heat source that powered its movement from whatever core it possessed. It wielded a massive hammer in its hands that was spattered with purple drow blood and brown mortal worse.

"Ah shit," was all I could really say before backing as far away as I could into the wall and trying to prepare mentally any spell that would help me tear through solid steam-powered metal. I could soften it with fire, but that might hurt whoever it was trying to smash as well.

"Minogon!" Deekin scratched out, backing up right next to me. "It shoots lightning!"

"Wha—did you memorize Volo's monster manual?!" I demanded to know, continuing to inch away from the approaching construct, which appeared to be very angry but that might have been my imagination.

"It be a staple for the modern adventurer!" Deekin reedily defended.

Valen's philosophy toward violence was innately Uthgardt, though he didn't know it - the General snarled out a battle cry about leaping into flames and charged at the Minogon just as it raised its hammer to bring it down to squish him. He ducked under the blow and rapped it across the chest with his massive flail, making it clang and take a single step back - the force of the blow clearly jolted the construct who took a moment to re-orient itself in the doorway before advancing again.

"Get it away from the door!" Solaufein called out to everyone in general and hovered in place somewhat uselessly as he had realized that Enserric wasn't going to be exactly useful against a creature of this size and make-up.

"Then it'll get closer to us!" I complained but complied and loosed an entropic whip of light I'd kept coiled in my gut for such a distraction, shining green as grass as it wrapped neatly around the base of the Minogon's hammer's head. Just as the construct started to swing with a second blow, I yanked on the whip and pulled it a little off-course, allowing it to miss Valen's head so the tiefling could get in another devastating blow with his flail's dual heads that successfully dented the chassis of the creature. Finally, it stumbled away from the door.

I was jerked forward just as the Minogon tried to wrench his hammer away from me. There was no way for me to disarm it and I couldn't dispel any energy that came from me, so I ended up getting yanked into the wall again with a little less clatter than before as the light-whip went taut. I was at least prepared for it and didn't hit my head that time.

The denting of his body seemed to enrage the Minogon in the doorway who opened its mouth to let out another huff of steam out of its core and emitted an eerie screech from its malfunctioning throat. I felt my hair begin to stand on end and dreaded whatever was going to happen next.

I pulled on the energy whip, releasing my hold just as an electrical burst of energy swept a circular path at everything in the Minogon's way, pushing us all back as we tried to raise our arms to defend against it. Valen alone stayed upright but did skid back a few feet on the ground while the rest of us were pressed down by the shockwave.

There had been drow that had survived the mutual golem-us assault. We hadn't been aware of it due to the construct hovering in the doorway, but only some of the war party had managed to run inside in an attempt to flank it. They'd been met with unexpected resistance. The other three, including a female wizard, another crossbowman, and another dual-wielding swordsman had remained on the other side and attempted to dispel its protections. We'd disrupted their plan in an elegant fashion and drawn the Minogon's attention just as it began to get hit on the other side with an unexpected array of spells.

Whatever magic struck the construct's back caused it to stumble forward in a groan of metal colliding against metal, finally bringing it completely out of the doorway but unfortunately closer to us. This allowed the other three drow to notice us and get in a few cheap shots. I got struck in the pauldron with a poison-tipped bolt that sizzled uselessly against my scales, along with Valen who simply brushed his off when it struck his mithral, while Deekin abruptly entered into invisibility again with an 'eep' in startle. Solaufein, now closest to the door, got hit right in the face with the full force of one of the wizard's spells that was aimed at the Minogon.

I couldn't help it - I laughed at my friend's predicament even as I fought. It had been a 'disintegrate' spell clearly and purposefully designed to kill golems, and it missed its target completely and fizzled on Solaufein's armor which fell apart in clumps right off his body. He was completely unhurt, but suddenly naked for everything but his boots and his sword. "Bugger!" was all Enserric had to say at this development.

Solaufein, a true, consummate, professional killer, wasted no time pondering his predicament and charged the wizard who had dis-robed him. The drow was so startled that she tried to simply run away - whatever contingency was on her lips didn't slam into place in time to protect her from Enserric, and her life was drained by the greedy sword in moments. It had never really occurred to me that Solaufein must have specifically been trained to fight against other drow, because he made short work of them even out of armor. Maybe even especially out of armor since they all seemed a little confused and surprised and he was a little too comfortable.

Unworried and very amused, I focused on continuing trying to distract the Minogon as Valen ducked under its shockwaves and shuffling, striking it back as much as he could with his flail but not really doing anything but dent it. I couldn't pull out another whip to throw off its hammer blow in time and one of its hits managed to get the General in the side and sent him reeling. My concern was unneeded as all the blow had done was change the tiefling veteran's temperament from 'focused' to 'incredibly pissed,' as his baby blues suddenly shined red as coals. With a snarl, the General flipped from his back right up onto his feet and charged at the golem horns-first and flail swinging.

The Minogon didn't strike back. Valen's flail hit it twice in the chest, and all it did was stand there and get dented with its mouth open looking pretty silly and stupid. My eyesight wasn't too good in the dark, so I couldn't see exactly what had happened, but the minotaur-shaped metal monster abruptly fell over into pieces, its head toppling down first. Solaufein, still stark naked but for his speedy boots, stood behind the golem with Enserric drawn. What happened fell into place in my mind slowly - the General had just been the distraction while Solaufein managed to sneak behind the golem and pierce it right through its power core, located in its throat - the glowing heat that I'd seen when it had opened its mouth to emit steam generated from its movement.

"Huh," was all I could really say, and stare at all the lovely mess we'd made.

It took a few moments for Solaufein to even notice his predicament in full, and he stared down at himself with bemusement and tsked. I stared too because I couldn't really help myself. "Deekin," he called out.

The bard chirped out and entered out of invisibility from right next to me, causing me to let out a startled yelp. "Yes, erm, Boss?" The kobold was trying to politely look anywhere but at Solaufein's nakedness, but I wasn't even trying. I just grinned in appreciation.

"Have you spare leathers in your bag?" The drow inquired.

Valen, now calmed down and back to blue, let out a snort of repressed laughter as Deekin rummaged through his bag muttering.

"You can have my armor, Solaufein," I offered suggestively, plucking at my scales.

Solaufein smirked. "You have need of it far more than I. I was not struck once except by that spell."

I laughed, feeling much more at ease. "True. I am the one who keeps getting tossed into walls. Why do I get the feeling this has happened to you before?"

"Nau, this is new," he said. He seemed completely unbothered by his nudity, and I was reminded of the time that we had met. "And not entirely unwelcome. That chain . . . chafed," he revealed with a wince. "And limited my spell-casting. Switching to a lighter set might be better for me here."

It took a second for this to sink into my thick skull, a second occupied by unabashed staring at his assets. Then I put it together - he'd been wearing metal armor, which was known to inhibit arcane energies. He'd said before that drow wizards were the most dangerous of all. He'd been speaking from personal experience. "Solaufein, are you secretly a mad wizard?" I asked him quite seriously and made a concerted effort to make eye contact.

He smiled tellingly but said nothing. Deekin did eventually acquire a less protective, but intact set of leather armor he'd had as a back-up - something he apparently had always carried with him in the event of anyone's armor becoming damaged beyond repair in field work. I supposed the bard had read Volo's Guide to Adventuring cover to cover and prepared for every possible thing that could go wrong - in the process of Solaufein dressing in his new more comfortable enchanted leathers, Deekin revealed he had potions, ropes, hooks, extra bedrolls, flesh-to-stone paste, dispelling scrolls, polymorphs, and more that he had acquired from Gulhrys in addition to our camping supplies and a small stash of dried and cut wood at the very bottom, a precious commodity in the Underdark that he'd been saving for an unknown special occasion if we ran out of dried rations and had to have a cooking fire.

Truly, he was the best bard of all.

We kicked the Minogon's shards out of the doorway but left the other enemies where they lay after a thorough looting of their persons, and recovered some spare rope, weapons, and pieces of armor; Deekin apparently was building a collection of scavenged supplies in his two bags of holding to drag back to the Seer and her people just in case they had need of any extra arms. We heard no more noises out in the halls and everything seemed oddly quiet, so we decided to take the opportunity to rest and recuperate in the room we'd found.

Deekin summoned some light so that we could all see properly - useful since upon investigation, we discovered that the room we'd inadvertently chosen to hole up in had been one involved intimately in the construction of the mechanicals. In the center was a massive series of tubes and panels we had no idea the use of, arranged in an array of interconnected parts whose function eluded me. It was rusted from disuse and seemed to have a couple of moving levers and parts, but I was cautioned sharply against messing with anything when I tried to. There were a few moldering texts scattered about, but none save one were intact enough to reveal anything useful.

Our intelligent bard was given the only intact book for perusal, and he was silently engrossed in his reading on the floor while the General, Solaufein and I tried to discern the use of the strange contraption and fed on some of the jerky the duergar were willing to part with. "This really is nasty stuff," I commented after a gritty mouthful. "What sort of animal you think it's from, anyway?"

"Rothe," Solaufein explained, which alarmed me because I'd been learning Ilythiiri from him slowly and I knew the word 'rothe' was interchangeable for 'slave' as well as the strange underground eyeless cattle that they kept around for sustenance. Solaufein had joked about eating siltrin and I was starting to think it wasn't a joke, but he and Valen were both comfortably eating the meat, so I pushed down my paranoia and downed it with some water from my hip-skin.

"Why haven't you used any arcane magic before?" Valen suddenly asked, which drew my attention.

Solaufein paused in chewing as he considered this and swallowed before he answered. "It is not my strength," he admitted. "All dhaerow know innate magic. I was skilled in my prime at its use, but no expert. As weapon master, I had to be trained in combative magic for twenty years."

"I can't imagine being stuck in that tower for twenty years," I admitted, trying, and failing to picture such a miserable fate. Knowing drow and Solaufein's talent for understatement, he'd probably learned everything about magic at whip-point from some other mad wizard. It certainly explained his deep problem with every wizard we seemed to meet - at least the ones that weren't Nathyrra. We all liked Nathyrra a lot. "Knowing me I would've rioted after year five and burnt the place down to a crisp."

Solaufein chewed more jerky thoughtfully. "It is how it is done," he surmised after he was finished. "I am far more skilled with a sword. The sun weakens our innate magic, as it is strongest near our homeland amongst others of our kind. I suspect this is true for all elves, depending on where they are from. I will not be as skilled a caster as I was, for lack of practice, but I may be able to dispel most of what we will encounter below."

I considered how being in the actual Hells or being around other demons might affect mine (or Valen's) abilities and temperament by comparison. My magic was innate and wouldn't strictly be called 'magic' by any mage, given its Hellish nature. The 'why' of my abilities had always been a question that'd been on my mind; the Academy hadn't been of any help in my answer. All I learned through school was that at some point in my infancy, or even before, a pact was made without my consent involving my soul and a demonic benefactor. Which one exactly was the real question. Mine could mimic the effects of most arcane spells and true that it bent the Weave like other magic, though frankly I was more powerful than the average wizard, in terms of both variety and evocative power. Though, I didn't know of any arcane or eldritch magic that allowed one to heal with a touch, as Solaufein had done to me twice so far. That was strictly a gods-given talent. I doubted that was the sort of thing the strictly matriarchal drow society had taught a young Solaufein, though I did trust a drow society to teach someone a healing spell that pained the person it was cast upon.

As if he had read my mind, Valen asked aloud, "the healing magic you used before - that's not arcane, is it?" This was less of a question from the General's mouth and more of an astute observation that bordered on interrogation. Most of his questions sounded like this, actually.

I cleared my throat. "I was wondering about that too," I admitted plainly. "That's divine magic, yeah?"

Solaufein's explanatory reply was short and to the point. "No. And yes. That, I learned elsewhere in my travels." It was odd to hear him be curt about personal details since he was usually forthcoming to me one-on-one, but perhaps he didn't want Valen to know - or Deekin to know, because then the bard might write it into the story. Perhaps it was a personal matter. I let it drop despite my curiosity, because the spell and skill had been quite useful to me so far and I didn't want to pry into unwelcome matters.

I drifted in thought, but it might have been a dream. I thought of winter hitting my home. I started to picture the snowy flurries from the Sea of Swords over Neverwinter falling to the earth in gentle clumps. I missed the weather. I missed the trees. In my mind's eye, I drifted through the snows . . . But I saw no trees, only the white blankness of the plains near Beorunna's Well . . . Bleak and seemingly endless, with still and icy piles by my feet in a hauntingly familiar patterns. I walked past them feeling like I'd been here before, I'd seen this before, I'd done this before - and ahead I could almost see a familiar snow-dusted dark hood, with that yellow-eyed wolf prowling ahead at his side. Karnwyr loped back to sniff my hand and bump it, and I could swear that I could feel the wetness of his nose through my fingerless glove. It was half-memory and half-dream, I think. I followed them through the ice until I woke as we approached a mountain.

To my awareness it took Deekin only a short while, perhaps half an hour, to examine the moldy texts and determine their worth. I'd had myself a very brief snooze by accident and was startled into wakefulness with a snort as the lizard let out a victorious warble. "Deekin gots it!" The lizard crowed.

I half-processed what he meant and immediately felt alarmed as my mind had started to drift back even further into memory. "Was it the pox?! I thought it was a wart!" I exclaimed, still half in dream/memory-land.

"What? Uh," Deekin seemed confused. I glanced up blearily where he was a few feet away. "No," the kobold decided slowly, "though Deekin not . . . sure what that means, but he also kind of be glads he not knows. No, Deekin figure out what golems be saying!"

Solaufein and Valen had been lurking about and swam in my blurry vision for a moment before settling as figures. Where had I been? Had I really fallen asleep so easily? I breathed out a breath that felt . . . Cold, and it made me shiver. The dungeon was hardly the warmest place. "Bah! Why I am so cold?" I grumbled and stood up, shaking myself and my limbs to restore some blood flow.

While I muttered to myself snippily and shook out my legs and tail to restore blood flow, Deekin went on to explain: "they be saying their names. Well, sort of like their names. It be a number that the Makers give them, so he knows which golems they be. They say the words that mean these numbers . . . Er, Deekin not really sure why the gross fleshy one be doing that actually, but it kinds of be moot now that he be in pieces. Other golems have numbers too, each one different. And this big thing - Deekin find drawings of it in book, and it helps summon and repair golems! Or destroys them. Drawings not really be clear on which. Ooh, maybe both!"

The drow and tiefling looked over the device with renewed interest, but when Valen tried to touch one of the dials, it let out a startling shock that audibly clapped the air and blinded us briefly for a moment. Valen wasn't really hurt, just startled by the electrical burst, but it put some of his hair standing on end which made me laugh, which made him glower as he smoothed out his crimson ponytail at the nape of his neck.

"It is likely broken," Solaufein reasoned. "Or trapped. Is there anything that can help us get to a lower level, to find this Maker?"

Deekin's eyes scoured through the text as quickly as he could turn pages with his hands. "Er, no, but there should be key somewhere. How else anybody getting ins or out? We coulds just throw Boss-Lady at it 'til it breaks too, that usually work, right?"

My cold-fuzzled and sleepy brain processed this a second behind Solaufein, who chuckled. "Oi, no more tossing of the Boss-Lady!" I insisted. Then I thought about it. "Though if it helps us get a golem army I guess I can tolerate a tossing or two."

"Could you burn a door down with hellfire?" Valen wondered, still trying to smooth out his crimson locks from the frying.

I envied his hair for a vain moment before considering this. "Hmmmmaybe! Be a new first if it worked. I could definitely destroy any wards on a door that way, at least. Might melt a lock and make it inoperable, though—"

"Oh!" Deekin called out again, this time with a happy chirp. "Deekin gots it!" The kobold reached out with his left hand, still holding the book with his right, and pulled sharply down a lever on the contraption.

I was afraid for a moment he'd be electrocuted to death, but he wasn't. The room suddenly became bright instead, and I had to blink away the spots in my eyes that nearly blinded me. Solaufein's hiss of pain was more telling, as he was likely still using that heat-vision thing of his, which no doubt hurt fierce when looking at visible light sources. A few fires from empty braziers suddenly blazed blue with power and gave the room a chilly glow. I hadn't been able to see the golem contraption clearly and seeing it so didn't actually aid in my understanding of its function in any way whatsoever. It was something from another world, all pipes and strange tubes, levers with no pulleys and thrumming with strange magic.

"Xsa dos, lu'xsa ussta solen!" Solaufein bemoaned into his palms, covering his eyes with his hands. Instinctively, I put a hand on his back in comfort even though I realized in the moment that it was a useless gesture that had become some strange habit when it came to the drow; he was often doing it for me, and it was as if neither of us could help but reach for the other when we were in pain. I patted his back in sympathy and felt funny about it, but in a way it felt right and he didn't stop me, so it must have been fine. I'd simply never felt protective of someone before and hadn't gotten used to it.

Outside the corridor was an abrupt and resounding 'thud' that shook the floor of one, or several doors opening simultaneously. We - that is Valen, Solaufein and I - shared complicated looks with one another (Solaufein through his fingers) in a rare moment of silent communion that spoke volumes but said nothing. Valen looked like he wanted to wring Deekin's neck. Solaufein looked like he wanted to rip the whole machine to pieces. I probably looked constipated because of the nasty nauseous anticipation that developed in my gut when I thought of all the golems we hadn't killed or dismembered yet who might have heard that.

"What just happened?" I asked fearfully of the air.

"Deekin just opens door to the lower levels," the kobold calmly confirmed. He had a moment of second-guessing where he looked back at his book to double-confirm, but then nodded. "Yep, Deekin sure that be what this lever does."

"I'm afraid to ask what the others do," the General sulked.

"Other than electrocuting goat-man?" the little bard sniped, slamming the book in his hands shut with a dusty thud. "Not much! It so old it probablys be broken. But other golems maybe hear the noise now, so Deekin thinking maybes we shouldn't stays here long. Don't worry, Deekin finds map of lair in book. Kind of be dumb that duergar not get this far and finds map before us, but they are not havings little Deekin to help."

"You," Solaufein pointed a little angrily at the bard's general direction since he was still trying to shade his eyes with his other hand, "you will warn me next time!"

"Deekin sorry Boss," the bard apologized, sounding actually sorry for once. "Deekin just gots excited when he finds the right switch."

Solaufein glared, but it was more of a pained squint so it didn't carry its usual weight. I held back an amused snort. "The next geas is yours," he vowed to the kobold. "Remember this."

"Deekin remembers," the bard vowed back without even a hint of sarcasm. He was a great actor.

Past the adamant doors to the second level was a long dark corridor that led to a battlefield. No duergar or living bodies were present, strangely - each of them were constructs that had fought each other. Where they lay reminded me of battlefields past, finding Greycloaks and Luskans dusted by the snow, dead where they lay with their weapons by their sides. Somehow praiseworthy and ignoble at the same time, I wondered what reason they might have died for. I was certain at a glance that these golems had been fighting each other. Who was fighting who was in question, but the atrium we found ourselves in was huge and full of their limp, dismembered, un-animated forms. Flesh, clay, even ones seemingly made of bronze and silver. I'd thought that the wizard's tower on the previous isle was strange, but this one might have taken the cake.

"What in the bloody shit happened in here? Why would they kill each other?!" I wondered aloud, hoping someone would figure out something I had missed.

"Modrons fighting modrons," Valen reported, sounding distant. "Senseless. Were they programmed to do this?"

"Programmed?" I asked him, feeling confused.

"Their given set of instructions," he explained after seeming surprised by the question for a silent moment. Sometimes he said things that made my head spin, and it made me think that was how Solaufein must've felt whenever he stumbled verbally on my ramblings. "When they're made, whatever they're told by their creator to do. It's all they know how to do. They can't do something contrary to their programming, so they must have been programmed to kill each other. My question is the same as yours—why?"

I considered this for a second and a barrage of existential questions began to plague me. I stared down at the bodies in growing horror as something clicked in my mind. "What if they are told to question their existence?"

"Depends on how complex they are," the General reasonably continued. "Modrons are only as complicated as the task they're designed to perform."

"What is modrons?" Solaufein perked up at the novel word, always devouring language and knowledge, he was. It always made me smile.

"Constructs from Mechanus."

I racked my Academy memories in my brain. "Is that the plane you're talking about or that Gond temple?"

Valen seemed cagey about responding. "The plane. I traveled . . . To a lot of the planes, in the Blood Wars." Valen was an unexpected font of useless information about the planes, from probably being a Planar himself. Someday I'd love to feed him some mead and hear his life story, but not while were we caught in golem-vs-golem fight.

"How does Prime compare, General?" I asked him on a whim.

Valen considered this, and the bodies surrounding us - some metal and stone, some flesh and blood. "About the same, actually," he admitted with surprise and a wry smile. "At least, lately I've been feeling a little closer to home."

I let out a startled bark of laughter.

The halls got brighter and cleaner the further we went down, until we eventually hit a fork in the road. Right or left became our options at that point. None of us could make a case for why we should go one way or the other, so I think Solaufein must've chosen at random. The one path he did pick led us down a narrow corridor of dim, dank heat and light that seemed to widen into mining tunnels the further in we got.

Solaufein approached one of the walls and placed his hands along the grooves that had been made. "Duergar," he noted. He looked over to the General. "What is all we know of this Maker?"

Valen paused to think, his tail twitching and drawing my eye. "Duergar mage, at least five hundred years old. It's possible this place once housed many duergar before this Maker fellow made all of these."

"His name be Alsigard," Deekin piped up expertly as he flipped through his journal of impossibly extensive notes. "He probablys be very olds and crotchety now. Older than old dwarf, Deekin thinks. Stories say he builds entire city of golems underground, on island."

Solaufein had paid little attention to these answers and his focus seemed trained on something in the distance that only his heat vision could see. "We are getting closer to a lava flow," he announced. "Or a very large forge."

I thought of the Minogon. "Does that mean more metal minotaurs? Please say no."

Solaufein shrugged and gave a gleaming, white-toothed smile. It really did seem like the more doomed we got, the more reasons he and I found to smile. "We will dismantle whatever challenges us. We are quite fearsome, nau?"

At the bottom of the hallway was the golem army we'd been looking for all along. We emerged to a sea of blank metallic faces that turned to look at us as we descended into their territory. None of us drew our weapons save Valen, whose flail clinked readily at his side - the General was always prepared for war. It was so warm that I couldn't possibly have shivered, but impossibly I did under the stares of all those blank-faced automatons. There must have been at least thirty of them wandering about and lining the walls that stopped to turn to study us in our approach.

As if they were expecting us, one amongst them that was roughly my height stepped forward. He was made seemingly of gold and shined like a statue of an impossibly tall duergar, proportionate but clearly built for labor. I wondered if he had been one of the miners who had carved out those corridors, but there was no way to know. There we stood, all four of us surrounded by golem-kind and tongue-tied. The golden golem loomed and drew our attention, and I - I was always ready to meet new people and incredibly tired of all the fighting, so I stepped up when no one else did and greeted with a wave, "Hullo. Mind tellin' us who you are if you're not going to smash us? Are you going to smash us? Er."

The golem shifted. It was subtle, a nearly humanoid gesture and so small I almost missed it. He had been on guard, and suddenly the golden fellow had become at ease with my simple greeting. "No, that is not our designated task," he informed me competently in a voice as golden and metallic as his body. "I have been named Ferron. Though it has been some time since we have engaged in any designated task, it was not within our purview to harm fellow sentient beings. You are sentient beings, correct?" It was eerie, but too fluid to simply be a commanded remark. I had no doubt that the question was original, and not something he was 'programmed' to say.

I thought about his question and looked to the others. They didn't seem to have any input, but Solaufein's hand strayed away from his sword and his gaze was fixed on the golem army with interest. With no objections, I went on. "That answer always depends on who you're asking. Sentience is a difficult subject. I'm sure you understand that."

"Oh, I do." Ferron's voice lit up with what, in a humanoid, I would call interest.

"So you're the Maker's fabled children?" Deekin piped up, coming up to my side.

Ferron's golden gaze swung down to regard the tiny bard with the same interest as before. It seemed to me that he was studying us as he spoke. "Are we truly a fable?" He asked rhetorically. "It is difficult to conceptualize for organic creatures, but we have continued our existence here regardless of what has happened on the outside of the world. As isolated as we have been on this island, and forbidden as we are to leave, it is strange to think that there may have been those above who have forgotten us down below."

That did it for me. This wasn't a golem army. It was the remains of an entire golem city. Ordinary constructs weren't capable of rhetoric or advanced thought. They didn't choose to attack or not. They didn't pause to talk, answer questions, or study you like you were a new specimen. I nodded to Ferron with new regard. "You haven't been forgotten," I explained carefully, knowing my next words would count for more than their weight. "But we weren't sure if there were any, er, people down here still intact. All the automatons above were keen on smashing us to bits the second they saw us. You're not like that, though. You're very different from the others."

Ferron nodded in a perfect mimicry of my gesture that I found strangely flattering. "We are commanded to defend this territory from intruders, but our close connection to the Power Source has enabled us to retain our memories, unlike our brethren upstairs."

He said the term 'power source' as if it was something I should understand the implicit importance of, but considering I slept through all those classes, I was drawing a complete blank. I tried to put together what he might mean from context. "The power source is — why you're like this? Capable of talking, even when the others upstairs just repeated those numbers?"

"They are malfunctioning without repairs, and were not designed with the advancements we were," the golem beside Ferron, a silver color explained in a slightly higher voice.

"I'm sorry, what's your name?" I asked when I realized I only knew Ferron's name and hadn't even introduced ourselves. Luckily all these golems seemed new at the whole humanoid-interaction thing, so they weren't phased and didn't consider it rude.

"I have not decided upon one yet," the silver golem answered.

"We each choose our names," Ferron explained.

"Ah. Well, us squishy types get named by our parents," I provided. "I'm Binne, the little one here is Deekin, the angry one is Valen, and that's Solaufein. Not to be rude, because I'm sure you don't mind, but we're in a bit of a hurry and it seems like you have an entire golem army here, which is exactly what we're looking for. Are you interested in allying with us to fend of some invaders that are trying to take over the entire Prime material plane, and enslave it to their will?"

Ferron and the silver golem looked at each other, and then they both looked out at the sea of other golems who seemed visibly to lack any opinion. "I must consult with my brothers on your request," Ferron announced. "Excuse me."

Politely, the first golems who'd had the good courtesy of speaking to us before attempting to smash us disappeared down a hallway as he deliberated with his fellows our request. It was more my request, though since I was the one that was willing to do the talking. The entire mining corridor and seemed to empty out into a nearby hall of all the golems, save a few who continued to stand impassive guard alongside the walls. It was smart, as I wouldn't leave a group of strangers in my home without someone to watch them.

---

"This is a bad idea," Valen kept insisting.

"It's better than trying to kill them, isn't it?" I reasoned, reasonably.

"Why did we let her talk to them?" The tiefling lamented.

I was a little offended at the presumption in his tone, that was I doomed to failure in this endeavor, so I turned my nose up into the air and enjoyed Solaufein's rumbling laughter. "Would you rather speak to them instead?" The drow reasoned right back at Valen on my behalf. If I were a bird, I would preen.

"I'd rather they not speak at all," Valen growled. "This is getting ridiculous."

If it wasn't automatons trying to smash us, it was automatons trying to talk us to death. I could empathize a little, he wasn't much of a talker. Ferron had spoken as we'd approached with no threat in his tone, although it was quite hard to judge a golem by his tone of voice when it all sounded metallic and strange to our ears. I'd been excited at the prospect of speaking to one so intelligent while the others save Deekin had been leery of it.

Ferron had greeted us plainly and nicely enough. He and his allies struck me as no ordinary golems right from the start. Normal golems didn't use words like, "excuse me," and question me about my sentience. They simply barked out orders according to what they were commanded to do. Valen was right in his description of modrons, but these weren't simple modrons. I was on the cusp of understanding that as I'd been examining the battlefield upstairs.

The golden automaton had described a war when I asked him what had happened upon his return. In his strange, atonal, even clinical recollection, he explained that his people - the shiny ones - had been in conflict with neighboring flesh golems led by another named 'Aghaaz' whom he addressed as his brother. Each of them were 'children' of the Maker, although Ferron was blunt in his understanding that he had been created for a purpose and not born blindly into the world. They existed to serve the Maker, until it occurred to him that the Maker might no longer wish to be served. The Maker, it seemed, had been silent for quite some time and had given no directions to his 'children' in the past few however long they'd been alive and sentient.

It was the idea of sentience that I'd really struggled with earlier to piece together. It takes a choice to take a life, and a golem can't be programmed to choose. If they kill, it's because they're told to do so. To kill each other, though? That's something else entirely. That spoke of sentience to me. In a moment aside, Valen and Solaufein disagreed with me, but Deekin was on my side.

"We don't knows all the facts," Deekin had defended, when I'd tried to explain myself and failed. "All we knows is we don't wants to be in middle of golem fight."

"True enough," Valen had agreed, and Solaufein nodded. They'd been prepared to have to dismantle the entire small army. I was pretty confident we could win them over if we just . . . Asked them nicely. I didn't understand Valen's caginess in this situation entirely, as these golems had proven nothing but polite so far, and my mouth wasn't the thing that had gotten us into trouble back on the elf isle. That had been an accident of fate.

Being asked to do something is easy, common, and simple. It's not a notion that you think much of, but to someone who had never been presented a choice in their entire lives about what they wanted to do with their life or time - even by the person that brought them into the world - well, it struck me as a big deal to a golem. I could've been wrong, but my instincts were telling me that I was doing the right thing even amidst my companion's mistrust and grumbling. I wanted to make sure that Ferron and his people had a choice that didn't involve fighting if they didn't want to. Of course, there was still the golem-on-golem war we'd seen to address.

Ferron finally emerged again after a few minutes of us stewing in uncertain silence and thought. The lava was some distance away, but it was having us all sweat in our armor, so he emerged at precisely the right moment. "Oh good, you've, er. Decided something?" I added with a hopeful question in my voice.

Ferron stared at me with blank, golden eyes. He came right up to eye level but was decidedly blockier than me, although I was sure due to my horns that I was technically taller. (I was just glad he wasn't a Minogon.) "We have," he intoned. Behind him, three silver golems of similar heights parked around us and started to study us passively. It made the others uncomfortable, but I was used to being stared at and practically preened. "We have engaged in debate and have elected me as a representative to speak for our people."

"Congratulations on your appointment," I remarked, "I'm sure it was a landslide election. Have you reached a decision on our request?" I could be diplomatic when I wanted to be. I just . . . Usually preferred in the past to get drunk and to hit stuff. Strange that I was turning a new leaf, down in the sunless Underdark.

Ferron would've blinked if he had eyelids, but he cocked his head in a curious way. The metal that encompassed his body seemed more fluid, in its enchantment, and the gesture seemed very normal for a humanoid to make. I wondered how much duergar was really in his brain, and how much was just what Valen would call programming. "Yes," he spoke after a few moments, "I understand your metaphor. As a rock or land slide, the majority of the votes went down to me. After much consultation, we have decided that it is contrary to our nature to stand by and let other sentient beings become exterminated by a force of enemies that outnumbers them."

The others looked like the words were hurting their brains, except Deekin who was writing it all down and nursing a hand cramp. "Er. Does that mean you'll help us?" I asked for clarification.

Ferron nodded after a moment's consideration, probably trying to figure out a way to summarize his thoughts for us tiny-brains. "It is unjust to stand aside while fellow sentient beings are destroyed," he concurred. "Four fifths of us have agreed to aid you and your people against your impending deconstruction."

"Four-fifths, that's a majority!" I crowed and threw up my hands victoriously.

"We have elected to aid you in exchange for your help in recovering the Power Source from my brother Aghaaz," Ferron went on, "preferably without violence."

Valen's flail clinked as he put it away, but the gesture made me a little hopeful for our continued negotiation even as my gut sank into my shoes at the thought of diplomatifying with more talking automatons. "Oh. Do you think he'll hand it over willingly if we ask nicely?"

Ferron paused, and the silver golem that was next to him before speaking up in his hesitation. "I do not believe so," the silver one piped up.

"I believe he can be reasoned with," Ferron corrected.

I pursed my lips in consideration. There was disagreement, which meant that we'd likely be getting smashed in our near future. That was according to my luck and so far. Solaufein for the first time since the negotiations started spoke up and came up to Ferron's level, drawing his attention from me. "Why do you call him your brother?" He wondered.

"We were molded same time," Ferron explained. "He and I are the eldest, and we both have been chosen by our people to represent them in our struggles. Aghaaz wishes to follow the Maker's will and has built a cult of ideology surrounding this that our younger brothers feed into."

"Not for nothing, but are any of you sisters?" I joked.

"I do not understand that question," the golem replied with the verbal equivalent of a frown.

"It is a question of gender, Ferron," the silver golem clarified. "She is asking if we are female, like her."

"But we have no gender." Ferron was confused.

I shook my head. "Forget I said anything," I dismissed uncomfortably. Clearly this Maker was male and made them in his image, considering they all resembled duergar with an enlargement spell and ironskins. "Doesn't matter. Gender can be a subject for a later day."

"I will forget it, then," Ferron vowed seriously.

"What if Aghaaz does not comply peacefully?" Solaufein pressed. "Do you want us to kill your brother?"

"No," Ferron said, and the silver one said, "it may come to that." Ferron stared down at the silver one for a moment before clarifying, "It may indeed come to violence. I would prefer it to be avoided at all costs. Organic beings are fragile, and Aghaaz is very powerful and has many allies who believe in his words. Please, approach him with caution."

"We could steals the Power Source if we knows where it is," Deekin offered.

Ferron shook his head in another surprisingly humanoid gesture that he'd acquired by mimicking me. "Aghaaz is the only one who knows where it is," he explained further. "He has threatened to destroy it, and would deny all of us sentience, if I tried to take it from him. He will not listen to me anymore and is convinced that I and my people are heretics. But, without the Power Source, we can never be truly free."

Heretics? He wasn't kidding about the 'cult' part. "Are you saying he's built a religion around the Maker, and that's why you're all killing each other?" I guffawed. "He worships the Maker?"

"In a way, the Maker is our father," Ferron clarified, "but Alsigard has remained silent for too long. His words and commands are no longer relevant to our existence, as they have expired and he has not renewed them. I and my people wish to see the surface and what we can make of ourselves. Aghaaz wishes to remain behind and stagnate us. If it comes to violence between us, as it has in the past, we will aid you. I do not wish to see my brother's death, and I am hoping that he will listen to you as he has not listened to me."

Solaufein looked over at me with a measuring gaze. I wondered what he saw; I tried not to look at myself too closely. I was afraid I always fell short of expectations, but he eventually turned away and back to Ferron with a satisfied expression. "We will do our best," he promised.

---

"This is a bad idea," Valen promised under his breath, with one hand wrapped around his flail's hilt for security. Looking down at the heavy thing always gave me the willies, as I could only imagine how many like myself had fallen beneath its heads.

"Hush," Deekin instructed him, and let me do my talking thing.

I cleared my throat and stared up at the ugliest thing I'd ever seen in my life - a demon flesh golem. I wasn't aware that it was even possible to build something out of so many different unusual parts, but impossible Aghaaz loomed over us all with mighty bat-wings and the head of half a balor, and half a tanar'ri. It looked like it was at war with itself. It looked exactly like it belonged in a mad wizard's death dungeon, too.

It was setting both Valen and I to be standing near him with the amount of power and strange rot that was wafting by our noses. It wasn't like being near a flesh golem that hadn't been repaired in months, although there were several more hale looking fleshy-variety golems that were wandering around Aghaaz' abode. He'd been situated on the opposite end of the second level, and we'd quite literally almost bumped into him after being given directions to his encampment by Ferron. They'd apparently, the two armies, reached a stand still after the battlefield we'd stumbled onto in our initial descent.

"What is your verdict?" Aghaaz questioned in that deep, shivering voice of his. His tone was far more organic in composition, and his inflections far more natural than Ferron's. They seemed to have roughly the same level of intelligence, and the same level of confusion when it came to interacting with small organic beings.

I stared at the stitching on his chest that kept all those competing scaled and furred pieces together and cleared my throat again when I tried to speak and my voice came out reedy. "We—ahem, we've discussed your plight amongst ourselves, and we—"

"Dos," Solaufein insisted, reminding me that this was definitely my idea.

"—I have a few questions for you," I concluded confidently.

Aghaaz blinked. It was strangely easier for me to talk to this one than Ferron, just because he had horns and wings and was at least as freaky looking as I was. He lacked a tail, though, which made me a little relieved. Tails were the dignity of all demon kind, and I didn't like the idea of this Maker duergar fellow cutting off tails and sewing it onto his children. There were a few other smaller demon flesh golems made from succubi and slaadi parts that had wings and tails, and it made me a little uncomfortable. At least no genitalia had been included in their design - that was my eyes' saving grace. "I will consent to your questions," Aghaaz decided magnanimously.

"I'm interested in, um." How to phrase this politely? "How do you know whether or not this Maker of yours is still alive?" We'd asked him about his silly religion and it had all seemed, well, silly.

"The Maker has infinite power," Aghaaz predictably defended. "Something as mutable as time could never kill him. He created us."

"Yes, so you've said and how often," I babbled, "but you haven't seen him in . . . How long's it been, do you reckon?"

Aghaaz' mismatched green and red eye moved back and forth over my form as he puzzled to recall. "It has been five hundred cycles," he eventually answered.

"Is that a few years, or a few months?" I asked.

"Five-hundred years," he revealed with a note of irritation in his voice. "Have you any more inane questions?"

I had dozens. I looked over to my companions for some silent encouragement, but they had none. None of us except Deekin seemed sure that this 'talking through your problems' thing was going to work, but I'd volunteered to try it when the other two admitted that it'd be simpler to just kill Aghaaz and be done with it. "Half a millennium is quite a while to play a game of hide and go seek with your children. You don't want people checking up on this Maker why, exactly?"

"It is forbidden," Aghaaz repeated for what must have been the third time when we'd asked to see the Maker. We hadn't mentioned our meeting with Ferron to him prior for fear it'd send him off on a religious tirade; within a minute of meeting Aghaaz and talking to him, he'd already asked us to kill Ferron for him in exchange for his own followers' aid against the Valsharess. "Those were his instructions," he repeated from memory. "He is not to be disturbed by his children, not ever."

Sounded like a bad parent. "Forbidden for you, certainly, but not for us," I pointed out. "I would think you would want your followers to have proof of faith, would you not? Otherwise they might start to believe like Ferron and his followers that there's nothing to this faith but blind trust and empty promises. You might be able to recruit Ferron back to your side if you had such proof. After all he's only a heretic because he doesn't believe the Maker is alive. 'Tis better to make friends of your enemies than slay them - that would be a truly complete victory because then you'd only gain allies and suffer no losses. You could easily just turn the other way and let us go and find the Maker for you."

Aghaaz wasn't as impressed with my logic as I was. "Which would allow you access to the Power Source," he stated. The Power Source was, apparently, hiding near the entrance to the Maker's laboratory where he'd been reportedly sealed off for the last five hundred years. And was still somehow alive despite having no fresh air or food. I was starting to wonder if the Maker himself was just another golem. "You are an unknown quantity," Aghaaz went on, "and mortals are known to be tricky. I cannot risk it. The heretics must die, as I require evidence of your trustworthiness."

"Well, if you're interested in breaking any of your own commandments you could always come and see the Maker with us for yourself. We'll just ask him for you to speak to you when we get there, and we promise not to steal anything or touch the Power Source. While we're at it, why don't we ask Ferron and bring this dispute before your Maker in person? Just lay it down at his feet, see if he thinks the same as you. You can even hide the Source somewhere else before we go so we don't see it. I don't think you're about to destroy it, since it's the only thing that endows you with sentience and keeps you animate. Come and see for yourselves what the Maker has to say. It's a good deal. What do you say, Aghaaz?"

I didn't know where all my diplomatic prowess was coming from, but I was relieved that it seemed to have worked. The only thing I'd ever used it for before this was getting free drinks and talking myself out of fines for public drunkenness. It was definitely an upturn in my life and made me feel better when Aghaaz actually seemed to listen and consider my words. It was probably because they were coming from a demon's mouth, though.

"I must admit your proposition is not without merit," Aghaaz conceded generously, "and neither is your logic. I still do not trust your intentions."

I glanced over at Solaufein and Valen who were growing restless with all the talking. I was going to have to up my game. "Right, well," I blundered, "that's why I was talking about this here to Solaufein earlier, and uh, he was thinking we should just kill you." I endured Solaufein's glare silently with dignity. "And I said no way, Solaufein, that's madness! But now I'm thinking . . . If you're not going to help us even see if the Maker is real or still alive, what good are you to us? We only came here to see your Maker Alsigard and here you are just standing in our way. This man here next to me is walking death, you don't want to cross him. I once saw him stab a Minogon in the upper levels to death, bare naked but for his boots! And Valen, I don't even know where to begin with! I saw him crush a clay golem's head like it was a grape. I saw him rip a drow priestess' head clean off her shoulders with a flick of his flail! You don't survive decades of the Blood Wars without going a little crazy. Just look at 'im!"

Solaufein continued glaring, but there was some amusement in his eyes when we both looked over to Valen whose eyes flashed red at all the devilish attention he was getting suddenly from Aghaaz, who examined the tiefling with great interest after I mentioned the Blood Wars. News to me it was, but perhaps not news to a scholar of history like Aghaaz seemed to be (because what else was there to do for five hundred years of solitude except read).

"Lookit that glower!" I gushed. "Lookit those eyes! Doesn't it send shivers down the spine?!" Valen turned his glower onto me briefly, but I just grinned.

Aghaaz appraised us for a moment, but then confidently asserted, "I have no doubt that my brothers and I could fend all of you off, and my spine is incapable of shivering. Your offer is without merit."

It was moments like that that reminded me that I was still speaking to an automaton, at his most basic level. "You could," I went on, "but we killed the fleshy one upstairs that used to repair all of you. In trying to stop us, you'd do so much irreparable damage to yourselves that Ferron could easily pick you off after we were through with you and simply take the Power Source. Your victory would be meaningless."

"This not feel very diplomatic anymore," Deekin whispered.

"Ssh!" I hushed him.

The demon flesh golem's expression shifted to something pensive. It was strange that only the flesh golems seemed to have mastered the art of expression, while Ferron - who was more eloquent and polite - had not. "You make a point," he finally conceded. I resisted the urge to punch the air in victory and rocked back on my heels with glee that my plan had begun to work. "If you are determined to see the Maker, I must logically accept your request," Aghaaz admitted, "however, I alone hold the key to the Power Source and to the Maker's level. I do not desire to send my people to a senseless death, so I will not fight you. I cannot deactivate the traps along the Maker's laboratory corridor. That is not my skill. You are welcome to try," he invited with a weird note of glee in his voice, "as I anticipate the traps will make short work of you. But first, to enter, you must bring me Ferron's head. That is non-negotiable."

This was the decisive moment. I took a deep breath. "We've spoken to Ferron before we spoke to you, and it turns out he's actually a very reasonable sort of person who genuinely doesn't want to kill you, which is more than I can now say about you. We're only interested in putting an end to the conflict so a compromise can be reached - we're not your lackeys you can send to fight in a war, and we're not afraid of you either. We tore through plenty of your kind up top on the way down here. Ferron's only desire is for you to try to see things from his perspective so you can stop fighting. He's got a bigger picture in mind than your wacky religion does, because the entire concept of freedom is what's at risk here. You're vulnerable without the power source, and he's afraid that you'll destroy it. I think it's worth a try, at least, and if you two can't reconcile, you should duke it out yourselves and not let all of your brothers get caught up in this senseless rivalry. Why force your brothers to die for your private feud? Let the victor determine the course of your people, and then decide peacefully what to do or where to go. But first, we should see what your Da has to say, as mayhap he's not keen on you fighting, such as you are."

I was impressed I'd managed all of that without wavering once, and it seemed Aghaaz was equally impressed. "Very well," he agreed - and to my luck he even stayed in one place while he did so and didn't bother going off to consult with any of his allies hanging about. It seems his rule was more autocratic than Ferron's, and his word was law. "I will agree to hear the traitor's words." It was a mighty big concession that emerged out of gritted teeth. "I will still not permit you to see the Maker until after we have met - and I expect your help if Ferron proves false and we are forced to defend ourselves, but I will not provoke an attack with him if he extends the same courtesy to me and my people." It was a reasonable request, by my reckon.

"Do I have your word on that?" I asked.

"For all that, my word is worth you have it," Aghaaz replied.

"Well, it's worth quite a lot to us, considering all of our lives are on the line."

When the negotiations were concluded, we retreated upstairs a little bit to the golem battlefield to consult amongst ourselves. So far we hadn't been smashed and we'd gotten both sides to agree to listen to each other, which boded well. We'd spoken to Ferron on the way up and he agreed to meet Aghaaz without violence, although the conversation between the two wasn't worth repeating as it ultimately boiled down to Aghaaz and Ferron agreeing to mutually disagree on the subject of the Maker's will. Still, no violence broke out, so I counted it as a qualified success.

"Why did you say that?" Was Solaufein's first question when we had a moment of privacy.

"I said a lot of things, say what exactly?" I asked, thinking of what he possibly meant. "Oh, you mean the killing him thing. We both agreed that when it comes to demons, demons know best. And between Valen and I, I actually like the sound of me own voice and his version of diplomacy is 'hit it with a flail until its head goes pop.'"

Deekin cackled. "That be accurate. And good insult! Deekin need to write that one down. Ah, where charcoal go?" He patted his pockets down while Valen rolled his eyes, probably because he knew how true it was.

Solaufein wasn't angry, only curious, but his tone suggested he was at least a little annoyed with me which got my attention. "Getting them to work together was my idea. Killing them was, and still is Valen's idea. Your only idea so far was to take a nap."

That was completely true, in his defense. "Well, killing them isn't off the table yet if the golems break their word," I admitted, "and I still could use the shut-eye, but from what I can tell they're much more honest than most sentient two-legs given how new to this whole 'consciousness' thing is to them. I think Demon-Skin McClaw-face is the only one who has figured out how to lie so far."

"Does he truly have a claw for a face?" Enserric piped up from where he rested on Solaufein's belt.

"There's one sewn into the left side of his jaw," I explained.

"Fiendish of him. Who would design such a golem?" The sword lamented.

"A mad wizard with too much time on his hands," I drawled.

Valen snorted. "I'm still ready to kill them, but Aghaaz raised a good point," he carefully admitted. "I don't like it, or him, or his cult, but there's no reason to kill more golems if we can avoid it. Not when we will need their help against the Valsharess. And I hadn't considered that they might truly be sentient until now." He stared down at the fallen bodies around us in consideration.

"You think he is, now?" Solaufein asked.

It had been something I'd sensed some doubt about, in Valen, when we were addressing Ferron and Aghaaz separately. The General was cynical by nature and more knowledgeable about modrons, as he called them, but I personally held no doubts as to the Maker's Children's claims of free will. "I would support Ferron's cause over Aghaaz, but they seem to be people, capable of feelings and choices," he decided. "There are questions in their minds no other golem should have - questions of what to do, where they should go, and what they should make of themselves. You managed to convince Aghaaz to change his mind - something that should be hard-wired into him as a golem. I've never seen anything like this before - it's like they're from Mechanus, but more advanced than anything I've ever seen. They should be treated like people. I think there has been enough death, and if there is any chance of us curbing this senseless war, we should investigate it."

I resisted the urge to hug him because I was afraid he'd throw me off of him, so I hugged Solaufein instead who endured it with a generous and surprised return-hug. "I knew there was a reason I liked you!" I was still talking to and about Valen, but I enjoyed the embrace while it lasted. When Solaufein let me go, I couldn't stop grinning. "We'll sort this all out by dinner, I'm sure."

Deekin from his position poised over his journal and drawing Aghaaz' Claw-face snorted derisively. "Deekin thinks goat-lady just wantings to be stealing Maker's stuff in his lab."

That was completely true also. "Oh, whatever," I said dismissively while Solaufein laughed. "This Maker fellow is clearly dead. He won't mind us taking his things. If Lady Luck's on my side today, which I'm starting to think she is, then we can just tell the golems he said whatever we want after we find him! He's probably got all sorts of shiny things in there he won't be needing. All sortsa gems, and enchantments, and who knows what else!" My mind reeled at the thought of all the riches hiding down in that lab, unused by a dead Maker for centuries.

"Clearly dead," Solaufein dryly chuckled. "Because Halaster was definitely dead."

"He definitely should have been dead!" I declared, frustrated. "I wish he was dead!"

"He was definitely not."

"And which one of us killed his son?" It was hard not to keep throwing that in his face, because it was still occasionally hilarious to do so.

Solaufein's reaction was typically predictable around this subject. "It was a flesh golem, and it attacked me!"

"He reacted because you teleported right in front of him with a big sword and took him completely by surprise. And I tried to warn you!"

He wasn't getting snippy, but his voice did get a little raspier in his irritation with me. It was fun finding his buttons and pressing them. "You said, 'be careful' and led me into a glowing portal to emerge in a strange dark room. Then you shouted, 'look out' and something attacked me, and I defended myself."

I scoffed. "We both know it's by Tymora's grace that the twin Halasters didn't turn your insides into your outsides. Slapping us with a geas is the least he coulda done. Try not to bugger it up again, mate. Maybe just keep your sword to yourself and your mouth shut during the next arch-wizard encounter."

He glared at me, but it wasn't very heated. It was more like he knew I had a point and didn't have a good come back, because the thing he was thinking of saying was in Ilythiiri and his brain couldn't translate it fast enough to keep up with me.

From his position on the other side of the room examining the fallen automatons, Valen questioned, "Solaufein, did you really kill Halaster's son? Is that why a geas was placed upon you?"

"No," both Solaufein and I snapped at the same time. Solaufein continued: "He placed a geas upon us because he was too lazy to kill the Valsharess himself, and he probably wants to somehow use me to lure the arch-devil she has bound out of hiding. Although I did kill his flesh golem."

Valen's crimson brow puckered in confusion. ". . . Halaster's son is a flesh golem?"

"Was," I clarified because I was tired of explaining this weird thing, "He's dead now."

Solaufein seemed to still be stuck on the matter, though. "A flesh golem that the mad wizard built to act like he was his son. It is a deranged relationship and I am not apologetic for my actions whatsoever."

Deekin snorted back a laugh. "Yeah, Boss only kill ugly, smelly, defenseless flesh golem that Halaster was crazy enough to believe was his son. By accident."

"The wizard is renowned only for his insanity," the drow muttered.

I thought back to the few interactions I'd had with Berger and made a connection I hadn't realized was there. "Well, Berger believed Halaster was his dad, and maybe he was a bit simple, but he was nowhere near these golems' level of complexity. It was probably for the best. It couldn't have been healthy for the Blackcloak to dote on what was basically a piece of enchanted furniture made of rotting flesh."

Valen cocked his head to the side and toed one of the fallen flesh golems with his sabaton. "Is that really any stranger than these modrons believing their creator is divine?"

"General be makings good point," Deekin addressed.

"Pfft," I stuck out my tongue to make a derisive noise. "He just wants to kill Aghaaz."

I was relieved to find Valen's eyes had slipped back into their natural, vivid blue and veered away from that angry glowing red they'd been stuck in earlier when we were talking to Aghaaz. "I'm prepared to kill him; I don't want to have to," he explained tightly. "I believe it may come down to that. I don't trust demon-flesh golems any more than I trust the creatures that were used to create them. You shouldn't either."

I rolled my eyes at his caution because everything had worked out so far for the best. He was always too suspicious when it came to the subject of demons, and the only conversations I'd really had with him one-on-one always came back around to my nature. "For all I know, Aghaaz' left testicle could've belonged to me real da!" I defended.

Enserric let out a disgusted guffaw and blurted out a shine of red from his black depths. "Augh! Now I can't help but picture what—"

Solaufein cut his sword's tirade off: "Binne - stop making my sword imagine things! He is telepathic. Now, let us find Alsigard and leave this hole."

As we started to march down the way to the Maker's corridor according to Aghaaz' directions, Deekin hummed the doom song under his breath. "Deekin be thinking," the bard began thoughtfully, "with Boss' luck, this wizard will be alive and wantings us dead for killing his other golems. Maybe Minogon was Maker's favorite. So, Deekin will be staying invisible with crossbow while you talks with Alsigard just in case we needs to take him by surprise."

Solaufein paused only a moment to repeat, "Again, to be clear, you will be receiving the next geas."

Aghaaz had threatened an absurd number of traps that would try to fry off our genitalia if we ventured down into the Maker's lab, and he'd done so with glee. He wasn't wrong. It was a relatively small hallway that was completely unlit, save Enserric's red glowing sheen, and Solaufein's glowing heat-gaze. It could not have seemed more ominous with trying, unless Aghaaz was looming at the end of it. "Fire traps," the drow warned, "and others - trip wires and more."

I cleared my throat. "Any volunteers?" Everyone looked at me. "Oh, no, I did the talking. Someone else can get tossed in there this time."

"I would not toss you, unless you asked me nicely," Solaufein stated primly, earning a smile out of the corner of my mouth. He pulled off his speedy boot instead and took out the Reaper's relic, a costly and priceless artifact that was our only link to the outside world now, a delicate little piece riddled with gemstones and runic symbols . . . And he threw it into the corridor as far and as fast as he could.

It clattered right through a wire that I heard go 'snip' and then the corridor positively lit up with traps. A troublingly yellow colored gas seeped down from the ceiling, a pair of wall panels slid open and sent out darts willy-nilly, and a scorching inferno erupted from the ground where the little piece had landed.

We all flinched and I covered my horns and curled my tail protectively away from the heat, while Solaufein just kind of absently kicked his boot back on and went "Hmm" like he was expecting this. The relic was impossibly still in his hands when he opened them, as if he had never thrown it. He plopped it right back into his boot without preamble. "This corridor is impassable," he decided for us because he was the Boss. "Any ideas?"

I had a few, as did Deekin. "We could kill ourselves before the geas kills us," was my suggestion. "Look into the avariel mirror!" was Deekin's brilliant, simultaneous idea by contrast. "Oooh, even better!" I turned to the little bard with an eager nod. "Pull it out, let's have a look see! Maybe we can see in there and find a way past the traps so we can rob the place!"

Deekin offered to look into the avariel mirror himself, but our dear leader was clearly reluctant to let anyone try. An artifact that could potentially let us spy on anyone in the world, but also with the risk that they could sense or see us as we did so might be troubling. There was no way to really even know how it worked, but it only made sense to at least try before taking our chance in the golem-lab of yet another mad wizard.

"What if this wizard is mad? Like all the others we have met?" Had been Solaufein's primary question. Also, "Have you been near any illithid recently?"

"Well, he can't be as bad as the Blackcloak, Boss," Deekin had reasonably reasoned. "There be only one of those! Uh, except for the clone he made of himself. I guess there actually be two Blackcloaks now. And Deekin be thinking that if Maker guy is still alive and sees us through the mirror, that maybe be a good thing because we needs to talk to him anyways and this makes it much easier without going through the traps and fighting more golems. Deekin be very tired of fighting golems, Boss. Maybe we shoulds at least try?"

I beamed at Deekin, inordinately pleased that the little bard had decided to have faith in one of my ideas. "Look at all the good points he just made! Now give it here. I'm more expendable than Deekin and you know it." I held out my hand expectantly to Solaufein.

He exchanged a look with Valen that I didn't like, not one bit. The drow warrior brushed a bit of white hair that had fallen near his eyes away and asked in a wry tone, "Have you ever felt as though you wanted to do something that you knew you might regret, just to see what might happen?"

The tiefling's scarlet brows knitted in thought as his tail began to whip about in response to an undetected emotion. "Nicking a mercykiller is what that's called in the Cage. I'm fine if she's the one taking the risk. You're the one the Seer commanded me to protect."

I frowned at the General, feeling a little hurt. His tone was blasé and it didn't sound like an insult, but somehow I felt he was insulting me. "You know, I'm right here. You can talk to me. And I'll be fine, I'm mostly sure I know what I'm doing."

Solaufein looked even more dubious. "Mostly sure?" He started to pull the silk-wrapped mirror away.

"What? I am! Give it, we don't have all day!" I was getting impatient.

"Either it will work or it won't," Valen reasoned. It was the first (maybe second) time he'd used a tone in regards to me that I could have deemed 'reasonable.' Had my charms made a dent in his armor after the literal dent I'd made when that golem lobbed me at him that morning? "We can simply take the mirror from her if something bad happens." Was he on my side, or was he? He seemed to still be going out of his way to avoid being near me or looking at me, but all the glaring had stopped after the elf island.

Solaufein held my gaze steadily with his own. "Be careful," he commanded, and gave me the Mirror All-Seeing, wrapped as it was in his spider-silk cloak. "Please," he amended.

I smiled. "Don't worry," I told him glibly. "If I break it and we all become our opposite selves, Valen and I will either become angels or transform into honest, gods-fearing and productive members of society, and we'll fix it again in a pinch." The redhead's nose scrunched up amusingly at the mental image I'd given him. It wasn't so hard for me to picture him with wings since he certainly had the cheekbones of a celestial, but I was a stretch. I had more horns than forehead.

"Do not break it," the drow insisted firmly. "Do not even jest about breaking it. I am regretting this already."

I snorted and sat down on the ground, curled my tail around me, and stared into the mirror. Nothing happened for a moment, but I tried not to let that worry me. Deekin asked, "What be opposite of kobold?"

There was a thoughtful silence amongst all of us as we thought of the possibilities. I looked away from the mirror just in case it would know what I was thinking. Surprisingly, Valen was the one who came up with it first. He snapped his fingers. "A pixie!" Deekin protested this comparison and Solaufein and I laughed outright.

I stared at the mirror for several uncomfortably long seconds and contemplated briefly if I should summon Hembercane for insight. He seemed to be a little more knowledgeable than I about spell craft, given his history of bonded owners, but just as soon as the thought of Hembercane crossed my mind, I saw the imp's dour grimace in the mirror and it startled me so much I nearly dropped it.

Solaufein's glare was enough to keep me from laughing at my near-mistake. He could keep me in line better than my parents could with just a glance . . . And just as the thought of me ol' dad crossed my mind, I saw him in the mirror. As clearly as my own reflection should've been, I saw Da in the glass. He was lying next to Ma, wrapped up in furs. I could see them in the bed sleeping soundly, and out of the window closest to the bed I saw little white puffs floating down a purple backdrop. I was surprised I didn't recognize snow immediately, and my amusement choked up my throat. The image shifted in an abrupt swirl as it responded to my changing thoughts and became the gentle snow falling in white puffs over the city from the east-most guard tower. The sun had just hunkered down over the horizon in the west, and the lavender sky was streaked with pink and seemed to fade out into deep blue.

"Ah, figured out how it works," I announced and forced myself to look away from my parents and place I considered home. "Just a matter of careful concentration. Heh, it's now winter in Neverwinter. Hang on, I'll try to see the Maker."

I had never met the Maker, so I had no idea what I was looking for. I figured it would be best to spy on Ferron, who was a neutral target and unlikely to sense anything amiss. The golden golem was speaking with one of its subordinates, whom I concentrated on instead. The mirror followed him out of a door. On and on through the halls we'd explored I went, until I caught myself staring down the corridor that I myself was in - looking down at the mirror. "Oh no . . . Is that what the back of my head looks like?!" I was outraged. My hair was matted with blood and other things I didn't want to think about. My had went up to touch the messy braid reflexively, but my fingers curled away in disgust from the mess. Upon catching a double glare from both the tiefling and the drow, I concentrated harder and forced the mirror's sight to move in a path I'd yet to explore - the hallway of the Maker, littered with traps. I felt as though the mirror knew my every thought and the traps in the room all flashed red for a moment in the image. I waited for something to happen, but nothing did, and concentrated on the doors at the end of the hall.

Down and down, down the stairs and past the massive, solid-iron door of the maker's lab. Down a great big hole and down a bit more, past sleeping bone golems - and then I was in it. It was a strange room, bathed in mage light and littered with shinies. At least my prayers about it being loaded with valuables had been answered - thanks again, Tymora! "Ah knew it! Ooh, he's got all sorts of shiny things in there! We should rob him blind," I told the others without looking away from the mirror.

"You can see it?" This perked Solaufein up. "What are its defenses?"

"You see Maker's body yet?" Deekin piped.

I frowned and tuned out the questions, focusing my intention on seeing the Maker, the mysterious duergar Alsigard. The room did not move, however, and my sight seemed fixed on one direction. It was a desk, papers, and bits of jewelry and jewels. Amongst them sat a wide, blackened skull of square and squat shape. I tried to focus on it a little more, because it seemed the most curious object, and then its eye sockets began to glow red.

" . . . WHO DARES DISTURB MY REST?" A deep, groaning voice echoed from the mirror as the skull began to float. It was unattached from anything and seemed to have a mind of its own. The shadows of its eye sockets vibrated brightly with inner red lights, and it slowly moved its way forward off of the table toward the place I wasn't. I didn't know how it could see me, but it could, and it was admittedly unsettling.

Valen, surprisingly, decided to swing in for closer contact and loomed over my shoulder to look at the mirror. I found myself twitching at the sudden closeness - he smelled like sweat, armor polish, and other nice and unexpected things. It hit me differently than Solaufein's presence had at first, almost as a shiver. He leaned away before I could categorize it all in my head. "Is the mirror talking? What is that?"

"I think it's the Maker, or what's left of him," I said. I addressed the skull in the mirror, wondering just what it is that he saw of me as I was the one scrying. I peered closer, squinting, but it didn't help. "Eh, Skully there, is, are you Alsigard? The Maker fella who made the talky golems topside?"

" . . . WHO IS THIS? IS THIS SOME SORT OF JOKE?" Now the skull seemed upset as the disembodied voice began to pick up in pace and tone. "YOU WOKE ME FROM MY SLUMBER TO ANNOY ME WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT MY IDENTITY? I DON'T HAVE THE TIME FOR THIS. WHO TRIES TO SCRY SOMEONE WITHOUT KNOWING WHO THEY ARE? ONLY AN IMBECILE DOES THAT!"

I was about to object to that when I was distracted by Solaufein leaning over now too over my other shoulder - the heat of the two of them near my back started to make me sweat in my armor. "That is a—"

"—Demilich," he and Valen said grimly at the same time. Both of their postures tensed and their hands almost went in unison toward their respective weapons.

I suppressed a snort. "E's whinier than a gnome," I groused.

"The Maker be dead then?" Deekin seemed disappointed.

"Undead. This is definitely the right wizard, it's his lab and all." I addressed the skull once more. Demilich. Whichever. "It seems like two of your, er, children - Ferron and Aghaaz, have started a war—"

"FERRON AND AGHAAZ?" The demilich interrupted and bobbed angrily in the air. "WORTHLESS FAILURES! ALL OF THEM, REALLY." He didn't seem sad about this - the skull, I mean. "I'VE MOVED TO MUCH MORE . . . ADVANCED PROJECTS. NOW LEAVE ME BE, DEMONESS! . . . CONFOUND IT, HOW DO YOU TURN THIS SCRYING OFF? WHAT SORT OF DEVIL-MAGIC IS THIS?!" It swerved in an arc around the place where I was looking at him through, and really, how in the hell did you see if someone was scrying on you? Could he see what the mirror reflected? Was our visage just a pocket in the air?

And then I felt bad on behalf of Ferron and Aghaaz, suddenly, for being dismissed so by their only creator. They were by far the most elaborate creations I'd ever seen and were absolutely conscious. Whether or not that meant they had souls was up for some theologians to debate; I didn't doubt their person-hood in any way after talking to them both. I opened my mouth to retort and was surprised when Valen's silken voice hissed in my stead. "You do your children a disservice. They are their own beings, although a little misguided. They deserve to be treated with respect." I looked up at him over my shoulder, surprised, and caught his cobalt eye. He looked away very quickly - I would have said he seemed embarrassed by my stare, but he was the General of Lith My'athar and that word didn't seem to fit with my mental image of him.

The skull was wholly unimpressed by the tiefling's passion. "BAH! WHAT DO YOU KNOW?" It barked, vibrating erratically. "TANAR'RI EAT THEIR YOUNG! AND WELL THEY SHOULD, CHILDREN ARE A TERRIBLE NUISANCE. ALWAYS MAKING SUCH A RUCKUS. COUNTLESS GOLD SPENT IN PROPERTY DAMAGE, AND EVEN WHEN I BUILT THAT SCAVENGER TO HELP REPAIR THEM WHEN THEY MALFUNCTIONED, IT ONLY PROVOKED THEM TO FIND MORE INVENTIVE METHODS OF THWARTING MY INSTRUCTIONS!"

"Parenting is such a chore," Solaufein insincerely empathized, drawing an involuntary snort out of me. Deekin was suddenly nudging his way over trying to get a good look at the skull too out of curiosity. He had his notebook out, and his quill was already scratching on the paper. I felt like I lost control of the situation and became a conduit for the mirror when Solaufein talked to the Maker over my head. "If they are a nuisance to you, why not set them free? Aghaaz believes he is the voice of your will and has established a religion in your name. Ferron has established a provisional d—"

The skull now wavered in outrage and glowed bright orange for a little bit as the sleepy, groaning voice rose a few octaves. "WHAT? A RELIGION?! THOSE BUFFOONS, I TOLD THEM EXACTLY NOT TO DO THAT! DID I PUT STRAW IN AGHAAZ' SKULL INSTEAD OF A BRAIN?!"

"You might as well have done so, because he went and did it anyway," I summarized, "and now Ferron was elected to represent a group of other golems that want to take the Power Source and leave to make something of themselves in the world."

The skull meandered back and forth in continuing rage for a few moments and the voice seemed to groan, or maybe growl, in frustration. "ELECTED?! THEY'RE FORMING GOVERNMENTS—VRRRAAH! IDIOTS! GET THEM OFF MY ISLAND AT ONCE! I ASK FOR FEW HUNDRED YEARS OF ISOLATION, TO BE REPAID BY THIS NONSENSE? I WILL TOLERATE NO MORE INTERRUPTIONS OF MY RESEARCH!"

"Fair enough, seemed to me you were just being a skull and sittin' there, but who am I to judge? Would you mind telling Aghaaz that yourself?" I asked politely. "Since he won't listen to us and thinks he's the enforcer of your divine will. He's determined to hoard the power source and stay there forever as your High Priest. It's . . . pretty weird. He'll only leave if you tell him to yourself." The others gave me rather alarmed looks that I completely ignored. I felt it was worth the shot. A demilich had nothing on Halaster in terms of power; I wasn't worried he'd somehow break the mirror.

The skull cackled. "OH, I'LL TELL THEM. I TELL THEM ALL EXACTLY WHERE THEY CAN TAKE THEIR WORSHIP . . ." And then the dwarf-shaped skull of the demilich of Alsigard wandered out of frame, out of the mirror's sight. I wondered why I was stuck at only one angle, but soon my mind wandered. I looked up at Valen and Solaufein, only for the Maker's voice to draw me back to the mirror with start. "AND! DON'T YOU TOUCH - ANYTHING! IN MY LAB!"

"Are you . . . talking to me?" I wondered honestly and glanced between the Maker's skull in the mirror and up at Valen's sulky blue glower, "it's honestly hard to tell when you don't have a face. I mean, I assume it's me because I'm holding th—"

"ALL OF YOU! NOT ONE FOOT IN THE CORRIDOR, OR I'LL DISINTEGRATE YOU!" The skull commanded/threatened. The skull started muttering obscenities and wandered out of sight again.

A few seconds later I felt vibrations in the stone, and Solaufein alerted us to a distant clanging. "Could be a golem," he said, "or a door." He took the mirror from my claws and wrapped it in the piwafwi once more to keep it protected, and carefully fit it into Deekin's bag of holding.

"This feels, what be the word?" Deekin wondered, swaying forward a little as the mirror was shoved into the sack on his back.

One of Valen's fiery eyebrows climbed up his forehead, and his tail swayed contemplatively. "Anti-climactic?"

"Yep! That be the one!" Deekin chirped.

Solaufein closed the flap on the bag thoughtfully. "I like our chances. Good instincts," he said to me in a complimentary tone.

I found my lips turning up in a smile at his approval. He was occasionally critical of my ideas - which was fair because only most of my ideas were terrible - but this one had more or less worked out for the best. I hoped. "It's always better to try to talk to a flying skull than try to kill it," I explained to Deekin in my bestest, most rational voice.

"Deekin knows," he agreed wisely. "That be why he suggests it, and why Boss-Lady suggests we be killing ourselves."

"None of that," I dismissed mildly.

Enserric the Sword decided this was a fun time to chime in: "I wouldn't even know where to begin stabbing someone who doesn't have any organs. Liches taste most vile. No thank you."

Valen's head tilted a little in thought, and a red strand that escaped his hair tie fell down. "Ordinarily I'd say that trying to reason with a talking skull of any variety is a sure sign of being addle-coved, but we're two fiendlings, a drow, and a kobold bard trapped in a war between two sentient modron armies made by a talking skull. At the risk of madness, I'll take any solution that doesn't involve us fighting our way out of here."

That earned a surprised and pleased chuckle out of me. The General's sense of humor was proving to be as dark as Umberlee's heart and it delighted me whenever it rarely surfaced. He shifted his position so he was leaning up against the wall - an alert posture, but a calm demeanor. Did the man never relax? I had a hard time picturing him out of armor. It wasn't that he wasn't nice to look at (or fantasize about), he just never seemed to take off the mithral plating. Seeing him unarmed and out of armor would be unsettling, at this point. He was glued to that flail.

While we waited to hear something from any of the golem armies, the Maker's Isle was seemingly still. Solaufein seated himself cross legged with Enserric drawn across his lap and closed his eyes, perhaps thinking or meditating, it was hard to say. I watched him contentedly as I did at times, since he always cut a peaceful figure amidst chaos. I imagined what was on his mind; perhaps he was having a chat with Enserric - he mentioned they had mental conversations. I'd be upset if my weapon chimed in all the time about what I was doing. He was a very nice sword, however.

Deekin shifted about to get his journal out to take further notes. "Deekin not be sure why anyone would want to be just a floating skull. It seem dumb. Uh, Deekin hope wizard not be able to hear that . . ." His eyes widened mid-quill stroke.

I thought about it and stroked my imaginary beard (I'd secretly always wanted to be a dwarf), wrapping my tail around my leg. "You'd have no need for rest or food. Maybe Alsigard the Skull-fucker just wanted to devote more time to his experiments and thought it'd be more efficient to just get rid of most of his body. Bodies are mostly water weight, anyway."

The kobold brightened. "Deekin never think of it like that. Maybe being skull be better than Deekin think. Would be sad to lose tail, though. No, Deekin prefers to be kobold."

"Who knows with demiliches— " Valen scoffed, and then seemed to reconsider something as his tail curled up. A pinkish hue began to crawl up his skin towards his cheeks, drawing my attention. I'd never seen anything like it before on him. "Alsigard what?"

I hadn't expected him to even been paying attention to anything I was saying, considering most of the words he'd traded with me outside of the presence of the others had been mostly comprised of accusations, usually initiated by me. I was glad my skin was dark and red, because it made a blush impossible to detect. On Valen, whose skin was almost translucent, it was painfully obvious. It was hard to be mad at him for any reason when he was terribly, unwittingly charming. "I . . . Was just seeing if Solaufein was paying attention," I explained lamely.

"Alsigard the Skull-fucker," Solaufein stated, not even opening his eyes. "Implying one who fucks skulls. You are lucky that the demilich downstairs is apparently not listening, or you will be receiving the next geas." Hard to believe we were friendly enough that both of us were perfectly alright with him taking that tone with me.

"Augh!" Enserric complained. "Why would you put so many heinous mental images in my mind? Why, wielder mine?"

"To torment you," the drow deadpanned.

I gave him a happy clap. "I knew you were still listening!" From my periphery, I heard Deekin's quill scratching. "Oh, don't write any of that down!"

"Don't worry, Deekin not be taking notes," the kobold told me unconvincingly.

I curiously loomed over the kobold's shoulder to have a look, but Deekin shielded his writing with his body. Across from me the tiefling let out a weary sigh.

---

"Deekin be telling this story much longer in final cut," the bard told me as we made our way out of the Maker's death-dungeon once and for all. The halls were just as bloodstained, but somehow less foreboding now that we were seeing the arse end of them for good. A small army of constructs headed by the two Eldest trailed after us through the narrow passageways.

"Tell it as it is," I suggested. "And don't undersell my genius! I was the one who nagged the Maker into forcing them to leave and talked them down from all-out war, after all."

"Credit where it's due," Valen spoke up from behind me, earning a pleased tail curl from me. "I couldn't have talked them down from that."

Still, I scoffed. "Bah, Deekin could've, but thanks. I think I needed that."

"What will the final version say?" Solaufein asked the little kobold from up ahead of our grouping.

The bard didn't even take time to consider this, because he'd clearly already given it too much thought: "Deekin will be writings that General kills Aghaaz when he not surrenders, and maybe be killings off goat-lady's character in this chapters." I hit him with my tail in protest. "Ow! Okays, maybe not yet, but you is always dying. Deekin think it nice we solve problems with words this time and not swords."

"Swords, not words," Solaufein seemed to find this phrase funny and chuckled at himself.

I looked back at the trail of golems that were following us, led by the starkly contrasting Ferron and Aghaaz. Aghaaz held a glowing blue globe of what appeared to be lightning so bright it hurt my eyes to look at in the dark. This was the Power Source he'd so coveted and still refused to give up, though I suspected it would be rotated or hidden to keep it safe and protected. It was the sole thing that granted these constructs consciousness, and I could understand fully why he coveted it so. "At least we got allies out of it!" I chirped. "Er, even if those allies are now homeless because their father evicted them for not paying rent."

The General let out a startled laugh at my work. From him it felt like a reward, as he struck me as the type who rarely finds things to laugh about. There seemed to be an air of dark mystery about him that drew me to him, but also repelled him from me - humor was the best way to overcome it, or so Deekin had said, and it seemed to be working.

Pleased with my progress, I quickly caught up to Solaufein. We were nearly out of the dungeon, and I wanted to kiss the ground once we were out and never go dungeon-delving again. We'd nearly gotten squished so often in there, and I'd died at least once in both of the last dungeons I was in. Dungeons no longer sat well with me. "What say you to retiring after we kill this drowqueenlady?" I asked of my friend.

Solaufein smiled. It was strange, he smiled more than most people I met and yet he was a drow. "And go where?" He asked.

I shrugged. "Chult? I've never been there before. Something that doesn't involve dungeons. I'm sick to death of them."

"Poor word choice, or bad pun, I am unsure what to call that," Solaufein criticized.

"Gallows humor is what I'd call it," I corrected with a grin. "Really, I'm dying to get out of here. It's killing me to keep slogging through mad wizard death-traps."

Solaufein had this habit of sometimes saying the oddest things to me. Maybe it was an elf thing, but I'd never been close to an elf before. Sometimes his eyes looked through me and not at me, in a similar way to what the Seer did, but far deeper. He stopped in our walking for a moment to look at me like this without that smile I'd come to love, and he said quite certainly, "I think you will be the death of us both."

I didn't know what to say to him. I went to my base reaction: humor. "I could just kill you in your sleep if you'd rather die now, then. That might be simpler."

The smile that had momentarily disappeared manifested once more, and I was put at ease. "As long as it is not with the dagger. Enserric will never let me die in peace."

"For the last time, I'm not jealous of the bloody dagger! I can be a dagger, you know! I can change shape!" Enserric immediately defended from Solaufein's hip. I ignored the sword. It was getting easier for me to do that. I felt more bad for Solaufein for being trapped with a telepathic vampire sword, but he is the idiot that picked it up in the first place and bonded it to him. It was a very nice sword, however.

We had to leave our small army of golems behind to fetch a few drow boats that could ferry the entire forty-six of them across that had chosen to retain their sentience. Twenty-three of Aghaaz and Ferron's total numbers had chosen to stay behind for reasons that I did not understand but could at least respect. Valen found that one harder to swallow than I did; he equivocated it to dying. I equivocated it to sleep. Should they encounter another source, they'd have sentience again. They simply didn't want to fight in someone else's war. They'd had enough of it. I'd been fighting in some war or another since I was a young woman, and I could understand fully the urge to sleep it all off. Sometimes, it was like I couldn't get enough sleep.

It's what I'd gotten into the habit of doing on Cavallas' boat, since the fumes from the river had me toppling over if I tried to stay upright for too long. I curled up near the aft as soon as I saw it, and practically bolting for the boat. Behind me, I could hear Solaufein and Deekin speaking to the golems, but I cared little in the moment for construct politics. I'd had my complete fill.

Valen, similarly tired of all the talking, was not far behind me. I had just gotten cozied up when I saw him sitting not far, regarding the river with those glittering blue orbs of his that I so coveted. I sat up and realized I hadn't quite had my fill of talk yet. "I have a question for you, General," I told him, drawing his attention.

"I'll answer as best I can," he replied civilly. I'd certainly upgraded in his eyes in the past few days, judging from the fact that his tail didn't even twitch. I made a mental note to thank Deekin for his advice later.

"Why are you here?" I asked him.

He paused. ". . . I deserve that," he admitted.

I clarified: "No, what I mean is you're one of the most important people in the city. Seer may have had a funny dream but we're new folk, and I can get why she's jolly sending us out to defy death and uncertain doom on cursed islands and such nonsense, but you're her General. She'd be safer with you by her side. Why would she risk someone as valuable as you to accompany us?" I'd fully died once already and had no intention of doing it again or letting it happen to Deekin or Solaufein. The fact that someone as concerned for the Seer's safety as I was for Solaufein's was wasting their time accompanying us was just beyond me.

It took him a little while to answer. I could still hear Deekin's scratchy voice from down the plank in the distance. "Because I'm the best at what I do," the General finally said. "Killing is about my only skill."

That rang several bells for me. Ah, he reminded me of me, and mayhap that was why I liked him so. I'd said as much to Solaufein when he'd asked me about the same sort of thing back in the Inn. "It's about my third best skill behind cooking and gardening. You should find a hobby! Like sewing, or painting, or singing."

His smile was wry and rare. "You don't want to hear me sing," he threatened.

"I bet you'd be lovely at it if you gave it a go. Alright, so I understand why you fit in well with us, but are you not needed there?" You'd think a General would have more . . . General things to do.

"Not exactly," he explained. "I organized the training regimens, but Imloth is in charge of administration. I oversaw scouting missions, until Nathyrra returned. My main job was to personally guard the Seer. General is an honorary title based on a successful retreat I was in charge of against the Valsharess' preliminary forces, several months ago. She hasn't attacked since. I think the drow of the city use the title ironically, while it is out of respect from the Eilistraeens."

Solaufein, who had walked up the plank at the beginning of this story, started laughing inappropriately.

I too snorted and was unable to keep a straight face because his laughter was infectious. "That's drow humor for you," I told Valen. I had no excuse. Solaufein, finished chuckling, laid down next to me and put his head in my lap in an at-one-point-surprising-but-now-delightfully-commonplace gesture.

He didn't seem to mind much, our General, and still wore the same wry quiet smile. "These skirmishes with her forces are far more important. I'm told you already slew one of her Red Sisters - her personal assassins. We killed another on the island, and I counted one among the dead on the golem isle. The more of her people we thwart, the more maneuverable the actual fight will be in a few more months."

That certainly perked my interest. "How do you know when it will happen?" I found myself absently threading fingers through Solaufein's short white locks.

Valen blinked. "Nathyrra is a defector from the Valsharess' Red Sisters. Did you know that?"

I also blinked. "I-I never would have guessed." She seemed so terribly nice. "I suppose the nice ones make the best assassins," I reasoned.

"The ones you never expect always do," Solaufein agreed, closing his eyes in contentment.

"She provided a lot of our most valuable intelligence," Valen revealed. "We knew of an impending attack, and with her defection the Valsharess had to completely alter her plans. It's pushed the attack to a later date, though the mess with Halaster complicated things. You people are, by far, Nathyrra's best find." High praise from the General. "That mirror in the Seer's hand is going to save lives, and the modrons . . . Well, I don't want to curse it but I might actually smile if they do elect to join the defense."

"Even though you despise elections?" I laughed.

"Still hate them," he assured me. "Quite a lot."

"Luck has not been on our side thus far," Solaufein spoke up, and I looked down into his wine-red eyes incredulously.

"You're the one always tempting fate," I accused. "We're alive, and that's what matters."

He snorted. "This, from you?"

"I like our odds," I defended. I expected suddenly Deekin to intervene and back me up, but he was nowhere to be found. A thread of alarm strung through my heart. "Wait, where's the chicken legs? Deekin? Where are you?"

Solaufein's eyes fluttered open again and he let out a startled noise. "Ah. I forgot to say. I am . . . Very tired. Deekin is staying with them and writing their history for them."

I calmed down significantly. "Oh. That's nice of him. He'll be traveling with them, then? Are we heading off?"

Solaufein grunted out a vague affirmative but shut his eyes again and got cozy on my lap. I didn't want to disrupt him since he seemed suddenly quite exhausted, and I'd taken quite a few naps on him the past few days as well. I got comfortable where I sat while Valen talked to Cavallas, and I slowly felt the boat eerily drift out of the harbor. It felt strange without Deekin, and I didn't like the idea of the little one being left out of my sight, but he'd proven to be very capable thus far and had died quite a bit less than I had.

"You know, I like our odds," I murmured to Solaufein.

"Count no unhatched eggs is your rivvil saying, yes?" He murmured back.

We passed what felt like an hour in silence drifting through the river's choppy waters, nearly making me nauseous. "By the bushy balls of Bane, but I have had a long couple o' days!" I lamented into the floor of Cavallas' little boat.

Solaufein hummed in agreement from my rump, where he'd taken to resting his head comfortably. I'd curled up into a ball of pain. "I will rest as the dead when we return. Unless Lith My'athar is under attack, no one is to wake me," the drow instructed.

"Ah, squishy mortals," Enserric chuckled at our expense, "so easily winded. I feel just fine, if in need of a good polishing."

Solaufein let out a disturbed little whine. "Why did your sheath have to disintegrate too?"

I laughed, unable to help myself, shaking us both a little bit. He chuckled a little with me before going back to quietly resting in a ball of his own. We remained as such all the way back, with the mirror and news of our new golem allies. I slept most of the way there. Seemed like lately, no matter how much sleep I got I kept needing more.

---

Drow-to-Common Dictionary:

Xsa dos, lu'xsa . . . Literally, damn you and damn my eyes